Old Carradice, New Carradice.

Somewhere under all that stuff is a Nelson Longflap.

Time to talk about the true bag of the Retro-Grouch, the British-made transverse saddle bag. There were many makers of this bag back in the olden days, but the only maker that has survived into this modern era is Carradice. So Carradice is the bag seen most often. And I've got a few.

The old Nelson Longflap given to me by Todd Boulanger last December has seen service on the Long Haul Trucker, regularly getting stuffed with gear on my various bike camping and touring excursions over the year. After all that wear and tear, the 30 year old bag needed some TLC. So I removed it from the LHT and brought it to my local outdoor repair guru, Matt at Mountain Soles. I picked it up on Tuesday.

Mountain Soles patched a couple places on the bottom of the bag, and also patched the area around the left buckle, as it was starting to pull away from the bag.

They also replaced one of the flap snaps (ha!) that had fallen off. This required more patching.

Another minor repair that I ended up doing was replacing the screw to the wooden dowel, as the original one here is MIA.

This is one of the things I love about traditional bags and their canvas: they can be repaired. Now hopefully I'll get several more years of life out of this bag. Now it will see duty on the Raleigh Crested Butte.

Old and new.

*****
As for the LHT, well I did something crazy: I bought a BRAND-NEW Carradice for it! I've managed to pick up my last three Carradices used, so this was a big deal. I would have loved to find another used Nelson or Camper Longflap for a reasonable price, but they rarely come up on the local Craigslist, and the ones on eBay are either overpriced or worn out if they ain't. And buying a brand-new Carradice in Portland is easy, as there is not one but TWO stores that carry them: Citybikes and Clever Cycles.

The Carradice stock at Clever is a new development. At the end of October Clever had one of their rare and random sales, where all bags were 20% off, including Carradice. Getting a discount on a new Carradice is a very rare thing, so I jumped on it and got a new Nelson Longflap for a hair over $90. I would have gotten a Camper Longflap if they had one, but alas, the shop employees pounced on them when they got their first shipment. (As I would have if I worked there.)

Anyways, I figured I did really well with the Nelson Longflap, and while the Camper offers more volume (24L vs 18L), sizewise the Camper isn't much longer. So the Nelson will do. And she looks fine on the LHT.

Bikecraft this weekend!

My hair will be longer, and my mustache much, much shorter. Photo from Bikecraft 2011 by Tomas Quinones.

Hello all my Portland people! Hello all my people who are within a reasonable radius to "drive" to Portland! What are you going to be doing this gloriously rainy weekend? You don't know? Well, let me tell you what you are going to be doing this weekend.

You are going to come to Bikecraft, Portland's annual festival of bikes and craft, crafty bikes, bicycle crafters, and Kraftwerk.  Bikecraft has been going strong since 2005, and yes, I have tabled every single one of them. Bikecraft will happen Saturday and Sunday, December 1st and 2nd, from 11am to 6pm each day. Yes it is free to get in. Yes, they will be selling beer.

And yes, there will be a butt-load of cool stuff for perusal and purchasing! (Bring small bills, no ATM will be on-site.) And yes, you can purchase every single item you find in the Store* from me at Bikecraft! I'll be sitting next to Tomas Quinones.

Bikecraft will happen at Sandbox Studios, 420 NE 9th Ave (at Flanders) in beautiful Portland! (Behind the Franz bread factory.) Hope to see you there!

*With the sole exception of the Random Button Assortment Ten Packs. Not bringing those, sorry.

And what? Another contest?

UPDATE 11/30/12: The contest is over. See below.

Friends, after yesterday's consumerist proselytising, it is time to reward you fine folks with another contest! Aren't y'all lucky? (Yes, you are.)

Anyways, the lucky winner today will get this fine book.

Okay, the cover isn't that exciting, so let's look at the frontspiece.

Yep, it is indeed a book from the early seventies about Motorcycle Camping and Touring. Y'see, I ordered this book from an online book retailer that is not Amazon. Well, really, I ordered Bicycle Camping and Touring, and this is what they sent me. I'm not really into motorcycles, and they don't actually have the book I want in stock, so they gave this to me for free. And since I don't want it, I am going to pass it off to one lucky winner!

