Coolin' down, dressing up, going out.

Andy over at the Fyx has posted the second round of his shoot with Sabrina. You owe it to yourself to check out the whole set. She swaps the bars and rides away in heels...

Snow Cunnies

Limited street lighting, snow falling, riding race winning brakeless bikes. Projekt-Brinking, indeed.

Fabrication Time

I drew a diagram of how I'd like to orchestrate the tall bike's new fork setup. I'm just currently deciding between two and three headset cups. Updates to come after the weekend; hopefully there will be a Mielgeot back in the house.

I can't remember what happened to the Kona Project-Two fork that I had, but I'm thinking it would be pretty beefy if the Miele fork gets out of alignment.

Exciting New Crush

I first saw her hanging in Pedal Metal studios when I was working on my kittenchopper. Black Pursuit style frame, with 20" wheels. Vertical Dropouts, derailleur hanger, strange Affluenza sticker on the bent top tube.

What is it? It's some kind of pursuit BMX, only made for a couple years in the late 80s. It's called a Haro F1.



I took it down, and began dishing an MTB spaced freewheel wheel over to fit in the rear end. Once I had that done, I threw the wheels on, added a layback post and then tried out some different bars on a 130mm MTB stem.

I think I like the look of the risers the best.
I also think I may have to start playing polo if I get this together.

It could be tricky though, as I don't know if I should attempt to fix it or not.
There might not be any provisions for a rear brake, as it originally had a roller drum in the rear hub...

Its so exciting, like after that first real interaction with Scarlett Johanson.

In other Proj-B news: Morgan's tallbike is coming along quickly, blue and white and white and blue. Nick's Triple Tangangle is a freakin anchor, and I predict he will spend more than his budget of ZERO dollars to get it running.

We need silkscreening equipment, so let us know if you've got the hookups.

<3HEART<3 Wrenching

Busy evening of bike work for sure.

Kira needed risers on her Peugeot as she felt she didn't have enough control with the drops, and wanted something wider and more upright. So we met up at OCB and got the neccessary items, just an aluminum riser bar and levers. I had cables and and grips.

Once at my place we got to work.

I showed her how her brakes work, and how to thread the cables into the MTB levers and set it all up.
Everything went pretty smoothly, and I even had new cable housing to replace the beiging white stuff she had on her bike. We also dremel modded her fender so it would clear her 27" tires, and used nyloc nuts to hold the stays down.

She's quite thrilled with the result:


As well, Morgan came over to join the riser bar army, and mounted some up to his track bike.
..with matching yellow grips. Is this what they call the 'San Fran' treatment? I want a mission style burrito.


Morgan then proceeded to work on his track stand variations in my apartment while I got to work on my Bianchi.

It had been developing a mystery creaking sound over the past week, and it was really starting to bug me. Before Tuesday's Heyfixie ride I checked the crank spindle bolt, the chainring bolts, and swapped different pedals on. The sound persisted.

That meant the only two possible things left were the bottom bracket or the chain.
I measured the chain, and it looked like it was under 1/16" out (over 12 links), which is still classified as 'good' to most people. However I noticed it was starting to leave impressions on my relatively new chainring.

For yesterday's commute I flipped the wheel over to my harder gear, and payed close attention to the sound. It was still there, but not as bad. Phew.. its not the bottom bracket. I picked up another 510HX chain on my way home.

I put my last chain on November 15th, along with the pretty gold ring.. so that means my chain only lasted 1700km in winter conditions. I guess it didn't help that I pretty much stopped using my brake around that time as well.

As an added measure last night, I also rotated my chainring. This should even out the tooth wear from where I mash and skid, hopefully prolonging the life of both my chain and ring.

My drivetrain is as quiet as can be now. Also my wheel is as slammed as it can be, without popping out of the front of the dropouts.

The drawback to having such a smooth drivetrain is that I can actually feel how bad my rear bearings are getting. I've got the replacement Nachi 6000-2NSE cartridges already (Thanks Rhiannon <3).. but they're not helping me out sitting in my bag.

Upcoming wrenching:
-Figuring out how to cleanly mount fenders on R's Bianchi (no eyelettes!)
-Taping R's bars
-Replacing my cartridge bearings
-Putting a solid axle/tensioners in/on the kitten chopper (BEFORE RACEDAY!)