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@elbows 178810 wrote:

I know this is OT, but I’m stumped. Trying to help a cyclist find a pull-up bar anywhere in South Arlington (or Del Ray). He’s basically keeping his gym membership alive for a pull-up bar.

I thought there used to be one near Four Mile Run, but can’t find it.

Yeah, as DrP points out, there are pull-up bars on 4MRT in Shirlington. There’s also one at Mace Park at 4MRT and Patrick Henry Dr.

But tell your friend to stop that nonsense; pull ups won’t make him faster!

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I’d actually make the counterpoint that this chain has too many miles on it to be worth changing. You’ll likely need a new cassette if you put a new chain on now. (Or maybe it won’t make much difference, but either way, the new chain isn’t going to do anything for the life of your cassette.) So, keep the 3k-miles chain and run it down with the cassette. You should get another 2-3k miles out of both of them, I’d think.

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@TwoWheelsDC 178692 wrote:

Mini V’s though, right? Regular v-brakes have a different cable pull and require a stupid adapter for STI levers, which make them worse than cantis in my experience.

Yeah, correct. I was still talking in general (or about MTB) there.

I don’t have any experience with the adapters, but makes sense that it wouldn’t work as well.

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@jrenaut 178686 wrote:

I believe you – I know you don’t mess around with your equipment. But that’s the style of brake on the kids’ bikes and my mom’s super cheap hybrid, so I assumed the entire style of brake was bad, not just the low end versions.

I mean, this is the kind of brake that used to come on all mountain bikes (a longer-arm version) before everything MTB switched to disc. — Even the very expensive mountain bikes. For rim brakes V-brakes are about as good as it’s gonna get.

Unless you’re running massive tires, I think the mini-v would be a big improvement. Certainly it makes setup much simpler. Mine also stopped much better, though that may have been because I hadn’t been setting the cantis up perfectly.

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@jrenaut 178682 wrote:

The TRPs look like what comes on super low-end garbage bikes so that’s a surprising recommendation from you.

My next bike will definitely be hydraulic discs but that’s not happening any time soon.

?? Do you mean MTB V-brakes ?? Then, yes, it is expected they would look like that, since they are [mini-]V-brakes. TRP is a high-end brand, though, so you’re not looking too closely (ti bolts!) if you think these look like garbage. Of course, if you’d like to pay more, you could get the Paul brakes: https://paulcomp.com/shop/components/minimoto/

You can google “mini v vs. cantilever” and let the internet sway you, but as far as I know there’s really no debate; cantis are terrible by comparison — both at stopping the bike and at doing so quietly. Certainly, that was my experience.

Edit: there are reasons why some people prefer cantis, and that usually has to do with extra clearance they provide for mud or fenders etc. Depending on tire and fender size it could get tight w/ mini-v. It was a long time ago, but I think I used mine w/o issue with P35 fenders (and probably 28mm tires).

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Replace them with TRP Mini V brakes; it’ll be the best $90 you have ever spent. https://www.trpcycling.com/product/cx-8-4/

Or just get a new bike with disc brakes, which will be the best $xxxx.xx you ever spent.

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@hozn 178017 wrote:

So, I have a couple of in-progress kid bike projects. They are slow loving because I am constrained by birthdays. My wife doesn’t think it makes sense to give presents as large as bicycles “just because”.

I am building a road + cx bike for my soon-8yo son. He’s asked for one a few times and he’ll love having something faster to ride on pavement. And he can use it for CX team next year.

I’m starting with a Raleigh RX24. Which by itself is probably just fine. And at $340 on Amazon, is a really great value! But that wouldn’t be a project, would it?

Claimed weight is 21lbs; I haven’t weighed it (I haven’t even fully assembled it.). This really is a brilliant bike. The disc brakes open up lots of opportunities for having it serve different purposes. I will be exploiting that heavily as I look to fit larger wheels than the oddball British “24-inch” 540 etrto stock wheels.

Goals of this project are

(1) to improve the brakes to something that can be stopped quickly with (hopefully) single-finger braking — with small hands — from the drops. Better calipers, better housing, better rotors.

(2) Convert to a wheel size that actually has non-wheelchair tires available.

