[Harry Meatmotor]

I’m interested to see if they’re going to have a frame fixture – if not, it could be a good machining project for a motivated individual or group of individuals if TechShop were willing to pay for materials. Plans are free and easily sourced from teh intarwebs. My only gripe is that they don’t offer a way to opt out of the classes, like, take a test rather than plunk down $55 and sit through a class where you know all the material just to get access to miter saw. It was a very good sign that they’ve installed a SawStop table saw, tho.

[Harry Meatmotor]

@culimerc 80381 wrote:

I think you parked next to me at the end of the VASA ride on Saturday.
My wife had the blue and white Madone with the flat bar, and I had the orange pannier

Did you have one of those Spurcycle bells in the natural/silver finish?

@consularrider 80384 wrote:

Nice to see another Pistola. Mine is still stock.

And not too many of them out there. I love mine, it’s sort of a poor man’s Seven Axiom. I’ve kindda grown tired of the direction that Salsa’s gone recently, tho – sorta like 14 different versions of essentially the same bike geometry; waaay too upright and now featuring 37 bottle cage mounts. Long gone are the days the La Raza.

I’ve got my eyes on the new stock-sized, i.e. non-custom, Cielo Road Racers since they’re available to any dealer with an account with King… but not sure what to do with the Pistola. N+1 is in full effect.

[Harry Meatmotor]

the speedy bike and the daily driver. just recently built up a pair of H+Son TB14s laced to 105 hubs for the commuter running 32mm gatorskins. not featured is the almost vintage, but still kicking, 1995 GT Zaskar. Ink blue anodized with a mix of XT/XTR Race Face & other old junk.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5019[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]5020[/ATTACH]

[Harry Meatmotor]

@vvill 80177 wrote:

Oh, it’s for a FG build? Then definitely go part-by-part. FG/SS builds are so easy to chop and change since there’s barely any cabling involved.

I’m in the process of reconfiguring my SS/secondary FG bike. Threw on a different seatpost, and I’m planning to finally switch out the front fork, front brake and stem.

Surprised no one else has answered this… I’m not an expert but I would say “yes”. As far as I understand it, bike shops build new bikes as part of their role as suppliers/distributors for a brand. So the labor cost doesn’t really go on the manufacturer, and yeah markup on components is huge. That’s one reason why people will buy mostly-assembled complete bikes online, strip them for the groupset and then sell off the frame/wheels.

It’s really quite a bit more complicated than that. The bigger brands (Giant, Trek, Specialized, etc) receive volume pricing on components that is much less than the wholesale price a parts distributor (QBP, etc) or smaller manufacturer gets (think, Moots, Rivendell, Alchemy, any small-time handbuilt framebuilder, or even small manufacturers using Asian-sourced frames, or foreign brands that you’ve never heard of, but only sell 10,000 bikes or less a year). Now, imagine there are smaller manufacturers (primarily in China, some in Taiwan) that are OEMs for the larger brands, who actually manufacture or just assemble the bikes that get sold at your LBS branded as one of the Big Brands. Imagine, too, that sometimes these smaller manufacturers have extra inventory of components they need to offload prior to a new model year of bikes being manufactured or assembled. The smaller manufacturer can hang these gray-market components (that they received at significant discount from regular wholesale because the Big Brand secured huge volume pricing) on a super cheap non-branded frameset, then sell directly through the internet, or through outlets like Nashbar, and keep the retail price near what a major brand would sell as wholesale.

There’s really actually two “major” assembly processes involved with most bikes. The first major assembly process takes place in China or Taiwan, where all the components are hung on the bare frame, and the components all adjusted (to an extent), and the bike is packed for shipping to some foreign market. As you can imagine, that assembly process is incredibly inexpensive, due to the cheap cost of labor in China and Taiwan. The second major assembly cost is bourne by the end retailer, where the mechanics in the back of the shop unbox and reassemble the partially disassembled bike, check for defects or damage from shipping, and readjust all the components. That’s still pretty cheap, as most competant mechanics can assemble a new bike in 15-30 minutes. If anything, there may be upportunity costs, but most shops just adjust their labor costs to account for new bike builds.

