A ride of snow and ice

Winter is here in the Chicagoland area, as I write this it's a nice balmy 12* outside with about an 2 inches of snow on the ground.

Perfect weather for riding! If you prepare yourself. Last winter I rode about 4 times on my trainer in the the garage, and by trainer a set of somewhat busted and taped rollers. I deceided riding outside was both more fun, challenging and building mental toughness. I still agree with that, while other are hanging up their bikes or slapping training slicks on, I trudge along getting my my short rides in.

That's the downside, I'm pretty limited in my time I have to ride anymore so the large majority of my rides take place on my lunch break at work. To make the best of this I ride one of my old Schwinns also less worried about breaking anything on a fall. They are built like tanks, 99% dependable and require minimal care.

I'm currently enjoying the wonders of riding a 3-speed, this fall I picked up my wife's grandparent's matched set of 1975 Schwinns (A Speedster and a Breeze). having fixed the Speedster up it's been my go to bike for the last month. The simplicity of a single speed, but the additional gearing I need around here to not bust my knees up.

I hope be able to update this more frequently with my short adventures and throughts for all 3 of you who read this.

Off to the races!

Much like I did when I started running, I found the best motivation is embarrassment.

I've been riding a little over a year now and logged about 1600 miles in that time, though the longest ride up to that point was only about 30 miles.

Being employed full time (thankfully!), a husband, a father, and all that goes in hand with that it's hard to dedicate enough time to cycling without neglecting something else.

Since August, I've really only been able to do 30min rides on my breaks from work, depending on the route or weather I usually can squeeze in 6-8 miles. The colder it's gotten I actually get more riding time as I can just go in my work clothes and change into something cooler for the ride.

Black Friday I signed up for my first organized cycling event, the Rough Road 100.

The Rough Road 100 is a 100K (Thus the 100 in the name) ride/race that starts and ends in Morris, IL. About 25% of the route is on gravel or crushed limestone roads, so it's not strictly a road race like you'd see in the Tour De France but more akin to the trend of "gravel grinders" or all-road races.

100K is about double the distance of the longest ride I've been on, add to that several section of road that isn't paved.

I'm looking forward too it, the Fuji is getting dialed in with every ride, I'm testing eating while riding and getting back into cycling shape since I slacked off in August.

For more information about the event check out the website Rough Road 100

Winter Cycling......SNOW!

Another day of hitting the snow covered trails. At the time I road Fox Valley Park District hadn't gotten around to clearing much of the Virgil Gilman Trail so I got to experience riding in a few inches of snow/ice. It doesn't sound much fun, but surprisingly it was very challenging to try and keep your speed up while navigating trail. Weather was in the lower 20s and about a 13mph breeze, sunny though!

 First half of the trail looked like someone tried to plow it once, but then the wind blew it back over it and froze it. This was comparable to riding on a rough gravel road but add to it ice.

Ubiquitous bike leaning against something photo.

 The rest of the trail that hadn't been touched had several downed limbs, and about 2" of snow.

My view for part of the ride as I focused on the road ahead of me.

Things to take away from this adventure (and none of this is a new revelation on my part:

-Wider tires with lower pressure would have been nice, but part of the challenge was riding on what I had.

-Don't dress too warm, once you start moving you heat up pretty quickly. I'm still zeroing on on what is the right amount of clothing for certain temperatures.

Well till next time, Cycle on!

Winter cycling

Winter storm "Bruce" dumped quite a bit of the white stuff on the area Sunday. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the local park district crew it seems most of the bike trails were cleared.

A crisp 27* outside made for a brisk ride, and trying to avoid puddles (forgot the bike with fenders!) was challenging. I've always looked at it this way, getting out when the weather is like this makes summer rides all the much more enjoyable!

A work in progress, part 2 Finale!

After getting off to a rough start with the brake levers, I was able to finish up this build.

I hadn't planned to re-wrap the bars yet, the cloth tape seemed usable and I had less padded wrap on the Vitus. But as it turned out, the brackets for attaching the brake hoods used a different thread pitch then ANY other brake lever bolt I had from old Schwinn Weinmanns, to Dia-compe, to the Modolos I was planning to put on there.

So as it was, I elected to undo the whole thing and start fresh.

 

I pulled the old tape off, slid on the brackets for the Modolo hoods and re-taped the guides for the bar-end shifters. Re-rapped in some 2.5mm Lizardskin bartape (and boy is that stuff comfortable) and installed the SunTour Accushift barcons.

Late 80's 7-speed index barcons

Re-wrapped drop bars.

A few other Frankensteined parts include a 1978 SunTour Honor rear derailleur,  this was a 5-speed friction component on a low end bike. It's heavy and not much to look but it's reliable, sturdy and believe it or not through some sort of bicycle voodoo I managed to get it to index with the barends on a Regina Extra-XB 6-speed free-wheel!

