March 17th, 2009 by geoff ( )
I took the frame into harris Cyclery and they managed to fix the fork. When I got it back, it was much better than before. The next day, I rode it (with jerry-rigged shifters and one rear brake) with the kids in the trailer and was confident that it’ll make a good ride now.
Future plans might still involve another frame or at least a powder coat. But now, it’s just time to piece this bike together. Before that, I decided to strip it down completely, clean it all up, repack the bottom bracket and get it ready. I took the opportunity to weigh the frame and it’s a whopping 9 pounds! Good thing this will be a cargo bike.
I think the Xtracycle comes on Friday and I can finally get to work!
March 2nd, 2009 by geoff ( )
I put on my new Nitto Technomic stem and Albatross bars and rode over to Bikes Not Bombs this weekend (before the massive snowstorm) to ask some questions. This was really the first time I had ridden the bike at all. The first time I discovered the cassette needed to be replaced. The second time hardly counted, and this time i discovered that the toe-overlap is really tight. As in, I will not be able to put fenders on the front wheel, and I’m not at all happy about that. If I were to take a tight turn, my toe would most definitely hit the wheel. I also noticed that I can’t get the seat back far enough to get comfortable and seeing as it’s an older bike, it has a 26.0 seatpost with minimal offset.
At BnB, they noticed the fork has issues, which would explain the toe-overlap, as well as the squirrely way it rode. Check it out:
the red line is the head-tube angle. the yellow-line is the fork angle.
So, these two problems lead me to believe that this frame might not work out, which is disappointing, as I really don’t want to be spending any more money. That said, I’m already brainstorming on a potential frameset replacement: Soma Double Cross or the Surly LHT or Cross-Check or even the Kogswell P/R.
March 2nd, 2009 by geoff ( )
Last weekend, after putting the kids to bed, I went down to the basement to finally put up some pegboard and get my cramped bike workshop are cleaned up and usable. Here’s a picture (you can see my Panasonic 66cm frame to the right):
And tonight I was able to get my money’s worth (on both the cleanup and the new tools) by repalcing the chain and freewheel on my wife’s bike. A few more things in the work for her too.