The Fastlane

Here is a bicycle I have been riding a lot lately, a Gunnar Fastlane. The frameset was handmade at the Waterford factory, in Wisconsin. "Handmade in the U.S.A.," how many things can you say that about? It's tig-welded steel, with kinda slackish angles (72.5/72.5), a low bottom bracket, and room for big tires and fenders. The kind of bike most people should be riding. I might not call it a randonneur bike, but it is definitely in that class-stable, versatile, comfortable and responsive. Dependable. All-weather, all-season, day or night, with some cargo-carrying ability for commuting or light touring.

When I first built it I mounted 23c tires, which were light and fast and fun, but it lowered the bike enough that the steering trail was too short-the handling was not neutral-it wouldn't hold a good line in corners and was just too much work, I thought, to ride. I tried 32c's, which helped, but now I have 37's mounted, which seems about right for the 10-20mph that I normally travel around town. The manufacturer's spec says that the trail is 45mm-I don't know what size tire that is with, but whatever amount the larger tires added to that means that now I can ride no-handed figure-8's in the parking lot. And the frame is quite straight as well-on the road when I let go and sit up it just goes right ahead without having to lean to one side.

You will notice that I have mounted Campagnolo ergo levers with disc brakes. The Avids are well-made and very strong, and modulation is nice with the Campy levers. The feel reminds me of the old Campy Delta calipers, with the better pads. These Avids are good brakes alright, but I have one complaint: a squawk from the rear brake right at the most useful point in the power curve. I can squeeze a little more gently, and it won't make a sound, or squeeze a little harder and go past the squawk into the grind, but in any case I don't feel like I have complete control over brake balance front-to-rear. It's annoying. Not intolerable, and not what I would call a Fatal Flaw, but annoying. I've cleaned the rotors and resurfaced the pads but it still is there-I'll break down and replace the pads sometime soon.

The sharp-eyed gear wonk will say that there are no Campy-compatible hubs for disc brakes. Which is true. And which is why I am using a Sram cassette on a Shimano-compatible hub with Campy shifters. I would not recommend this to a customer. It's way too adjustment-sensitive, but I've been able to dial-in things well enough for personal use. Shifting is good where I expect it to be, but at my commuting speeds I was always in a crossover gear, which is noisy and increases wear on the drivetrain and with the present shifter/cassette combination I had too much cable tension in my lowest gears. So I changed the little chainring from 34t to 38t-now my most useful gear range is out of crossover territory. That's what I never liked about the compact double, 34-50, chainrings...for me, anyway, averaging 16mph I'm in either a small/smallish or large/largish chainring/cog combination. And when I want just a little higher or just a little lower gear, the single shift on the rear puts me into even worse, noisier, combinations with the chainrings. So I would end up making three shifts with the rear derailleur and one with the front, just to get a slightly different gear, which ends up to be four times more shifting than I care to do. What a pain in the neck. The 38t chainring solved that-it makes the crossovers less useful, and being just 12t lower than the big ring, whether I want a slightly different gear or a completely different gear, either is accomplished by a single shift. I think that I might eventually go with a 48t outer ring, but it's OK for now.

Fenders are great in the Winter and useful year-round, and I think that everyone should have a bike with fenders. Not saying that every bike should have fenders, of course, but if a cyclist can own at least one bike with fenders they'll be riding a lot more. These are made by SKS.

The pack is actually for handlebars, but I have shimmed and mounted a threadless adjustable stem to the seatpost, with a short stub of a handlebar for the pack to clamp onto. Don't worry about the Record Carbon seatpost-it's already pretty scratched and gouged, repaired and strengthened internally with two-part epoxy and part of an old aluminum handlebar. I don't mind lowrider panniers when carrying a large load, but I absolutely dislike carrying stuff over my front wheel-it badly disrupts the handling and parking of the bicycle, is scary terrible in a crosswind, and on rough terrain I want to look down and see exactly where my front tire is rolling. I don't get how the randonneurs can stand riding with their stuff under the handlebars-to make it work out right you have to have just the right steering geometry, and just the right pack, mounted low and back with just the right decaleur and stem and front wheel and rack support and fenders that don't rattle against it, with the right hardware that won't all come apart and jam in your front wheel and kill you and even if you do get it all right if it's not cotton and leather and brass and French you still can't be a member of the club. Ridiculous. Put your stuff behind the saddle, either like this or in a saddle bag or on a standard aluminum rack. Handlebars are for holding onto, not carrying luggage.