It's actually a pretty cool book in that groovy post-hippie sort of way, if you know what I mean. Lots of detail about what kind of motorcycle to buy, troubleshooting on the road, camping gear, and of course, a little bit about the Hells Angels.

Anyway! Now time for THE CONTEST! The first person who answers this correctly gets it.

The question: I like sending postcards to myself while I am on tour because a postcard gives just enough space to convey the feeling of the moment. After expressing that, how did some moron describe a postcard?

The answer, of course, will be provided in an entry from the blog during this year. The answer must be written verbatim. And now THE FINE PRINT:

• Please include your mailing address with your answer.
• Contest limited to people CURRENTLY IN THE UNITED STATES, as I'm only shipping this to a US address. Sorry, but this book is too expensive to ship anywhere else,. As it is, the book will be shipped Media Mail, i.e. "the slow boat", which can take up to two weeks to arrive.
• You can't have won a contest in the last 90 days. (Sorry, Nicholas.)

UPDATE 11/30/12: After three days of the contest, I received NOT ONE RESPONSE. I get the message: none of you readers want it. So, I made the executive decision to send it to someone who I knew would be interested, Mike "Bikamper" Bullis. The answer below.

Forget Cyber Monday, it's "Telegraph Tuesday" at the Urban Adventure League. (Yes, this post is supposed to encourage you to buy stuff.)

Ready to deliver.

Hello friends! I don't like doing many of these "Check out my store" posts, as they distract from what this blog is about. But it's "that time of the year", I've got some new stuff, and some really good prices on other things. So without further ado, it's the Retro-Grouch sale day known as...

TELEGRAPH TUESDAY!

All this for $10

First up, let's talk about zines and comics. I've had the "Comic Three Pack" and "Zine/Comix Two-Fer" up for a bit, but now I've got the "Zine Two Pack" collecting both the Cycle Touring Primer and Bike Fun Primer for $4, 25% off regular price. And you can get all of the current zines and comics with the "Comic/Zine Five Pack" at $10, 33% off regular prices!

And over in buttons, we've got some new buttons and returns of old buttons, all of the ones you see below.

Do you want a button with my face on it? Sure you do.

I've also got a healthy number of buttons on CLEARANCE for 50¢, while these buttons last! And you can still get 5 buttons for only $3, a savings of 40% off of the regular price.

Also of interest, the RANDOM BUTTON ASSORTMENT, TEN PACK! I have accumulated a collection of buttons over the years from various people, places, or things. Most of these buttons are NOT MY DESIGNS, and NOT ALL OF THEM ARE ABOUT BIKES. But you can get these ten buttons for only a buck!

And finally this week only you can get one ALMOST FREE button with any zine, comic, book, or poster purchase! (Would be totally free, but Paypal doesn't allow $0.00 as a valid amount, so $0.01 will have to do.) OFFER EXPIRES 11:59 PM ON MONDAY DECEMBER 3, 2012.

Alright, enough. Please consider supporting this website and myself this holiday season. Head on over to the "Store" to check out these deals.

Thanks everyone for your support!

Break Stuff

"Lake" Kenilworth.

As you may know, I currently have five bikes, three of which are now in the "active" fleet. (The other two are the Rudge Sports which is rideable but needs some more love and is not a winter bike, the other is the Raleigh M40 mountain bike that I still need to sell.) It's nice to have a variety of bikes to choose from, but because I'm neurotic I need to have all of my active bikes be in good shape. If something is wrong with one of them, I want to fix it ASAP. I'll wait a bit if I'm broke or don't have time, otherwise off to the bike shop it goes. The problem with this rationale is that it's not always cheap to have more than two bikes at 100% all the time. This is what has caused me to sell a third bike in the past.

Anyways, last week I was riding my new and fun Raleigh Crested Butte to work and noticed a grindy type of sound as I pedaled. It was annoying but not overly so. On the way home, however, the grinding got much worse so I aimed my bike towards A Better Cycle. The verdict: the cranks were on the verge of falling off because the bottom bracket was shot. So I had them replace the bottom bracket. I knew something like this could happen, as the bike has probably sat in a shed for 28 years. And bottom brackets aren't really that big of a deal to replace (I paid $24 but I also had unused store credit.)

