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.