catching up
May 30th, 2007 | Published in general
After a great streak of cycling days this month, i just finished a stretch of 6 days with only one bike ride. First the rain, then a weekend trip to Duluth, then just a day at home with no extra travel. My one ride was in Duluth, and it was fine. My in-laws live near the UMD campus, and it’s really nice to ride for 5 minutes and be out on wide 2-lane roads on a bike. I could see moving to Duluth just for the cycling; the hills and endless winter would be a nice challenge.
I’ve also been catching up on some spring bike work; the first maintenance cycle for the road and CX bikes (riding in loose sand = gritty chain!), and rebuilding the winter commuter. My winter bike is an old Lotus MTB that was a 6-speed last winter due to being plain cheap. Me being cheap, not the bike, though the frame was free. I reused a bottom bracket from a road bike, which is really too narrow for this frame, but since the crank arms are a whole millimeter from the stays, i used it anyway. BUT, that meant that i couldn’t use the big chainring at all, because it rubbed, and so i was stuck with a 39t ring. I was going to make it a singlespeed from the start, but i couldn’t stand the 39×17 gearing i had with the SS freewheel in the parts box, so i restored the 6-speed freewheel and derailleur, though in practice i never shifted from the first or second cog. Then, of course, the shifter cable froze and i couldn’t shift if i wanted to. Amazing how a few dozen winter miles can wreck bike parts.
So now, i broke down and bought a chainring for it, and rebuilt the BB (gritty) and made the brakes actually work, and it’s a nice 44×17-geared SS now. Well, maybe a 44×16 fixie, if Autumn changes the cog on her newly built fixie. All told, ignoring the impossible-to-calculate cost of the parts from my garage, the winter bike has now cost me $40. It’s my cheapest bike.
free: frame/fork/headset
from my parts bin: wheels, bb, cranks, post, saddle, stem, bars, brake levers, front brake
new: tires, chainring
used: fenders, rear brakes
(photo to come)