Kids' road bikes

I got this idea yesterday, after spending an hour or so trying to find a decent children's road bike: start a company to make a decent children's road bike. I'm not sure how good an idea that is, really, but here's the thing -- they're really hard to find.

There are several racing bikes available with 24" (520) wheels. Trek makes one, Specialized makes one, Fuji makes one, Blue makes one. But they're all aluminum, and they're all racing bikes, not all-rounders like Juliana's old square-rigger Fuji. I've said before that I've never owned an aluminum bike, and I don't think I'd inflict one on either of my kids, either. Sure, they're lighter than a steel bike, and they don't rust. But based on my limited exposure to Cannondales and the like, I'm guessing they're not as comfortable to ride, either. Pretty much everything else is a mountain bike of some flavor, though I should note that there are also lots of department store road bikes in the mix, too. For example, you can't help but trip over dozens of GMC Denalis on Amazon or eBay, and that's a branding mash-up I really just don't understand.

I get that kids tend to be hard on their gear, but I'd love to see something like a junior Sam Hillborne. Actually, it probably doesn't even have to be lugged -- TIG it to keep the costs down -- a junior Kogswell P/R. Point is, something kid-sized, flexible, rackable and somewhat traditional. Problem is, it would probably be cost-prohibitive.

But set that aside for a moment. Picture a company that sold a wee little 20"-wheeled road bike -- call it a 6-speed to keep it simple and lose a couple of components. Spec things out on the inexpensive side, but not crap. Little city bars, maybe -- or allow for some build options, even. Then offer a 24"-wheeled bike that ups the ante on the components and gearing (12-speed). Then a 26" in 16 or 24 speeds. Finally a 650B or 700c bike the kid can ride straight through high school. All of them chromoly, all of them with bottle cage braze-ons, all of them rugged and equipped with rugged wheels and tires, and all equipped with lights and kick stands and good pedals that will withstand a kid's abuse. For the bigger bikes, offer racks for skateboards, baskets for pads, bags that hang from the racks and double as backpacks -- useful accessories for kids -- all through an e-store. Sell kits of stuff that kids should have on their bikes, and should learn how to use (pumps and spare tubes and patch kits in little seat wedges). Put educational clips on YouTube showing the kids how to use all that stuff.

And maybe even take them back in trade from their original owners for a fair value to encourage upgrades to the next size -- though if they're good, they'll hold their value on eBay. Sell the refurbs at a discount to start the process over again. Or maybe don't sell them at all -- lease them. Or maybe not -- needs more thought.

Anyway, the business model might not work. And given how litigious people are, it may be too risky, period. And I'm not sure how it would fare without a bricks-and-mortar presence for ogling bikes and accepting trades. But I like the idea and I've got to believe there's an opportunity to create a great brand in this space. Good kids' road bikes are just really hard to find.

All for now,

J

Wheel Building

I need a new pair of wheels.

I'm still thinking through the Columbia project, particularly with respect to rear brakes. But whether I get a set of cantilever posts brazed on or not, I'm still going to need a pair of wheels -- that defining trait of a bicycle.

It came to me with a pair, but they're not really what I want. The chromed steel rims don't have any braking surfaces, the hubs are not particularly smooth, and the coaster-brake rear hub has a ton of drag. I think they're probably 571 rims, rather than 559, but I still need to validate that.

I have parts to build a set of wheels up, now, as I think I've mentioned. A set of fat Sun rims in the 559 MTB standard, and a pair of SR hubs. The hubs probably started life years ago on a 10-speed, but the rear hub has been spaced for a single speed freewheel. These are 36-hole units, and the question is what to do with them.

For $200 or so, I could have a pair of wheels built at Wheelworks, and get something back that I'll likely never need to mess with. Or, for $200, I could go buy a wheel building stand plus a spoke tension gauge, plus maybe a copy of Jobst Brandt's wheelbuilding book. And then for still a little more, I can go buy a pile of spokes and nipples and set to work. My friend Steven, who gave me his Motobecane, knows how to build wheels. He may be able to help, even!

I've never built a wheel before, and nor have I had particular success attempting to true a wheel. I'm also not the most patient guy in the world, so I may not be an ideal candidate for wheel building. I'm sure they wouldn't be perfect, but it might be fun. And with any luck I'd have a skill to save me money long after this project is done. For instance, I could lace a set of 26" rims up to a set of road hubs to buy one more year out of Juli's Fuji, once she's grown a bit more. Or any number of other things.