Because I've been loving riding the Crested Butte, I got it done immediately. This is better than I used to be when I looked at bike repairs in the same way I look at dental work: to be avoided as long as possible. But I could have easily ridden the Crested Butte another half-mile to my house, hung it up to be dealt with at another date, and pulled down either the Raleigh Wayfarer or Surly Long Haul Trucker and used them instead.

*****
So this Sunday I actually pulled down the Wayfarer and rode it for the first time in at least a week. It was quite interesting riding it to work, as I had grown used to the Crested Buttes handling, high trail and all. The steering on the Wayfarer felt twitchy in comparison so it took a little bit to get used to it, then it felt like an old friend. So after work I rode the old friend over to Kenilworth Park in SE because it was nice out (sun, around 50F/10C) and I wanted to take some photos of myself and the bike, as I didn't have much recent pics of either. Using the self-timer I snapped this shot of me.

Then as I was attempting to pick the camera up from the ledge it was perched, I dropped it. You can guess where this leads to.

I'll have to say I've had a good run with this camera, a Kodak Easy Share V1233. It was left unclaimed at the hostel three and a half years ago, so I took it. 12 megapixels and free? Sure. But the camera wasn't doing so hot as of late, as there was a lot of digital "noise" in low-light images. I knew I would need to replace it at some point, but now I'll have to replace it sooner than later, if I want to keep on taking nice photos for this blog. (The things I do for you folks!)

Does anyone have any camera recommendations? I'd like to stay at 12MP or better, and I don't want to spend a heck of a lot of money (which doesn't seem to be that hard these days.) And if anyone out there has a gently used decent digital camera they'd like to sell me, trade me, give me, please get in touch.

Cygolite Metro 300 LED headlight

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I am now a believer in dynamo powered lighting. I guess you can say I saw the light. (Ouch!) There are many reasons: they are bright, they are theft-resistant, batteries don't ever need to be recharged or replaced. It's always there, always on (if you just leave it in the on position.) When one gets used to dynamo lights, one stops thinking about the lights themselves.

Now enters a new bike into the mix: The Raleigh Crested Butte. I intend to use the Crested Butte as an everyday bike, and my other two everyday bikes, the Raleigh Wayfarer and the Surly Long Haul Trucker, have dynamo lighting systems. But the Crested Butte won't "go dynamo" anytime soon, basically because of the expense of a dynamo system. Even if I did it on a budget, a dynamo hub system creeps toward $300. ($50 for a budget dynamo hub, $30 for a decent rim, $40 for spokes, $50 for a wheel build, $60 for the basic B+M light, $30 for a dynamo powered tail light.) Take out the new wheel and add a decent bottle dynamo instead, I'd save about $125 from the above price, but there are no decent bottle dynamos available locally (or for the most part anywhere in the US save for the B+M model available through Peter White.) Ordering from Europe gives me more options, and I may just do that at some point, but can you say expensive shipping? Not only that, but bottle dynamos have more resistance than a hub and can wear the tire.

So for now, a battery powered headlamp will suffice. Of course, since I've gone dynamo I haven't bought a battery powered headlamp in at least two years. And most of the ones I had are MIA, leaving only one, my Princeton Tec EOS that is mounted on my helmet. But I want to keep it on my helmet, so a new light had to be purchased.

Thankfully in this highly technological world of 2012 we have good choices in the bike lights department. Pretty much any battery light you see these days are LED and each year they get better and better. Much better than when I started city biking in Portland in 2001. The basic battery light selection was very mediocre unless I wanted to spend serious cash on a high-powered battery pack system. I bought what many newbie bicyclists bought in that era: A Cateye halogen headlight that took 2 "C" batteries and went dim within one night of use. The next year Planet Bike released their ubiquitous "Spot" headlight, the beginning of the "blinkie" trend. It's hard to think of it as such an improvement, ten years later, but it was. And like many other budget minded cyclists, I bought a few over the years. Heck, I still have a working one at the bottom of my parts bin.

The VW Bug of the bike light world. Still available in 2012.

So I could have gone with another Planet Bike light, I could have "kept it local"* and bought a Portland Design Works headlamp,** or maybe another Princeton Tec as my EOS is a great light. But upon the recommendation of Kim at North Portland Bikeworks, I got myself a Cygolite Metro 300.

And the Metro 300 has a lot of selling points.