TL;DR those cheapo bikes you see for sale on the intarwebs are cheap for a whole slew of reasons, but the labor costs of assembly are not a huge driver of the final cost of the bike.

[Harry Meatmotor]

@rcannon100 79910 wrote:

The sun has been strong enuf to melt any trail not in shade.

hopefully enough so i can go back to running slicks…

[Harry Meatmotor]

As of 5:30am:

4MR from west glebe to S. Eads has been plowed, with a few icy patches.

S. Eads to CC connector is clear.

CC connector to MVT was plowed with some short icy/rutty patches.

MVT from CC connector to 14th St bridge is hit or miss. Mostly icy/rutty with some bare & dry sections. didn’t need to dismount for anything, but i did end up going cross country around a bit of Gravely because riding a drop bar bike through uncut snow is a hoot. and because rule 9.

However…

14th St bridge is miserable. Worse than the last storm, imho. I had to dismount and walk about 1/2 of the length. The ramp to the bridge at the Jefferson Memorial is also pretty messy, but has been plowed up to about 100 yards short of the actual bridge.

fwiw – surly cross check on 45mm conti top contact winters, ~40 psi f&r.

[Harry Meatmotor]

@DismalScientist 78965 wrote:

MVT from the 14th St bridge to the airport was almost entirely clear. West of the parkway bridge on the CC connector is a mess, but short. The WOD from Shillington to Westover is basically clear with short patches of slushy ice on bridges and shady areas. I’m taking my road bike with 28s tomorrow. 😎

I can confirm this as of 05:30 – consider this route clear save for a couple short icy patches.

[Harry Meatmotor]

As of 4:30pm:

Most of the 14th St. bridge had melted enough to not need to dismount at the northern end, still like riding through 4″ of sand, but considerable bare concrete for the majority of the bridge length should make it mostly passable tomorrow morning.

Only real bad spots were the shady spots elsewhere, no big surprises.

[Harry Meatmotor]

As of about 8:30am:

4MR from W. Glebe to S. Eads is a mix between icy rutty and passable snow and slush. The bridge just before S. Meade St. is not rideable, however. The section along the water treatment facility is plowed, with icy sections.

S. Eads bypass is not bad, only a bit of brown slush but entirely passable.

Crystal City to MVT connector is plowed (west of the ped tunnel, thank goodness…), east of the tunnel a mix of rutty ice, decent hard pack snow or passable snow and slush.

MVT from Crystal City connector to 14th St. Bridge is mostly icy rutty, with some sections around Gravely windblown but icy or decent hardpack.

Ramp to 14th St. bridge on the VA side is a bit iffy due to big icy snow “boulders” and the 14th St. bridge itself is an utter fiasco. Way rutted out – looks like even some fat bike riders were having to walk sections, judging by the tracks. Ramp to DC was icy rutty, but passable.

FWIW – I’m on 42mm Conti Top Contact Winters, running about 30psi up front, 50psi out back.

[Harry Meatmotor]

@DismalScientist 78554 wrote:

Well, I have a new bike as of early December that I put studded tires on for winter use. According to Strava, I have 160 miles on it. The chain has been a rusty mess four times already and at each time I’ve lubed it. My conclusion is that road salt is not good for drivetrains.

here’s an old-school pro tip if you know the chain is going to be left outside or in otherwise harsh conditions: buy 2 cheapo chains for whatever drivetrain you have (the cheaper the better, and preferably non-plated). take both chains and remove as many links as needed to fit your particular drivetrain for both chains. pour about a cup of good old 10w30 into a coffee can and drop both the chains in. let ’em soak for at least a week, the longer the better. when it’s time to replace whatever rusty chain you’ve got with one of the old-school slippy chainz, just wipe the new chain down with a rag dipped in some sort of mineral spirits or other light petroleum-based cleaner. don’t scrub the chain; one draw of the chain through the rag should be plenty. relube the chain with a dollup of grease (yes, grease like Phil Wood’s) and try to get more on the side plates than the rollers. swap between chains every 500-1000 miles.

