some_guy282

rule, that bike looks pretty sweet. What frame is that?

bkrownd

Novara Buzz urban assault bicycle

acroy

My only love since '98: a sweet Barracuda A2B hardtail. Commuter by week, and with a change of wheelsets, a fast singletrack bike by nights weekends & vacations. Well over 30k miles on her. The Bomber takes care of the curbs, potholes, and expired 'dillos. I keep the Pasela tires at 100psi, it's remarkably efficient. Average 16-17mph across this college town on a 13 mile, 48 stops/lights roundrip commute. Rain,shine, heat, cold, occasional ice, the nastier the funner!
A few items of note:
Magura hydraulic rim brakes: zero maintenance, 3 sets of pads in 5 years! not single-finger powerful but awesome modulation. Wet doesn't bother them a bit.
Semi-homebrew 24watt halogen headlight.
Ringle Slamma Jamma headset: zero maintenace, 1 adjustment in 5 years.
Forged Kooka cranks on Real Crankcase bb: 4 sks cartridge bearings, zero squeaks/issues for 3 years.
never a wash!
Bike weighs about 27lb as you see it

chicbicyclist

Here are some updated pic of my one and only commuter after I had new handlebar installed. It's a SC30 Raleigh(a comfort bike that is derived from the mtb family) with an electric assist kit installed and some Euro-inspired flair.

GTcommuter

Great looking bike, very comfortable set up. But particularly interesting trunk bag. Looks like an army surplus medic or tool bag, any further information?

chicbicyclist

Yes indeed it is an army surplus bag. It was actually used as a toolbag as well and now it looks worn, which was the looks I was going for. I'm not sure about wether or not it can handle the fading from the sun but I can always dye it with some olive green cotton dye(note that it is already faded like that in the picture before I used it as a battery bag). Structurally, it can handle the weight of a 30 lb battery pack(plus a 2 lb U-lock).

balindamood

My sorta new commuter fresh from a nearly complete upgrade. Its an '05 Scott Sub 20. Mods include IRC Metro tires, rack, panniers, fenders, usual stuff, and now...drop bars, Sora brifters, and 12-24 gear cluster (vs. 12-32 stock). The only thing whihc remains (besides a decent tape job) is to get the front derailuer working properly with the brifter (project from %^%).

jumpr

I have those same IRC Metros on my Fisher commuter. They've been great so far; just make sure you keep 'em well-inflated.

travdes

My boss gave me this as an x-mas gift: '06 Specialized Tricross Comp.

My old commuter was a '01 Trek 4300

FraAngelico

nice boss, nice bike

marqueemoon

Here's my beast:

2_i 

You might have had one such comment when you first posted a picture of your bike, but the comment could have been so sarcastic that it was too difficult to understand. Your seat seems to be positioned unusually low, though already a tad higher than before. Are you really able to properly stretch your legs? If not, you are not exploiting fully your mechanical power, possibly making the the electrical power assist indispensable.

GTcommuter

From a fellow BOB and admirer of Grant P, very very nice bike.

I saw an MB-0 parked on a rack yesterday. I am NOT a bike thief...but for a moment I almost was.

If you get tired of that XO, I'll send you my address.

marqueemoon

It had a pretty easy life before I started beating on it but think I will have this bike for a while. Once I get my dream singlespeed commuter built this bike will get more of a touring setup.

chicbicyclist

Lol, right now, I can. Even my lbs said it was too low before. They told me the "right" way to do it. Thats what I get for being stubborn. Now it's all adjusted and yes, I can stretch my leg all the way now.

But yes, the electric kit is indespensable - on hills. Other than that, I only use it when I'm feeling lazy, or if I'm carrying 20 lbs of extra grocery weight, or if I want to keep up with faster traffic, other than that, I'll take the whole lane, make you wait in your car and there is nothing you can do about me(where parked cars are present, of course, im not that much of an ass). Or if I wanna confuse cagers with me riding up a hill without pedalling at all

2_i 

How does this electric assist work? Where is the battery? In the bag on the rack? Isn't it heavy reducing somewhat the gains from extra power?

Emerson

I'm pretty sure I haven't posted these pics in this discussion.

Here is my new baby. I just got the new job I've been hoping for--a very nice, bikeable distance with good parking.

I've got some more info, pics, and review like stuff on my website, as well as some Surly links

https://www.2bison.net/surly.html

orange leader

Hey all,

I've been away from the forum for a while, moved to MD, built this up last night. (cannibalized my fixie giant with welded track dropouts (less tire clearance than this one). My new commute will be 15 mi each way, I'm kind of worried about the time factor, (>1hr each way), will I ever see my family again?

Any hoo, here's a few pics of my new biach, $5 for the frame, raceface bottom bracket, cranks, seat, seatpost, and handlebars, headset, stem. I just bought a chain, and tires and swapped the wheels off my Giant. I'm thinking of putting the brooks saddle on here too. I ordered some cork mtn bike style grips too, that'll look sweet.

Hmm, I'm not sure if my pictures are going to come through, I've attached them but they're not showing up in my "preview post". so we'll see.

