Call Me Semi-Professional

I've been selected to participate in a new project being launched by Liquid Wrench called Tinkernation.  The best way I can think of to describe this project is that it's an online magazine that will host a short series of posts from a handpicked selection of bloggers who dwell in the realm of motorcycle, automobile, and bicycle repair/restoration, as well as home improvement.  The official description that I received when I was initially approached about participating in this project states the following:  Instead of focusing on "how to," Tinkernation's content will spotlight the people who are tinkering around the country, while exploring the "why" behind their motivation to create, build, restore, tinker and repair.

I thought it sounded pretty sweet, so I'm going to be starting a new restoration or rebuild here in the next couple of weeks.  My blog posts that describe this project will be published on Tinkernation.  Rather than having duplicate posts on Tinkernation and Cycle Like a Stringer, I'll probably just provide a link to the original posts here on this blog after they're published.  If I have any extra info or anecdotes to add, I'll throw those in as well.

The folks who I've been talking to from the companies that are assisting Liquid Wrench in starting this project - Brains on Fire and Details - have been really cool.  In general, I'm way stoked about this and I think it's going to be a lot of fun.  I'll let you know when the Tinkernation site goes live and I'll try to post a link to my initial installment as quickly as I can after it's been published - I think that should be sometime in mid- to late-April.  And until then, I'll be continuing with regular updates here at Cycle Like a Stringer.

The Urban Joyride

We had another lovely Joyride last Sunday. Cody and I met up with Bruce, Liz and Kyle over at Again Street Park and set out in search of food and drink downtown. We took Again to West to Stewart to the Flat Branch trail into downtown. Pretty cool ride. And by cool I actually mean very fun, but really hot.

Here Bruce and Liz's arm and me are taking the lane at West and Broadway.

Here we are about to go into the tunnel. Kyle rigged some speakers to his bike so we got to listen to some sweet tunes the whole ride. Here he's changing the song on his phone in his back pocket.

Tunnel!

It was so, so pretty in the park. The trail was the best way to go.

We tried to go to The Berlin Cafe first, but they close at 2:00 on Sundays. So, after some pondering we decided to head to Billiards.

It was a very jolly ride. Very.

Did you know there's a patio at Billiards? There's a patio. The beers are cold, the burgers are delicious and the fries are the best in town. We don't mess with playing pool there. We had some bike-related gossiping to do.

We headed back the way we came, but one of us had a little too much fun.

Seriously, we couldn't wake him up.

Anyway, we're changing things up for the next ride. Instead of doing another urban circuit, we're doing a trail ride. Let's meet up at Flat Branch Park by the playground at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday. We'll head to Twin Lakes for a picnic and then ride back home. Come ride with us!

A Dose of Stupid on a Monday Morning

As a cyclist who shares the roadways with motorists, it's expected that I will have to deal with a fairly hefty amount of stupid on a day-to-day basis.  One of my favorite maneuvers is when a motorist speeds dangerously around a cyclist just before an intersection, swerves back into the right lane, cutting off the cyclist, and then slams on the brakes because the light is red.  In fact, I told Ginger just a couple of weeks ago that if I were to go a full day with this particular situation having NOT happened, it would be remarkably out of the ordinary.

But what happened to me yesterday morning was so astonishingly weird that I still can't believe it actually happened.  I was on the Mizzou campus, heading east on Rollins to get to work.  It's spring break here, so there were very few students on campus - especially at 8am - and I was kind of lulled into a calm inward distraction.  And so here I was, not paying attention to much of anything, when a man stepped out into the pedestrian crosswalk in front of me.  He appeared to be paying even less attention to what he was doing than I was.  I leaned to the right, thinking that I would slide behind him, and that was when he saw me, startled, and began doing a little do-I-go-or-do-I-stop dance directly in front of me.  Closing the gap quickly, I cut hard to my left and sped through the crosswalk right in front of him.

As I rode by, he called me an asshole.  And considering I had failed to yield to a pedestrian, I'd say the profanity was not only justified, but fairly appropriate for the situation.  But this is where things get weird...he also tried to strike me.  I'm not sure whether it was meant to be a shove or a slap - you read that right folks, a slap - but it was ill-timed and his hand glanced harmlessly off my computer bag.  Now if he had just yelled at me, I would've let it go, but there was no way I could abide a slap, no matter how harmless it had been.  So I turned around and caught up with him before he could hurriedly duck into the Life Science Center - that's right, he tried to slap me and then rushed away when he saw me turning around - and a brief argument ensued.

