one bike with a broken bottom bracket

well. the day has finally come to upgrade joanie's bottom bracket. she's a late 60s era raleigh, and this will not be an easy feat. but it must be done.



this will mean since i got the bike, i've updated or upgraded the following:
• added upright handlebars
• replaced wheels from steel to aluminium
• replaced seat
• added fenders, basket, lights
• replaced pedals
• changed rear cassette



all in the life's work of owning the best city bike for oneself i suppose. i have slowly made her very customizable for me, and i wouldn't have it any other way.

joanie has these pesky old school cottered cranks. ever since i got her i've been dreading the day i need to make an upgrade. well, here it is. must face the music head on. i'm ready for the challenge...it just means a new PROJECT! :)

it was sort of scary to ride down division street feeling like i was pushing pedals into a bottom bracket made of mud. luckily enough for me, i was close enough to work, so i got off and walked the rest of the way. i was able to drop off my bike at a bike shop nearby, so i can decide how best to get her home.

in the meantime it seems like i'll be getting more use out of the she-devil. hope she's ready! heh. of course she is. i just don't like locking her up anywhere in the city, so that fact makes her a less desirable all-around city bike. but at least this way i can take the butterlap route home.



anyone have any cottered crank replacement ideas, or done the upgrade themselves?

DIY

Just a few days ago I was invited to join in the fun over at Mission Bicycles.-

"You could sit at home and watch a YouTube video and try to figure this out. It's doable. But why not come out and learn, once and for all, how to change a flat tire with a little human interaction.

At this hands-on workshop, we'll start with the basics, then give you the tricks and secrets of fast and easy flat fixing.

At the AM session, we'll get jacked on Fayes coffee and Pepple's vegan donuts. At the PM session we'll savor fresh Firebrand pretzels and ice cold beer (Anchor Steam and IBC).

We'll even send you home with a set of our favorite tire levers.

We end the session with a group ride - a tour of the Mission District's 11 bike related businesses. One last thing. No spectators allowed. Nobody admitted without a bike. Come prepared to get your hands dirty"

The 2-18 class is full but there is one on March 10th. Even though Todd taught us how to patch a tire parked next to dog poop in the past, and I used to patch my own tires sometime in the last century, I look forward to a hands on lesson on a room full of people who are less likely to laugh at me than my husband.

We Will Fix It With Glue, Glue, Glue

About 5 days after I got The Bat, it was knocked down by a drunk woman in the Mission. The fall managed to crack one of the hand grips, and over the next few weeks, it completely fell apart. After looking around at options for replacement (I hated the "ergo" grips it came with ) I decided upon the cork grips they sell at Rivendell. I really liked them because they were not the composite cork grips you find in most places. Rivendell cork grips are made in rounds and glued together to form the grip.

Why don't I want composite cork grips? Because, when they get smashed they turn to little bits of fly away powder. There is nothing to do but replace them. In my case, that would mean replacing them fairly often as the Bat gets blown down in the wind all the time. I would have to order them by the case. This seems silly to me. With the Riv grips the only part that gets broken is the ring that gets hit, and if it gets hit right you can fix it!

So, as you can see here above, the end of my grip was completely knocked off when it smashed into the ground (my front rack was bent, too). The end piece came off cleanly so all I had to do was glue it back on.

All I had to do was glue the ends that would make contact with one another. I use Super Glue. Never use Gorilla Glue. It expands as it dries and makes things all wonky.

All you need to do after that is press the two pieces together for a few minutes and then let it dry.

Now my grips are pretty disreputable right now. They get smashed and scraped all the time. Sometime soon I will sand them down a bit and re-shellac them. They will look completely new with about 15 minutes worth of "effort".

This is the third time I have repaired this grip. The other side has been put back together many times, too. I have only had to replace one of them once but that was after a bicycle that was hanging from the garage ceiling fell and crushed it.

You don't always have to buy something when a part breaks. If you chose the right things you can make them last a good long time, usually with a little bit of glue.

Experiment In A Basket

For a great while now, I have wanted a handwoven bicycle basket from David Hembrow. You may know him from his blog, A View From The Cycle Path.

