Carradice Bagman

I just bought a Carradice Bagman saddle bag support for my cheapie Origin8 longflap knock off. I'm planning a little two-nighter camping trip soon and needed some more support for the bag. When I've used the bag in the past with out a support it's just flying around like crazy on the trail. Here it is:



It works out pretty well. I've only tested it on two dirt rides so far, and it is certainly better than nothing at all. My only criticism would be that the set screws that hold the stainless rod into the aluminum mount came loose while I was riding and one of the struts came out. That was kind of a bummer to fix on the trail, and even when it is properly set up it still wiggles a bit and will probably come undone again in the future. I liked the simple clean design at first but for off road riding a welded support would probably be much better, like the clunky Viva.

Not a bike

I know it's not a bike, but in some of my favorite bike publications there are often articles about other random stuff of interest. The Rivendell reader would be the most obvious example; lot's of bike info and sometimes an article about fly fishing or guys who maintain trails in the back country. At any rate I just made this chicken coop for a friend out of scrap wood from a remodel. It's funky but it was pretty fun to make something quick and dirty for some undiscerning feathered clients. More bikes later...

Gabe's Sekai upgrades

I could just wait to post pics of Gabe's ride until he's finished with it totally, but it's looking pretty awesome! Uff Das, no stickers, springy VO leather saddle, and the slingshot stem/bar combo from Nate's Stumpy.

Oakland Dirt Owls

Camo mistake

The ritchey commando
and the Mountain Goat
What I thought was a score.












Well, you can see that I hoped that I was scoring a handmade vintage mtb. In reality it's just a 1983 schwinn high sierra. If I had looked a little closer when I got it I would have noticed, but that's the way it goes. It's still a cool bike but not one I can resell to buy gear for my bike tour. Oh well! The original owner must have been trying to copy one of those other bikes because that style of camo is pretty much only used on those two other frames.
Reality

An Article

Just found this article while digging around. I love reading this kind of stuff from the early days of the mtb. http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-Community/1984-03-01/Nature-Biking.aspx

Weekend of bike tooling

It's Sunday night and I think I tinkered with 8 bikes this weekend. Feeling stoked about it. It was a kinda cold and rainy weekend so I didn't make it out gnarnia with the Oakland Dirt Owls, so plenty of shop time.
Firstly, I gotta at least mention selling my 80's Mondonico. I know it's no mtb but she's at least nice to look at. Here she is just before the end:

Fare well my too small and sporty friend.
Then there's this guy:

Tough guy, Jonny Schroeder and his lightly modded 85 stumpy sport above. I love those Uff Das! Below is Tamar's 85(?) Fischer Mountian Bikes Montare. Not a lot of changes, but a new cockpit set up:

She ditched the Nitto Bullmoose bars for this Specialized stem off an '85 Rockhopper and a Jitensa Studio bar.

Also of note is her killer old Drillium Brooks Pro:

Modded Magura grips, see unmodded version below:

That stem. These are really nice, strangely has a 26.0 clamp, maybe Nitto made these?

Just another view to get a sense of the bend in the bars. Since I use the same one, I can vouch for it. It's got no rise and the grip position isn't too far back so you don't end up riding like a prairie dog.

I'm excited about this one. This is my new shop space. It's a garage from the 20's, narrow and tall. Pretty much a dedicated space for bike wrenchin'. That's Tamar embarrassed heading out the door, and Emma's Rossin on vacation hanging in the rafters.

And the unmolested Maguras. These were on the bike but they had some funky rubber covers on them.

And then there's this beast. My buddy Joe turned me on to this score at a junk shop. It's a mid 80's (87?) Jamis Dakar. Silver overspray on everything, parts et al. I could see that the word Dakar was visible through the scratched paint and it's a nicely lugged frame. I could see where the tubing sticker was under the overspray and scratched at it with my fingernail only to reveal a tange prestige sticker. I was pumped and picked it up for 15 bucks! The dirty candy:

Not too excited about the under mount roller cam/u-brake mounts.

The diploma

I can't find out much about this bike. The Jamis website says that they were lugged in '87 after being fillet brazed in the early 80's. An interesting frame anyway.

On a 830 thing

Just been digging around to see what other details that I can find about this Trek 830. I found this cool trek site with lots of original brochures. Here's a screen shot of just the more detailed specs for the 830.



I love finding this kind of stuff. Thank you internet. The part that I really dig is that they tell you who made the different lugs. Maybe a future digging project.

Specs

Here's a scan of the spec sheet for the 1984 Trek 830. I have to owner's manual too, but it really doesn't have any worthwhile information that you can't find in just about any normal bike book.
This says the bike was $469, but i have the original receipt too and it shows that he got it for $420, a pretty good savings for 1984!

BERRY STOKED

This thing is nuts!

lugged bullmoose!
never seen these Dia Compe levers before
or these brakes
Gold anno SR hubs
Reynolds 501 tubes
Twisted crank
nice flat wide fork crown

Prolly not original
Not enough room for Uff Das here
I'll post a few other pics later of the original owners manual and stuff.