(3) to bring that weight down to something respectable for a road bike, even with the disc brakes. Less than 1/3 my son’s weight (60lbs) seems reasonable. Well shoot for 17lbs and see how close we get.

Build done! Writeup here: http://snakesthatbite.blogspot.com/2018/05/raleigh-rx24-24-kids-roadcx-bike-project.html

[IMG]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/3a_zakXjDTcMkaHX8tfj-rmXOE0sSqDvspVqioL-wY76rY0q1Vy6J4d7cenubY7CQvMIVBo5vrSKL0RxPpRPAXY6CT1RR93lpuv4l-9EEpiD1ej7rLpCBGC61jXAaFaqYAVk7ySVHlLQ-Xeghpcq_MwXfs_aKF0D8pvxNvVmTuLOPWFA-jgCl0FqUDuyRgUcqufCDu3_QayOWmdp7EXIPB7SzWYAnFGpZAdRiBcSndOcaZfxrs-vFd0dlqiokLxuz-29M3yI_t_gCT41f5jR4txYJGYYrNcQkDU7we2CHWDQ0QUJNjf_oG1Z-g68A5Q4T6vhJvAJT6TOHJxNpIIWR6Ulq0tsQG3GMFLQAl-ajRme9DQZ-Ox9qPXvDEeUzOOKGJQ3XoZwRS51fQCaipeDGkK7o06iRMOIm3LbnR2zpwiODM1nJFiXjhHYdCmIV9O_VdyA3fxUkqizO4O-6Ob52rDYE-WxYf6x-68eEu-S6_bhOHCGCBUdytvHTMDAUegmq0n_wpIgES_EIDCyWjuC2Ef_s3pbe9sCw1a0BnuM7xz6ttL_cw3qIKpJwHFnvCYDhoINzD3d5RP5SN6WreOAR2MMcVKpI9U91csqKmQZ=w978-h733-no[/IMG]

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@hozn 167088 wrote:

Picked this out of a neighbor’s trash.

And the project is completed!

Huge thanks to Vicegrip who was key to the disc-brake conversion (grinding, drilling/tapping threads for bolting on the a2z, etc.)

It is a bit large for my son (and he has a bike that fits well), but he was super excited to ride it on the street this evening.

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@dasgeh 178573 wrote:

But why would you want rule-following, respectful riders banned?

I’m not proposing banning anyone from the trail. I just support banning class-3 e-bikes from the trail. I’m sure those trail users will also be rule-following and respectful on class-1 e-bikes or “regular” human-power-only bicycles. I don’t feel there’s any justification for allowing them (vs. class-1) and just because the sample I have are respectful and rule-following, this seems like a huge liability if/when these becomes more common. Which inevitably, as prices drop, they will.

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@bentbike33 178490 wrote:

Ebike riders are not famous for following rules 5 and 9.

I rather doubt anyone would disagree. But I think this is akin to disparaging someone’s minivan because you don’t think it’d clock good track times. Endurance events and other HTFU activities were probably not the driving factors in choosing an e-bike. People ride bikes for different reasons; I think it’s great to get more people out enjoying lighter-modes of transport. Of course, I also think that cycling is such a rich activity and e-bikes only open up a tiny percentage of this, that I can’t help but feeling that someone is really missing out (on the group rides, the racing, the off-road riding) if that’s their only bike.

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@Sunyata 178545 wrote:

I was not being sarcastic at all. And I am honestly not sure why you thought I was being sarcastic or why you were offended by what I said. I am not against e-bikes at all on paved/gravel multi-use trails, so long as they (like everyone should be) are courteous and safe. I just made an observation that during the rainy week last week, I was not sure I saw an e-bike out and about (perhaps I should have noted that I saw less conventional bikes too, but this is not a conversation about conventional bikes). I normally notice them because I tend to pay attention to other’s bikes because I am curious what other folks are riding. I am not saying there is anything wrong with e-cyclists (or folks on conventional cycles) that are fair weather cyclists. Not everyone wants to get out and ride in the rain, I get that.

I also didn’t see any ebikes during my commutes in the rain last week. But the number of non-ebikes was so much lower, that the percentage probably was going to round down to 0 anyway. In general I now see a dozen or so over the course of a week on the W&OD. Much, much higher than previous years. About half of the ones I see are class-3 bikes. While I’ll still be glad when VA disallows those on multi-use paths, all the riders I see do seem to be following the trail rules and being respectful of others, so that’s good.

