ZIPP2001

SBP glad to see your able to get out, frozen water just means you suffer more (Suffering is good). I was going to wait until the start of 2011 to switch over to my other Zipp but decided to start a tad early. With the holidays and everthing else I hope to have Zipp #2 finished by Feb. sometime. So I'll have to live my cycling thru you during the winter season, remember we like hills. Keep me posted how my riding is going (LOL).

sherbornpeddler

Wow! That is the most amazing looking paint job or it is really on fire?

Here I'm grumping about rummaging through basement and garage looking for NOS Super Champion Competition Arc-En-Ciel 36 hole tubular rims and you have this amazing piece of timeless, state of the art, Art. The best thing about it is you actually ride it which makes it living art.

I am reminded there is a risk to riding cherished hardware.

cmolway

Chest cold keeping me off the bike and trainer for almost a week now.

sherbornpeddler

C, Best wishes for a speedy recovery. I've not pulled out my trainer yet as I am in in denial and I have 89 miles to go to reach an arbitrary goal.

When you get back on your wheels, where do you ride on your trainer? Do you watch videos or listen to music?

Jim from Boston

On my 14 mile commmute in the winter I carry a water bottle (actually a bottle of Poland Springs flavored carbonated water) mostly for that very purpose of seeing if it will freeze. On various winter cycling threads where subscribers describe how they cope with the cold, they will usually cite the temperature, but not the distance traveled. I usually reply with a request for the distance.

A useful marker of a cold ride is one I read on a thread, that on a cold ride, a water bottle will freeze solid, and IMO that's a good standard criterion. It's a function of both temperature and distance (time). Last Friday I could use my rock solid water bottle for bragging rights when I was asked that usual question at work after a 15*F ride, "You didn't ride your bike today, did you?".

Harutz

I don't know, I did a little 15 miler yesterday, less than 15*F (and I think between 4-5*F with the wind chill -I waited several hours for the wind chill to rise above 2), and when I got back my water was as liquid as ever. Unfortunately, my eyeballs and fingers didn't fare so well...

jimmuller 

I'm glad some of you are riding despite the cold. I hope to begin x-c skiing in a few weeks, speaking of cold. C, get well quickly. Sbp, hope that wasn't a valuable set of rims trashed by a pothole (though it wouldn't surprise me).

I've been fighting mechanical stuff. Why does everything have to be so dangblasted difficult? Several weeks ago I found a nice set of Suntour Superbe hubs. The rear has less dish than the re-dished Shimano 600 hub I had set up, and I needed a new front wheel anyway because the rim was going thump thump thump when I braked. Plus it was a straight-sided rim, not hooked bead, so it always had the chance of blowing a tire. So I had Belmont Wheelworks string up some wheels. First they didn't use the rims I asked for and they used straight-gauge spokes. So I had them to do it again. This time they found the rims I wanted and used double-butted spokes. But I realized a day or two ago that the spokes seemed thick. I measured them as 2.2-2.0-2.2mm. My previous wheels were 2.0-1.8-2.0mm. So it looks like they'll be both heavier and stiffer than I had been riding. What goes here? Is it so difficult for them to understand what a high-performance wheel would have been 25 years ago??? I even told them that's what I was hoping to get. Oh well, at least the front won't go thump and the rear should be stronger. Is it sorta' normal now to use thicker spokes because new rims use fewer of them so they have to compensate, thus defeating the point of fewer spokes?

So last night I re-packed one bearing set and tonight I mounted tires and re-packed the other hub. When I tried to put the rear wheel on the bike I discovered that the freewheel doesn't clear the RD claw bolt. That's because the last nut threaded onto the axle doesn't stick out enough past the end of the freewheel. Sure, it's a 126mm spaced axle and dished less than I had before, but it's not dished enough! I'll have to find another washer to space out the right side a mm or so, then maybe re-dish the wheel that I just paid someone else to make for me so they'd get it all spaced and tensioned nicely. Why oh why did I bother??? I had a perfectly good 126mm rear hub with narrow Mavic rim.

Well, I do know why. The front really did need replacing. And since the new rim would be drilled for a Presta valve and since I didn't want to ream it out further, it would mean two different valve stems if I didn't replace both front and rear rims. And I plan to put those old wheels on my Peugeot which is what I bought them for anyway 30 or so years ago. But why oh why does it have to be so danged difficult? In the old days you just walked into a bike shop and bought what you wanted and it fit your bike.

Speaking of old bikes, I've started a new project. I trying to rebuild an early 80's Peugeot tandem TH-8 that another BF member had. Gathering missing parts is a challenge. But the goal is to get my wife riding again. So far I have had to spend any money, just do lots of homework.

So much to do! No time to do it.

sherbornpeddler

Wheels are an emotional topic. We rely on them. My wheel story happened sometime between the old days and now and I’ve gotten over it to the point where I can talk about it.

Jim won't be surprised, I was out-smarted by a storm grate, a hunk of steel, a piece of a public roadway.

Riding down the road with full opportunity to stop, walk, thumb or even drive, I chose to ride my perfectly good circa November, 1980, Workshop built Raleigh Pro with the original Arc-en-Ceil /Avocet wheels when a storm grate up and ate the front and the rear. I saw it coming and with lightening quick reflexes managed to yank the front wheel up enough to hop it out to give the rear wheel a chance to get sucked in as well.

an innocent storm grate


Even ducklings learn to navigate

But for me they are hidden evil ready to pounce

jimmuller 

Yes indeed. Hope you weren't hurt as much as your wheels when you discovered that grate. I recall reading of how some towns and cycling activists were working to get all grates oriented such that the slots went across the road. Of course that was back in the 70's in Virginia.

