[Phatboing]

Covet!

[Phatboing]

@hozn 113886 wrote:

What is with the 1 1/8 – 1 1/4 taper ?! Cannondale does that too, annoying. 1 1/8 – 1 1/2 seems perfectly fine and far more available.

Granted when the frameset comes with a full carbon fork there is little reason to buy a new one.

Give me a singlespeed/fixed gear with a timeless square taper bottom bracket and a straight steerer and rim brakes any da… OH WAIT!

[Phatboing]

Oh my.

The 48/32 + 11-36 seems really fascinating, too.

[Phatboing]

@dkel 113766 wrote:

A couple of blocks or bricks under the bars can raise the bell off the ground.

This isn’t possible, because there’s only a brake on the front end…right???

This just seems excessive. And some of us sometimes ride singlespeed.

[Phatboing]

Well, this explains my 0 balance – my commutes are in the 40-50 minute range on my now-regular-slightly-extended commute. This is plenty obnoxious, this. Good thing I have an hour route too. Or maybe I’ll just stop going like the wind, hm?

[Phatboing]

@Powerful Pete 113759 wrote:

Why not turn it upside down and let the bike rest on the bars and seat?

My bell’s on the bars, and it’s nice and I don’t want to scratch it. Also, because of the bell, the bike rests lop-sided, which means that lube runoff can very easily go hit a brake pad.

@Tim Kelley 113746 wrote:

My team race mechanic pulls a move where he bends over at the waist, drapes the tip of the saddle over the back of his neck, which then allows him have both hands free to work on the rear wheel. Try it and report back!

This is clever, but crazypants. I’m a short person with a small bike. I can’t exactly picture how much clearance there is between saddle and rear wheel, but my guesstimate is that it’ll put my face parts at grave risk.

Not giving a toss seems to be the winning solution here, followed closely by planning ahead and doing this on my stand.

[Phatboing]

Hey, guess who else has a trailer, and is going to try it with the fixie this week!

Good luck finding me though.

[Phatboing]

@dkel 113211 wrote:

I think @dcv prefers SS offroad, but @Bilsko and @Dirt both do FG. @Phatboing is probably in one (or both) camps too?

I’ve taken the FG on the “offroad” sidepaths on the WOD and enjoy it, and of course there were my fixie ice adventures (still the best use of my fixie so far, if you ask me), but yes, I intend to experiment with mild offroading—well, gravel and C&O sort of thing; I can barely keep myself alive on an SS while mountain biking—I’m thinking maybe 62-ish GIs with the Clement MSOs, switch back to 170mm cranks (from 172.5), and perhaps a sacrifice to some gods.

[Phatboing]

1. Surly makes a 135mm fixie hub (disc compatible, no less), for exactly this sort of silliness, I believe.
2. Maybe you can switch to a 1x setup? When you want to go fixed, replace wheel, remove derailleur, begin party. Reverse when you want to be sensible again.

Though like TwoWheels says, it may cost less to just get another fixie from BD, depending on what you want to do with the fixie (Mercier Kilo WT comes to mind)

[Phatboing]

@Tania 113132 wrote:

You know, I think I agree with you Cyndi. The more I research racks, the more I realize I need to keep researching racks. The easiest solution for now is just to run to REI and get a roomier pack. My 33L is really just too big for day hikes/climbs etc so it would be multi-purpose.

BTW, you are now my official Bike Accessory Guru.

If you want to try a couple of racks before deciding, I’m not using mine right now (roomier pack ) – I have a Topeak MTX thingummy, a Racktime Addit, and a Freeload (now Thule).

[Phatboing]

@TwoWheelsDC 113014 wrote:

Do you have horizontal dropouts? They tend to shift a bit and can need re-tensioning every so often. Your chain will “stretch” over time, but probably not enough to be noticeable after a couple hundred miles unless your riding through some serious grit that’s wearing your chain down abnormally fast.

Track ends and a tuggnut, which is why this worries me – unless the tuggnut’s loosened and the wheel’s moved. And I think I’d have noticed if the wheel moved, because I have rear brakes that’d be very surprised to find a misaligned wheel.

[Phatboing]

@ShawnoftheDread 113002 wrote:

Have you checked that it’s the same amount of slack all the way around? That is, have you checked it at several crank positions?

I … think it’s the same. It’s felt the same to my legs, at least (I wobble the cranks at stops because I’m a child who can’t stop fiddling with the thing that seems slightly broken). You’re thinking maybe a link’s going weak? Or the rear wheel’s misaligned?

[Phatboing]

Taking this conversation in a totally different direction, do chains have some sort of ‘break-in’ stretchy period when riding fixed? My chain was taut, but not that taut (you could press down on the top to displace it about 10-15mm) when I started out, but a couple hundred or so miles later, it’s gone a bit slack. Not disturbingly so, but just enough that I can feel the dead spot while I’m pedaling.

And yeah, I’m out tomorrow, because my legs are sore from fighting crosswinds and headwinds all the way down to Mt Vernon and back.

Despite that, I chose the fixie over the Colossal this morning. I think there’s a special hell for that, where all you feel is dead spots in your pedal stroke.

[Phatboing]

@vvill 112811 wrote:

http://www.bikewagon.com/blog/get-the-newest-wheel-size-in-mtb

This is like one of those Onion posts that becomes reality, you know. The sort of crap that leads to five blades on a razor.

[Phatboing]

@Phatboing 111727 wrote:

The myth is that you get extra power by pulling up, but if I remember correctly, any observed benefit is because your pulling-upping-non-power leg isn’t dead weight on the pedal, so your power leg doesn’t have to fight against that weight.

After two straight weeks of fixie commutes, I finally tested this theory today, and I seem to have successfully trained my legs into a smoother pedal stroke.

I seemed to have gone too far, though, because my legs are also now intensely suspicious of bikes that keep moving even when they’ve stopped pedaling.

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