Done!

Finally! We took the mixte out for its maiden voyage. Thankfully, everything worked as it should. It was nice to be able to once again share a nice evening ride with my lovely wife.

The Women's Brooks B67s saddle, bell, and cork grips arrived yesterday. After a few coats of shellac on the grips the bike was ready to go. Next payday should see the addition of a basket and maybe a set of fenders.

My wife suffers from neck and shoulder pain and needs to sit upright when she rides so I was glad to find this generic but attractive riser stem at a local shop. I coupled it with North Road style bars from Wald. The stem and bars combined cost me less than $25.

Saturday Evening Ride 03-07-09

Another nice ride for me and my son this evening. We rode to the new southern terminus of the Trinity Trails system in Benbrook. The Trucker seems to have developed a ticking sound near the crankset. I'm not sure what it is, it could be the pedals. It only happens when there is force applied to the drivetrain. It's not there when I spin the pedals while the bike is on the stand. Whatever it is it's driving me crazy!

I've decided to go back to using a Wald basket up front. I really like the look of the Ostrich bag but for me a basket is the best all around setup. The biggest drawback to the Ostrich bag becomes apparent when I'm off the bike. The bag comes with a narrow matching shoulder strap but it's a little awkward carrying something that boxy around with you in a store. I prefer to carry a shoulder bag (it's a very manly shoulder bag) in the basket. It's quicker to just remove the shoulder bag from the basket when I stop and the wide shoulder strap is much more comfortable. I will be selling my Ostrich bag and decaleur if anybody is interested.

The end of the line. It looks like trail construction will continue across the street sometime in the future. 

Here's my 12 year old standing near a newly constructed bridge. Whoever did the construction on this section of the trail did an excellent job.

This is the smaller of the two Wald baskets that Rivendell sells. It's just right for my needs.

Another sign of spring. I don't know what these trees are but they are everywhere.

Taking a few flowers home for mom.

Cowtown Classic-I'll Try This Again

I had posted a short video clip from the Cowtown Classic Bike Ride that took place Saturday morning, unfortunately I accidentally deleted the video. After engaging in a futile search to find the original file I just deleted the entire post and decided to try again. Here's another video from Saturday's ride. This was taken with my Flip Ultra camcorder which I had mounted in my Wald basket. This is my first attempt at peicing together video using Windows Movie Maker.

The ride itself was great with temperatures in the 70's at the start. I rode part of the way with my son, the guy in the orange jersey thats towing me along. He's taken over my old TSX tubed Quattro Assi (8 speed Ultegra components, downtube shifters). I'm glad somebody's getting some use out of it. I was on my Kona Smoke 1x9 which turned out to be faster and more comfortable on the 20 mile ride than I expected.

The Big Basket

Well, since I'm injured and stuck riding smooth surfaces for a while, I had this crazy idea that I'm going to start doing something that I ordinarily despise, grocery shopping. I decided that I was going to buy a basket for my bike and start riding the relatively short distance from my house to the grocery store. I figured I'd save some money on gas and add a little more purpose to my riding.

I gathered up my eleven year old son and drove to Bicycles Inc. at I-20 and Grandbury road here in south Fort Worth. A few minutes later I walked out with the Wald Giant Delivery Basket. Like the name implies this thing is huge. I started putting the thing together and installed the handlebar clamps with no problems. The only hitch came during the step where you thread the quick release skewers through the holes in the support legs and try to remount the wheel. Neither the instructions that came with the basket nor the website mentioned anything about the support legs being incompatible with the safety tabs on the fork dropouts. I did a quick Google search and came across the Lockring Not Included blog where the author had the same problem. He simply took his Dremel Tool and filed those suckers off, so that's exactly what I did. A few minutes of grinding and the basket was ready to go.

The next day I filled a canvas military bag with about fifteen pounds of assorted bike tools, a camera, and other stuff, put it in the basket and took off. I was impressed with the way the bike handled. It didn't take long to learn that when climbing with any weight in the basket you either stay seated or limit your upper body movement to prevent the load from shifting and throwing you off balance. I really didn't have too much of a problem with wind resistance. I guess this is due to the thin wire used to make the basket. One minor irritation that I noticed is that any exposed metal on your cargo is going to make a constant ticking sound when it comes into contact with the basket. Just line the bottom with a t shirt or something before you take off.