I'm pretty proud of my rear light mounting. I fabricated a small flat steel bracket that holds the light and also fastens onto one of the fender struts, all simple and light. The headlight is a different story, though. While I think this is a good light, it's ugly; too many wires and black plastic. It comes off easily, which is a benefit, but I'll continue to look for something more elegant, perhaps mounted to the fork crown or front of the fender.

STAR CSP

Bicyclists are rightful users of public roadways, and are subject to the rules of the road just as they would be while operating any other vehicle.

If, in the responsible operation of your bicycle, you are harrassed or threatened or endangered by a driver, you can easily report the incident by dialing Star C.S.P.

Get the license plate number. Absolutely required.

Star CSP will give you the Colorado State Patrol Aggressive Driver Hotline. Give them the license plate number and details of the incident.

http://bicyclecolo.org/page.cfm?pageId=731

Busted Nut

ha ha.

Iver Johnson BB

Iver Johnson bottom bracket, made in U.S.A. probably in the late 1920's. Solid steel with nickel (I think) plating. Iver Johnson's Arms and Cycles Fitchburg Mass U.S.A. also manufactured, as the name implies, guns. Which were also solid steel with (I think) nickel plating. Evidently they were adept at making steel tubes.
Iver Johnson famously sponsored the great American bicycle champion Major Taylor, whose is a remarkable story.


The fixing nut is left-hand threaded as is the cone locknut, which also serves as the extractor. Of the hundreds of tools, mostly metric, which litter my desk and walls and drawers and floor, not one would fit that loxtracter nut. I had to fabricate a one-inch flat spanner, which I might have to wait another thirty years to use.

Disclaimer

In case you haven't figured it out by now, half of what you read here is true, half is made-up and half is unsubstantiable hearsay. Naturally, there is some overlap.

The Strange Life

There's an old saying, "The Lord protects the weak and the poor." And perhaps the stupid, too. But Lord or no, there is certainly some inexplicable force in the universe that comes into play at the most opportune times (or inopportune, depending on your perspective) to create the most astounding results. Coincidence is perhaps the strongest force in Nature.

Something motivated me to put a rubber band around my wallet for the ride home. I had NEVER before put a rubber band around my wallet, for any reason. When I arrived home, I discovered my wallet missing. I turned around, rode the whole way back to the shop along the same path but at twice the speed, eyes peeled and hyper-attentive, pulse 190, then turned around again and rode back home, again on the same path as before. No luck. Dejected, I put my bike away while plotting a strategy: call Visa and MC, call DMV, call police, call bank, etc. And when I walked into the house, my wife said, "Is this your wallet? Some guy just stopped by and said he had found it in the street." Not a dollar was missing. And there was the rubber band, which had prevented the wallet from exploding on impact.

When I was in college, the only snow day in four years was the Monday after I had pulled a 48-hour term paper session and still didn't have the damn thing finished. With my semester grade hanging in the balance, I went to bed at 3:00am for four hours of sleep, prepared to hand in a final draft with the endnotes still an incomprehensible mess. Woke up ten minutes after the class would have started to an ice storm and school cancelled. Can you possibly imagine my relief? Do you think I didn't cry?

More than a few times in my business I have incurred an expense which left me wondering, "How am I going to pay for this?" And then mere hours later I make the grand sale which covers it.

Many times at the end of the business day I have stopped myself from rushing out the door, thinking, "Stop, Wait, You have forgotten something." And just then the air conditioner kicks on.