Any advice from others who've tried it?

Looking beyond the wheels, I'm pretty close to having all the parts I need for that build. I bought a trio of Wald baskets, new and old (a new small front basket and a pair of NOS side baskets like Juli's for the rear). I have racks to hold up the baskets and brakes, but should buy new brake levers. I have a new Wald seatpost, and a new and wider Wald handlebar, too. The fork and headset and stem are covered. I haven't yet bought a new crank, bottom bracket, chainring or chain, but I have some ideas, there. I also bought a new set of pedals with half-inch quills. Once I get through the holidays, I'll tear it down and start to build it back up. I'd toyed with the idea of a repaint, again, but it's just too expensive to be worth it. And after all, its mission in life is to be a highly functional clunker.

All for now,

J

Butter

My dog Jake just ate a stick of butter off the counter. Brand new, and waiting for the butter dish to be clean (dishwasher). But now I'm just left with a clean wrapper and a very sheepish dog.

My hope is it will be good for his fur, and not make him puke in my bedroom tonight or suffer other gastrointestinal distress.

I love how he looks all guilty about it, at least. Didn't stop him from eating it, but he's perfectly aware that he wasn't supposed to.

All for now,

J

Rolling in the attic

Apart from painting, the last major project I completed in my house was to redo the attic.

When we moved in, the attic had one light bulb hanging from a cord in the ceiling, a separate (unlit) room, complete with doorway and walls made of wainscotting planks, wide pine board flooring and a sink at the bottom of the stairs. It was also filthy with dust and roofing crud, had no storm windows, and no floor in the addition over my daughters' bedroom (just open insulation). And via gaps in the antique exterior trimwork, it filled up every fall with ladybugs and brown stink bugs (neither of which was much in evidence when I was a kid, one town over, btw) that made their way into the house every spring, much to my wife's chagrin.

Today, it's completely different up there. It's not living space (the floor joists would have to be sistered up for that), but it's much more usable space than it was. I pulled out the room, replaced the stair treads, replaced the floor, added additional insulation underneath, added some storage shelves, added more lighting, insulated the end walls, hung a layer of that mylar bubble wrap stuff on the rafters, and generally made it a much brighter, cleaner more pleasant space to be.

The attic is mostly empty, but I store air conditioners up there off-season, and keep my camping gear up there, along with christmas decorations and the like. I've set aside a corner of the space for my daughters to use as an art studio, though they need a drawing table up there. Maybe a drafting table. I've also hung maps of the world, of the USA and of Massachusetts up there for the girls and me to plan places to visit together. One we checked off last summer was Provincetown. And with some luck, we'll head to Amsterdam next summer.

Getting to the point of this post, I also have my training rollers up there, set up in a riding stall I built while I was redoing everything. It's a great setup that I used "for real" the first time a few weekends ago, and maybe a half dozen times since. The rollers are Minouras that I got for Christmas a few years ago. They're nothing fancy, but they fold for storage and easy transport, and how fancy do they really need to be, anyway? The stall is about 30 inches wide, so it's a good width for rollers. I'm not crowded, but at the same time, it'd be pretty hard for me to get to a point where I fell off the rollers or tipped over far enough to hurt myself. I can actually use the full width of the rollers, and just about brush the wall on each side with my upper arm and shoulder, while riding at the outer edges of the drums. I reinforced the walls at about where my shoulders sit, so as to prevent accidentally busting through the blueboard. The stall is lit from above, and the rollers are sitting on interlocking foam pads. Not at all a bad place to spend some time in. I use the Kestrel, exclusively, up there.

For entertainment, I have an old Denon receiver sitting on a shelf next to the stall, with a pair of Cambridge Soundworks Model Six speakers to either side. The receiver pre-dates iPods and the like, but the CD inputs work just fine with my iPhone or my girls' iPods, so we can all listen to music whenever we're spending time up there.

The rollers are far more interesting than a clamp-in trainer, but because you can fall off, it's generally a good idea to use them in a hallway or doorway or stall like the one I built. The nice thing about rollers is they help you not only with your cadence and having a smooth spin, they also force you to be smooth in how you balance the bike, and give you the ability to play games with placing the bike on the rollers as you ride.

