Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Drama in Boulder

No, not for me in particular. For those who haven't been following along, the Boulder Mountainbike alliance has been trying to get improved (or any) bike access to the mountain parks to the west of town (referred to by locals as the "West TSA").

Not that interesting, right? Well, the debate has raged for over 2 years (well, ok, longer than that, but really raged for the last 2), and things come to a head tonight as the Boulder City Council decides whether to allow any access (they are also deciding a number of other, probably more important issues).

So 2 days ago, the OSMP (land managers) who are notoriously anti-bike and anti-recreation, announce to the local paper that they've found a renegade bike trail through protected Golden Eagle nesting areas. The article generated more comments than any other that day, with plenty of idiocy and vitriol on both sides.

Suspiciously, the incident actually occurred on March 19th (more than a week before OSMP contacted the Daily Camera) - leading the conspiracy-minded to believe that OSMP had been waiting to announce the story until it would have maximum impact (or even ignoring the trail in the last few months/years in order to "discover" it now).

But that isn't all. While most of the bike community held our breath and the president of the BMA wrote a furious open letter, it was revealed that the fellow who got caught was a local pro, and well-liked family man.

The result? Tonight's City Council meeting should be riveting, for the first time in history!

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

For Bryan


This wasn't the best picture of the frame, but it was the one where Pele decided to stick his head out the bottom of the garage door, and I thought it was pretty cute.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Arthur's 650b



A few words to go with the pictures:
-For 100mm travel front/rear
-70 head/73 seat angles
-13.4" bb height (before sag)
-43.5cm chainstays, 57.5 centimeter effective toptube
-7# with shock and front derailleur.
-Hopefully a boatload of fun.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

For those of you on Facebook...

...which is everyone but me, probably, here's your chance to chime in on the Boulder West TSA bike access debate, via social network: Facebook Boulder Trail Poll.

Will this have any effect at all on the City Council (they decide on Wednesday)? Probably not, I'm guessing, but if your weekend just isn't the same without some Facebook action...click on over.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

While everyone else is out having fun...




I am spending my Saturday working my poor fingers to the bone on Arthur's 650b full-squish frame.

And helping Boardman make a pullup bar for his house, of course. Erm, and now, making pizza and buying beer...

Friday, March 25, 2011

Friday Garage Sale

Fox F29 100mm (or 80, with a spacer) RLC. 2011 model year, ridden maybe 200-300 miles, in perfect shape. QR axle, nice long 9" steerer. Yours for the low, low price of $450, shipping included in the US.

DT 240 6-bolt hub laced to Arch 29er rim with black DT comps. Half a season of use, in perfect shape. $150 shipped.

Buy 'em both and take $50 off (so $550)!

XTR M960 front brake caliper. Brand new, no pads, hose, or hardware. $25.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

I love offset seat tubes!

A couple of pictures of Kimberly's frame, and a couple of thoughts.

-I really like offset seat tubes. Not only do you gain some nice tire clearance, you also get a nice open area for the chainstays to be welded in. No compound mitering to the seat tube, not nearly as tight to get the torch in there - great stuff. This is a very easy setup to build, as opposed to say, a road bike, where the chainstays are crammed together and compound mitered to the seat tube. I hate those! Well, not really, but I much prefer this!

-The low mount Paragon dropouts are also nice, because the seatstay tabs sit up high, so the stays meet the seat tube at pretty close to 90 degrees (well, not really - these are at 77, but it's common to be at <45 on a road bike). Once again, lots of room for the welding torch. Love it!

-Geometry here is moderately unusual. Kimberly is shaped a bit like me (though obviously less breathtakingly handsome) in that she's got long legs but not much torso or arm to compensate - so this (29er) bike is built as short as it can go without having toe overlap - it'll use a 100mm fork and plenty of bar/stem rise, though! Figuring out what we needed to do was quite an involved process - luckily Kimberly rides almost exactly the same setup as Sarah, so she was able to borrow Sarah's bike and confirm that our design was on the right track.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

David's WW/Rohloff



Rohloff hubs are cool. I am just to cheap to ever own one, probably. Thanks to David for the pics!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

The ancient ones... and the blue one


Cool picture from Steve of his WW at Kin Klizhin, Chaco Canyon.

