Noodlefy

I just Noodlefied my wife's bike as the last (maybe) part of an ongoing upgrading/modernizing. I have joined the comfortable stoked masses of folks who believe that this bar is ultimate drop bar, and luckily my wife agrees. Anyway, a new cockpit isn't that big of a deal but I was especially happy to try mounting the original Campy downtube shifters on those awesome Rivendell/Shimano mounts. The shifters work really well with the mount since they already have a flat non-radiused backside, the range of motion is good- no sticking straight up into the handlebar area, and on a wide bar like the Noodle they are out of knee knocking reach. I'm really stoked that Riv sells those mounts separately because as far as I know, no one else does, and it's the cheapest way to to get a reasonable shifter location for an old road bike.

That sweep back, so good

Night ride, tight ride

Stoked to have made it out tonight for a little night ride. The Sanyo/lumotec dynamo set up worked great, but truthfully paled in comparison to my buddy's Cygolite Metro 300 usb rechargeable dude.  That thing is crazy bright! 

looking east

looking west

My little Lumix doing it's best to shoot at night...gives a little drunk blur to everything.

1983 Stumpy

The title says it all...I happened into this bike by total chance; I was buying a truing stand from a guy and it turned out he had this frame rusting in peace that he was interested in selling. I couldn't resist especially having nearly every part to build it lying around from my 85 stumpy rebuild. It's pretty rough around the edges, but I took it out for the Sunday ride and, although small, had a blast.

Sugino AT with biopace rings, an 80's "upgrade"

This Microshift derailleur transforms the shifting. The original XC der shifted like hell, it clicked and clacked and then five minutes later you get a shift out of it. With the new der, original freewheel, and newish 5 spd chain, shifts are fast and quiet. I tried to reuse my recently unused IRD freewheel, but it proved to be an unrepairable POS. I'm going to pull it apart later to see what failed but it has been the worst 60 bucks I've spent on bike parts in recent history.

I'd been thinking about this underside mount for a while, and then a buddy beat me to it so I had to try it out. Looks clean up top, and works slightly worse than top side. Possibly the position can be changed to make it better...

morgan territory

 The name Morgan Territory seems so old timey, and it's a good fit for the place. Wikipedia tells me that Jeremiah Morgan moved out there in the 1850's because the grizzly hunting was so good, and that he called it the "morning side of Mt. Diablo." It seems to still have some crazy rural beauty and good road riding, despite the chilly mornings.

Yokota

I meant to get pics of this up a while ago but this rad bike was for sale recently on CL Portland, OR. I think the owner did a great job mixing original and modern parts on what looks like a ripping machine and nice pics to boot.  I had never seen such an early Yokota model and would hazard a guess that it's a '84. I also was stoked to see the Tange stamped fork crown as I have a long running interest in who was making 80's mtb cast fork crowns. Other interesting details are mid fork braze-ons, a burly clamping stem, and a strange/neat seat stay termination at the seat cluster. Thanks Estanislado for letting me post these pics!

Nye, and other times

 Stumpy and Riv Hunq in the wild.

 

Taking a break

 Catching the last sunset of 2012.

 Starting 2013 in the redwoods, my first night in a bivy.

 a healthy minimal breakfast

 I decided to make a fender for my commuter bike. Shops seemed to only carry plastic or fancy plastic (polycarbonate) ones and I wasn't down. I've broken all sorts of plastic fenders and it seemed stupid to me to buy some more future garbage. Looking around in the basement I saw something that caught my eye, a gutter downspout. I started experimenting with a grinder, some tin snips, and a metal crimper and eventually came up with this. I used the hardware from all those aforementioned broken fenders, and although quite rough looking, it's like a ghetto Honjo, maybe call it a Nonjo.

 Lastly, the Christmas crossword in the Oregonian, although too easy, was a work of art.