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@hozn 178017 wrote:

So, I have a couple of in-progress kid bike projects. They are slow loving because I am constrained by birthdays. My wife doesn’t think it makes sense to give presents as large as bicycles “just because”.

My wife and I decided that we don’t want to set a tradition of bike birthday presents, so bikes can be given outside of birthdays. I think this makes perfect sense — Plus my son has decided that for his next-year sport activity he’s going to do junior CX team, so he kinda needs a ‘cross bike for joining in the road rides, etc.

Claimed weight is 21lbs; I haven’t weighed it (I haven’t even fully assembled it.). This really is a brilliant bike. The disc brakes open up lots of opportunities for having it serve different purposes. I will be exploiting that heavily as I look to fit larger wheels than the oddball British “24-inch” 540 etrto stock wheels.

Actual weight is 22lbs.

Goals of this project are

(1) to improve the brakes to something that can be stopped quickly with (hopefully) single-finger braking — with small hands — from the drops. Better calipers, better housing, better rotors.

The Yokozuna Motoko (Juin Tech R1) calipers are nice. Not as nice as full hydro, as everyone will note, but they grab hard.

(2) Convert to a wheel size that actually has non-wheelchair tires available.

The new 26″ (559 ETRTO) wheels fit great and are super light. Even with Isla’s fancy 31-559 CX tires (could fit larger tires too, but there aren’t a wealth of CX options — still, it’s a whole lot better than the 540 ETRTO size!)

(3) to bring that weight down to something respectable for a road bike, even with the disc brakes. Less than 1/3 my son’s weight (60lbs) seems reasonable. Well shoot for 17lbs and see how close we get.

That was bold; if the actual weight was 21lbs, we would have gotten there. But from 22lbs we dropped the weight to 17.3lbs.

Most importantly, my son loves his new bike!

[IMG]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/7sAtykqH2afjf2Qw9WWDrKnTCKf0IUQpC03FEdTruYj618vv64Bx2-f4srCOi5Fp4uZXktIYHT-V9O60Lx7y9WrZpDevvE7TuvEezQn5x0TBSOMJzJbNI04f5CVTO7TK72IDd0BQXMokKbUbEQjrI6cXg1q1kAf95tHpZYquh3RNlb7AZNtWt1oj8bOvDuEfmLFe5t9tU5CWHvvRppqYdG-p7SWYsEN_g20534uGsvW0j3xHlFaW8phJXCh4c2_hvPzCZsGDFdXSF3u6_nHcT1lSqw2vCzzF_vHgbljPqp5Z6LJ790wyVTxMnJDQ6cbk6nK5nR8MwdNRbxPBXt97vzoPIgKhY7UBCeXWSOxFzyKcQaXbxvqBSWHMB5bu8w9InOfQqfE3z453VsQeveNQEE0Y5HJUdTQ-9BQapVWzLwIb0xDyNu8EBnr6jKgmUZWD42_vivbgz4cvwUhhzk0i0ALpsM-CZkHrkMzyMRneRSKuN69tqELhPGbtUVozcpVbZ3vXt_XdBYcJrny5DCytRBduFFgv8diHqtBmPrr5ww7IO9Bm8d1YTdE6IyuB6k38-bTzV3yLk0RcZ8dStqmZswj03fEEZE15OM4daov6=w882-h1174-no[/IMG]

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@streetsmarts 178319 wrote:

I can see the forum…but when I click on a post (in Tapatalk app ) I can’t view it. I deleted the app and re-installed.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Yeah, it has been broken for me for awhile.

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@KWL 178294 wrote:

I looked all over town for some Framesaver for my new Long Haul Trucker frame to no avail. It used to be available at the old Revolution stores. Ended up ordering it from Niagara. Do you know where to buy it locally?

No, sorry; I also ordered it online last time I had a steel frame MTB.

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@drevil 178221 wrote:

Ritchey Commando, Step 1 – Frame Savering

Frame Saver-ing by ricky d, on Flickr

Excited to watch this build!

Also, making me wonder if I should pick up / apply some framesaver for my [second-hand] Hayduke. Probably not a bad idea.

[Author]

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