[clinton/website/site/unknownlamer.org.git] / Bicycle 2012.html

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    <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 &mdash; 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>


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<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>
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Commit	Line	Data
9be210c0	1	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
	2	<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
	3	"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
	4	<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
	5	<head>
	6	<title>Clinton's New Bike</title>
	7	<meta name="generator" content="muse.el" />
	8	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
	9	content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
	10	<link href="http://feeds.unknownlamer.org/rss/site-updates"
	11	rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Updates Feed" />
	12
	13	<link rel="stylesheet" href="default.css" />
	14	</head>
	15	<body>
	16	<h1>Clinton's New Bike</h1>
	17	<div class="contents">
	18	<dl>
	19	<dt>
	20	<a href="#sec1">The Wishlist</a>
	21	</dt>
	22	<dt>
	23	<a href="#sec2">A Whole Lot of Money Later</a>
	24	</dt>
	25	<dd>
	26	<dl>
	27	<dt>
	28	<a href="#sec3">Fender Installation</a>
	29	</dt>
	30	</dl>
	31	</dd>
	32	</dl>
	33	</div>
	34
	35
	36	<!-- Page published by Emacs Muse begins here --><h2><a name="sec1" id="sec1"></a>
	37	The Wishlist</h2>
	38
	39	<p class="first">After my old frame broke, I thought about what I wanted in a new
	40	bike.</p>
	41
	42	<ul>
	43	<li>Mechanical disc brakes (ease of maintenance mostly)</li>
	44	<li>Lugged steel frame (why not?)</li>
	45	<li>Indexed shifters</li>
	46	<li>Rear rack mounts (without horrible hacks required) and maybe mounts
	47	for a front rack too (nice for multi-day treks)</li>
	48	<li>Front and rear fender mounts (again, without horrible hacks)</li>
	49	<li>No suspension (extra annoying maintenance and pain with things like
	50	fenders)</li>
	51	</ul>
	52
	53	<p>I was willing to lose the disc brakes for the fender and rack mounts.</p>
	54
	55
	56	<h2><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a>
	57	A Whole Lot of Money Later</h2>
	58
	59	<p class="first">I searched high and low and found a few bikes that <em>almost</em> had what I
	60	wanted... Unfortunately the bike I want doesn't exist for under $1200
	61	which is a <em>wee bit</em> much for my liking. Months of searching in vain on
	62	Craigslist for anything less expensive failed, and I gave up on the
	63	dream of my ideal bike.</p>
	64
65	<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 +
66	a painful bit of sales tax. A few hundred more than I had wanted to
67	spend, but it <em>did</em> meet all of my wishlist except for the frame.</p>
68
69	<table class="image" width="100%">
70	<tr><td align="center"><img src="img/photos/bicycle/2012-01-01/new-bike-with-fenders.jpg" alt="Everyone loves new toys" /></td></tr>
71	<tr><td align="center" class="image-caption">Everyone loves new toys</td></tr>
72	</table>
73
74	<p>I promptly ordered a replacement battery for my Dual Cross 300 (at
75	this point, I can wholeheartedly recommend <a href="http://cygolite.com">Cygolite</a>'s stuff — the
76	head light outlasted the battery pack <strong>and</strong> the bike I got it for!), SKS
77	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
78	for now). As of January 1, 2012 I am ridiculously out of shape and
79	barely able to go anywhere, but I'm hoping in a few weeks my entire
80	body will stop hurting after a few hill climbs.</p>
81
82	<h3><a name="sec3" id="sec3"></a>
83	Fender Installation</h3>
84
85	<p class="first">It is a well known fact that SKS packages their fenders with
86	instructions designed to deceive and punish half-men who read them. Of
87	course, I tried reading them despite not really needing to (and,
88	indeed, ended up led astray). After spending ages getting the new stay
89	ends on (which I ended up having to remove from the front later) the
90	real fun started.</p>
91
92	<p>The rear fender, I am happy to report, went on without a hitch. The
93	caliper-side braze-on was positioned such that I didn't even have to
94	cut or re-route the stay like on my old
95	mountain-biked-turned-commuting-rig.</p>
96
97	<p>The front fender, on the other hand, was a bit of a pain. The SKS
98	fenders do <strong>not</strong> come with the M6 bolt needed for mounting the fender to
99	the crown (riddle me this: why the hell is that an M6 bolt when every
100	other bolt on the bike is M5?). I'm guessing because most bikes have a
101	brake bolt you can piggy back on (then again, the kit comes with
102	about five extra bolts that have seemingly no use on any bike...).</p>
103
104	<p>A trek to Home Despot proved fruitless; a trek to the other super
105	chain also yielded disappointing results. Both only carried plain
106	steel metric bolts... I hacked it for a while until I could hop down
107	to the bike shop to get a proper stainless steel bolt.</p>
108
109	<p>That challenge overcome, even more fun was to be had with the
110	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
111	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
112	up using.</p>
113
114	<p>I accidentally found the front fender I was never able to mount on my
115	MTB and ... <em>phew</em> breathing room! Having two spare stays made it easier
116	to experiment and eventually I found that cutting the the lower stay
117	arm and mounting the stay to the upper rack eyelet was the easiest
118	solution. This does require not using the newfangled integrated end
119	caps (luckily I had the caps from the old set) because the insertion
120	angle of the caliper-side stay isn't quite straight.</p>
121
122	<table class="image" width="100%">
123	<tr><td align="center"><img src="img/photos/bicycle/2012-01-01/caliper-side-fender-stay.jpg" alt="Caliper-side fender stay" /></td></tr>
124	<tr><td align="center" class="image-caption">Caliper-side fender stay</td></tr>
125	</table>
126
127	<p>After two days of cursing at my bike success was mine.</p>
128
129
130	<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
131	nut first, and then solved the stay issue... followed by despair
132	and pain as I discovered the front of the fender hit the tire. It
133	seemed like this was because of the weird stay mount hack (the fender
134	was under a bit of tension) and I wasted quite a bit of time
135	adjusting the stays only to realize ... the fender wasn't flush
136	against the crown. D'oh.</p>
137
138
139
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165
166	<p class="cke-footer">* jeffcovey becomes too groggy to read the directions and becomes
167	the year's first nasal spray overdose fatality.
168	</p>
169	<p class="cke-timestamp">Last Modified:
170	February 26, 2012</p>
171	</body>
172	</html>