Each summer for six years I have rebuilt two Campagnolo shifters. The second shifter comes in within a day or two of the first one. Why does it happen this way? Is there some sort of Moon phase, coincidental with a weekend event, preceded by a rain, on an odd date, with the wind from the south, on the day that I ride my Cuevas? With a rubber band around my wallet? What is going on here? The first time, it was like, "oh, great, another busted shifter." Year two I thought, "hmm, just like last summer." Year three was, "that's strange." Year four was, "well, I'll be damned! Just like before!" Now it doesn't surprise me at all. In fact, last summer I predicted it: said to Ed, "look here, our first Campy shifter overhaul. That means another is soon to arrive." Which in fact it did. I actually have a repaired shifter on my bench at this very moment, and I don't doubt that on the day the customer picks it up another one will arrive to take its place.

When I ride Cherry Creek I generally put my keys in one pocket, my wallet in another. But for some reason on this one ride out of hundreds I left my wallet in the car and put my keys in the seat bag WITH A SNAP-RING ON THE ZIPPER to hold it shut. I swear on the C.O.N.I. manual that I had never before in my life put a snap-ring on the zipper of my bike bag. But something made me do it...
There had been a lot of rain in the previous week, and the river was running four, five feet higher than usual, which of course also means that it was fifty feet wider as well. A lot of water running down the creekbed at a pretty high rate, in any case.
My counselor and his padawan were there, and we were on a section that has disappeared gradually over the years, caving-in due to erosion. Normally it doesn't present a problem, we just ride a little higher up the bank, but at this particular spot on this particular night in this particular weather, the trail was held in place by grass and shrubbery and was eroded underneath, all hidden by said shrubbery. It didn't, uh, look all that dangerous...
While passing through, I ducked under a branch, made a little hoopdy on a rock or something, went off balance, felt my rear wheel give a little, botched the recovery, clipped-out with my downhill-side foot to catch myself, and stepped right into...nothing.
Uh-oh.
SPUH-LASH!
Headfirst, upside-down, off my bike, underwater.
UNDERWATER!
SHITSHITSHIT!
WHERE'S MY BIKE?
WHERE'S MY KEYS?
MY WALLET?
WHICH WAY IS UP?
Flailing, kicking, paddling, searching for a handle. A root, some mud, grass, anything. A hundred thoughts simultaneously blazing through my mind in the seconds before I found my footing. I had executed a 180 with a half-gainer on the way in, and at least another 180 with a roll before I found the bottom and stood up with a snort, opened my eyes, and where am I? Facing...downriver! In water almost up to my armpits, and there goes my bike!
AAAH!
Cross bikes, by the way, float upside down with their tires just breaking the surface.
I waded the ten yards downriver, grabbed my bike, dragged it back and then handed it six feet up to my buddies, who then pulled me up. They were speechless. Awed. Dumbstruck. They had missed the show.
And I, laughing my you-know-what off, adrenaline-shot, out of my mind with excitement and glory and victory, gave my bike a shake, straightened my glasses, remounted, and shot off like nothing had happened.
"WAIT!" they shouted.
"HURRY UP!" I replied.
And thanks to that little snap-ring there was no further trouble.

Clothing List by Temperature

Always: helmet, sunglasses
Items not worn should be taken

105F
white kerchief on head and neck, soaked with water
white jersey, long sleeve
ventilated gloves if desired
shorts
socks and most ventilated shoes

85-100F
SS jersey
ventilated gloves if desired
shorts
socks and shoes

70-85F
SS jersey
jacket if cloudy or altitude
gloves if desired
shorts
socks and shoes

55-70F
gloves
ear band
LS jersey
convertible jacket
shorts
leg warmers
wool socks and shoes

40-55F
insulated long-finger gloves
ear band
SS jersey
LS jersey
jacket
shorts
pants
wool socks and winter shoes

25-40F
winter gloves
ear band
LS jersey x2
jacket
shorts
pants
wool socks and winter boots

10-25F
glove liners
winter gloves
wool hat or balaclava
face protector
undershirt
LS jersey x2
jacket
winter tights
wool socks and winter boots

-10-10F
glove liners
winter gloves
overmits
wool hat or balaclava
face protector
SS jersey
LS jersey x2
jacket
winter tights
pants
wool socks, plastic bags and winter boots

-15
add ski goggles
Mukluks and insulated pants
Jagermeister

-30
are you out of your mind?