I have had my Batavus for three years now, and it has taken quite awhile to get it exactly where I like it. Instead of jumping into buying things that look like they will be great, but end up not being used, I have purchased or made most of the things on my bicycle only after really thinking about it or experimenting with cheep alternates to see what is truly useful. For the last year and a half I had repurposed the removable Wald basket from my old bike by zip tying it to the front rack.

This bike was nothing but old stuff thrown together!

The rack its self was the cheapest I could find, $18, because I was not sure I would I like having a front rack on the bike. Now that it has been on for so long, I can't imagine the Bat without it. So when the one that is there now becomes too disreputable for my taste I will find a much better one knowing that it will be something well purchased.

Back to the basket. Having someone make a basket, and then ship it across the world is not something to take lightly. What if it just isn't right? My Wald basket was great because it was impervious to weather, was really cheap ($18, just like the rack) and when empty didn't cause much wind drag or collect water in the rain. The problem for me was it wasn't meeting my aesthetic requirements. Every time I looked at it, it just wasn't hitting my eye the right way. Some may find this a silly reason to replace something that works, but my front basket is something that is always in my line of sight when I ride, so if it is ugly it will always rankle. With that in mind, I had started thinking about David's beautiful baskets again. Not only are they aesthetically pleasing, they are works of art that I can buy directly from the artist (I am a total sucker for that kind if thing). But again, what if I didn't like having it on the front of the bicycle?

Zip ties will tie down just about anything!

A solution presented its self to me last week in the form of a giant picnic basket being sold at a sidewalk sale. With negotiating it came out to $7 and that meant I had the correct basket for my experiment. Will having a larger basket, with greater wind resistance on a crappy fork mounted rack work for me? So far, it has been a mixed bag. Even unloaded I notice a change in the front end handling, especially in the wind which blows hard constantly these days. It isn't horrible, but I am not sure how much I like it. This basket is also not going to work in the rain as it is lined and kinda cheap, so I will not get an idea of winter riding with it (David's baskets are good even in the snow). On the other hand, it has a great lid which keeps things in and the sun out and it looks great.

For now, the jury is out on what my final decision will be. I really love how terribly traditional the Bat looks with the basket on, I may just end up with a Peterboro one, but the call of David's baskets is still quite strong. One thing is sure, taking time to make these decisions pays off. My bicycle is exactly right for me and riding it is always a pleasure.

Walker This Way

OK. So my DIY from yesterday has been one-upped. OK. 20,000 upped! As a woman who has spent a decade and a half with walkers and the elderly all I can say is that this guy is killing it! I also have to give huge props to his family for not getting in his way. Thanks to Ramona Wheelright for dropping this in our laps!

Once a life has been changed by cycling, the notion of not riding becomes a threat to all that is good and true. As demonstrated here by Super Grandpa, of San Francisco, no expense will be spared to accommodate the aging cyclist in her/his quest to be mobile. Do you know someone who exudes this sentiment and clearly will always ride? Do you know this man, whose image was captured on Dolores Street? I'd love to learn more about him and how he fashioned his bike support system, as I figure I will be doing the same in a few decades.

Do It Yourself

Sometimes you need something strange. One of those things that you are just not going to find ready made at Target. For myself, I found myself needing one of those strange things after Hubby the Bikeman (James) put something very useful and not strange on my Bat- a wheel stabilizer.

The front end of the bike was just so damn wiggly when parked that it was becoming a significant problem. Whenever I parked the bike on the center stand, the front wheel would flop into me and I would get tangled in the handlebars or my hair would get tangled in the brake levers while I was locking up the bike. More than once, this ended up with either me or the bike falling over. The problem with putting a stabilizer on was that my lower tube is very thick and tear shaped so James had to improvise with bits and pieces not meant for this purpose. The stabilizer worked, but the mounting was ugly and it caught on my longer skirts or wider pant legs. Thus the need for the "strange thing".

I needed something to wrap around the spring mount that would cover the metal that was sticking out. It needed to be removable in case we decided to adjust the mount. It had to be able to withstand the rain and sun, it would not be twine*, and it had to be made with stuff I had in the house. Of course, I decided to knit something! The World's First Wheel Stabilizer Cozy!

It was terribly simple- bulky acrylic yarn, a big plastic button and 20 minutes of seed stitch later and I had the "much needed strange thing" in hand. It has been on the Bat for about 6 months and has done exactly what I needed it to. I have not been caught on the mount, or cut myself on it once since I put the cozy on.

