Tuesday, January 30, 2007

A Lighter View

How would I explain my moment of Zen Biking right now? I am not on the Drunken Monkey so I can’t tell you.

I guess the hip thing to do, would be to talk about the boring race that’s coming up. I really hope the Icycle holds true to its name. I love watching cold southerner’s run around in the snow. Right now the forecast is calling for flurries on Saturday. Yaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

Here is the latest. Since I purchased the Exi-wolves, I have never had a trail flat but Sunday my front tire went flat while cleaning my bike. Yes, that’s right I was actually washing my bike with soap and water (rare, even more rare than a steak ordered by a Mountain Lion) when I picked up the bike and noticed the front tire was awful squishy.

It could have been on the trail or something I did during the cleansing but I didn’t inspect the tube. Not yet at least. I will throw a new tube in there tonight and see what happens.

TD’s post piqued my interest. Ever since I bought the Drunken Monkey I have only had one complaint. I wear size 12 extra wide cycling shoes and I pedal like a duck walking through the forest (this means I pedal heals in for those of you who don’t get it.) Because of this, the inside of my shoes rub against the chain stays at the bottom of my frame. Don’t believe how much they rub?



Yes, that is a little more than six months worth of polishing steel. That little cable guide that is on the drive side reeks havoc on my shoe as you can see.



I need to have that guide cut off. I will show my ignorance here, I wasn’t sure if cutting that piece off would effect the integrity of the steel in any way. Now I understand that when done properly, it should be an easy fix.

This is something that will stay implanted in my mind when buying another bike. So that’s the next question. Is it actually possible to heat and temper those steel stays again to shape them inward and pull the rubbing out of the equation all together? My un-educated answer is probably not easily if it is possible at all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jonathon -

With a steel frame you can easily have the cable guide cut and rewelded on. Paint will be your only issue, from cutting off the one weld and heat damage (to the paint) of the new weld. The cutting off and rewelding will not damage the frame integrity.

My question is why is there a cable guide on an SS frame?

Dave

ExtrmTao said...

Dave, Thanks for the reply. I am going to try and find someone in G-Vegas with the tools to do this.

It has a guide there because it has horizontal drop outs and a de-railer hanger. It can be geared or single.