• 300 lumens, 3.5 watts. It's bright.
• Five modes. Med > High > Low > SteadyPulse > Day Flash. After the "its on or off" settings of dynamo lights, this one takes a little getting used to.
• Water resistant. Old battery powered lights sucked in rainy weather.
• Rechargeable via USB. No more worrying about disposable batteries, as long as you have access to a computer you can recharge easily.
• Made in the USA.
• Grant Petersen likes 'em. (Why do I keep on saying this?)

After a few weeks of regular use on the Crested Butte, I can say I'm pretty impressed. As a battery powered light, it is good. The strength of the light at high (or heck, medium) setting is comparable to my dynamo lights. The one big difference is beam: like most of the battery powered LEDs I've used, it's pretty much a "round" beam (think of a flashlight beam.) It lacks the fancier optics of the B+M lights. It's better since I made the lower mount for the light, as the beam stays closer to the ground.

There are of course the inevitable shortcomings associated with any battery light. It's not hard mounted (and can't be due to charging) so I need to remember to remove the light when I leave the bike for any significant period of time. (The position of the light is more hidden than being on the bars, but I don't want to chance it.) And yep, I still need to recharge it. More importantly, I need to remember to charge it, because it's no fun to realize your light is about to die, and you're miles from home. Which is the situation I got myself in the other night. (Thankfully I had the EOS on my helmet as back-up. But of course, that started to die as well.)

And this is the one failing of the Metro 300: There is no low battery warning. It's fine, and then it dims rapidly. There is a little green light on the power button, located on the top of the light, that is "on" when the light is on, and flashes when charging. How much harder would it have been for Cygolite to add a "low battery" setting to this? Could be a fast flash, or a red light. In this day and age with so many rechargeable electronics and their battery indicators, why can't a battery headlight have this as well? 

Despite that shortcoming, I think it's still a good headlight. And hopefully the last battery powered headlight I'll have to buy for some time.

*All of their products are manufactured overseas.

**I do have their Fenderbot, so I am "representing."

Sign the petition: Require the National Park Service to allow camping to all self-propelled visitors even if campground is full.

April and myself are so happy...because we don't have to worry whether we'll have a spot to camp or not.

Happy tofurky day! Our friends over at the Adventure Cycling Association turned me on to this petition.

This petition would require National Park System units to ensure touring cyclists and other non-motorized travelers have a place to camp even if a park's campgrounds are full. It says: "Self-propelled visitors (SPV), people arriving by foot, bicycle, canoe, or other mode of non-motorized travel, frequently arrive at a park after the campground has sold out, and may not be able to travel to the next available campground before dark."

Existing policy seems to be park-by-park in nature. Quite a few large western national parks (Yellowstone, Glacier, Grand Canyon, others) have designated hiker-biker sites, and guarantee space for late-arriving cyclists.

As someone who's toured through a few National Parks, I have first-hand experience with this problem. When April and I toured Glacier, we weren't stressing out to find camping spots, as the park provides hiker-biker sites. However, when I've toured both Olympic and Mount Rainier, we were constantly worrying about making it to a campground before all the spots filled up.  A few times we almost didn't make it. (Note: While National Forests usually allow free or "dispersed" camping outside of official campgrounds, all camping in National Parks must be done inside official campgrounds.)

While I would love to see hiker/biker sites offered at all National Parks, I feel that a "no cyclist (or SPV) turned away" policy is a good start. If you agree, please consider signing the petition. They need 25,000 signatures by December 15, and they still have a long way to go.

Re-blogged from Cycle Wild.

A Cranksgiving Contest!

UPDATE 11/23/12: The contest is closed. See below.

Yes, my friends, it is the day of the American holiday popularly known as "Thanksgiving", but if you are into "bicycle culture" at all, you inevitably call it Cranksgiving. Yes, there are historical implications for this holiday, but nowadays it's just a way to watch football and eat lotsa foods.

But I want to give thanks to you, my dear readers, for following this blog for longer than you probably should. And this thanks translates into a contest for a prize!

But first, a little backstory: back during my stay at the Grand Lodge before the Verboort Populaire, I visited the local Goodwill, as I am want to do. Small town thrift shops can be a rewarding experience, as they tend to not be as picked over as the city ones. And besides, I am clothed as if Grant Petersen went on a shopping spree at Goodwill, so it is my imperative to check out any thrift shop in my path. Anyway, at the Forest Grove Goodwill, I was duly rewarded with...