I should note here that I have no idea who this guy was.  He was overweight and old enough to have a healthy amount of grey in his beard, so I'm not sure if he was faculty, staff, or a non-traditional student.  My best guess is that he was a primate research subject, but that's just conjecture.  Anyways, I was quite angry and did a very poor job of making my case, as the man was able to keep the argument focused squarely on who was at fault for a non-existent collision.  Instead the subject really should have been whether or not he had the right to hit me.  I'm no lawyer, but I would venture that I probably had every right to hit him back.  But I was determined not to escalate the situation - even though he had already done so when he tried to slap me.  Instead, I apologized for not paying attention, told him to never touch me again and that the whole situation could've easily been avoided if he had been paying more attention as well.  He just kept trying to tell me how a pedestrian crosswalk worked.

In the end, I'm pretty sure he walked away still thinking that he had done absolutely nothing wrong.  And that's what really irks me about the whole thing.  Looking back, I probably shouldn't have apologized and instead I should have immediately gotten to the heart of the matter, which was this:

Keep your hands to yourself, you fat fucking moron.

Always take time to primp, Ginger

 

My bike rides weren't long enough today. It was just that gorgeous. It was one of those days when hills seemed effortless, the breeze seemed extra refreshing and my fellow Columbians were extra friendly. Since I couldn't stand for my evening ride to end I took an extra lap around my neighborhood to wave at the neighbors and cool down. 

This shirt was really fun to wear, too. When I was down in the drops the wind shot up the billowy sleeves and made the back flap around like a flag. It made me feel like I was a superhero wearing a cape. In reality I was probably just flashing around my tattoo.

Since I felt like a million bucks when I got to the office I didn't think about stopping by the bathroom to primp. Really, I should have. I showed up at work with a stripe of some sort of bike grease in an unfortunately-placed spotty line across the front of my shirt, and I didn't notice for about an hour.

Pro tip: Always primp, Ginger.

Our very first Joyride

Our first ever Sunday Joyride was a success! Kyle, Liz and Steve joined Cody, the little dude and me last Sunday for a nice, leisurely ride from Again Street Park, down Again to West to Ash to Flat Branch.

Here we are at Again.

Heading down West. Or maybe that's Again. I don't remember. These neighborhoods are really great for bike riding.

We chose to do our Joyrides on Sundays because downtown can be so crazy on Saturdays. Not every business in The District is open on Sundays, but the ones that are have a nice steady stream of customers without ever seeming too crowded. We came to the Flat Branch for the patio and the bike racks, which were both pleasantly crowded but not impossible to get into.

We all had some deliciousness.

We shared some war stories. Steve here said he was waiting (legally) in the lane of traffic to make a turn when a big truck drove up on a lawn to get around him. Liz said she was waiting to make a similar turn downtown and got yelled and honked at.

There are plenty of irresponsible cyclists out there that need some education, but we think it would be worthwhile to post street signs educating drivers to the fact that cyclists are supposed to merge with vehicular traffic at intersections. I found this communal kvetching to be particularly enjoyable.

Then we biked back to the park. We took the little path from Flat Branch Park over to Stewart, then up to West and back to Again.

It's easier to take the lane when there are five of you to take it. Power in numbers!

We're having another Joyride this Sunday. Meeting up at Again Street Park, um again, at 2. Probably we'll take a longer ride this week since the rain has kept us all cooped up All. Week. Long.

Anyway, hope to see you all at the park on Sunday! Cody and I each have multiple bikes so if you think you'd like to start bike commuting but don't know what kind of bike you want or if you want to see how you feel about urban cycling drop us a line. We'll be happy to lend you one of our rigs for the Sunday Joyride.

Stringer Fleet: 1995 GT Outpost

It may seem odd to have a 90s-era mountain bike among my small collection of vintage road bikes, but this machine is near and dear to my heart.  I received this GT Outpost as a gift on my twelfth birthday.  After proving to my old man that I could safely handle and maintain an inexpensive department store mountain bike, he took me down to our local bike shop where I picked out this sweet little workhorse.  I rode the shit out of it for years; around the streets of my hometown, up and down the dirt roads outside city limits, and on the trails in the national forest.

The bike ended up being somewhat neglected during my college years.  During graduate school, though, I started riding the trails to work and the Outpost started getting regular use again.  A couple years ago I realized that I had been pretty lax in properly maintaining the bicycle, and I decided that it either needed a major overhaul or I needed to start shopping for a new bike.  In the end, I put more money into it than the bike was worth getting it fixed back up.  Nonetheless, I've been pretty pleased with my decision to keep this machine around.