I found why my new rear wheel didn't fit into the dropouts right. Someone had moved one of the spacers from the right side of the axle to the left. That moved the entire hub to the right by 5mm. It fits now. Of course the wheel really needs re-dishing now.

I've done more reading on spoke gauges. My old wheels are 2.0-1.8-2.0mm. That's also the gauge that Harris' website says they use. Peter White's website says he uses 2.0-1.7-2.0mm. He also goes on to say that he builds tandem wheels with 2.2-2.0-2.2mm and that they must be used with strong rims because the lack of springiness could eventually crack the rim. Of course, that's exactly the size I have now but I don't weigh as much as a tandem.

I guess I assumed that when someone specified db spokes (and said he wanted a high-performance wheel as it might have been 25 years ago) it typically meant erring on the lighter side, i.e. 1.8m in the middle. Apparently the guy who built them didn't think like that. (I have no idea what he was thinking, considering he did it twice, the first time without guidance at all. When I pay for a service I hope that I am also benefiting from the guy's judgment. If I were a non-techie walk-in customer I wouldn't even question it, but I'd end up with whatever he built anyway.)

So I have several choices. I have to re-dish the rear anyway. I could just write off the spoke and labor cost as unrecoverable waste and re-string them myself. (A winter project...) I could ask a different wheel builder to do it, telling him that these rims have not been ridden on. I could just ride on them, but I'm sure I'll feel the difference. I could just keep my old rear wheel and re-build the front, but the rims, hubs, and valve stems would be different, an aesthetic problem.

I had planned to move the old wheels back the the Peugeot, but I need a new 700c wheel for the tandem. So I could build one of those front hubs into that.

The best option seems to be to re-string just the front for now and live with the mis-match. Then re-string the old front hub into a tandem front wheel. Then eventually re-string the rear too. I'd have one rear hub left over. And the Peugeot would remain original.

sherbornpeddler

Jim,
If it were me, I'd forever think about the woulda coulda. Your original vision of 2.0-1.8-2.0 seems good. I don't know the cost of going back one more time and explain what would make you comfortable and see what they can do. They may say they can't do anything or they may charge full fare or discount. I bet they'd like to make you happy or at least know they failed you so that they might get better.

Not helpful but I recall back in '76 replacing a mucked up downtube shifter with a fancy light weight, state of the art Japanese shifter and stringing fancy double butted, light weight spokes to get my Lygie in shape. My brother drilled out the chain wheel and crecent wrench handle; we were weight weenies........then we rode across country with rack and panniers. I broke spokes and flatted for about 5 days then respoked the wheels with galvanised, cast iron tank spokes. I didn't crack a rim and never broke another spoke. We were still weight weenies and sent stove and tent back and ate cold Dinty Moore and slept under the stars. The downtube shifter kept slipping for another 25 years until I replaced it with barcons.

Yup, I'd go with cast iron tank spokes or the 2.0-1.8-2.0. Don't get caught in the middle.

jimmuller 

Thanks for the encouragement, sbp. Thinking back, I believe I may have broken one spoke in my life. Or at least, that must be the reason I had my original Fiamme rear wheel re-strung at all. That re-build used a Weinmann Concave which promptly pretzeled itself a month later. Cast iron tank spokes. Do they make tanks out of cast iron? And I didn't know they used spokes.

sherbornpeddler

Even cast iron didn't harm the Fiamme.

I don't have a scale handy but do have Cigar King Edward's view of a comparison of the fancy double butted strung just before the start and the galvanised steel (aka "cast iron") replacement solution during a 1976 X-C ride.

The Fiamme's (with Campy hubs) survived both ulttra light 2x butted and "cast iron" spokes during that ride and years of child seats and trailers.

sherbornpeddler

Carlisle loop sans Cow Tunnels for 67 miles. Cold toes, frozen water again and light snow. Last week I had a close call from a right turning, oblivious or malicious driver. I bearly stayed up and was within a mm of hitting. Today, just as the light snow started, I was passed by an oblivious delivery truck, this time by a cm so 10x more breathing room. I met my mileage goal for the year with this ride today so I may take the snow and my 1.1 cm messages and call it a year.

Time to set up the trainer.

sherbornpeddler

Carlisle

jimmuller 

That looks familiar.

sherbornpeddler

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...e-today/page28
Ayup.

atom bomb

Winter gear. That funny triangle thing? That's my nose....

Harutz

Where do you stick that stuff when you're getting overheated half way through a ride?

mtalinm

hey, saw you on bostonbiker.org

jimmuller 

Hey! How come there's no snow in your driveway?

atom bomb

Handy plow attachment. Removed before photo was taken.

sherbornpeddler

Magnificent rig AB!
Trikes seem to make so much sense on winter roads.
How is road debris or do you cast aside thoughts of fenders?
Do Tour officials stop you for hiding a motor? That looks like a water bottle.

atom bomb

Admission: I don't ride the trike in wet stuff, or snow ... suited as it is to those conditions. Ergo - sans-fenders. But it's a fantastic cold weather rig... although maybe a degree or two colder than the ol' Easy Racers with sock. But I think the trike could probably negotiate most cow tunnels (sans flag...).

jimmuller 

I think I'll go for a ride when I get home this evening. Yeah, right.

sherbornpeddler

OK, Who is riding? I've not been out on wheels or skis.