A LONGBOX!

Okay, if you have no clue as to what I'm talking about, let's go back to a simpler time, the late eighties into earlier nineties. Bush One was in the White House, grunge was starting to grungulate, Grant Petersen hadn't yet been let go from Bridgestone. This was the era when the Compact Disc was ascending to the preferred format for music storage, but not yest ascendent, as cassette tape was clinging to its short-lived (and not that deserved) supremacy. The era of the LP wasn't long past, though. Record stores needed some way to display CDs (this was before special CD racks were predominant). The easy solution was to display them in LP racks, especially since record stores had plenty of LP racks and little to no LPs anymore. The answer: the longbox, a carboard box 12 inches long and 6 inches wide, with the CD inside and badly butchered record cover art on the front of the box.

Not one but TWO Carly Simon longboxes? Wow.

When I was a music-loving teen, I loved longboxes because they basically were a free poster that I could put on my bedroom wall, advertising my love for bands like Aerosmith and Metallica. However, all the waste created by longboxes (most folks just threw them away) raised environmental concerns, and due to pressure from musicians and activists alike, longboxes were phased out around 1993. The longbox faded into obscurity, a cultural curiosity not remembered by many. So it's a big deal to see an unmolested longbox in the wild. So I bought it.

The album? The Ghosts That Haunt Me, the first album by Canadian folk-alt rock band Crash Test Dummies. Of course you all know the Dummies from their smash hit "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" from their second album, God Shuffled A Deck of Cards. The album contained in the longbox does not have that song, alas.



 So now, it is time for THE CONTEST!

The first person who can email me the answer to this question will be the lucky recipient of this longbox in all its splendor!

The question: Why is Grant Petersen such a big proponent of bike overnights?

No, don't make it up. The answer is contained in an entry that was posted sometime this year. Yes, you must repeat it to me verbatim.

If you know the answer, please email it to me INCLUDING YOUR MAILING (POSTAL) ADDRESS. (Entries with no mailing address are disqualified.) Yes, I will send this longbox overseas, but THIS CONTEST IS OFF-LIMITS TO CANADIANS, sorry. This is because I know that every Canadian citizen is required by law to own the full discographies of Crash Test Dummies, Rush, The Tragically Hip, and BTO. (They relaxed the law when it comes to Gordon Lightfoot, now all they need to own is Gord's Gold to be compliant.)

UPDATE 11/23/12: We have a winner! Congradulayshuns to Nicholas Carman of Gypsy by Trade, who correctly answered the question. The answer? Here:

The light hack two: Electric Boogaloo.

After all the work done to the Raleigh Crested Butte, there remained one important thing to figure out: what to do about the headlight.

It's no secret that I've become a convert to dynamo-powered lighting. It's always there, you don't have to worry about removing lights or batteries dying. But there's also another benefit: a light not mounted to the handlebars. Dynamo powered lights are usually lower and/or more forward, meaning the road gets lit up a lot better. After all, dynamo headlamps are not just for being seen, but for seeing. Having the headlamp off the bars frees up valuable "real estate" on the handlebars. You only have so much room on your bars, and it's a given that grips, brake levers, and (usually) shifters will be located there, which take up a lot of space as it is. Anything one can take off the bars and put elsewhere either opens up opportunities for different things to be put on the bars, or if you are a minimalist, an opportunity to get rid of clutter.

While dynamo powered lights on the Crested Butte would be nice, I am in no hurry to do this. For one, dynamo hubs require the cost of the hub and building a wheel around it. The front wheel is still perfectly functional and pretty nice, so I don't want to nix it right now. And I don't have the cash. Heck, I might try a nice bottle dynamo at some point, but that's not going to happen soon. So a battery powered light is what will be used. And I do have a nice one, the Cygolite Metro 300 I bought last month.

So where to mount it? I don't want to mount it to the bars, not only for the reasons above, but for the added pain of the front basket. I've done the whole "mount a handlebar light to a basket bike" before, and frankly, it sucks. If there's too much stuff in the basket, it blocks the light. Even when the basket isn't completely full, the light ends up lighting the basket more than anything else.

You can see how a handlebar mounted light would be problematic in this scenario, as the top of the box is higher than the bars.

