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Season’s lighting

Saint Thurial Randonnée 🥾🚵‍♂️

Place BzH.

#Repost from @bearclawbicycleco - This FRANK has a few good HED’s on its shoulders now. #fatbike #titaniumbike #hedbigdeal #envecomposites #lakemichigan #traversecity #bearclawbicycleco #bbcofrank #fatfrank #hizokucycles HizokuCycles.com https://www.instagram.com/p/BnyiBxMnimi/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=14aems5ewgxim

cyclehaul

What’s not to like with a titanium fat-bike with carbon wheels? I’ll take the same with single speed.

After the Alfine gear hub, it was the Shimano Dynohub that decided to quit on me. The bearings are completely shot, so I built a new wheel and saved over 300 grams in the process. More weight savings will be possible by the fact that the rims are tubeless ready. The gains will be minimal as the overall weight of the bike is already pretty high, but as I already saved a whole kilo by changing the back wheel, I hope the weight savings will add up and improve the character of my cargo bike by making it a bit more spritely on everyday commutes.

All is not lost on the old wheel though. It isn’t going in the recycle bin just yet. I’ve got a new axle and some bearings plus cones on order and hope to recover the wheel for some other project or just as a spare.

#Wheelbuilding #dynohub

Beached Seamonstercross

Sunday afternoon ride back from the beach 🏖

My 20,000 km experiment with an internal gear hub on a cargo bike has come to an end. And I’m going with something I understand better, a simple derailleur system. When I got my Surly Big Dummy frame in 2011, I decided that I would build it up with an internal gear hub. It would be perfect for the application of an everyday commuter and do it all bike. The logic went that an internal gear hub would be a set it and forget it component and would last forever. I didn’t have the budget for a Rohloff Speed Hub, so I got the next best thing, a Shimano Alfine 11. I got my rig set up pretty quickly, but the gear hub spent most of its lifetime being adjusted by a flummoxed rider. If the gear hub wasn’t adjusted just so, it would slip and gnash gears if too much pedaling torque was applied, or the shifting pattern would transform from a 1 to 11 linear progression to a what felt like a 1-1-3-4-5-4-5-8-9-10-1. I never really understood.

A few weeks ago it decided to go to 11 and never go back. Not having a usable cargo bike after 7 years of near daily use, I realized how dependent I actually was on this bike. Transporting kids, to errands and commuting to work, this bike allowed me to do everything that people use cars for.

So I fired up the internet shopping list and made myself a new wheel and transmission for this bike. I ended up making a wheel with a Stan’s Flow mountain bike rim on a trusty Shimano XT hub laced up with 32 DT Swiss Alpine III spokes. I usually just get Shimano, but their 10 or 11 speed shadow+ derailleurs are not compatible with the Surly Big Dummy, so I ended up getting a SRAM GX 10 speed and mated it with a 11-36 ten speed cassette that I had left over from other projects.

Not only do I now have a reliable shifting drivetrain, I have saved more than a kilo in weight. The old wheel was near 4 kilograms while the new one with derailleur doesn’t even get to three kg. I’m not going to become a weight-weenie with my cargo-bike, because it will take more than a kilo to make this thing spritely, but I’ll take what I can!

With the large 2.35inch wide Schwalbe Big Apples, I just barely avoid chain rub issues on the last gear. We will see how this goes in the long run. If there is too much chain/tire rubbing I’ll have to get a more narrow tire, which would present another opportunity to lose some weight on the bike, since the rims are tubeless ready and the tires are pretty heavy as it is.

Hopefully I’m set for a another season of hauling stuff without a car, and now with less annoyance.

This summer I decided that I would try to catch up with my family already on vacation about 850km away. I gave my self four days to bridge the divide from Rennes to Annecy in the alps. This would be my first big bike trip since recovering from foot surgery. I also wanted to see how big of a ride I could do in one day. My objective was to get to Romorantin-Lanthenay in one day.

I left the house on August 1st at 4 AM. The weather was perfect, slightly cool with a subtle tailwind and letting me go at an easy pace. I was able to roll comfortably without being passed by a car for almost 50km. The only company I had were rabbits, cats and a few foxes.

A GPS equipped cycle computer is one of the modern miracles that let me follow lonely side roads without stopping to consult maps every 20km. I could just pedal. I pedaled 354km until 9:30PM when I arrived in Romorantin where I was greeted by my wife’s cousin.

The next day I slept in and had a good breakfast and didn’t get out until 11AM. While I was well rested, that put me in the middle of a hammering heatwave, and I didn’t make good progress. I stopped in Vierzon for lunch and didn’t get started again till 4PM. I only accumulated 150km getting to Nevers at 9PM.

I didn’t feel as if I really slept at the camp ground, as I got up for a 4 am ride again on day three. I made a good 100km in the morning making it to Toulon-sur-Arroux for a coffee at Le Meridien which was Checkpoint 2 of the 2016 French divide. The last 60 km were torturous under another day of pounding sun compounded by many hills. I only made it to Cluny instead of Macon. I had a nice pizza and fell asleep quickly on the camp ground.

On the last day I was ready to throw in the towel. I got started late at 6 am, and decided to catch a train at Macon. When I got to Macon, I missed the train by a minute and the next one two hours later was full up. We’ll I couldn’t stay there so I thought about going a little further, and I was happy I did. I was invited to have a late breakfast by a friendly family I crossed paths with, and met many other interesting people along the way. I only rode about 100km, which after 200km+ days seems really short, to finally take a train at Amberieux-en-Bugey. I missed an opportunity to bike in the Alps, but I had enough. I really enjoyed my time on the bike and it was time to take a rest.

What I wish I could do... make awesome bikes.

Back in action at the Laillé Randonnée

Back to school!

Merry Christmas 🎄🎁 everybody!

First flight for the dropbar Gryphon.

#singular cycles #festive 500

Merry Xmas construction 🚧 👷‍♀️workers!

Less villainy than in Mos Eisley

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