It isn't that noticeable on the bike, but it certainly serves quite a purpose. This of course what all "much needed strange things" have in common when we decide to make them for ourselves. What have you made for yourself? Share with the group!

*twine is all and well and good, and lots of people think it is great but I can't stand it most of the time and refuse to have it on any of my bicycles. Sorry if you love twine.

** This article is cross posted at Vélo Vogue.

Episode 1- David and Goliath

After Todd's little lesson the other day, I got the chance to watch Hubby the Bikeman in action. On our way to Half Moon Bay State Beach we were sidelined by a flat. The funny thing about it was it happened on the wide, relatively clean shoulder of Highway 1 and not on the roughly 1000 foot climb over rocks, thorns and tree ruts it took to get there (more on that next time).

That tiny little wire, most likely from a car tire's steel belting, was what took out a Schwalbe Big Apple tire. It was so small it was almost completely buried in the rubber of the tread and took two of us to dig out.

James was going to just replace the tube, but I pointed out we were in no hurry so why waste a perfectly good tube? Especially if there was a possibility that there could be more wire shards in the tire. Because he was riding the Xtracycle (we had to ask to borrow it from our son now that it is his) and it was pretty loaded with gear, we didn't want to take the wheel off.

The hole in the tube was tiny so James had to put some spit on it to see if air bubbles would form to make sure this was the hole (the tiny bit of wire sticking out of the tire was not visible and only just exposed enough to be able to feel it with a finger). With the hole found, and patched and the offensive wire pushed, prodded and finally dug out of the tire with my Leatherman scissors, the tire went back on the wheel.

James is truly Hubby the Bikeman, King of the Flat Tire and All Around Good Guy. And I? What am I? I am fortunate to be able to lie down on the warm pavement and take pictures while James does the hard work! Yep, I am lazy. Although my camera is quite heavy.

We were back on the road in about 15 minutes. No biggie. A nice chance to sit back for a bit, listen to some music and breath the lovely ocean air. Just part of the bicycle touring experience which almost always manages to mix something great with something not so great.

Flat, Again! or, I Always Wanted To Carry A Bike In My Basket.

You are riding along. All is well in the world. Suddenly, there is that sound. The sound that comes just before your steering gets wonky. Fsst. Fsst. Fsst. Flat. In the daylight, when it isn't raining and the fact that you left your repair kit at home isn't a big deal because there is a bike shop 5 blocks away, this is just a minor inconvenience. At night, when it is raining and maybe the beer tasting was a little too tasty and you don't have a repair kit... you may just have to lock up your bike and call a cab to get you home. Even when you own your own bike shop. Todd Fahrner of Clever Cycles had just this issue. So after locking his trusty Oma up, and leaving her his rain hat to keep the seat dry, Todd came back the next day with his Brompton to fix the damage and get back on the road.

Now, that rear tire is the flat one. It has a full chain case and internal hub and fenders... so he can't repair it without removing the wheel. Right? Wrong! Not only could he do it, Todd took pictures for all of us to learn from.

"See how the center double stand holds the rear wheel off the ground? This makes it super easy to work on said wheel. No center stand? Lay the bike on it's side. Insert tire lever under bead to pry tire off. Note dog turd in background: more center stand win."

"Prying off the tire bead."

"Since I didn't find glass/nail/staple/tack or other obvious culprit stuck in the tire casing, I fished out the whole tube. If I had found the culprit, I'd have needed only to remove the underlying section of tube."

"Lightly pumping up the tube creates a hiss whose source I found here. Smaller holes harder to find. Pump more and hold close to sensitive skin/ear."

Abrade well around hole. Idea is to expose clean, black, non-oxidized rubber for the vulcanizing fluid to react with over the whole patch area. Mold seams must go. Lots of people don't abrade enough, then say that patches don't work

"Apply THIN layer of vulcanizing fluid, a little larger than the patch. Tip from Joe Breeze: use the crimped edge of the fluid tube as a squeegee to remove all but a film of the fluid. More fluid is not better. press all the air out of the fluid tube before you re-cap it so it won't dry out. no sniffing!"

"After waiting until the vulcanizing fluid is DRY (about 5 minutes), apply the patch, center to center. The fluid is not a glue (which bonds when wet), but a surface preparation that is complete when dry. Press well. I leave the plastic backing on so the prepped part of the tube won't bind to the tire casing, and so the patch doesn't stretch with the rest of the tube, possibly stressing the repair. And because I'm lazy.

