haimtoeg

I did three centuries on my Litespeed Vortex Compact:



One on my no name, swap meet find, Al Orbea:

vik 

Very nice!...

bmike

thanks...
now to get the body as tuned as the bike!

vik 

I just rode a 300K in the mountains on this bike. Besides some tired leg muscles I couldn't even tell I had been on a bike all day - very comfortable and fast:



My Surly LHT touring bike has seen many fully loaded metric centuries. My most comfortable DF and my most versatile bike overall:

spokenword

my own updated pics of the Club Racer

bmike

what size fenders are you running? i like that rear fender - is that a light or just a reflector?

spokenword

The fenders are 43mm Honjos. One of my fonder memories of PBP was riding with a few of the Japanese randonneurs who spoke little English but one of them would point at my fenders and ask inquiringly "Honjo hokken des ka?" and I'd nod and say "hai." then they'd chatter excitedly while pointing out stuff on my bike, and I'd point back at their tires and ask, "Gran Bois Cypres?" and they'd beam with pride.

The light is a Spanninga SPXb. It's got a tiny red LED backed up by a fairly large reflector.

Six jours

I have the same taillight and been mildly underwhelmed. Just doesn't seem very bright to me, but then I am pretty new to the whole lighting thing. How do you think it compares to the other lights you see while randonneuring?

spokenword

It's average, I'd say. I got the Spanninga mostly for the bombproof mounting. Can't argue with a light that is literally bolted to one's fender I've lost a fair number of taillights that are mounted to some form of plastic clip and just wanted something that, no matter the roughness of terrain, would stay on the bike.

However, I still got the additional pair of Planet Bike taillights to supplement the Spanninga as it does seem to go from relatively bright to relatively mediocre quickly as it depletes its batteries. Having the reflector does help amplify the LED's light and its side visibility is surprisingly good, but I wouldn't be totally confident in my visibility if this was my only rear light.

Compared to what I've seen while randonneuring, the SPXb hardly holds a candle (literally) to a lot of the dynamo taillights that I've followed. The B&M Dtoplight Plus with the little sensor that brightens the light when you're slowing down is particularly slick. However, a lot of randonneurs also tend to mount battery operated taillights in addition or as a supplement for their dynamo lights, and these tend to be on about the same level as the Spanninga. I imagine that some of them can be brighter, but few of them run on totally fresh batteries.

Exception to be made, of course, for the new Planet Bike SuperBright. God, that thing's annoying to follow. Thankfully nobody who had one set their SuperBright to blinking -- that would've probably triggered more than one seizure.

bmike

they look wider than mine! i have the same ones...

i didn't think a tailight would fit on the fender. i'll have to look into it now. regardless of the power of the LED i do like the fact that its mounted to the bike, and it has a reflector. i use a cateye clipped to my carradice - adding the fender light would be nice.

i'm impressed with the dyno powered dtoplight on my cargo bike - but i've been reluctant to mount one on my rando bike, as i always use the argument with myself that i like to switch things around and didn't want to deal with another wire... but seeing as i haven't changed the setup in over a year indicates that i like the bike in rando mode.

spokenword

I think that's because Ti automatically thins your frame and makes it look sleeker and more svelte than other bikes. It's like stripes in clothing.

bmike

guess i need a ti jersey.

or striped rando clothing...!

gttim

Me on my K2 MOD 5.0 built up with SRAM Rival. This year I did numerous centuries, 6 Gaps in N. Georgia, Ironman Louisville and an Atlanta 24 Hour Alley Cat / Checkpoint race, where I did 304 miles through city traffic, including traffic for a Dave Mathews Band Concert, a Lynyrd Skynyrd GA R&R Hall of Fame Induction traffic and GA Tech football traffic. Race Report here. This picture was taken at the end of the 24 hour race. Usually I have aerobars mounted and Mavic Cosmic Carbon Premiums for wheels. I opted for no aerobars or expensive wheels for the in town race. I love this bike! I got the frame on Ebay for a song. Few people know how good K2 is, I guess.

Quijibo187

I wasn't sure if you were being sarchastic about the whole "no name" thing.
Anyways, Orbea is far from no-name.

Hocam

I haven't laughed that hard at a bike forums post in a long time. That's awesome.