My first order of business was to replace the warped wheels whose hubs had never once been repacked with a set of Weinman rims laced onto Shimano hubs.  I covered the wheels with some 2" Bontrager knobbies.  Next, I replaced the cantilever brakes, as the plastic bushings on the original cantis were brittle and beginning to crack.  I was able to find some NOS Shimano Altus brakes to replace the old ones.  And the last major update was a new WTB Speed V Comp saddle.  Once I had the new parts I needed, the bike was cleaned up and tuned up, with a new bottom bracket cartridge and new pedals and clips.

After a few technical-ish mountain bike rides, the GT spent most of its time on the Katy Trail.  So I added a front and rear rack so that I could haul repair supplies and beer.  The last upgrade was a Bontrager computer that my dude KP gave to me as a birthday gift.  The old front fork has lost a lot of the original paint and is looking a little rough, so it will probably have to be replaced eventually.  But as for now, I'm pretty damn pleased with how this bike came back to life.  After all, I've been pedaling this rig for over 17 years now and it would be a shame to see it go the way of Old Yeller.

Winter Project: Commuting Machine

 

This will be the final post in which I refer to this bike as a "Winter Project."  Winter comes to an end this week and this bike has become my commuting and around-town-fun rig.  So it now has a place on the wall of the garage and is officially a member of the Stringer fleet.

One of the first additions I made after I finished the project was a hideous rear rack.  This was the rack that was on my previous commuting machine, and it's also the platform for our child carrier.  When I'm commuting to and from work, the child carrier stays in the garage and I strap a small set of Nashbar panniers onto the rack.  These panniers are actually a bit small for my needs, but the small size is necessary due to the odd position of the rack supports.  Rather than bolting to eyelets at the dropouts, the rack supports clamp onto the seatstays.  The resulting sharp forward angle of the supports, along with their short length, causes full size panniers to fall into the spokes of the rear wheel.  This is a pretty major problem, and it took destroying a set of panniers for me to realize just how detrimental it was.  But these panniers from Nashbar have a rounded bottom and are very short, so there is no risk of the back corner grabbing the spokes.  Lately I've also been considering putting the child carrier on a different bike and adding a new, less clunky rear rack to the Peugeot so that it won't look so ugly.

I also recently added a set of SKS fenders.  Because the Peugeot Course has oversized eyelets, I had to go buy my own hardware to get these things bolted on.  But other than that, getting the fenders on the bike was pretty straightforward.  I'm pleased with how they look - somewhat understated and not particularly flashy - and they seem to get the job done.  They're also pretty inexpensive; I picked these up at Klunk for about forty bones, plus five bucks or so for the extra hardware.

So far, I'm really liking the feel of this bike.  It's fairly lightweight and the frame is just the right size.  I'm having a bit of a problem with toe overlap and I keep slamming my toe clip into the front fender when making low-speed turns, but I'm trying to be more conscious of my foot position so that it won't continue to be a problem.  I guess I could also just remove the toe clips, but I've grown to like them quite a lot.

TGIF!

 

It's been a helluva week. Cody went away on a business trip, and it was an especially hectic week at the office. Cody is home now, and things are settling down and I'm so, so glad the weekend is here.

Join us for a Joyride!

We are pleased to announce our Sunday Joyride! Every Sunday at 2 p.m. we'll strike out on our bikes and go for a nice, slow bike ride. We'll stop somewhere for some food and drinks and head back. It's open to everyone. We'll announce a meetup time here on the blog, and before we head out we'll all decide on a destination. This Sunday we'll meet at the Again Street Park.

We went on a couple of Joyrides over the last couple weeks just to see if it was right for us and our boy, who comes with us. Our friend Kyle also helped us test out our rides. For this ride he had some speakers rigged up to his bike, and we jammed to Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears and Daft Punk during the ride.

 

We bring our son in an on-bike seat. He loves it.

 Here's what I look like when I'm en route. Evidently I love to wear horizontal stripes on weekends.

Last Sunday it was supposed to rain so we did our ride on Saturday. It was terribly crowded downtown. It was so gorgeous we wanted to be sure to get a table outside. Our first choice was Flat Branch, but the patio was packed. There wasn't even enough room on the bike racks for our rides.

So then we went to Bengals, but as you can see the patio was packed there, too. Packed with douchebags. The kinds of kids who photobomb ladies taking pictures of their kids. So we went to Shakespeare's and had a great time.

