Bike Project: The End!

When I last wrote, I had nearly every part necessary to build the bike, except for that pesky rear rim. Thankfully the rim arrived in time for the wheelbuilding class I was taking at Sibley Bike Depot. I trucked on down to One on One to buy the rim, spokes, tubes and tires. This took ages longer than it should have, thanks largely to really bad service from One on One. I couldn’t keep any workers’ attention for more than 5 seconds; every time the owner would start to help me, he’d get distracted by some minor thing and wander off.

Since I’m new to pretty much every aspect of building a bike, I wanted to be very sure that I was buying the right tubes and tires. So I asked the owner, and he let me down yet again by giving me the wrong information. I probably should have bought different tubes to go with the tires that I bought. Not a huge deal, but the owner could have easily steered me in the right direction, had he been paying attention.

The wheelbuilding class was probably as good as a wheelbuilding class can be. It’s not the sort of topic that is well suited to talking; you really just have to hop in and start working and make your beginner’s mistakes. And after two nights, spread out over two weeks, I’d made most of my mistakes and had myself a wheel.

Sadly, the wheel was pretty much completely wrong for my bike. It had the dish of a geared rear wheel, but I only intended to put a single gear on it. The result is that I needed a bike chain that bent at totally unnatural angles. Those chains don’t exist. So instead I had to fix my wheel.

A rear wheel hub has a combination of spacers that help align the rear chain rings with the front chain rings. So by rearranging the spacers, I was able to fix my chain problem. While adjusting the spacers, I also repacked all the bearings, partly because it seemed like a good idea, partly because they all fell out of the hub while I was messing with the axle.

With the spacers fixed I had to re-dish my wheel. Dishing a wheel ensures that your wheel is centered behind the frame of the bike. Because of the afore mentioned spacers, the hub is not centered on the axle. So you have to use a tool, called a Dish Stick, to make sure that your wheel is where it is supposed to be. Changing a wheel’s dish involves tightening the spokes on one side while maybe also loosening the spokes on the other side. And you have to ensure that your wheel stays in ‘true’, meaning that it’s properly balanced and round. It’s a very twitchy job. And I ended up truing that damn wheel at least three times. But, hey, at least I got plenty of experience.

Finally the rear wheel was ready to go. The rest of the bike was pretty simple to assemble. Throw on a saddle, attach the chain, adjust the breaks and voila! It’s a bike!

I took it for a few short test rides yesterday afternoon, just trying to get everything properly fitted. I put the handlebars on there way too low, so I flipped the stem around, raising the handlebars. They may actually still be too low. If so, I’ll have to buy a new stem that allows me to move the handlebars higher.

Other than that, it rides great. It’s so ridiculously fast and light compared to my old bike. I haven’t tried any real hills yet, so I don’t know how the gearing I choose will work on inclines. As I get more comfortable on the bike, I’ll try some more challenging terrain.

And now, the finished product:

Now, how much did it cost? That really depends on how you calculate it, I guess. I spent around $700 on the parts, $140 on the decoration of the bike (i.e. what I needed to sand and paint the frame, along with the cost of the decals), and about $40 on tools. If you total that all up, you get $880. Did I get my $880 worth? In other words, if I bought a new bike for $900, would it be better than the bike I built? I have no idea. I do know that I could never buy a bike built around an Achewood joke.

And I also know that simply buying a bike wouldn’t have been nearly as fun, or taught me as much. And I never would have met the awesome people at the Hub and Sibley Bike Depot that helped me so very much. That red brake cable housing? That’s there because one of the Sibley workers gave it to me, knowing that it would be a perfect color match. The rear wheel? That only works because Jason taught me how to build a wheel, space an axle and pack bearings. Without them, and so many others, I wouldn’t have a new bike.

The Total Totals
Days: 60
Cost: 880

June 29th, 2008 / Tags: bike / Trackback

Bike Project: Nearing the end

The end is in sight. Over the past week I’ve collected all but two of the remaining parts I need. I grabbed a seat post, bar tape and some bricabrac from The Hub. Then I got a saddle and seat post clamp from One on One — a store I’ve been wanting to visit for a while.

One on One turned out to be a really cool place; part coffee shop, part sleek bike store, part grease-coated part store. And underneath it all is a bike graveyard/scavenge area.

I’ll be heading back to One on One within the next few days to pick up the rear rim I ordered. Once I have that rim built up into a wheel, I should be ready to assemble the entire bike.

For the actual bike assembly I’ll probably go to Sibley Bike Depot. I’ll be able to take advantage of their space, tools and expertise. Apparently I can use their shop without becoming a member, but that hardly seems fair.

At the start of this week I finished painting the frame and applying the decals. It looks pretty good. Certainly not as good as a professional job, but it was fun to do myself. And it has no shortage of character. Here’s the head badge:

In case you don’t know, that’s Notorious LINCOLN, a rapping cat that, for reasons that I don’t understand, became the theme I designed my bike around. I dunno man, that cat just makes me laugh.

And here’s the frame:

The text on the down tube is done with two types of text. The “Notorious” part is done with dry-transfer text. It comes in sheets and you just rub on the letters you need. This worked far better than I expected, actually. The “Lincoln” text is done with stickers, as I couldn’t find dry-transfer lettering that I liked. The stickers look good, but I’m worried about their thickness. They may peel off far to easily, even though I’ve coated them with a ton of clear enamel. So after some time my bike may just say “Notorious” — oh, well.

