+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+ "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+ <head>
+ <title>Clinton's New Bike</title>
+ <meta name="generator" content="muse.el" />
+ <meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
+ content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
+ <link href="http://feeds.unknownlamer.org/rss/site-updates"
+ rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Updates Feed" />
+
+<link rel="stylesheet" href="default.css" />
+ </head>
+ <body>
+ <h1>Clinton's New Bike</h1>
+ <div class="contents">
+<dl>
+<dt>
+<a href="#sec1">The Wishlist</a>
+</dt>
+<dt>
+<a href="#sec2">A Whole Lot of Money Later</a>
+</dt>
+<dd>
+<dl>
+<dt>
+<a href="#sec3">Fender Installation</a>
+</dt>
+</dl>
+</dd>
+</dl>
+</div>
+
+
+<!-- Page published by Emacs Muse begins here --><h2><a name="sec1" id="sec1"></a>
+The Wishlist</h2>
+
+<p class="first">After my old frame broke, I thought about what I wanted in a new
+bike.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Mechanical disc brakes (ease of maintenance mostly)</li>
+<li>Lugged steel frame (why not?)</li>
+<li>Indexed shifters</li>
+<li>Rear rack mounts (without horrible hacks required) and maybe mounts
+for a front rack too (nice for multi-day treks)</li>
+<li>Front and rear fender mounts (again, without horrible hacks)</li>
+<li>No suspension (extra annoying maintenance and pain with things like
+fenders)</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>I was willing to lose the disc brakes for the fender and rack mounts.</p>
+
+
+<h2><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a>
+A Whole Lot of Money Later</h2>
+
+<p class="first">I searched high and low and found a few bikes that <em>almost</em> had what I
+wanted... Unfortunately the bike I want doesn't exist for under $1200
+which is a <em>wee bit</em> much for my liking. Months of searching in vain on
+Craigslist for anything less expensive failed, and I gave up on the
+dream of my ideal bike.</p>
+
+<p>Instead, I got a <a href="http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/town/fitness/fx/7_3_fx_disc/">2012 Trek 7.3 FX Disc</a> for the low low price of $720 +
+a painful bit of sales tax. A few hundred more than I had wanted to
+spend, but it <em>did</em> meet all of my wishlist except for the frame.</p>
+
+<table class="image" width="100%">
+ <tr><td align="center"><img src="img/photos/bicycle/2012-01-01/new-bike-with-fenders.jpg" alt="Everyone loves new toys" /></td></tr>
+ <tr><td align="center" class="image-caption">Everyone loves new toys</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>I promptly ordered a replacement battery for my Dual Cross 300 (at
+this point, I can wholeheartedly recommend <a href="http://cygolite.com">Cygolite</a>'s stuff — the
+head light outlasted the battery pack <strong>and</strong> the bike I got it for!), SKS
+fenders, and thought about <a href="http://www.jandd.com/detail.asp?PRODUCT_ID=FREXP">new rack</a> (but ended up reusing my old rack
+for now). As of January 1, 2012 I am ridiculously out of shape and
+barely able to go anywhere, but I'm hoping in a few weeks my entire
+body will stop hurting after a few hill climbs.</p>
+
+<h3><a name="sec3" id="sec3"></a>
+Fender Installation</h3>
+
+<p class="first">It is a well known fact that SKS packages their fenders with
+instructions designed to deceive and punish half-men who read them. Of
+course, I tried reading them despite not really needing to (and,
+indeed, ended up led astray). After spending ages getting the new stay
+ends on (which I ended up having to remove from the front later) the
+real fun started.</p>
+
+<p>The rear fender, I am happy to report, went on without a hitch. The
+caliper-side braze-on was positioned such that I didn't even have to
+cut or re-route the stay like on my old
+mountain-biked-turned-commuting-rig.</p>
+
+<p>The front fender, on the other hand, was a bit of a pain. The SKS
+fenders do <strong>not</strong> come with the M6 bolt needed for mounting the fender to
+the crown (riddle me this: why the hell is that an M6 bolt when every
+other bolt on the bike is M5?). I'm guessing because most bikes have a
+brake bolt you can piggy back on (then again, the kit comes with
+about five extra bolts that have seemingly no use on any bike...).</p>
+
+<p>A trek to Home Despot proved fruitless; a trek to the other super
+chain also yielded disappointing results. Both only carried plain
+steel metric bolts... I hacked it for a while until I could hop down
+to the bike shop to get a proper stainless steel bolt.</p>
+
+<p>That challenge overcome, even more fun was to be had with the
+caliper-side stay. <sup><a class="footref" name="fnr.1" href="#fn.1">1</a></sup> The lower stay had to go directly through the
+caliper. I found a <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/seditiouscanary/3358079803/">few</a> different <a href="http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-609665.html">solutions</a>, neither of which I ended
+up using.</p>
+
+<p>I accidentally found the front fender I was never able to mount on my
+MTB and ... <em>phew</em> breathing room! Having two spare stays made it easier
+to experiment and eventually I found that cutting the the lower stay
+arm and mounting the stay to the upper rack eyelet was the easiest
+solution. This does require not using the newfangled integrated end
+caps (luckily I had the caps from the old set) because the insertion
+angle of the caliper-side stay isn't quite straight.</p>
+
+<table class="image" width="100%">
+ <tr><td align="center"><img src="img/photos/bicycle/2012-01-01/caliper-side-fender-stay.jpg" alt="Caliper-side fender stay" /></td></tr>
+ <tr><td align="center" class="image-caption">Caliper-side fender stay</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>After two days of cursing at my bike success was mine.</p>
+
+
+<p class="footnote"><a class="footnum" name="fn.1" href="#fnr.1">1.</a> Actually, I hacked the crown bolt mount using a smaller bolt and a
+nut first, and then solved the stay issue... followed by despair
+and pain as I discovered the front of the fender hit the tire. It
+seemed like this was because of the weird stay mount hack (the fender
+was under a bit of tension) and I wasted quite a bit of time
+adjusting the stays only to realize ... the fender wasn't flush
+against the crown. D'oh.</p>
+
+
+
+ <!-- Page published by Emacs Muse ends here -->
+
+ <p class="cke-buttons">
+ <!-- validating badges, any browser, etc -->
+ <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img
+ src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-xhtml10"
+ alt="Valid XHTML 1.0!" /></a>
+
+ <a href="http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/"><img
+ src="img/buttons/w3c_ab.png" alt="[ Viewable With Any Browser
+ ]" /></a>
+
+ <a href="http://www.debian.org/"><img
+ src="img/buttons/debian.png" alt="[ Powered by Debian ]" /></a>
+
+ <a href="http://hcoop.net/">
+ <img src="img/buttons/hcoop.png"
+ alt="[ Hosted by HCoop]" />
+ </a>
+
+ <a href="http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=114">
+ <img src="img/buttons/fsf_member.png"
+ alt="[ FSF Associate Member ]" />
+ </a>
+ </p>
+
+<p class="cke-footer">* jeffcovey becomes too groggy to read the directions and becomes
+ the year's first nasal spray overdose fatality.
+</p>
+<p class="cke-timestamp">Last Modified:
+ February 26, 2012</p>
+ </body>
+</html>
\ No newline at end of file
HCoop / clinton / website / site / unknownlamer.org.git / commitdiff