| 1 | #title Clinton's New Bike |
| 2 | |
| 3 | * The Wishlist |
| 4 | |
| 5 | After my old frame broke, I thought about what I wanted in a new |
| 6 | bike. |
| 7 | |
| 8 | - Mechanical disc brakes (ease of maintenance mostly) |
| 9 | - Lugged steel frame (why not?) |
| 10 | - Indexed shifters |
| 11 | - Rear rack mounts (without horrible hacks required) and maybe mounts |
| 12 | for a front rack too (nice for multi-day treks) |
| 13 | - Front and rear fender mounts (again, without horrible hacks) |
| 14 | - No suspension (extra annoying maintenance and pain with things like |
| 15 | fenders) |
| 16 | |
| 17 | I was willing to lose the disc brakes for the fender and rack mounts. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | * A Whole Lot of Money Later |
| 20 | |
| 21 | I searched high and low and found a few bikes that *almost* had what I |
| 22 | wanted... Unfortunately the bike I want doesn't exist for under $1200 |
| 23 | which is a *wee bit* much for my liking. Months of searching in vain on |
| 24 | Craigslist for anything less expensive failed, and I gave up on the |
| 25 | dream of my ideal bike. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | Instead, I got a [[http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/town/fitness/fx/7_3_fx_disc/][2012 Trek 7.3 FX Disc]] for the low low price of $720 + |
| 28 | a painful bit of sales tax. A few hundred more than I had wanted to |
| 29 | spend, but it *did* meet all of my wishlist except for the frame. |
| 30 | |
| 31 | [[img/photos/bicycle/2012-01-01/new-bike-with-fenders.jpg][Everyone loves new toys]] |
| 32 | |
| 33 | I promptly ordered a replacement battery for my Dual Cross 300 (at |
| 34 | this point, I can wholeheartedly recommend [[http://cygolite.com][Cygolite]]'s stuff -- the |
| 35 | head light outlasted the battery pack **and** the bike I got it for!), SKS |
| 36 | fenders, and thought about [[http://www.jandd.com/detail.asp?PRODUCT_ID=FREXP][new rack]] (but ended up reusing my old rack |
| 37 | for now). As of January 1, 2012 I am ridiculously out of shape and |
| 38 | barely able to go anywhere, but I'm hoping in a few weeks my entire |
| 39 | body will stop hurting after a few hill climbs. |
| 40 | |
| 41 | ** Fender Installation |
| 42 | |
| 43 | It is a well known fact that SKS packages their fenders with |
| 44 | instructions designed to deceive and punish half-men who read them. Of |
| 45 | course, I tried reading them despite not really needing to (and, |
| 46 | indeed, ended up led astray). After spending ages getting the new stay |
| 47 | ends on (which I ended up having to remove from the front later) the |
| 48 | real fun started. |
| 49 | |
| 50 | The rear fender, I am happy to report, went on without a hitch. The |
| 51 | caliper-side braze-on was positioned such that I didn't even have to |
| 52 | cut or re-route the stay like on my old |
| 53 | mountain-biked-turned-commuting-rig. |
| 54 | |
| 55 | The front fender, on the other hand, was a bit of a pain. The SKS |
| 56 | fenders do **not** come with the M6 bolt needed for mounting the fender to |
| 57 | the crown (riddle me this: why the hell is that an M6 bolt when every |
| 58 | other bolt on the bike is M5?). I'm guessing because most bikes have a |
| 59 | brake bolt you can piggy back on (then again, the kit comes with |
| 60 | about five extra bolts that have seemingly no use on any bike...). |
| 61 | |
| 62 | A trek to Home Despot proved fruitless; a trek to the other super |
| 63 | chain also yielded disappointing results. Both only carried plain |
| 64 | steel metric bolts... I hacked it for a while until I could hop down |
| 65 | to the bike shop to get a proper stainless steel bolt. |
| 66 | |
| 67 | That challenge overcome, even more fun was to be had with the |
| 68 | caliper-side stay. [1] The lower stay had to go directly through the |
| 69 | caliper. I found a [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/seditiouscanary/3358079803/][few]] different [[http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-609665.html][solutions]], neither of which I ended |
| 70 | up using. |
| 71 | |
| 72 | I accidentally found the front fender I was never able to mount on my |
| 73 | MTB and ... *phew* breathing room! Having two spare stays made it easier |
| 74 | to experiment and eventually I found that cutting the the lower stay |
| 75 | arm and mounting the stay to the upper rack eyelet was the easiest |
| 76 | solution. This does require not using the newfangled integrated end |
| 77 | caps (luckily I had the caps from the old set) because the insertion |
| 78 | angle of the caliper-side stay isn't quite straight. |
| 79 | |
| 80 | [[img/photos/bicycle/2012-01-01/caliper-side-fender-stay.jpg][Caliper-side fender stay]] |
| 81 | |
| 82 | After two days of cursing at my bike success was mine. |
| 83 | |
| 84 | |
| 85 | [1] Actually, I hacked the crown bolt mount using a smaller bolt and a |
| 86 | nut first, and then solved the stay issue... followed by despair |
| 87 | and pain as I discovered the front of the fender hit the tire. It |
| 88 | seemed like this was because of the weird stay mount hack (the fender |
| 89 | was under a bit of tension) and I wasted quite a bit of time |
| 90 | adjusting the stays only to realize ... the fender wasn't flush |
| 91 | against the crown. D'oh. |
| 92 | |