The hack I've used in the past is using one of Wald"s "flashlight mounts" that bolt to the side of a basket. It works, but barely. For one, they're designed for antique flashlights, not modern bike lights, so I would have to use a number of straps to secure the light in the bracket. Even then, I've had lights fall off after hitting a bump. And the bracket doesn't offer the best positioning for the light; rather than tilted slightly down, it aims straight ahead. This was problematic on bike paths at night, as the light aims directly into oncoming bicyclists. You better believe I got yelled at more than once.

Rather than buy a fancy "down low" mount for about twenty bucks, I finally figured out an appropriate, workable hack, one that allows me to mount the light under the basket. This is what I did:

The light itself  is mounted  to a 3/4" diamter PVC pipe "endcap". I drilled a hole into the center of it. Through this hole went a bolt that attached to one half of a 4" steel "L" bracket (the type sold for shelves.) The other half of the "L" attached to the underside of the front rack via bolt and judicious zip-tying (for now.)

Voila.

The cost for this hack? About three bucks. Parts found in a typical hardware store. Not bad.

It's worked so far. It's not the most elegant thing, but it works, and it's in a position where most folks aren't going to see it anyway. The biggest drawback to this placement is it's almost impossible to turn the light on/off or change settings while I'm on the bike. But it's pretty minor in comparison to the hassles of the handlebar mount.

Junk in the front: A personal history with the Basket Bike

When I got the Raleigh Crested Butte, it wasn't with the intention that there would be a basket in the front. It's just the way it turned out.

Y'see, if I go too long without a basket bike, I go into withdrawals. I don't realize my need for the basket bike until after I get rid of one, of course.

My first two bikes in Portland, my Giant Rincon and my 70's Schwinn three-speed weren't basket bikes per se, but each of them sported one of those Wald quick release baskets at some point. My first true "Basket Bike" was the Schwinn Collegiate given to me by my old room-mate Chris Larson in spring of 2006. True, it didn't sport a basket until I got one, but something about a vintage Schwinn just calls out "Wald basket".

The Collegiate in action at the Clown Wedding Parade, 2006. Yes, how Portland. Photo J. Maus.

I enjoyed the bike while I had it, but it only lasted me a year before it moved on. I couldn't stand it's primitive sixties rear derailleur, which would only ever get at best four (but sometimes only three) of the five speeds. Also I hated those Schwinn specific 26" x 1 3/8" wheels and all the problems it caused.

It wasn't long, however, until I found another basket bike: the Univega Safari Ten bought for $30 in White River Junction, Vermont (of all places.) I had the bike rebuilt as a three speed with a Sturmey Archer AW hub. And yep, on went a Wald basket! First was the venerable 139, then the uber basket 157. The Giant Delivery Basket hauled lots of groceries and the bike served me well for almost three years, until the bikes started to over-run the stable and I realized I didn't use the bike much.

Pedalpalooza 2009. Photo J. Maus.

And then the Worksman Cycle Truck entered the mix, with its more-basket-than-bike approach. Much has been written about that bike here.

And now, the Raleigh Crested Butte is basket bike number four!

What is it about "junk in the front" of baskets that I like? Well, there's a few reasons:

• It's nice to be able to see your payload. No worries if something fell off (or is about to fall off) and you can get to things easily in transit.
• You can carry objects that are too big to be transported in a typical pannier or backpack/shoulder bag. Those same objects can be carried on a rear rack, but can be unwieldy (unless it's a long tail cargo bike.)
• They look cool.
• Tres retro Americana. America doesn't have much of a tradition of utility bicycling, except when it comes to front baskets. And WALD baskets are still made in the USA, a rarity for American bike parts.
• Grant Petersen likes 'em. (Wait, I wasn't supposed to say that out loud.)

While the Crested Butte is Basket Bike Number Four, it's still the first time I've mounted the basket "The Rivendell Way", using a hardware-less basket ziptied to a front rack, versus the typical "bolt to handlebars" method. And I am seeing the advantages to this method. It's versatile, for one; if I don't want to use the basket for some reason, it's removed in a minute without tools or rerouting cables. And the rack sits lower than the typical basket would, meaning a more stable load. The lower basket means I can fit taller items in the basket and not have to worry about conflict with the handlebars. And I can use a handlebar-mounted bottle cage with no problem!