For a smooth spin, I tend to focus on spinning my ankles and feet in circles (vs. focusing on my quads and my leg stroke). A computer with speedometer, odometer ride time and cadence is perhaps not a must-have, but certainly a big plus in terms of getting to a consistent spin and keeping track of my workout. As for bike control, I sometimes lock my eyes onto a point on the maps opposite the stall, sometimes practice ranging from one edge of the drums to the other and back, and other times even try riding with my eyes closed. It's amazing how hard it is to tell what I'm doing by inner ear alone, by the way. Invariably I end up at the right edge of the drums, with my right shoulder up against the wall, when I do that. Don't take that as a recommendation to try riding with eyes closed.

The rollers feel a bit like riding on the road, effort-wise, except that there's really no coasting. Your body's forward momentum (considerable, in my case) doesn't play into anything, so the only thing that keeps the wheels spinning are the comparatively small rotational momentum of the drums and wheels, plus whatever energy you put into the drivetrain. So, stop pedaling and you've got only a couple of seconds to restart, unclip and get a leg down, or otherwise balance yourself.

I've heard rollers are hard on tires, but so far mine don't seem to be too bad that way. I need to replace the tires on the Kestrel in the spring anyway, so burning them out this winter is no big deal. On that subject, I recommend smooth tires, for the sake of vibration and noise -- no heavy treads, and I assume you're smart enough to stay clear of knobbies. Using the rollers (or the floor pump you see in the foreground at right) also terrifies my newly adopted dog, Jake, shown here with Ava. I keep him out of the attic while I ride, rather than risk giving him a heart attack. Fair warning.
In any case, I'm enjoying my riding stall while I can, though there are still no offers on the house, even though last spring it was virtually ladybug- and stink bug-free, courtesy of all the work I did. I won't claim to be a world-class cyclist or roller-user, and honestly I don't understand where people find more than 45 minutes or so to spend on a bike trainer -- a guy I had Thanksgiving dinner with yesterday says he spends hours on his. But I can bang out a 10 mile workout in less than an hour, including time getting dressed, grabbing a towel, filling a water bottle and the like, plus a few minutes at the end with the dumbells. And I expect that as I increase my frequency, fitness and pace, I'll be able to squeeze a few more miles into that hour window.

If I stay, I'm also planning to set up a workstand up there for the handful of bike projects I've got planned for the winter. As always seems to be the case, I've got some setup changes, maintenance updates and one major rebuild to do. More on those another day.

All for now,

J

Adventures with Lawn Equipment

I think a guy flipped me off, today.

I was driving my contraption down the strip of grass alongside my road, in front of my house, picking up the last bits of leaves, which I'd blown there with my walk-behind leaf blower, through the slats of my picket fence. Just the remaining scraps, really, and 90% of their shredded remains were being captured inside the box on my trailer. The rest, along with some grass clippings, but surely nothing heavier were being blown out through the slightly bowed-out rear door on the box (an unfortunate shortcoming of the design of the current door, which isn't reinforced along its full height). Possibly miffed that he had to drive his car through some blowing leaf bits, he slowed, extended his arm across his passenger's chest and I think gave me the universally accepted North American symbol of contempt. Or maybe he was just saying "Hello." In fairness, I'm not certain.

But assuming he gave me the bird, it's funny what makes people indignant. This car no doubt travels down the highway at 70-80 mph, with sand, stones, errant bits of hardware and truck tire bits plinking off the paintwork at speed. In that context, are some airborne grass and leaves, driven through at maybe 20 mph, really cause for outrage? I was, after all, vacuuming the leaves up, not blowing them into the road and calling them removed (which would have been obnoxious and deserving of said gesture).

Anyway, no harm done. And in truth, this does highlight one of the shortcomings of my leafer box design -- it's not particularly well sealed. That's one of the things I need to fix for the next time I use it, whenever that proves to be. Here's a list of stuff I should improve upon:

• Stiffen the rear door. This will be easy -- I just need to run some strapping down the full length of each side of the door, and then put an angle brace on the top to connect it to the strapping already running across the top. This should keep the door from bowing out and letting so many leaf bits escape. And whatever cracks remain should seal pretty quickly with grass and leaves.
• Better door hinges. The ones I used are flimsy, and I need something stronger, along with a better mounting approach.
• A better top seal than I've got today. Today I have a length of strapping running along the top of each side panel, and I screw the top panel into the edges of the strapping (an error prone process, given how narrow it is. The top is relatively flimsy and blows up with air pressure. If I relocate the strapping to the top panel as a stiffener along each internal edge, and then mount a 2x3 to the top edge of each side panel, just underneath the relocated strapping, I'll end up with both a stiffer top and a wider screw target for reassembly.
• Better seals around the top vent and input chute. The T-shirts I'm using work great as seals and dust filters, but I need to sandwich them between layers of strapping to make them a bit tighter.
• Brackets to hold the truck loader in place on the trailer. I just strap it down, now, and it drifts a bit -- sliding left and right with vibration (mostly right). Not a big deal, but I'd rather it moved around less.