TheDL

Here's the next iteration of my commuter bicycle; version 2.0 if you will. I got the frame off of ebay for $20; 1999 GT Backwoods. The rest of the parts I collected over time. Version 2.0 is much lighter than Version 1.0 (1986 Schwinn Sierra, also pictured in this thread). I wanted a bike I could commute on, do charity rides on, and do some beginner CX come this fall withough spending a lot of money. So this is what I came up with; fondly named "The GT Project" or "GTP" for short.

One unique thing about the setup is that she's only setup for 8 speeds. I got a 46T up front and 12t-25t 8 speed cassette in the rear.





Shot of my first homemade bash guard

chicbicyclist

Ohhhh, nice chain guard. I want one!

Sorry for the late reply. The battery pack is located in the army surplus bag(thats mine, its not the stock bag), on the rear rack. You can basically use anything(topeak bags and rack, duct tape, empty plastic containers, anuything) where the battery will fit. The motor already comes mounted on the rim, and you just install that on your front fork. Install the throttle, wire the whole thing up(connect the motor to the controller, and the controller to the battery pack) and you're ready to go(the batteries already come pre-wired in my case).

The kit works like this: You have to pedal first to activate the motor, to about 3-5 mph. you can stop pedalling if you choose to do so, but the system works better in conjunction with human power. Variable speed via the throttle. Can go about 18 mph assisted, more or less. Range with the battery that I have(three 12V/12 amp per hour sealed lead acids) which is about 30 lbs is about 25 or so miles with moderate pedalling. I can climb hills up to about 9% grade for at least half a mile continously, and the motor doesnt feel hot to the touch at all(motor temperature is one of the limiting factors of efficiency and range).

You can always spend more money on lighter battery technology. NiMh of the same energy capacity weighs about 15lbs but can cost about $300(lead acids cost about $100-120). I've seen systems that can go 40 miles using lighter niMh and Im planning on using them once my lead acids die out in about 10 months of regular use or so.

The whole system is deffinitely not light(especially if you're using lead acids, like I do), so acceleration suffers from a dead stop(you can always buy systems that starts from a dead stop without pedalling, unlike mine). The motor is more than efficient to handle the extra load of the system itself. At cruising speeds on flat ground , you won't even notice a difference and you can turn the motor off and pedal instead, riding on the momentum. You will deffinitely notice the big difference when climbing hills(much, much easier), and I almost always run out of gears on my mtb style comfort bike at full speed(flat ground). Time to shop fot a better crankset and gears for me. My whole system weighs in at about 75 or so lbs., including the bike. The kit weighs in at 45 lbs(30 lbs battery and 15 lbs front hub motor), so thats comparable to a fully loaded touring bike. But again, you have a motor, they don't. Use it.

Electric assist is probably not for everyone, especially weight weenies, but it addresses many reasons people give out when asked "why don't you use your bicycle for errands/commuting/etc", like hills(San Francisco...San Diego...), sweating, headwinds and well, it's just damn easier!

Okay, I have typed in alot of words and I'll stop because I'm getting hungry. Time for dinner! Hope all that diatribe helped you understand electric assist much better!

Oh yeah, this is a bit overkill but here's an updated pic of my commuter with new bar ends installed. I'm so sorry, couldnt resist



Any suggestion on what color handlebar tape I should use? I want the whole handlebar covered so any contrasting color suggestions would be more than welcome!

GTcommuter

You should put on yellow cloth tape with a couple layers of amber shellac. It will come out very close to the collor of your Brooks saddle and will be a great classic finish to the bike. I use cloth tape on my drop and Moustache bars and it doesn't offer the same cusion as cork. But you won't even be riding on it since you have cork grips.

However, I like the exposed silver of the bars also. Either way it will look good.

https://velo-orange.blogspot.com/2006...basics_22.html
https://velo-orange.blogspot.com/2006...ger-style.html
https://velo-orange.blogspot.com/2006...g-shellac.html

atombob

Here is my $100.00 Commuter- Picked it up used after my single speed was stolen. I added the fenders and rack and had an old pannier laying around. So I'm into this thing for around $150.00.

It's a little small but I'm hoping to pick up a Redline 9-2-5 as soon.





Any opinions on the 9-2-5?

chicbicyclist

WOW! Thank you so much! I've seen that kind of finish before and I've always wanted to do that, but I had no idea what it was, which kinda bummed me. You just made my day.

2_i 

It seems to be a ring with ground off teeth. The problem of such a guard is that it takes out the space for one ring.

Following your post, I kept my eyes open and, while spending a few days in Europe on business, I noticed quite a few bikes with the assist. Particularly interesting was an elderly lady on a fixie with the pedals turning in the air.

Overall sounds like a good idea, an actually practical utilization of the electrical power for transport. On another note, when a student, I had a moped with pedals that served as a mechanical assist. A loaded moped had real trouble climbing steeper hills and the pedal assist was then crucial.

Given what I've spent on the bike over years, particularly trying out different things, the above price difference would have disappeared in the noise. No question, however, that such an individual expenditure is hard to swallow. Well, I wish you a good return on your assist investment.

chicbicyclist

Ah, I typed a very long response but bikeforums acted up a bit, and well, I lost it.

It's probably a good thing, since this thread is about commuter bicycle pics after all! I created a thread in the Living Car Free forum to discuss this thing even further, just click on the link on my sig.

And yes, the system has already paid for itself 20 times over. I've been using my bike ALOT more ever since I got it and thats payment enough for me.