NB – old-school slippy chainz are going to pick up crud like nonother and your drivetrain is gonna look like a hot mess – but it will not rust.

[Harry Meatmotor]

open @ 5:30am 2/28/14

[Harry Meatmotor]

so let me tell you about a little experiment I’m conducting. After years of on-again, off-again wrenching at numerous lbs’s, from mom and pops to regional big box-ish shops, i’ve always wondered wtf do all these bike commuters do to destroy their bikes? i mean, from a wrench’s perspective, how could you keep riding when your bike makes that much awful noise??? so, after commuting on a SS for a couple years, i decided i was going to build up a brand spanking new shifty-gears commuter bike.

and then ride it and nothing else (sort of).

i wanted to see if i could destroy a drivetrain like some of my customers have. what does it take? how much of the equation is sheer negligence, and how much is “riding style”?

well, i built up a surly crosscheck running a full sram apex kit, save shimano chain and cassette. i cleaned off the packaging grease from the chain, soaked it in rock and roll blue and rode it for about 600 miles before it even started making noise. it looked like sh!t, but it shifted fine. so that became my routine: if it starts making squeaky noises, drown it in rock and roll blue. nothing more, no wiping down, no goofy on-the-bike chain cleaners, just pedal backwards 10 revs and spray 1/3 of a bottle of rock and roll blue. then walk away from the bike.

I did, however, keep tabs on chain wear with a Rohloff chain checker. Rain or shine, 20 miles a day, 4-5 days a week, and i got about 3000 miles out of a shimano ultegra chain (stretch measured at the 0.075mm mark so i was being a bit “conservative”) merely dousing the chain about once a month or two.

At about 5400 miles i replaced the chain, cassette, chainrings, and pulleys, but nothing else (partially simulating that one time the customer brings his commuter bike by for service in january, when labor’s cheap). One more chain at about 7600 miles, and i’m now at 8,900+ and haven’t washed the bike once, just replaced some parts and used a generous helping of rock and roll blue. and it doesn’t squeak.

so, to answer your question about chain lube, rock and roll blue. but more generally, grease is cheaper than steel. if it squeaks lube it.

and to answer my question, i still have no idea wtf happened to half the commuter bikes i’ve seen roll into any shop i’ve worked… i tried killing my surly and it didn’t work. i have no idea what you guys are doing out there…:p

[Harry Meatmotor]

i’ll add another vote for conti gatorskins (harder to find 32s). i went through a few pairs of specialized infinity armadillos, zero flats in ~8,000 miles, but the sidewalls failed right at the bead on 3 of them. i have a suspicion that something in the brakedust/roadgrime/rain slurry tends to weaken the material that specialized uses right at the bead. I’ll be honest, the thing that surprises me most about the conti gatorskins is how well they roll compared to my regular road tires (michelin pro4s or vittoria open corsas or conti gp4000s). anything armadillo rolls like they’re filled with concrete.

[Harry Meatmotor]

@dbb 77986 wrote:

Welcome to the forum! Much to discuss, share and learn here. The Eads Street detour is show in photos on the first page of this thread.

thanks for having me – been alternating between the two routes just to keep things interesting lately. thanks for the heads up, tho – it would be nice to see if someone could modify the signage at the water treatment plant from “DETOUR” to “MUST TAKE DETOUR” once they actually close the trail, and add a similar sign at the MVT-Crystal City connector intersection.

[Harry Meatmotor]

Open as of 5:30am 2/21/14

p.s. just joined here after finding this thread – will try to update as often as possible. i usually commute through 4MR to MVT 4-5 days a week.

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