Every time I see one of those dang Quintana Roo bikes on Marketplace I feel like I’m seeing a crime against industrial design.
That was one HELLUVA finish to that match. Hot dayum!
Well I sure didn’t expect the first half of USA-Paraguay to be that exciting. Wow!
Just tried my first ever batch of cold brew. I had some beans that weren’t doing it for me with my daily V60 pour over, so I decided to try grinding the rest coarsely for cold brew. It’s a bit strong (let the ice melt and it’s fine), but way better than I expected!
Is the Toyota Grand Highlander just a Sienna for people who are allergic to minivans?
Received a Rivendell Silver rear hub to pair with a gorgeous new-old-stock Suntour XC 9000 front hub that I plan to use in a wheelset.
This opening World Cup match is pretty fun so far. Not a lot of offensive action from South Africa, but some pretty great saves and some dumb luck for them with some of Mexico’s attempts on goal. Ultimately I’m rooting for Mexico in this one since they’re our neighbor.
UPS recently updated their live delivery tracking but it’s no improvement. It seems to imply the truck’s route to the delivery address when in actuality it redraws the route from delivery to the truck every time it changes location.
Taking a few days off the #bike sux (I think I made myself sick scream-cheering at my kids' swim meet), but I think I can still do a little maintenance work in the shed before it gets dangerously hot outside (lots of truing to be done on various wheels).
What am I doing this evening? Oh, just checking in on a map pin, watching Lael Wilcox crush it in her record attempt around the world on a #bike: www.followmychallenge.com/live/lael…
Always such a peculiar feeling to be excited to see my kids compete while simultaneously loathing summer swim meets.
GAWT DAYUM, Pixar’s Hoppers was gut-bustingly funny. I had high hopes for this one knowing it came from the creator of We Bare Bears, and I was not disappointed. Just silly, heartwarming fun.
Finished breaking down the 1990 Scwinn Crosscut #bike. Headset is totally indexed, one of the bearing cages in the BB had exploded, but I think I can salvage the derailleurs, cranks, canti brakes, and seat post. It’s mostly clean now, too 😛
Why can’t cows win any arguments? … … … Because anything they say is a moo point!
It’s totally badass that stage 8 of Giro d’Italia Women had a summit finish on a freaking gravel road.
Inebriated, nerdy, friendly dude argument going on at the bar in The Cask about whether the T800 or a Wookiee would win in a fight.
Big dad energy.
Drunk with hack-job home machining power, I have now used an adjustable reamer to slowly, carefully, ream out the seat tube of the Diamond Back Apex #bike from 26.6 to 26.8 mm. Now I can use my sweet 26.8 Thomson to match the stem.
May have filled a bit of a niche spot in my bike collection. Snagged a 1990 Schwinn Crosscut for 45 clams. Gonna try to make it a chubby-tire road bike. What is it with me and bikes from 1990 (this one, Trek Antelope, Diamond Back Apex…)?
I forgot just how much a Brooks saddle shapes over time; I had to drop my seat post a full centimeter in order to maintain my effective saddle height while I start breaking in the new one.
Whelp. After 2.5 years and nearly 27,000 miles (43,400+ km), my lard ass finally cracked a rail on my first leather Brooks #bike saddle. So it’s time to immediately go buy another one!
God bless companies like Tange Seiki for continuing to make high quality, niche #bike components at reasonable prices. It isn’t flashy, but I was able to get a 1-1/8 threaded headset in black with sealed cartridge bearings for 50 clams. Installed just fine and it’s smooth as butter.
Happy Pride month, folks!
Backyard Machinist
Okay, lemme get this out of the way first: these lovely mid-80s SR Sakae cranks were likely headed to the co-op if I couldn’t make this work. When I pulled them off the Olympian I discovered that they only really had usable 110 BCD drilling at the ends of each arm. Where one might expect to find 74 BCD holes inboard were instead a few shallow, unthreaded starter holes. I’m building up this bike for my wife and I want comfortable 2x gearing, so I want the ability to run something in the high 20s for an inner chainring like I use on my own bikes.
So…I found out what size drill I needed to drill holes before using a bottoming tap to cut threads for chainring bolts. I was too impatient for proper work-holding, so I kind of, uh…I freehanded all 5 holes. Kids (and adults), don’t do this at home. This is where I know I was extremely lucky because this could have all gone horribly wrong. In reality, I ended up with 5 holes that are straight enough to securely attach a 74 BCD inner chainring without any weird stick-out of the bolt heads or difficulty tightening any of them!
I did, of course, take many measurements. I used my micrometer to sort out how much depth of cut I needed for the thread past the chainring and I taped the drill bit as a stop marker. I still had at least a good 5 millimeters of buffer. Again though—take the time to sort out proper work holding, particularly if you’re trying this crack-pot idea on a part that you really care about (or is actually worth something).
This is super niche, nerdy shit, but I left the shed this afternoon feeling like Tom Hanks in Cast Away after he built a fire. But he didn’t have a quarter cup of scattered aluminum swarf to clean off of his cluttered workbench.
Second coat of clear on the red #bike. Now I wait like 24-48 hours and I can buff it/polish it and start assembly!!!
First coat of 2K clear coat done on the Diamond Back Apex. The paint is rough, so this is mostly to protect what is left and the steel underneath.