This is the 4th patch on this particular tube. Very serious time and money savings over paying a shop to replace the tube ever dang time! Replace the tube when there's no more room for patches. The Dunlop valve favored in the Netherlands remains popular there because the valve seal can be replaced independently of the tube, again without removing the wheel, so a tube's life can extend to decades."

"The location of the puncture in the tube tipped me off to the location of the hole in the tire. Looks like glass cut, then fell out. It is important always to figure out what caused the puncture and assess whether it's still a problem, or it will likely just go flat again."

"Patched and pumped. Ready to roll"

"Brommie fits in basket. Do you have a bike small enough for your basket, or a basket big enough for your bike?

And then we rode to work."

While it may take a little practice, you too can repair your flat tires! Now, if you want to take the whole thing to the next level and then carry your Brompton home on your front rack, I suggest you talk to Todd. He is the Brompton King.

Thank you so much for letting us share, Todd!! I hope to see you soon!

Get a hold of me

When it comes to carrying and strapping things, there is no doubt that us as a cycling bunch, are extremely creative by nature. What has been the latest repurpose or holding-down method you have tried? When I was in college, my biggest challenges were carrying tubes, rulers (think 60+in.) and odd objects art students are known to get creative with. On wheels. I didn't have a basket in the beast I used to ride while in school many years ago, but I did have a little rear rack for a short time that came super handy. Bungee cords did the trick. Somehow I made it work.

Ade the other day showed us how she makes the most use of those belts.
I don't recall if she had blogged this photo yet or not, but here it is. That belt is quite handsome.

The other day, trolling around Etsy I found this beautiful corset-like bottle holder [link]

Last year I invested in a little velcro-attached cage (the one holding the white water bottle) for my road bike, which I hardly ride. When I take my road bike I miss my basket tremendously, but it is nice to just carry the minumum. Coffee still needs to be with me, so here this photo (below). This is in Marin near Pt. Reyes shows the velcro-attached cage which is used for water, the other is for my insulated coffee kanteen. Prioritize.

Meanwhile, on Frenchie, the basket accomodates to all kinds of cargo. I keep bungee cords in my bag or sometimes around the basket, making sure they are on TIGHT. Those bungee cords could get lose, and when you least know it, could be a pretty bad situation in your wheels. Eeek. They also come in handy when holding down bigger grocery bags or other larger things when running errands. I bought an unexpensive pack of about 8 of them in various lengths and color/sizes or so at a local mom+pop hardware store.

Our friend Patrick in Portland has extreme precious cargo here:

Grocery Panda by Patrick B.

Asides the adorable view of AnaBee reading her book while running errands, I found very clever the small details around it all. Note the old inner tube wrapped around the handlebars, working as a sunglass holder. Patrick says: "i originally wrapped this inner tube around the handlebars so I'd have a tube handy for tying things down. but i mostly use it to hold sunglasses or my gloves-- very convenient!" Super! =)

 "Steady steel steeds"

And here these beautiful bikes which belong to the local pretty ladies, our own Calitexican and LMG (orange rivendell) roaming all over the Bay, keep everything nicely kept in their baskets for any cargo, work and play.

It is known, that us city ladies here at CYLRAB are huge fans of belts, bungee cords and nets in our baskets. 
What do you use to hold your stuff around your bike? Baskets, racks, panniers, or in a backpack or messenger bag? And what has been the most DIY or creative tie-down methods. Do tell =)

Zip Ties vs Snowpocalypse?

It's all ice and snow for the United States these days. Last night on the news they reported that every state except Florida has snow! So what is a cyclist to do when the frost was a surprise and studded tires are way expensive? Zip ties!!!!

Dutch Bike Company put up a post last November about this DIY solution to slipping and sliding through a winter wonderland. Makes me want to take the Bat up to Tahoe and give it a try!

Has anybody out there tried this? Did it work for you?

Metal Health Will Bike You Mad

I love DIY anything. Some things are just way easier to have mass produced (socks and underwear come to mind). Many things, though, benefit greatly from being smaller and handmade. Bicycle shops are no exception. I love any shop that has a definite sense of ownership to it. One such shop in San Francisco is Heavy Metal.

