a midway bikelog

i’m 4 days late with this… so go for a ride already!

Following in the footsteps of giants, i’ve made my own bashguard/chainguard from a dead old chainring. I’d been thinking of doing this for a while now, but haven’t had time to shop around the used shops for a dead ring. The epiphany came while digging through a miscellaneous parts bin in the garage and finding a crank i’d tossed in there. It had come on a used bike a few years ago, a Sugino Maxy 165mm right crank arm mis-matched with a 170mm Schwinn left crank arm. I actually rode it that way for months, it didn’t really bother me – go figure. When i killed that bike (stripped BB shell), i tossed the crank in the box and forgot about it.

When i looked at it again the other day, lo and behold, it’s a 110mm BCD – the same as on the modern Sugino crank on the 1×8 Surly. And the 52t ring just happened to be worn out, teeth all hooked over. I just recently added an NGear Jump Stop, so having this guard is the last step in assuring a dearth of dropped chains come cross season. Five minutes with a side cutter and 20 minutes of filing later, this work of art:

Of course, now i’m seriously thinking of converting it to singlespeed anyway. And so it goes.

13 seconds faster than the first try!

Autumn had her first road race this past Saturday, the Ken Woods Memorial Race. She did great and finished well for her first time out. I was volunteering there, on corner marshal duty, and i had a good time cheering on everyone who passed turn one. Malte was racing also, and got 4th in the Cat 3 race, a great finish in a big field.

Saturday night we had some friends over and sat outside around a campfire in the backyard drinking wine until much too late.

Many (many many) people were doing the Ironman bike ride on Sunday. I’m not generally one for the crowds, but i like a good ride, so i compromise by going on the County Cycles Iron Crotch ride instead. It’s a low-key ride from Houlton to Osceola Wisconsin through some beautiful countryside. There’s no sag wagon, and the main support is the well-placed rest stops fully stocked with cookies, fruit, cheese and water. I had a great time, and Autumn had a really fun time working one of the stops. As you can see, the rest stops are pretty casual affairs. This one is a bit of a surprise, right around a corner, at the intersection of a gravel road.

Sunday night we had Malte’s 18th birthday party – another camp fire with lots more people and more food and more late revelry. A good time, and a great group of folks, and we needed another weekend to recover.