 

 We usually turn our boy loose to play. This he loves. 

Clearly.

Then we head back the way we came. We continue to jam to the music, and our son falls asleep. 

Dismounting a bike with a child seat on it is sometimes an art. 

I hope you'll join us for our ride. We have a great time, and we would love to meet you, our loyal readers, in real life.

Toys of the Tinkery

My little workshop out in the garage isn't all that impressive.  Basically, it consists of a 6' rolling workbench that's packed to the gills with all of my tools and a pretty nice bicycle repair stand.  I've got a toolbox that is filled with bike-specific tools such as a crank puller, various freewheel tools, cable cutters, cone wrenches, etc.  Then I've got a large wrench set, a toolbox filled with non-specific tools, and a lower shelf on the workbench that's packed with saws, drills, and other power tools, as well as a few odds and ends.  All of these items are pretty common in any workshop - especially a bike shop.  But I also have a couple of items that are particularly unique to the Stringer Tinkery.

A few years back, I bought a bunch of small adjustable wrenches from a guy in Jeff City.  He claimed that they were vintage bicycle wrenches.  Though I have no firm reason to deny this, I must say that they're awfully peculiar.  They are just slightly too wide to act as cone wrenches, but they're not really big enough for heavier duty jobs like tightening axle nuts.  And they don't open wide enough to fit around the headset adjustable race or the bottom bracket cups. I rather like them, though.  When I bought them - I think I paid $20 for ten wrenches of various sizes and makes - most of the wrenches had taken on a lot of surface rust.  So I cleaned them up with a little oxalic acid, and while they don't look as good as new, they're in a lot better shape than when I bought them.  I gave all but three away to friends and family.  The remaining three don't get a whole lot of use, but I like to show them off once in a while because they're pretty cool.

My most prized possession in the Tinkery is my shop apron.  It's a plain black utility apron that my sister embroidered with the words 'Stringer's Tinkery,' which are flanked by a bicycle wheel, wrench, and drive side crank.  At first I was hesitant to wear it because I didn't want such a wonderful gift to become fouled with grease smears and oil spatter.  But then I realized that getting the thing dirty was the whole point; and some heavy use could only give the apron the character it so justly deserved.  Besides, if it gets too beat up, I'll just have my lovely sister make me a new one.  And not only does it look great, but it's superbly functional, with three large pockets that are perfect for holding wrenches, cable crimpers, or other tools that I want to have on hand.  It now hangs from my repair stand and is worn regularly.

Say hello to my bra strap

A neighborhood lady stopped me when I wheeled up into the driveway to tell me how classy I looked. She obviously didn't know I would be showing you my bra strap. She also didn't know I spent a lot of time trying to keep myself decent in this faux wrap dress while the gusty winds were, um gusting. I had a safety pin to help me out, but it was not enough. Not nearly enough. 

Call me a criminal

 

It was a truly gorgeous week here in Columbia, and it should be a crime that I only biked to work on Friday. I had a really busy week, though. One day the little dude pooped his pants just before we left for the day, and refused to sit still for his diaper change, which made us unbelievably late. Another day I had a morning optometrist appointment that ran twice as long as I expected it to, and another day I was worried wet streets would make me too gross for the office. 

On Tuesday, though, I got to serve on a panel of reviewers for communication students at William Woods. I saw a lot of portfolios from a lot of students with a variety of concentrations, from PR to broadcasting to leadership to film. Some needed some work and some were well-prepared to enter the workforce, but there was one extraordinary young film student who I think is really going somewhere. Keep an eye out for Lincoln Purvis. If this kid keeps on keeping on, he'll be a big shot in a couple few years.

Here's a short, award-winning film he did about a cyclist who was hit by a car and had to work up the nerve to get back on the bike.

Pedaling On from Lincoln Purvis on Vimeo.

A Note on Cable Cutters

One of the very first tools any fledgling bike mechanic should own is a decent pair of cable cutters.  Sure, you can slice through shift and brake cables with electrical crimpers or the shears on needle-nose pliers, but you've got to have something a little more specialized to bite through cable housing.  Years ago, when I started doing my own bicycle repairs in earnest, I picked up a pair of Pedro's cable cutters.  The mechanic at my LBS told me that the Pedro's cutters would be the one tool that I would never have to replace.  And after using them consistently for a number of years now, I can certainly attest to their quality and sturdiness.  They really do seem to be built to last.

