canyoneagle

Sixty Fiver, you have the coolest collection of commuters.

We're in the typical Rocky Mountain springtime pattern in Utah - beautiful sunny and warm days interspersed with heavy snow.

powitte

Yes, a leather saddle does not hold up well if judged by how far a tester's thumb sinks into it. However, we don't use this standard with chairs, and they carry more of our weight than a bicycle saddle (also distributed to hands and feet). The beauty of the Brooks is that it supports you were you're supposed to be bearing weight (through your 'sit bones'), and the smoothness of the surface makes for vastly more comfortable leg movement during pedaling.

But, of course, with saddles more than any other bicycle component, there is not best solution for every rider. I'd be interested to hear how you like your new saddle after some use.

MileHighMark

Very nice bike/build. My 57cm charcoal frameset should be here by the end of the week.

Did you go with the Equalizer 23 rims?

Terry66

Yeah, they seem to be decent rims. The hubs aren't that great, but it is all I had at the time of the build. I have a set of A317 w/XT hubs almost ready to go. I'll end up lacing the EQs up to a little better quality hub.

Sixty Fiver

I have very few bikes that I don't commute on... most have racks and fenders so are commute worthy and although the vintage bikes don't get subjected to the daily grind they aren't garage queens either.

.baker

One of my friends saw me on my commute and when i got to work she texted me this picture..

I thought it was pretty cool, first picture i have of me on my bike.

Grim

You work at The Pizza Joint?

.baker

nah, wish. pizza hut haha
pizza joint is that sh*t though.

pepox369

I just "installed" my iphone holder on my commuting bike.. thought I'd show ya..










Please forgive me if this is the wrong place to post this.. I'm not very familiar with this forum..

irclean

How's this for a classy commuter? (Click on pic for link):



This one's nice too:

Sixty Fiver

irclean - My friend stocks these at their shop and have looked them over... seem to be a nicely spec'd bike.

Only marketing problem is that one could build a up a nice vintage frame and get a much similar bike for much less... we convert a lot of old road bikes with similar geometry to uprights and it makes for a very nice ride.

BlueRaleigh

Those Linus bikes look almost identical to the two Gary Fisher Simple City models. Not sure how the prices compare.

irclean

I really like the looks of the first one, the Gaston 5. The white tires, downtube shifter, and brass bell just ooze class. Of course, those are easy mods to a build-up like the ones you described. The next time I travel out west I would love to look you up and pick your brain about all things bike (and to have a gander at your shop, of course).

irclean

I think it's great that many of the top manufacturers have added bikes like these to their showrooms. As with so many other things, what's old is new again and retro is cool. Too bad it isn't practical to ride with bell-bottom jeans and platform shoes.

FreddyV

Haven't posted my commuter here for a long time, but since I'm hitting the road into work each Tuesday now it's about time I posted it again. Don't mind me on it, suffering on the Kapelmuur during my "Ronde van Vlaanderen".

BlueRaleigh

I like the look of bikes with internal gear hubs. I've yet to actually try one out, though. As for the bellbottoms, better have a good chainguard.

j3ns

Or tuck the jeans in your socks.

BlueRaleigh

No way. That would defeat the whole purpose of the style.

Sixty Fiver

Funny you should say this...



Have been looking for a chain guard ever since the Shasta became a 3 speed and pulled this one off an old Rapido and fitted it up... was blasting through puddles and small lakes of water on my ride today and hardly a speck of water hit me or the frame.

Will be fitting a slightly larger chain ring for summer as this guard wants a 46 tooth ring and I am running a 40... will increase my rear cog to compensate for the chain ring which will just make the drive even smoother.

provisional

Sixty Fiver, I've got to say, that bike is beautiful. What fenders are those?

Sixty Fiver

Planet Bike Cascadia... the extensions make such a difference when it comes to keeping one dry and clean.

Thinking I will swap tyres today and have decided to try some Schwalbe Silento (was given one and bought one) which is a nice semi slick trekking / city tyre with a little more bite than a Marathon because of the side lugs and also has reflective sidewalls.

Have not used these before but if my experience has taught me anything about Schwalbe tyres I should be very happy with these... it's casing and tread is much like the Hurricane which has been my favourite 26 inch tyre for many years and has a reflective sidewall.

Sixty Fiver

Those new tyres... Schwalbe Silento II... hoping that the weather stays as nice as it has been and that we do not get any more snow.





Beautiful day here so took the bike out for a test ride and woukd say that the Silento tyres ride better than the Panaracers at the same 65 psi and just float over bumps, the handling is quick, roll out is very nice, and they live up to their name as they are very stealthy.

Keith K

Hopefully she wasn't driving when she sent the text....

irclean

Now that my son is almost four I decided it was time to retire the old family cruiser, an early 90's Raleigh rigid MTB equipped with bike seat. His new ride is an Adams Trail-A-Bike. To pull it I freshened up my 3-year-old Schwinn with a new derailleur that was graciously donated to me from a friend after he upgraded his bike. Since I stole this bike's trekking bars for my other bike, I bought a new set. Unfortunately I managed to strip both shifter/brake clamps (cheap Shimano Rapid Fire units), so I replaced them with a set of SRAM Gripshifts and some Avid brake levers. Cable routing is much easier and neater with the SRAM units, and I took advantage of the swap to install new cables. I'm very happy with the results.

I took my son for the inaugural ride yesterday. He screamed bloody murder for about half a block, but after that fell in love with it and has been asking for rides ever since. Luckily we got some nice weekend weather. Here's the new setup:

HPIM3453.jpgHPIM3458.jpgHPIM3460.jpgHPIM3463.jpgHPIM3466.jpgHPIM3468.jpgHPIM3478.jpgHPIM3477.jpgHPIM3473.jpgHPIM3484.jpg

warmachine

Got this practically new beast a couple of years ago at the salvation army store.
Almost passed on it since I thought I didn't need another road bike, but I bought it anyway as an excuse
to hang around long enough for an old lady to decide that $6.00 was too much to spend on the minty
specialized Hemi that I was scoping out.

Last year, I mostly used it as my rain bike since the rack acts as a decent fender during my 20 mile round trip commute.
Around november of last year, I noticed how well it rode despite being a sporting goods store bike and how decrepit my
previous bike had become, I decided to upgrade this to be my primary (well only) commuting bike for this year, maybe longer
depending how it holds up.

So far, I've crowned it with my brooks b-17, removed the extra brake levers at the top of the bars, changer the tires from
the barely acceptable kenda quests to new specialized turbo elites, which I think should shave at least 10 minutes from my ride each way.
I've also experimented with the bars by wrapping inner tube over the new foam bar tape. So far, it feels pretty good.

In a couple weeks I should have some new pedals, clips, and straps, as well as a bar-end shifter and brake levers so I can
remove the brifters, the front derailer, and the smaller chainrings.