It’s the little things

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
Running a tab (that little black gizmo between the derailleur and its hanger).

For a while I’ve been considering various ways to make my single-ring Voodoo Wazoo a little less gravity-challenged.

The bike has been through some changes over the years, but it eventually settled down as a flat-bar, single-ring, 7-speed trail bike with 700×42 rubber.

One thing it’s kept throughout its various incarnations is some old-school-cyclocross gearing. The ancient Shimano 600 crank can handle a 38T inner ring, and the Shimano 105 rear derailleur a 12-28T cassette. This yields a low end just short of 38 gear inches, which is a tall order in some neighborhoods.

So I wanted to change it on the cheap. But how? Especially during The Great Parts Drought.

The only derailleurs in the parts bin are Shimano road, so no joy there. And I’m fresh out of square-taper 110×74 BCD cranksets, or I could pull four teeth out of my chainring like a crazy dentist. But then I wouldn’t have a guard to replace the outer ring. O buggah.

Rivendell has this nice Clipper double that would be just the ticket. Reasonably priced, but still a few bucks past “on the cheap,” and anyway it’s out of stock. Plus I like the simplicity of my single-ring setup.

But while I was nosing around over there I stumbled across this $10 doodad, a SunRace SP570 extender link to put a bit more daylight between that old derailleur and its hanger.

Now, the wiseguys have been using items like this for a good long while to retrofit wide-range cassettes to older bikes. The boyos at Wolf Tooth make a couple of them, the RoadLink and and GoatLink. Being an indifferent mechanic, I went with Riv’s bargain SunRace model to mitigate my shame should I achieve failure, as is often the case. Bought a nice KMC X8 chain while I was there, and then noodled on over to Soma Fabrications for a 7-speed S-Ride cassette (11-34T).

The SunRace link included exactly zero instructions, but installation seemed as straightforward as it gets. Replace old cassette with new; remove old chain and derailleur; attach link to hanger and derailleur to link; and finally size, cut, thread, and close chain.

Well, hell. A bit of fine-tuning with the limit screws and I was off and rolling. I believe I could’ve gotten a 36T to work with this rig, but I’ll settle for 34. Sixty bucks equals 30 gear inches, more or less. If you’re looking for an easier ride on an old beater, the SunRace SP570 is a cheap ticket.

What a difference a day makes

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 33 Comments
“Say, does anyone else hear gunfire and sirens?”

If this shit had gone down 24 hours earlier Miss Mia Sopapilla and I would’ve been right in the thick of it.

Miss Mia had an appointment with the veterinarian, and the only thing between her clinic and this firefight is a Valvoline Instant Oil Change shop.

I imagine it’s slightly anaerobic to low-crawl through a fusillade with a cat carrier in one hand and a mask on your mug and only a few barrels of flammable liquids for cover.

Especially if someone has pooped in your pantalones. A fresh set of drawers is not the sort of instant change Valvoline provides.

Meanwhile, a word to the wise: Shooting the John Laws is exceptionally stupid, even for Duke City pistoleros. It only makes them mad. Plus it scares the cats.

Here’s hoping the injured officers recover quickly. I’m very much not looking forward to reading about what swell fellas their assailants were and how their grammies just can’t understand what got into them.

Iron Man is dead*

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 38 Comments
Sometimes you do the boom, and sometimes the boom does you.

Another superhero adventure is coming to a messy ending.

The Military-Industrial Complex’s Cinematic Universe isn’t as orderly as Marvel’s, probably because the writers aren’t as good. Neither are the reviews. But hey, that’s show business for you.

It seemed like such a simple story, too. United States is attacked. United States fights back. Boffo box office!

But some nimrod thinking sequels, spinoffs, and merchandise resurrected an old character called “Mission Creep.” The story went sideways but we kept buying the tickets, taking the ride.

“Look, there’s Stan Lee!”

“No, that’s Robert McNamara.”

Remember the old joke about the driver heading up an off ramp by mistake? “What the hell, you’ve come this far. …”

Well, 20 years later, here we are, upside down in the ditch, watching Mission Creep, Captain REMF, and The Incredible Schmuck posturing for the cameras in an endgame that isn’t one. Avengers Dissemble!

* Of course he’s not dead. We’ll keep trotting him out as long as there’s a buck in it.

But seriously, folks. …

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 30 Comments
Windscreen trumps Mac screen.

Read the news or ride the bike?

I think you know the answer to that one.

In fact, the news has been so reliably vile lately that I’ve been logging 100-mile-plus weeks. That’s not a lot for a serious cyclist, but then being serious about anything other than humor is overrated for anyone who hopes to remain (or become) happy. Or so says Arthur C. Brooks at The Atlantic.

I’d like to ask him, “Are you serious?” But I’m afraid he might not laugh.

Meanwhile, the fourth and final round of The Visitation, scheduled for next week, has been canceled. One of Herself the Elder’s nieces decided that travel was too risky since Delta started grabbing everyone by the snotlocker with a downhill pull.

And who can blame her? Not me, Skeezix. When I stroll into a retail op to do a little bidness and see two-thirds of the clientele and half the staff wandering around with their faces hanging out, despite headlines like this, I’m inclined to think that The Dumbass, like The Bug, remains very much among us.

The Dumbass just might be worse than The Bug. We have weapons to fight The Bug, if people will simply agree to use them. But our traditional defenses against The Dumbass — like the news, which under new management has other priorities — no longer seem efficacious, if they ever were.

And once you’re all eat up with The Dumbass, you’re vulnerable to any number of opportunistic infections, from Rand Paul and Marjorie Taylor Greene twerking on “Dancing with the Stars” to “More [guns, coal mines, lifted diesel pick-’em-up trucks, insert your favorite idiocy here]!!!”

Jesus H., etc. By the time Bennu finally lands like an errant tee shot from God’s one-iron there won’t be anybody left to take it seriously, or even humorously. OK, so maybe one guy. He’ll be yelling “FAKE NEWS!” as the giant asteroid comes in hot like the fabled Million-Pound Shithammer.