Weekend recipe: Pineapple Curry

This one is amazingly easy. And awesomely good.
-Cook up a couple of cups of quinoa or rice, your call. While that's cooking...
-Throw all of the following in a saucepan and simmer:
1 can coconut milk
1/2 can water
1/4c red curry paste (I like the Mae Ploy)
3 tbsp fish sauce
1/4c sugar
1 can pineapple chunks with the juice
1 diced onion
any veggies you want
some tofu, seitan, or chicken

-Simmer everything until the rice/quinoa is done, and eat!

Friday, March 18, 2011

This is neat...

Jonathan had his frame repainted recently, and had the disc rotor/seatstay bridge masked off (it's stainless). Pretty neat!

I've sort of moved away from doing the bridges that way, because many folks apparently don't like the look, but if that's something you think is groovy, let me know and we can easily do it.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Early announcement - Boulder Bike Swap Sunday May 22nd


Sort of a spring Veloswap, but here in Boulder, at Boulder Indoor Cycling.

I will have a booth and be selling off a variety of extra parts and things that have piled up, as well as displaying some bikes (if I'm lazy, just the two that are already at the track, if I'm less lazy and get around to getting them powdercoated, my own mountain bikes as well).

Tables are only $20 for individuals, so if you also have useless bike crap filling up your life, sign up for one and get rid of it.

Check it out (pretty minimal site, but it gets the job done) here:
Boulder Bike Swap

Picture from Darren McCabe, apropos of nothing much. Blog posts without pictures suck!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

West TSA City Council Meeting: Tonight!

From the BMA:
http://bouldermountainbike.org/events/city-council-hearing-west-tsa

Bottom line: it will be a tedious and acrimonious evening. You will wish you were anywhere else. But if enough mountain bikers show up and politely ask for what we want, we stand a good chance of gaining a lifetime of access to great new trails. You decide if it's worth it.

As an aside, I was chatting with one of the SOS Boulder ladies (ostensibly the enemy, I am not the type to get mad at people for their opinions about bike trails) and she revealed that her secret for the meetings (holding up a Nalgene bottle) was gin & tonic! A hilarious (and smart!) woman.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Reductio ad absurdum - now with less reductio!

So, for the background on this, you can read about the original geometry, or the followup post.

Well, I've made some changes since then, and I'm very happy with the bike. To whit:

-I've changed the fork to 100mm travel (it's easy to do this, if any of you are curious - about a 5 minute job). So the head/seat angles are now 69/73 rather than 70/74. I am loving the slack front end - honestly, I have a hard time imagining ever building myself another bike with a head tube angle steeper than this. The short wheelbase seems to make tighter turns/terrain work out just fine, too (keep in mind that what we call "tight" here is not really the same as in, say, New England).

-I put some gears (a modified 14-34 XT cassette that fits on my singlespeed hub) on the bike, along with a Paul Components chainkeeper (which is a fantastic part, btw - 100 times better than the MRP I was using on the dually last year). Why? Well, our winter riding is mostly on trails that require lots of flat road/path riding to get to, and spinning crazily on the singlespeed for 45 minutes each way isn't very fun. Also, I am lame and not at all cool. So there.

In any case, the ride is fantastic. It's pretty darn stable on the rough stuff (ok, I have yet to ride *really* rough stuff, since all our high elevation riding is snowed in, but I have a pretty good inkling that she'll do fine), super easy to jump/hop/wheelie (yes, the front end tries to come up on steep climbs, c'est la vie with 415mm chainstays and a 36" inseam) and in general a blast.

Are there things I would change? Of course.

-I should have put a through axle fork on the bike. Dumb. Anyone want to buy a 100mm travel Fox F29 and a nice DT 240/Arch wheel with low miles, cheap? Say, $600 for the package?

-I think I prefer the Paragon dropouts. I've already bent the super flimsy Black Cat derailleur hanger (the aluminum is just kinda thin) twice. Who knows how long it'll last. Then again, I could have just built for gears. I am sort of wondering if I'll ever actually convert back to SS.

-Since I'll probably never care about running a front derailleur or a tire bigger than 2.3 in the rear, I could conceivably try doing even shorter chainstays (I think the practical limit is probably around 400 or 405mm). I guess that's not something I would necessarily do, but it would be interesting to see how it rode.

-On that note, I'd be interested to try a hardtail 29er with a 68 or maybe even 67 degree head tube angle. It might suck, but it would be fun to try.