One of the things I've been doing for my recent basket bikes is finding a good lock-top water resistant plastic storage container. I find the largest one that will fit. This way I have something to schlep books, zines, and goods for store orders and various craft shows.

The only problem that remains is what to do with a battery powered headlamp, because I don't want to mount it to the handlebars. How I solved this problem will be talked about in the next post. 

Rough Stuff

UPDATE 2/28/13: Thanks, Path Less Pedaled, for the "shout out". You should also check out this related post about a rough stuff adventure of my own here.

Ah, me and my bike obsessions. One of the things I love about when I get a new type of bike, I dive in and learn more about the bike or the culture surrounding it. This is what happened when I got the Raleigh Wayfarer nearly two years ago. Before then, I had minimal knowledge of three-speeds, British bikes, or the culture of British cycling in the early-mid twentieth century. Two years later, I'm a full on Retro-Grouch.

So I have a mountain bike again, and am interested in mountain bikes. I've been doing some reading on the history and the culture surrounding them. As a certified Retro-Grouch,* most modern bikes, and modern biking don't appeal to me, as I'm not really into "technical" stuff. I just want a classy looking bike that can take wide-ass tires and handle rough terrain.

Nope, don't like it. Not enough seersucker and twine.

And while what we consider the modern mountain bike wasn't seen until the 1970's and come into mass-production in the 1980's, people did "mountain bike" back in the day. When you think about it, good roads is a pretty modern phenomena, even in the developed world. In fact, there is a reason why most adult bikes seen up until the bike boom of the '70s had wider tires: to handle mixed terrain and rough roads. Most American bikes evolved into "balloon tire" bikes with 26" x 2.125" tires (559 mm wheels). These tires were low-pressure and high-volume, great for crap roads. The 26" x 1 3/8" (650A/590mm) tires found on British three speeds like my Raleigh Wayfarer were designed to handle smooth pavement, cobblestone streets, and primitive paths. And while 70's ten speeds commonly came fitted with 27" x 1" or 1 1/4" (25-630 to 32-630) tires, some folks put 650A wheels on these bikes, like the founders of Adventure Cycling Association when they were part of the Hemistour in the early 70's. The main reason for the different wheel size was tire availability outside of the US. But the riders found the added benefit of better handling on rough roads, whether it be gravel roads in the Yukon or primitive tracks in Central America.

Ah, so much better. Riding a bridleway somewhere in the UK. From wikipedia.

The desire to ride any road, anywhere has been around since the bike was created. This type of riding was known as "Rough Stuff" riding in the U.K. Rough Stuff riders would seek out the lands "where the road ends", hearts full of adventure. Back then, most bikes were single speeds, three speeds were a luxury, so unlike today there wasn't shame in walking if one needed to. Another challenge was "Pass Storming", trying to cross as many mountain passes as possible. What the U.K. lacks in height, it makes up for in steepness, and much of the "roads" that led to these passes were more suited for mountain goats than anything else.

As with anything, if there's enough people interested in something, a club or organization will inevitably spring up. The Rough Stuff Fellowship was founded in 1955 and has quite the colo(u)rful history, as detailed in a piece on the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame website. On it, it talks about one of the "founding figures" of the idea, W. M. Robinson (1877-1956)

...who wrote under the pseudonym 'Wayfarer'. In both his writing and lantern lectures he advocated leaving the tarmac to explore the wilder ways. To Wayfarer beyond the roads end there laid a wonderful world, which he urged the cyclist to seek out. To put this into context Wayfarer was a member of the cycling establishment with huge influence.

The Rough Stuff Fellowship still exists today. To a member, "Rough stuff begins where the tarmac ends," or "To the dedicated rough stuffer there is no such thing as a dead end".

I like the sounds of all that. I want to explore more of these places, which is one reason why the Crested Butte is in the stable. Of course, the mount doesn't matter, but you get the point.

More like it.

Here are some other rough stuff typed links for your consideration:

• Ruff Stuff Cycling. He hasn't updated in awhile but worth a look, especially him explaining "What is Rough Stuff?
• The Alpine Bicycle Club, based in Colorado, specializes in "mixed terrain" riding.
• The South Lakes Group, a a local group of the Rough-Stuff Fellowship based in the UK.
• A bit about pass storming from Cycling Before Lycra.