Six jours

I haven't actually ridded a century on this bike (technically, I haven't ridden it more than up and down the street last night) but I just got the bike together and hardly anyone at the framebuilding forum gives a crap, so...



A nice lo-rez pic of my new bike. Built the frame myself with Long Shen fleur-de-lis lugs and a mix of True Temper and Columbus tubing. It's an exact copy of a 1952 Alex Singer frame and fork. T.A. Cyclotourist cranks (46x30), Ultegra rear derailleur with 9 speed D.A. downtube index levers, old Campy Super Record front derailleur (works better with the "ultra-compact" chainrings than anything modern I've tried), bargain-basement Performance-built wheels on 105 hubs with the super-strong Mavic A719 rims, Grand Bois Cypres tires, a lugged Rivendell/Nitto steel stem with Nitto Noodle bars, cloth tape twined and shellaced. (The tape matched the color of the old frame, so will get changed out and re-shelleced. I'm thinking blue...) And of course the same Super Record pedals, clips, and straps that I have used since the dawn of time.

Still have to have a wheel built on a Schmidt generator hub and put lights on. And of course I want to ditch the rear bag and try a front bag. But for the 100 feet I've ridden it so far, it's been just about perfect!

nine

^^^

looks great!

ZIPP2001

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I have ridden my Zipp in centuries, double centuries, brevet series, and other ultra marathon type events. It has over 40,000 hard miles on it and still going strong.

visiondr

That is one sweet ride!

Let us know how the set up with the Schmidt hub works out.

Ron

Six jours

Thanks mate! I've been able to ride it exactly twice, as with all the fires around here the air is too thick to chew.

And I think I may hold off on the Schmidt hub for now. I'm fairly excited about putting together a frame for 650b; just waiting for the tires I want to use to begin production. I think I will jump in with both feet and have the Schmidt hub built up into a 650b wheel. Probably won't have a bike for it until January or February.

foamy

Indeed, that's a fine looking bike you've built there. Very nice. Speak up when you get some miles on it and let us know how it works for you.

bmike

Nicely done...!
Congrats! Maybe we'll see it on some long long rides next year? (hint hint)

Six jours

Thanks guys. I've put maybe 100 miles on it so far -- the fires here have kept us all locked inside our houses since Sunday -- and the bike rides very nicely. The old French guys had a good handle on what makes for a nice ride. I did have a bit of a problem riding no hands; I had to hold my weight slightly to one side to keep the bike from turning right. This stemmed from my homemade fork jig which I cleverly designed to build misaligned forks. A bit of cold setting put things to right and as far as I can tell now the bike rides perfectly.

I'll tell you, Mike, I'm really looking forward to building the 650b frame; that will most likely become my permanent long distance bike. If all goes well the pictured frame will be hanging on a peg in my garage by early '08.

cengclimbing

Here is a picture of my Serotta Fierte steel. I've done a couple of unsupported 100+ rides on it this year. The best was from Boulder Colorado over Trail Ridge road in Rocky Mountain National Park and back. The ride down from the top was a blast!

pseudocyclic

In my previous post I said "A 200 mile ride is next!" - well I was 29 feet short! Here's the story...

Decent tyres for this bike are virtually unobtainable in South-East Asia. While waiting for Schwalbes (which seem to be the only option - ironically, manufactured in Indonesia) to arrive from abroad, I stripped the bike down for a thorough overhaul in preparation for a trip to Cambodia. The Schwalbes were delayed, so with my first double century attempt in mind, I reassembled the bike without mudguards, rack, kickstand, and various other touring bits (altogether about 3kg less than normal) and fitted a pair of ultra-cheap "local" tyres. I also bodged a repair to a split in my last foldable Schwalbe and zip-tied it to the frame as a "get-me-home" spare.

This was the result: Helios P9 Lite!



I made a cue-sheet for a flat 320km route through the provinces of Samut Prakan, Chachoengsao, and Prachinburi, and pumped the budget tyres up to their 65psi maximum. With fingers crossed, I set out from Bangkok at 06:20; got back at 23:43 with 321.86km on the clock, wheels having turned for 13.5 hours at an average of 23.8km/h. It wasn't until the next day that I discovered 200 miles is 321.87km, and I should've gone another 0.01km!