Something that's irked me over the years, however, is that the Pedro's cable cutters don't have built in crimpers.  They cut through cable and housing with no problem, but when it comes time to crimp a cap onto the end of a cable, I have to dig out an additional tool to finish the job.  Before I bought my Pedro's cable cutters, I had been eyeing the Park Tools professional cable cutters online.  The Park cutters have an integrated crimper, and it seems so natural for cable cutters to have a crimper that I assumed that they all had them.  At the time, my LBS didn't carry the Park cutters, so I bought the Pedro's.  And while I haven't had any problems with the Pedro's, if I had it to do over again, I would probably end up going with the Park cutters. 

What to do with an extra $20

If you want to start biking in heels, start with a wedge. They are exceptionally easy to wear, and are pedal-friendly. For spring and summer, I especially like a nude shoe. They go with everything. 

I actually had a great pair of nude stilettos last year, but they were stolen from my workplace. Lousy, I know. Lucky for me I was reimbursed for 'em and came across these at Payless last weekend for only $20! They are also available online.

If you're not into nude shoes they also come in black and leopard. They are comfortable shoes to begin with, but they're highly practical for cycling, too. I'll be wearing these a lot, and I might pick them up in leopard the next time I'm at the mall.

What's going on

This is not me.

Add these to your reading list post haste:

• Momentum Magazine - It's the best bike commuter magazine out there. I'm a new reader, but everything I've seen has been both relevant and excellent. The website is lovely. It covers a wide range of bike-related trends and happenings at a national level.  I couldn't ask for a better source. The entire digital editions are available online, but this is a publication I would be more than happy to pay to get.
• The Julie Blog -  This New York lady cyclist is by far my favorite blogger. She's a fierce cycling advocate and is super chic. She stays on top of trends and reviews bikes and bike accessories and posts pictures of what she wears, which is always very cute. I pretty much have a huge blog crush. Check her out.

Additionally, there's lots of good stuff happening on the local bike scene courtesy of the good folks over at PedNet:

• There was a successful bike sharing system at True/False last weekend.  Why is this not a permanent thing?
• There's a Lose the Training Wheels program gearing up for this June. The program helps people with disabilities learn to ride a two-wheeler with the help of trained staff members. Financial aid is available for the $150 registration fee, and they are looking for volunteers. One of us will be helping out, though Cody doesn't know that yet.
• And there are a couple of Confident City Cycling courses happening next week. These are great classes for beginning cyclists. If you or someone you know is thinking of starting to commute by bicycle, this is a worthwhile class to take.

Also, now that I've had some time to reflect on my new haircut, I think I decided to love it. It's easy to work with, it's very versatile and I think it's more flattering than what I had going on before. I'm getting lots of compliments about it so that's helping. I'm definitely going back to that salon and that stylist. Maybe next time I'll even ask for some bangs. I've always wanted bangs.

Stringer Fleet: 1979 Raleigh Record

Despite the elegance and style of Ginger's 1972 Raleigh Sports, it is a relatively heavy bicycle with a limited gear range.  For long trips, windy conditions, or when she just feels like riding a more lightweight bicycle, she also has a 1979 Raleigh Record road bike.  This bike is set up as a twelve-speed and has an alloy frame and aluminum wheels, crankset, handlebars, etc.



My father had this bike collecting dust in his garage.  So when I told him I was considering starting another project for Ginger, he offered it to me as a gift.  The bike was in exceptionally good mechanical and cosmetic condition, so it was a speedy and inexpensive rebuild.  The frame is slightly too small for Ginger, so I added a longer seatpost and an upward-angled stem, both of which seemed to make the bike a bit more comfortable for her.  I ran chrome-colored cable housing for both the brake and shift cables, which added a bit of flash.  I also opted for cyclocross tires over traditional road tires, allowing the bike to easily hit the Katy Trail.  Recent additions include a set of rear pannier-style wire baskets and a Nashbar Bedford Vintage Saddle.  Initially, I taped the bars in white, which looked fantastic but the tape dirtied and started looking kind of gross after only a few months.  When she couldn't stand the look of the not-so-white tape anymore, I re-taped the bars in black.

Overall, I've been pretty impressed with this bike.  With the exception of a couple of incidents that were totally my fault, this machine has taken Ginger to and from her destinations without fail.  It's not quite as head-turning as her Sports, but it's awfully chic nonetheless.  I'm not sure that I could ever pull off riding a lavender-colored bicycle, but when my wife is in the saddle, it's an exquisite sight.