Geoff Apps and his Range Rider

UPDATE 11/19/12: Nicholas of Gypsy By Trade just turned me onto Geoff Apps, a British gent who made mountain bikes in the 70's and on under the make Cleland Cycles. And he wore tweed while riding as "...you've got to look dignified and relaxed, even when you're riding through twelve inches of crud..." He hasn't been given his due by the greater mountain bike community yet, though. More about him here.

*Retro-Grouch certification simply consists of showing up to a ride that Grant Petersen is at, and having him say "I like your bike" while on the ride.

I want to ride my bicycle...

A wet day in Portland.

It's the perfect storm of non-action. I want to get a "good" ride in, but everything's conspiring against me.

November is here, and winter is either here or on its way, depending on how you look at it. More rainy or cloudy days than sun, high temperatures somewhere between 45 and 55 F (7-13C). We haven't hit freezing (though we've come close a couple nights) so no frost. And no snow, of course. We ain't Edmonton.

For reference: Edmonton, just the other day. Photo: tuckamoredew

And the days are short too, so there's not a heck of a lot of daylight after I get out of work (when I work the am shift.) So if I want to ride, I better get used to riding at night.

And the biggest roadblock is looming deadlines. I have Bikecraft to get ready for on December 1-2, and my art show at Bikeasaurus on December 7. Am I ready? Ha! I'm far from that. So when I have free time, I optimistically put it aside for "getting art done". Do I get art done? Ha! I procrastinate more than anything else. I'm sure as the clock ticks on, I'll be pushed into action. But really, what this deadline biz does is I avoid  spending time on such frivolities as "a nice bike ride" because I should be spending my time "doing other stuff." And then I don't do "other stuff".

Of course, with the mental state I'm in, I should go on a ride. Maybe that's one reason why I rode the Verboort Populaire a few weeks back, even though I "should" have been drawing. I knew I needed that ride. And it's also why I took a nice little ride last Saturday. Yes, it was under the excuse of "running errands" as I had errands to run. But I'm sure if I really wanted to, I could have pushed those to another time. In my head, I knew I needed it, I just had to find the right justification.

A fun ride will have to wait for another day. Hopefully after all my obligations are taken care of.

Raleigh Crested Butte: The Ride

I've been riding the Crested Butte off and on for a couple of weeks now, so now I have a good idea what the bike is like and whether I like it or not. It's always worrisome to invest a deal of time, energy, and cash into a bike project when you don't know the outcome.

And the outcome? Yes, I like it!

I'm still getting used to it. And there are still tweaks to do and squeaks and rubbing noises to diagnose. (Ah, fenders.) It took a few days to figure out where the ideal seat height and positioning was, but when I got it "dialed in" it all came together. The swept back Civia Dupont bars became comfortable. As for the saddle...I'm going to have to say the Avocet Touring II doesn't really agree with me, so I'll swap it with the olden leather saddle I have in the stockpile. (If anyone wants to sell a Brooks B66/67/Champion Flyer or comparable saddle for a reasonable amount of money, please let me know. Trades also.)

The fit is good. Not perfect, as the frame height (20") on the short side, and it has quite the long top tube. A frame size one bigger, like a 22" might help, but I don't know.

And yes, that geometry is pretty relaxed! Oh yeah, that 68 degree top tube and a fork with a lot of rake! On the test riding without the front rack/basket, I popped a couple wheelies when taking off from a stop. Now that I have weight up there, it doesn't do that. I think it handles pretty damn well with a front load, and I've taken my hands off the bars and no wobble. Stay in line, she says.

The bike handles the "rough stuff" well, as I've seeked it out where I can. Potholes, yep. Rough road, uh huh. Love the Rubena Cityhopper tires.

The gearing is good, too. I will note that she's not a fast bike, and going uphill can take a bit more work than my other bikes (hello, relaxed geometry.) But the gearing is now enough, so I just work it until I get to the top of the hill.

The big issue, however, is I've found out that the front chainring is bent in all the rings, which means a new crankset at some point. Oh, the irony. I didn't want to replace drivetrain on the M40, which led to the purchase of the Crested Butte. And now the drivetrain of the CB has issues. Oh well. The big difference is that I really like the Crested Butte, whereas the M40 was just-ok. It is rideable right now, though.

There will be more tweaks down the road, but it's pretty good for now. I've found myself a keeper.