Old Objects

Found a few old things recently.

 like this: a massive 16" bastard file

 This I didn't find. It's pretty jankedy, and good chance it won't work for long, still, I had fun making it. This is on my first ever mtb, a 90's Trek 930 with True Temper tubes. I'm finally giving it away to a friend after 15 awesome years!

 Since I have a new baby, I have to do a lot of walking, she seems to dig it. I found this on the ground in a small park near where a stream daylights.  Best I can tell, it's 30's Raleigh stem. It's almost like a fancy lugged stem but takes a funny size bar, something like a 23mm clamp area. Cool anyway and I may have bars that fit.

 Then there's this thing. For the past couple of years I've been riding an old Basso. It's a neat bike but it never fit quite right, didn't fit big (32mm) tires, and the brazed on front der mount never worked well with a compact double. I chanced upon this Griffon recently. There's not much info on the web about this thing, but it seems that it was made in Santa Monica by a guy named Jim Holly. Can't be sure on the date but the frame came with a 7 speed rear wheel and was spaced 128mm so I'm guessing 80's. The build here was just everything from the old bike. Anyway I took it out for a decent ride today and was really stoked. I'm looking forward to getting some bigger tires on it though.

Just some details. Simple elegant lug work. Not sure what lugs they are, but best guess is Prugnat - any lugnuts out there know?

Also, understated fork crown.

Rad font!

Tire clearance with a 28mm tire, not bad.

The filing finish work on the campy long dropouts is nice.

Still room here too...

Clamp on cable guides are classy but not my favorite when running new cable housing. If this thing had a pump peg and another water bottle boss, it'd be near perfect.

It's fun to oggle beautiful bikes but in the end they are meant to be ridden! Here are a few from a rainy Sunday.

I currently have a funny set-up on my old Ridegrunner. Switching back to Jitensha bars and two thumb shifters soon.

First MTB Ride of the Fall Pictorial Version

J1 and I headed up into the hills today for the first ride of the fall season. We decided to try a slightly different route this time, thinking we could piece together some unfamiliar bits of trail.

We started out by wisely consulting a map at Sibley trail head.

The goal was Round Top Trail, and along the way we fabricated some high speed downhill shredding for posterity.

The weather up in the hills was definitely fall-like. We spent a lot of the day chasing the fog.

We stopped to check out a graffiti party cabin deep in the woods, after slipping and sliding down a trail of extreme gnarlitude called Cinderella. It was back up that way.

Fallen autumn leaves made some of the rutted-out downhills an especially slippery ride. Shredding them was no problem, however.

Exit to hillside suburbia, and down to burritoville.

Dirtin' a Dog a Day

In an effort to live up to Dr. 1Time's mantra, "Dirtin' a dog a day," I headed up to Redwood to put a positive spin on a heavy commemorative time. I went left where we usually go right and eventually found myself, after a lot of serious rollers, out at Pinehurst gate.

I put a taller/longer Nitto dirt drop stem on the MB-1. Getting the drops up at a dorky height has made a huge improvement in single track handling and comfort and stuff. I like these old handlebars now.

That trail looks interesting. Have we ridden it yet? Need to figure out how to get there. . . 

These Dirt Owls elected not to dirt a dog today. Pavement for them.

PS - I used 6-speed indexing on this ride. Retrogrouch heresy!