And that's really about it. Otherwise, it's proven to be a pretty effective design (though the word "design" may be a bit grandiose for something that was cobbled together mostly by eye). The tractor needs some love, too:

• A ring job. Or a new engine. Neither one really makes much sense from a cost-benefit perspective, of course. Oil is much cheaper. But I don't like blowing the stuff up into the sky, and I really don't want to cook the engine on this tractor
• Some patching of the mower deck. Fiberglass cloth and resin should do it. Though maybe I should buy a welder and learn a new skill?
• A new transmission brake strap. The one on there is feeble at best. Though I have to say that I didn't otherwise miss the independent brakes from the 430 the past few weekends. The tractor climbed just fine and never lost traction.
• Repair to the lift. There's something broken in the linkage. Not sure what, but I'm guessing it's a worn or broken pivot bolt.
• New drag wheels for the deck. I just need a pair of metal mower wheels to replace the ones on there (one of which is nylon and the other of which really belongs on my grill).
• A new tube in the left rear tire. It loses air in a week's time. I suppose I could Slime it first, to see what that achieves.

Over the holiday weekend, I'll see to some of these things (mostly the box upgrades) before tearing it all apart and stashing the components until next year. Or until I move -- whichever comes first. As I disassemble the leafer, I need to use some care in organizing the contents of my barn. With any luck, I'll be able to fit everything on the main floor. I'm trying to empty the basement out, because if I sell it after snow lands, getting stuff out of the basement then will be much, much harder.

I'll also spend some time working on my little $200, 20" edging mower, assuming the parts I ordered today arrive by then. I've got major surging going on, which some Googling indicated is due to a deteriorated fuel diaphragm. It was a great mower the first season I had it, but it's been useless this year. Parts are on order, including a new oil cap for the leafer.

All for now,

J

Last Time?

Getting the leaves off the ground every fall is the one true chore that this house presents. There are lots of smaller jobs that need to be done regularly, yes, but this one is awful by comparison. I've written about this before, but the first couple of years I did it with a rake and a tarp and it took three solid days of effort, spread across two weekends. I'm dead serious -- 24 or so solid hours of raking and dragging. I hated it. And of the 10 years I've been in the house, I've received material assistance only twice. Mechanization has offset the lack of support, though. First with a rented blower, then my own. Then adding my trailer into the mix, towed with my walk-behind, to cart the leaves from parts distant to the woods. Then finally to my contraption and its iterations.

This year, I 've so far run my leafing rig for maybe 8 hours, and gotten most of the work done. Down from 24 hours of raking, I can now get the leaves done in maybe 10 hours, most of which is spent riding my tractor in a standing or seated position, and instead of a disposal problem, the minced leaves (mostly maple) make a nice mulch to spread around erosion-prone areas of the yard.

Today I finished most of what was left. Juliana gave me an hour or so worth of help raking up along the picket fence and in places I can't really take my leafing rig. We made a good team, and she didn't really complain. She raked the dry, top layer out from along the fence, and then I followed behind, scraping the wet, wormy leaves out from underneath. Hard to say how much time she saved me, but it doesn't really matter -- her company alone was welcome. At first, she looked a little uncertain when I started raking after her, cleaning up the wet stuff, so I threw her a thumbs up and told her we made a great team, and she was all smiles after that.

Less than two hours this afternoon with my leafing rig got the space outside of the fenced yard and the back yard most of the way cleaned up. The leaves underneath were still wet, so some stuck to the grass, but they'll dry out overnight and I can get them up tomorrow. I just need to clean up alongside the house, in the garden beds and along the fence (inside, this time) in the front yard. Maybe an hour or so of raking, a bit of time with my blower and then an hour or so of sucking up the results with the rig.

Using my contraption was as much an adventure as it always seems to be. The oil smoke from the tractor is still pretty bad, despite using degunking stuff in the crankcase. And for the second time, the truck loader's engine popped a crankcase plug I'd improvised (Profile handlebar tape plug), blowing maybe a pint of motor oil all over hell and gone. I stole an oil cap from another engine, and that one worked (as designed) to finish the job. But now I need to go buy a new oil cap for the leaf blower, because I need to use it tomorrow.

