Bikes – Page 2 – Palm Beach Bike Tours

August 19, 2009

Building a Wheel for My Surly Long Haul Trucker

Building a wheel is easy if you know what you’re doing. I don’t, so I turned to Wayne at Bicycle in West Palm Beach when I wanted my SON generator hub built into the front wheel of my new Surly Long Haul Trucker. (Wayne and his shop, Bicycle, are one-name entities, like Cher or Paris.)

I promised back in January that I’d post a video of the process when I learned the rudiments of how to do it.

Wayne builds a 26″ wheel around my SON generator

Wayne took the hub off the front wheel of my old Trek 1220, where it had been whirring away without a problem for four or five years. He ordered a 32-count Alex Adventurer 26-inch rim similar to the one supplied on the Surly Long Haul Trucker Complete. The original wheel is a 36-spoke-count rim, but the SON hub is a 32, so I had to send the first wheel back. I also needed spokes, nipples and Wayne.

Total cost for the new wheel (excluding taxes and shipping)

Wayne trues wheel with SON hub for Surly Long Haul Trucker

Alex Adventurer Rim – $34.98
Spokes – $35.20
Nipples – 3.84
Labor – $30.00
GRAND TOTAL – $104.02

It’s running straight and true

I’ve been riding it for almost eight months now and it’s still running straight and true, despite potholes and railroad crossings.

I’m not surprised. This is the third wheel Wayne has built for me.

July 29, 2009July 29, 2009

Surly Long Haul Trucker Showing Some Rust at 500 miles

My Australian virtual friend Andrew, AKA Aushiker, just wrote about giving his LHT its 500 km winter service.

Everything checked out OK, except that he noted some rust on two stem face plate bolts.

I wrote back to tell him that mine were showing the same thing and that I’d replace them with stainless steel bolts at first opportunity.

My LHT is a Short Haul Trucker

After reading Aushiker’s account of 500 km service, I almost didn’t weigh in.

It causes me to confess that my Surly Long Haul Trucker just turned over 500 miles.

Since mid-January.

That’s pathetic. I’m waiting for the Surly folks to take it away from me for being unworthy of the name Long Haul.

Oops, I found MORE rust

When I had my bike up on the rack this weekend mucking with the ring lock, I had a chance to look everything over more closely.

That’s when I saw some rusty b0lts on the cranks (above) and on the brakes.

Salt air is all ar0und us

I make it a point not to ride through any puddles that I KNOW are saltwater, but some exposure is unavoidable. I’ve written before about how we’re surrounded by salt air, even though I live a couple of miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

I’ll replace the bolts that I can and keep an eye on the rest. It’s no big deal, but I hate to see rust. Of course, I guess I could just say that rust builds character, like it did on my brother’s old Sears Spyder.

May 26, 2009May 28, 2009

Pimp Bike: Carson on His Big Wheel

From the files of pimp bikes, here is Carson:

That is 12 inches in the back and 24 inches in the front. The bike’s back end is a Huffy but he didn’t know where the front end originated. The front brake isn’t connected.

—Matt

May 15, 2009May 15, 2009

Taking the High Road on Bike to Work Day

My foodie friend, Jan Norris, sent me this picture of a bike rider on A1A in Delray on Bike to Work Day.

Do you have more info?

Unfortunately, no.

Her answer, “Shot while driving. He was hauling A.”

If anyone knows the rider, let me know. I’d like to hear his story.

When you don’t know, you have to speculate

He might be a member of the Freakbike Militia, but I don’t recall seeing him on their last group ride.
He could be a retired 18-wheeler driver, nostalgic for his former point of view on the road.
He could be a drywall finisher. Instead of wearing stilts, he tools around the room on his high bike.
He likes to read road signs at eye level.
He takes flash flood warnings seriously.
He assembled his bike late at night without reading the instructions.

Thanks to Jan

Thanks to Jan for the picture and for not running over the cyclist while she was driving and fumbling with her cellphone camera.

April 6, 2009

Buying a Flying Pigeon in China

Joyce Reingold, publisher of The Palm Beach Daily News, and a blogger in her own write (that’s a pun, not a typo) said I might be interested in reading Rachel Sauer’s tale of buying a Chinese bicycle.

What’s so unusual about that?

Well, it’s because she bought it IN China.

Rachel is what we call a member of the PBNI 600. In less than a year, our former newspaper has shaken off about 600 of us like fleas off a stray dog. Some of us were lucky enough to take early retirement, others have started new careers. (I think I saw a former copy editor on a street corner holding up a sign that said, “Will Count Commas for Coffee.”)

Meet The Chairman Mao

Rachel, a former features writer for The Palm Beach Post, is producing a highly readable blog, Mandarin Orange, “In Which I Live and Teach English in China.”

Here is her account of buying her new bike, The Chairman Mao.

This blog is going to be on my daily must-read list. That gal can sling words around. Post readers are really missing something.

Excerpts:

I really wanted this bike. I’d dream about having one every time I gazed toward the horizon and considered what could be out there. Desert! Farms! Mountains! Donkey carts! Oh, I was filled with longing. It’s been fun walking everywhere, of course, but as I discovered when I walked to the Iron Gate Pass — 10 miles round-trip — I tend to be seized with ennui/nihilism by mile eight or nine: This whole stupid world looks the same and I will never get home so I might as well die right here. In Nowhereville, China.
He said 750 yuan and I clutched for the pearls I wasn’t wearing. 750! I swooned a little, letting him know that I’d never heard such a thing in all my born days. Why, I could hardly catch my breath! I made to leave, to go find a nice fainting couch somewhere, when he told me 690 yuan (about $101).
This time, I hung my head. Oh, this was sad news. About the saddest I’d ever heard. I shook my head mournfully. What was this wicked world coming to when a girl — a stranger to this country! — couldn’t even have her own flying pigeon? Tragic.