Notice that the headline reads fun “with” bikes. Not fun “on” bikes. And where fun is concerned, well, your mileage may vary, especially if you’re me faced with a mechanical project more complicated than pounding some irksome object with a hammer.
Mark Nobilette was kind enough to build me a custom cyclo-cross frameset a while back, with eyelets for fenders and racks just in case I decided to do something other than jump off and on the sucker for an hour on Sundays. It’s a beautiful piece of work, equally capable on road and trail, but I cut a few corners when building it up and it’s always felt just a wee bit off as a consequence.
So yesterday I finally got around to replacing a few of the dodgy bits. As I am to bicycle mechanics as Rick Perry is to Constitutional scholarship, there was a certain Stooge-like flavor to the procedure, and I ain’t talkin’ Iggy Pop here.
I had it all, or so I thought. Excel Sports Nimbus wheelset, Vittoria Randonneur Cross Pro tires and tubes; Nitto B135 Randonneur bars; Thomson Elite seatpost; Selle Italia Flite 1990 saddle. But as the man says, “Some assembly required,” and as per usual there were missing bits of this and that, which slowed the march of progress more than somewhat.
For instance, I had one rim strip, but two wheels; front brake cables out the wazoo but no rear; and where the hell were those little rubber donuts to keep the brake cable off the top tube? I knew I had thousands of them, more than Michelle Bachmann has voices in her head, but I couldn’t lay hands upon them.
Finally, I got it all together — a phrase you will only rarely hear applied to me — and got the bike rebuilt, just in time for it to start raining.
So I didn’t get a chance to check my work until today. Squealing cantis, a straddle cable too high in the rear and not high enough in the front, handlebars not quite set to the proper angle, the stem maybe just a skosh too steep — in short, the usual slop job from our resident shade-tree mechanic. Happily, squeaky cantis never killed anybody.
Mad Blog Media 
Holy mackerel…have you been feeding that stem Viagra?!
Nice work tightening up the Nobilette though. There’s something special about white frames…they just look cool.
Barry, the stems get steeper as I get older. This one is a bit much, but only a bit. Did I mention that my chiropractor drives a BMW?
Nice ride! One question though: are the bars flared like the Salsa Moto Laps? I love the ones I have but they stink with brifters even if the flare is kind of nice for downhill sketchy bits.
James, these are the only flared bars I’ve ever loved. I’ve tried the Motos and they don’t work for me. More flare than a hippie’s bell bottoms.
As to brifters, I can’t advise you on these bars. I’m moving to bar ends on everything in anticipation of the Apocalypse. I think the Nittos would be really nice with a pair of Shimano 600 aero brake levers, but I’m down to one set of 105s. Oh, the pain.
“I had it all, or so I thought. More than Michelle Bachmann has squeaky cantis than voices in her head, but I couldn’t lay hands upon them. Finally, I got it all together and got around to replacing a few of the dodgy bits just in case I decided to do something other than jump off and on the sucker for an hour on Sundays.”
Really, mashing up some of your great lines keeps me up nights.
Ben, you’re liable to give yourself the brain cramp doing that. God knows I’ve given it to myself often enough.
Very sharp looking ride you have there Sir. Love the understated decals and components against the white of the frame-set. Classy. But please don’t run over your tools (rear tire) -its not their fault really! Glad you got a chance to ride it squeaks or no. BTW I have the Nitto B-135 and love them on pavement and gravel.
Ryan
Hey, Ryan,
Those are actually the house keys; I used them to keep the bike from rolling down the driveway while I shot it. If they look like tools it’s because the keyring includes a titanium bottle opener from Scot Nicol. It’s engraved with the legend “Beer Is Good.” And yes, it is.
This is my second pair of Nitto rando’ bars and I love ’em.
Where would the world be without shade tree mechanics and jail house lawyers?
And don’t forget meatball surgeons. “Aw, you can get by with one of those, don’t be such a baby.”
Let us know when you’ve ridden this bike. My experience, both in the bike shops I managed and even more when setting folks up on our rental machines in Italy, is stem positions like this make for some squirrely handling. Not enough weight on the front wheel for proper weight distribution and not enough “lever effect” (since the stem goes more up than forward) on the front wheel, making for twitchy, oversensitive steering. Think of the arc the handlebar makes as it moves side to side — a shorter lever (the stem) gives a lot more turn for less movement than a longer stem. I must admit I’ve never set up a bike like this for myself as an experiment but when I set one up for a client like this I find they often end up being sketchy descenders and seem to have trouble on steep climbs with too little weight on the front wheel for stability. But, like with some of our clients, if that’s the only way you can fit on this bike, there’s probably not much else you can do
Larry, the bike serves up a very stable ride despite the boner stem. It has a nice long wheelbase (40.5 inches) and the Nitto B135 bars extend further forward than the Salsa bars I was using before, so I get a little closer to the front wheel.
I haven’t done any screaming descents on it yet (unless you count the screaming of the cantis until I finally got the sonsabitches dialed in), but I rode it through the Garden of the Gods today and it handled the Garden’s ups, downs and multitudinous morons parked in the bike lane, right next to the signs saying “NO PARKING IN BIKE LANE,” with delicacy and grace.
That said, I think I’m still gonna replace the boner stem with more of a half-master.
Beautiful bike! As for the squealing cantis, I always figured that’s what they were supposed to do. They don’t do much for deceleration anyways; might was well warn folks in front that you’re coming and that despite best intentions, you ain’t stopping.
Erik, the way I see it, the shrieking cantis save me the price of a bell.
Ah, dodging the inevitable (?) Death by Squealing Cantis! Dude, I call me mechanic when my car’s Low Fuel light comes on!
Nice work, really, and wishes for appropriate weather for checking it all out.
My personal aspirations range all the way to getting on my damned bike this season – it’s been a complicated kind of hell here this year.
LBT, I may be the worst mechanic ever. I never have the proper tools, parts or skills. But I do have a survival instinct, so I roll around the block a couple of times to gauge the hazard I pose to myself and/or others before taking my little clown act out on the road.
Sorry to hear about your hellish complications … how has the Devil been watering your lawn lately?