Is the text perfectly aligned? No. But it gives the bike character. That’s certainly one thing this bike has a lot of.

Ze Totals:
Days: 46ish
Cost: 668

June 14th, 2008 / Tags: bike / Trackback

Bike Project: Done with Painting?

After weeks of dithering, I finally got down to painting the frame. Much of the delay came from my indecision about color, decorations, etc. I finally decided to stop worrying about it and just get to work.

As of now the bike is two-tone. The chain stays and seat stays are black, while the rest of the frame is a rich red. Hopefully the black stays will make the black fork look less odd.

Where the chain stays meet the bottom bracket I tried to do some fancyish stencil work. If it looks good, I’ll keep it. If not, I’ll just paint over it, no big deal.

I may have to paint a white band around the top and bottom tubes in order for my text decals to work properly. The text might not be readable with a red background. I’ll investigate that more tomorrow, once the bike has dried.

Totals:
Days: Almost 40!
Cost: $535

June 8th, 2008 / Tags: bike / Trackback

Bike Project: Shopping Spree

I have no idea why I’d never noticed it before, but The Hub has a used-parts area. I dropped by The Hub just to check out prices on a few new items and ended up buying about half of my remaining “to buy” list. The totals

• 17-tooth freewheel cog (new)
• 1” threadless headset (new)
• Handlebars (used)
• Stem (used)
• pedals (used)
• chain (new)
• Power Grips (new)

I’ll probably head back tomorrow to pick up a used seat post, once I determine the size seat post I need.

Once I have the seat post, the only major part remaining is the rear rim. Then I have to build the rear wheel (or, more likely, have someone build it for me).

With all the parts in hand, I can finally finish assembling this thing. Which means that I better finish painting it soon!

Project Totals:
Days: 34ish
Cost: $521

June 2nd, 2008 / Tags: bike / Trackback

Biking Portland

For the past 5 days I’ve been in Portland, OR — the high-king poobah of city cycling, or so I kept hearing. Although I never planned to travel far from the downtown core, which is compact and well-serviced by mass transit, I decided to rent myself a bike and put the city (and myself) to the test.

Renting was easy. I picked up the bike from CityBikes, who also loaned me a helmet, lock and map. The total was $65 for almost five days of biking. The bike was nothing great, a basic Schwinn hybrid, but it did have fenders and lights. And a bell!

All in all, the decision to rent a bike was about 20% awesome and 80% ridiculous. The ride from my hotel to the convention center was half a mile; biking a distance that short is like melting butter by sticking it into a furnace. Yeah, it melts fast but you sure look like an idiot.

The awesome 20% came about when I was able to get away from my conference for an hour or two — a rare occurrence — and tried to put my bike to good use. One trip took me to Lucky Lab Brewpub and Clever Cycles. I got some tasty beer, checked out weird Euro-cycles, and generally had a good time.

A second trip took me to Russell Street BBQ, a Memphis-style BBQ restaurant that tries to source their meat ethically — a rare thing in BBQ, I’ve found. After that, I biked along the Willamette River using the Eastbank Esplanade and the Springwater Corridor, both of which were pretty — although the esplanade can be a bit crowded by pedestrians.

But with the exception of the river ride, I could have easily walked to any of my destinations. So what was the point of biking at all? I’d say that biking, even over short distances, had two big advantages.

First: biking is faster than walking. And it lets you set your own schedule (unlike mass transit). But it’s not so fast that you can’t stop to smell the roses. Even on a short ride, like the mile I biked to the BBQ restaurant, I was able to adjust my route to bike past interesting homes or businesses. I couldn’t have done that as easily in a bus, car, train or taxi. If I’d walked I would have had even more flexibility, but I would have been constrained by time — I only had an hour.

Second: biking in Portland, and forcing myself to bike everywhere I could, taught me a lot about biking and really exposed my deficiencies. At the age of 34 I’m basically a newcomer to biking. I didn’t do it much as a kid, thanks to growing up on the steep slope of the Rocky mountains. And I didn’t bike much in my teens or twenties, either. I’ve really only committed to biking more within the last year.

So forcing myself to bike more in traffic, as opposed to secluded paths, really brought my weaknesses to the forefront. But it also taught me some better ways to integrate myself with the flow of traffic so that I’m visible but not an impedance. It also helped that Portland drivers are incredibly aware of cyclists, and really treat them with respect — mostly.

Also, Portland’s slight hilliness revealed the sorry state of my muscles. Coming back across the Burnside Bridge from downtown I had to get off my bike and push. And it’s not like I was riding a single-speed; I’d rented a cushy hybrid, complete with a wide range of gearing. I’d simply reached the end of my legs’ strength. I got better as the week progressed — fixing a slight problem with the rear wheel also helped — but it’s clear that I’m a ways from biking any sort of serious incline, or for any significant length. That will change with time, hopefully.

All told I’d say I biked around 20 miles between Wednesday night and Sunday morning. That’s pretty close to the amount I’ve biked weekly over the past few weeks. Compared to a die-hard bike commuter, that’s a pretty small total. But for me it’s pretty good. And that’s the comparison that matters, honestly.

June 1st, 2008 / Tags: bike, travel, Portland / Trackback