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I've been holding back on a few rides lately, as if anyone even reads this blog anyway.

 

Me, XX, AT, and Fabs.  We met up with Baler from Fargo.

 

This one was a solid after work family ride. Real MTB'ing, beeocth. Ben's first ride on the new-ish K2 26er.

 

Me and Harry Homeowner hit it for the first time in a long while

Interruptus

No rain overnight so I was on Monty heading to meet KC for DP at 5:30 with lights blazing.  Then a car with a bike rack U-turns and rolls up beside me...KC reporting that he can't ride cuz he'd forgotten his work clothes.  Offered him my best suit, but he decided to head home;-)  I figured I head home and wrench on my road bike instead of riding.  By the time I got past Baler's old condo the rain had started and by 6 it was storming hard.  I'll scope of the conditions at landing on my way home from work tonight and post, but I suspect prolly too sloppy for a Sat DP;-(

 

Super clean aquarium

Angel fish loving the 66% water change and cleaning.

First real-cash game on Facebook

Can't wait to gamble with my fake Face Book user.  This is exciting.  Kids who liked Angry Birds yesterday will be maxing out their parents stolen credit cards.  I love how kid friendly the ads look.   Cooler than Joe Camel.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19162971

It's Done - Ben's New 26er

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.

Ben digs it and it looks like a 29er when he's riding it.

Highlights:

• Love that slammed stem!
• 1994 LX Crank with Bashbar Nashbar big ring is schweet
• c.1997 XTR Rear Derailleur is hot!
• 1998 Bomber Z4 Air fork will never die
• Bontrager RaceLite Tubeless Wheels (with tubes and WTB 2.3 Stout Tires) are nicer than my wheels on any of my bikes?!?!?!
• Mismatched levers and shifters and brakes are wily

• Xt right lever and Avid 1.0 rear brake
• Avid 1.0 left lever and LX parallelogram front V brake
• XT Mega9 era front shifter and  LX Front Derailleur from the Mega9 era
• SRAM X5 rear shifter

ODI Ruffain Lock-on grips in better shape than any of my bikes

FLAT PEDALS, YO!

Lowlights:

• Cheesiest part is the seatpost, but I've got a 250mm Zero setback road post in mind
• WTB saddle off of my CX bike that I bent the rails back to straight-enough-for-Buff

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Ben'a 26HT shaping up

Patch em up

That time of year again. Salvaged 8 tubes this time.

Longest Wheel Build Ever...

....breathes new life into the these-parts-should-have-been-sent-to-the-scrap heap wheel.

Got this Coda/Zac19 wheel from some dude on Freecycle.  The freehub pawls were seizing up.

I had a Shimano STX 8sp hub laying around that had been shop bin junk at an LBS at one time.  I'd used it to harvest axle spacers for fixie projects.  I spent a good while tonight scavenging the right axle spacers combo to get the axle to 135mm on the money.  I liked this old Shimano Parallax hub because is was about the same dimensions as the Coda, so I figured I'd recycle the Shimano hub, spokes, nipples, and Zac19 rim.

But we had a problem Houston.  The Zac's spokes were corroded to the nipples and wouldn't budge at all.  I hit the inside and outside of each nipple with a drop of Triflow and went out to the shed to explore other rim and spoke options.  Ended up coming back to the Zac and clipping the old spokes off with the lineman's pliers.

Then I ran the Zac and the Parallax thru the old Spocalc  http://wheelbuilder.freebiketools.org/ 

Select Hub	or choose from your previous selections  Shimano Deore LX & STX-RC. FH-R080 (Rear)
Select Rim	or choose from your previous selections  Rigida Weinmann Zac 19 (26")  Rigida/Weinman Zac 19 (700C)  Rigida Zac 19 (700C)
Spokes	16  20  24  28  32  36  40  48
Pattern	0-cross (Radial)  1-cross  2-cross  3-cross  4-cross  5-cross
Nipple Length	12mm  14mm  16mm

Left	265.6	Right	263.9	Link to this build	Print this build

But the closest I could come up with was used spokes:

LEFT - 13@268mm and 3@266mm 

RIGHT - 14@265mm and 2@266mm

What fun re-using used nipples, spokes, and rim.  Don't forget that the spokes are too long too.  It took forever to get tension.  It took a while to chase the hop to a minimum too.

But at the end of the day, $0 were spent and I have a half decent wheel for Ben's 26er project that I'm Frankensteining together;-)

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