It ain't pretty, but it works and best of all it was already on hand. Cogs are 14,16,18,20,22,24 for you gear heads out there, and with the front triple a 50,45,28 mixed with the 700x35 Gravelking SKs I've got a range of 31-97 gear inches. Given the closeness of the freewheel it works out pretty well for around these parts of Illinois I ride, at least for unloaded riding. We'll see how well this works out, a 14-28 may work better, but then I'd have to change the derailleur as well, it's already a bit past capacity as is.

 

Another shot of the front triple, it's been a loooong time since I rode a bike with 3 up front, but the barends make selecting the right chain relatively easy. Also found some dustcaps off another bike.

Paint wasn't too dinged up, needs a good cleaning.

And finally, the finished product another mixed spec bike assembled from a frame and random components. This bike will replace at least a few of my rides, thought I'm a fan of N+ bikes I just don't have the room or time to ride all of them and rather see them pedal off with new owners.

So if you know anyone in the market for a 1967, 1973 or 1975 Schwinn let me know!

With possibly a few minor changes this is what I plan to ride the Rough Rode 100 in April with.

A work in progress, part 1

Its almost like as soon as I finish up one bike I find another that fills a completely different area to work on.

All 5 of you who follow my blog will recall the light blue Schwinn Continental I retro-modded into something of a gravel bike earlier this month. It's continued to be a fun ride and good reminder of the work I put into my first Continental.

This new bike is something different: A 1984 Fuji Touring Series V.

 Photo courtesy of Classic Fuji.com

In it's day it was Fuji's top of the line touring bike, relaxed riding position, long chain stays, multiple spots for water bottles, fender/rack mounts and higher level SunTour components (Hooray for SunTour!). As they say in the business,  SO that's the good.

The downside to this frame, is it was missing a fair amount of parts and so far is probably the most in-depth overhaul and scratching together compatible parts on a non-existent budget.

What it came with: 56cm Frame (my size!) and fork, Nitto olympiade aluminum drop bars wrapped in red cloth tape and Technomic stem, Sugino AT triple crank and 50/45/28 chain rings, Dia Compe Gran Compe cantilever brakes, Avocet Touring II saddle.

Nitto bars wrapped in cloth tape, very 1980s!

 

Sugino AT 50/45/28 triple, this crank set the bolt pattern standard for triple cranks for a long time (110/74 BCD)

 

Some things this bike was missing: Brakes hoods, levers and cable housing (as might be obvious in the pictures), shifters of any type (original equipment was SunTour bar-ends), mismatched wheels; one aluminum rim 27" laced to Sunshine Gyromaster hub in front (also original equipment) and a Specilized high spoke count double sided hub with a 700c rim in back (no idea what or where this came from), a rear derailleur (originally equipped with the now rare and expensive SunTour LeTech touring derailleur) and a chain.

Overall though, by stripping some unused bikes and assembling parts I had laying around I thought this would be a quick build. Stay tuned for part 2.

It's been a long, long time....

It's been a while since I posted anything, integrating Google blogger into facebook/instagram posts automatically is not seamless. That and aside from commuting a bunch and riding the same trails it was starting to just be the same pictures over and over again. Which was getting boring even for me.

Some new things though, finally finished the 1973 Continental. Cleaned and re-packed all the bearings, new cables and brake pads, and threw on the Saturne HC19 rims I had laying around with the Panaracer Gravelking SK 700x35cm wheels.

This has turned out to a pleasantly fun bike set-up, stripped off the kickstand, aluminum rims, no water bottle cage, or rear rack keeps the weight down. It's a size smaller than the 1975 Continental I commute on, so it's feels a little "tighter" and like a race bike to me.

I am super impressed so far with the Gravelking SK tires, for a semi-knobbed (that's the SK...) they're still pretty quiet on the road or pavement, can feel the resistance compared to the slicks I run on my other bikes, but off road is where they really shine. Transition from trail to grass or gravel you don't notice a loss in traction, just a slight additional effort. The current set up is with some Bontrager tubes pumped to 55psi in front and 60psi in back.  I found a 3.75 gravel trail near my house that has lots of turns and when I first took this bike out to ride it was relatively wet from rain, so it made for a fun and technical ride. Looking forward to exploring more with this bike in the future. For any older or retro bike build I can only recommend the tan walls, I was leaning towards solid black but Jimmy at Oswego Cyclery convinced me otherwise, glad I listened.

I had decided to build this bike up in anticipation of riding the Rough Road 100 next April. Why use a 40 year old steel antique?
1) I'm crazy and a glutton for punishment
2) Bragging rights, sure you can do a 65 mile gravel ride on a modern Aluminum frame, with tubeless tires, and modern shift system and drive train. But lets face it, I'm not going to place in the top 100 regardless of what I ride so to just finish on this bike would be sweet and a testament to perseverance.
3) It's a sweet blue color.

We'll see what the future brings if I have a chance to get some major miles on this or any bike for that matter. I also recently picked up a 1984 Fuji Touring Series V that needs some work but which has the prospect of being an excellent replacement for a both Schwinns. The '75 was really always supposed to be a short term bike to see if I actually enjoyed it cycling before investing in something else.