Bicycle 2012.muse

   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