Update on my self-imposed goal to ride 200 miles on each of 10 bikes. 15 days in, Bike #1 has completed his tour of duty. My late father's Windsor Carrera Sport served me well on my long-way bike+BART commute between El Cerrito and Union City California. I took a parting shot on the UC Berkeley campus, and I'll post that when I get the chance. I'm about 450 miles into the cumulative 2000 mile goal, so everything is going fine. The toughest challenge will be to find enough willing stokers to get 200 miles in on my tandem. My son Henry is the most willing, but he's really too tall for the back of my size Small HubbuHubbuH. He should be riding captain and taking a friend on a picnic, which doesn't help my goal.
Among the fun things I discovered in putting 200 miles in on the Windsor were: 1. I like Albatross bars, but they can make my hands get tingly numb at times, which is something I "never" experience with normal drop bars. If I was going to do actual long days on an Albatross bike, I'd have to experiment to get around that. 2. The 2x5 drivetrain was ample for my needs. My chainrings are 48/32 in front, and I have a 14-32 5sp freewheel in back. 98% of the time I was on one of four gears: 48x21 or 48x26 on flats 32x21 or 32x26 on steep climbs. On my fast morning descent I'd drop to the 48x14, but coasting would have been fine. 3. Centerpull brakes have 'personality'. I read in a Jan - blog post that his $400 centerpull brakes are self-toeing. Let them squeal for a few rides and they will get quiet as they wear somehow. My Dia-Compe centerpulls were a lot more random with respect to squealing. On some days they were silent. On others, I could get them to squeal under hard braking. In some weather conditions they seemed more willing to squeal. I did not touch them mechanically, I didn't clean anything or adjust anything. I wanted to just observe, and my observation is that my centerpull brakes are moody and enigmatic. Now my daily commuter will be my 1985 Schwinn Tempo, which has the utter extravagance of a 2x6 drivetrain (6!). It's a LOT lighter weight, which makes BART steps a lot more effortless. The Tempo has 650x38B tires vs 700x28c on the Windsor, so that also is a luxury. After I finish my 200 miles on the Tempo I'm planning to take it to Ed Litton for cantilever brake posts and cable housing stops, which will finish up the last details of making it fully Rinko capable. I might get it powder coated pink, and will definitely use a set of Resurrectio stickers when I do. Bill Lindsay El Cerrito, CA On Friday, August 4, 2017 at 12:46:26 PM UTC-7, Bill Lindsay wrote: > > I get a six week sabbatical from work from late August to early October. > I had a bike tour plan, but it was going to be solo, so my family nixed > that. My wife and kids are all quite busy, and I'm trying to really savor > where I live and the blessings I have, so I'm doing a six week stay-cation. > The two main activities will be riding a bunch and handyman projects. I'm > a numbers guy and I like measurable goals. I'm also really happy with my > fleet and how every bike in my fleet is dialed. One of the reasons I keep > the entire fleet dialed is for 'wear-leveling'. I use them all so each of > them lasts a REALLY long time. So, the measurable goal I've set for myself > is to ride 200 miles on each of 10 different bikes during the 92 days of > August+September+October 2017. I started out with my oldest bike: my > late-father's 1973 Windsor Carrera Sport, which I restored shortly after > his passing. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