-The 2.5 Weirwolf on the front is just silly. Great tire for a rigid fork, massive overkill on this one. I need to put something with some actual tread up there, but I've been too lazy.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

From Aaron


Aaron's new-wave hardtail on a trail about 1 mile from my childhood home. Nice!

If I get enough dog poop picked up out of the yard (worst thing about springtime!) maybe I'll manage to get out for a ride too...

Edit: I did, in fact. I rode to Costco to buy Cabot cheddar and apricots. Which is a cooler rider than you might think - 90% dirt and probably 30% singletrack.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Well, F$%#!

There is a really sweet ride that can be done from my house, on minimal pavement and lots of singletrack, that heads north all the way to Lyons (basically you ride Reservoir trails north to Lefthand, then Heil to Hall, around Hall, and back). It's something like 60 miles (give or take) and a ton of fun. I was going to ride it this weekend.

Well, probably not. Thanks to the fact that wildfire season has started in freaking March. Darnit... of course, I hope nobodies house burns. Trails are unimportant in comparison. But I would really like to see Heil survive this.

A great editorial - more bike access for Boulder!

I will be harassing you guys (I know, many of you don't live in Boulder, I'm sorry, just ignore all this) about the upcoming city council meeting to discuss the final West TSA decisions regarding (among other things) bike access.

Couple of links:
-A great editorial by local HS mountain biker Adam Sklar.
-BMA's main West TSA page.

From the BMA:

If you make one meeting all year, this is the one.

This is likely to be the most important access meeting in our 20 year history.

On March 15th, City Council meets to make a final decision on the West Trail Study Area (West TSA). Boulder Mountainbike Alliance has spent the last 2 years (and then some!) advocating for equitable and reasonable access to this community resource.
Where: Boulder High School

1604 Arapahoe Avenue
Boulder, CO 80302
(link to google maps)
When: Tuesday, March 15th, 5pm until Late (come early if you can so you can speak)

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Pictures and a few words - Devin's frame

If I were building myself a new frame today - I'd do something pretty similar to this (note that I actually am loving my hardtail - another post about that another day).

Devin's frame has:
-100mm fork travel - sort of the standard these days. 80mm just feels like not enough to a lot of folks, myself included. Weird, since I used to ride 26" bikes with 63mm travel SIDs and thought they were awesome. Devin is actually going to use a Fox Talas that adjusts from 95-120mm - so pop the switch, and you change the bike from all-around XC to something a bit more aggro for the big descents.
-Tapered steerer capability. Necessary (Devin's not fat)? No, probably not. But it won't hurt anything, and on the plus side, it'll be wicked stiff.
-Direct mount derailleur. Super smooth shifts. I have actually moved away from doing these for super-short chainstay hardtails, because they've got a lot of dangly bits that get in the way of the tire (bummer) but this is an all-around XC setup with medium/long 44.5cm chainstays, so that's not an issue. And the shifting is excellent.
-Low disc mount dropouts. Easy to work with (win for me), cool to look at, and highly functional. Devin's not running a rack on this bike, but if he was, these would be the choice as well, because the caliper stays out of the way of the rack mounts. Note the downtube brake routing.
-S-bend stays, just to be cool.

New photo location - sort of a mug shot theme, I guess. The garage door is at least white so there's some contrast, but once again, my photography is awful.

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

It's catching...


Congrats, Redcoat and Sarah (yes, they're getting hitched, and yes, I was like the last person to know).

And thanks, Redcoat, for this artistic shot of your dually at dusk. Yes, it is a Waltworks, though there's no way to tell here...

Monday, March 07, 2011

Congrats Ed and JJ!


You guys upstaged Sarah and I - we were not cool enough to wear bike shoes for our wedding (I did wear sandals, though).

Sunday, March 06, 2011

The Waltsa


Chris did some destructive testing on his La Cruz - the garage won, though the bike got some good punches in. I thought this picture of the before/after (I replaced the front end for him) was kind of cool. Interesting that the frame buckled in two different directions, too.

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Woohoo!


King comes through (finally!) Yup, a 44mm standard taper headset. Great stuff!

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

I lied...




Couple pictures for Devin. Nothing exciting, really, just random shots of things starting to come together on the front triangle.

For those who are curious, the marks are the locations of the butts in the downtube. Gotta measure them every time - and I mark them on the outside to make sure I know where I want to miter each end.