Heavy Metal is funky, cluttered and very down at the heel. If you blink you will miss it. We must have passed it a hundred times before I noticed it there. The guys that run it are no nonsense, like vintage bicycles and keep things very low key (all things I like). There isn't a corporate bone in the body of the shop. It is exactly the place I would have brought my bicycle to be repaired before I met Hubby the Bikeman.

The other day, I noticed a new sign in the shop window.

I am unsure if this means they ran out of them or just don't have them on principal. Either way, the plate is a good touch. The front door of the shop is pretty funny, too.

So if you find yourself on 29th Street, keep a look out for the bicycle shop placed between the kids fixing their vintage mopeds on the side walk and the loud corner bar with the hand written, neon yellow signs in Spanish. When you see the rusty old franken-tandem locked to a sign post out front, you will know you have arrived.

Nothing To Wear? Where's The Sewing Machine?

Why is it that every Monday, we have to figure out what the heck to wear to work? Again. May I suggest making yourself something nice? That's what one of our Flickr group members, dcadriel, did. Four days of DIY skirt loveliness!

It brought to mind my own DIY bicycle fashion.

I bet a bunch of you out there make your own clothes to ride in. Show them to us!

Baggage. We All Have It.

One of the common challenges of a life lived without a car (or with only occasional car) is how to carry your stuff with you. I, for one, am consistently amazed at what I bring with me places (not to mention how much all that crap weighs!). Equally amazing, to me, is how one cargo solution that works today will be utterly wrong the next. This means that I, being a little obsessive about having the right tool for the job, have a few options for carrying crap around the landscape.

I will start with the most recent solution (it is the easiest to find pictures of). Carrying a camera all the time can get kind of complicated. I don't have the talent with my point and shoot that Meli does, and I end up carrying much bigger cameras. Wearing them all the time can become tiring and I hate how fussy camera bags are (especially if I have to carry them around when off the bicycle). So I did this-

I use a bag that holds my lenses and wallet and decided to come up with a way to make it into a pannier (I hate having my camera bounce around in the basket). I use these really cool clips to turn my bag into something that can be secured to the rack.

These clips could be used with a variety of bags and purses. In the future, this will be super helpful as I will be removing the front rack from the Bat once I am no longer carrying Declan everywhere. I could use this set up with any of my Coach bags, my Timbuk2 purse, my backpack... just about anything. Those clips hold 25 pounds each, so I am good to go! The rack keeps the bag out of the spokes and the whole thing is easily removable and isn't as awkward as carrying around a big pannier when not pedaling.

That is enough about baggage for today. I will write about my other options at another time. You, of course, are waiting with baited breath.

a scene from the bikey lane: rear wheel adventures

recently i was with some friends on our way to see a show after work when i shifted and then my cranks stopped moving. ruhroh. i pulled over and my companions and i struggled to find out what was going on with my rear cassette/wheel.

in fiddling around back there we proceeded to get filthy as my chain hadn't been cleaned in quite some time. ew. and gross.

after several attempts by our little group, including a passerby, to get the back wheel on the bike, we ended up walking to our destination. along the way, two of us who have taken and put on back wheels before were discussing our confusion about why we were unable to get it back on ourselves. and then LMG said, "i think we need to take maintenance classes." agreed!! "what if this had happened on my way to work?" i wondered.

two of us ended up taking muni part of the way home. the driver, who apparently is quite the bike fan (by the way, can more muni drivers be bike friendly please? kthx), decided to show us a picture of his penny farthing. i guess this means he carries these pictures with him in the bus or on his person, because he produced them rather quickly.

now, i say we took muni only part of the way home because we had to transfer. as we were walking to the transfer point we ran into these two people i have now renamed my hayes valley angels.

the guy on the right fiddled with my rear wheel and was able to put it back so i could get home. he told me i needed to do some cable maintenance before riding a lot more, "because you see this (extremely loose cable)? that's not good."

so i got home, very tentatively, on my bike. with a new resolve to learn how to put on that back wheel that 5 people could not figure out how to do. and also to clean my filthy disgusting chain. which i did the latter recently and also tightened the cables with help from a friend and their awesome bike friendly garage. i have scheduled another time to look at my rear wheel with an another extra careful eye.

do it...yourself. bike maintenance is next on the list.