Assuming I get everything done, that'll mark an even decade of cleaning up the leaves here at my house. Still no offers on the house, and my wife and I are meeting next Friday to talk about progress in settling. One thing we'll talk about is a buy-out figure for the house.

Last time with the leaves, here? Time will tell.

If I have to do it next year, I've got a list of improvements to make to the leafer. More on that tomorrow.

All for now,

J

Leafing Rig, the Sequel

So far, so good with the 812.

I spent an hour or so today getting it ready to work as the front end of my leafing rig, then hooked it up and filled a couple of boxes before I ran out of light. To get it ready, I needed to do a handful of things to it:

• Swap the hitch ball. It was too small, as I guessed it would be, but the mounting hole was sized for automotive hitch balls, rather than proprietary bits like my 430's was. Convenient, to say the least, and the 2" ball I'd had to adapt to the 430 bolted right on.
• I mounted the Trac-Vac chute to it. The chute is a little banged up from 3 or 4 seasons mounted up to the 430. And it fit the 430's 40" deck better than this one's 50"-er, but I was able to make it work reasonably well.
• I replaced a drag wheel on the deck. I actually took one from my gas grill, which I'd repaired with lawnmower wheels a few years ago. Home Depot specials, but metal centers, not nylon.
• I adjusted the mixture screw on the carburetor to lean it out, some. I also dropped the idle speed a bit, because it seemed unnecessarily high.
• I re-gapped the points, and reinstalled the points cover. That seems to have helped starting. It runs like a champ, actually. The smoke belching out is also just gray, now, so it looks like straight-up oil smoke. Needs new rings, it would seem -- or maybe they're just stuck. If I end up keeping the tractor for next year, I'll have to get that looked at.

Some quick points and impressions of my first couple of hours using it:

• It's definitely not sissified. The tractor seems to go up hills just as readily as the 430 did, full trailer and all. It's got power aplenty and I don't get the sense that the hydrostatic transmission has a problem transmitting the torque to the ground.
• The gearing is definitely more usable. It's got a fast reverse, two ranges and four speeds. The top gear is a sort of "road" gear in either range, and it helps me get out of the way much more readily when I have to loop onto the road to turn around (it happens).
• The brakes stink. The independent axle brakes on the 430 were much more useful than the single transmission brake on the 812.
• The hitch seems very sturdy, despite my misgivings about its design.
• The deck seems a bit healthier than the one on my 430, but not radically so. It's wider, though, so I can actually snort up more leaves per pass. The leaves are nice and dry right now, which makes it easier too. If I hang onto it, a new pan might be worthwhile, but I'd need to pull it apart to see how all the pieces are doing, first. This deck, btw, looks exactly like the one that came with my walk-behind. That one had a spindle go bad, and I replaced it 5-6 years ago with a brand new Gravely 50" deck -- one of the last available after they stopped making them. The pan was in better shape than this one, and it had new drag wheels and other new parts on it. This is not the first day I've regretted discarding it, rather than keeping it around for parts.
• The shape of this seat does not facilitate riding around with my girls, unfortunately.

Tomorrow I'm going to get back out there to make a bit more progress. I have Ava for the day, so we'll see what her appetite is for helping. First, I'll need to go over to the auto parts store to get a quart of oil, a container of Marvel Mystery Oil, and a new spark plug. I'll also get a container of some engine degunking stuff to mix with the oil in the hopes that its problem with smoking has more to do with stuck rings than worn cylinder walls. If that fails, mabe dump a little kerosene into the cylinder and let it leak down into the oil for a few days before having the engine pulled apart for new rings.

The plug is for the truck loader's engine. I broke the insulator off the old one yanking the wire off. It doesn't have a kill switch, you see. So I have to pull the plug wire, which is more comfortably done with a stick (or the handle of a rake, in this case) than a gloved hand -- less zapping involved that way, but unfortunately a bit more breakage of plugs.

And before I climb on, I'm going to grease up the spindles on the mower deck, as well. Anything with a grease fitting or cup, for that matter. I'm hoping I've learned my lesson re: lubricating stuff!

A lesson I already know is that I need to use a little restraint, here. I've already dreamed up a half dozen things I could do to it to improve it. But now is really not the time...

All for now,

J