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Four bike projects in one big blog post. Lots of photos!
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I've been very busy and haven't updated the blog in a while. Click on photos for more, I'm limiting myself to one or two per project.
My IvyCycles Rohloff Custom is on the road. I've put about 100 miles on this bike in the last week and it's fantastic. Everything that I hoped for. John Speare wrote a blog post about how cool it is, so I don't need to.
A couple of weeks ago I bought a minibike for Rollo (minibike polo). I still suck at polo, but I'm having tons of fun showing up every Friday and playing a game or two. Bikes like this are about $5 at Goodwill. A carbon fiber golf club (used to make my mallet) cost $2. I spent more money on the steel for making my extra long seatpost than anything else. I carry my Rollo bike there on my Kogswell Porteur -- bike on a bike. Aren't porteur racks great?
Speaking of Porteur racks, I made a new rack this weekend for the IvyCycles bike shown above. I call it the MiniMax. The platform is about the same size as the bottom of a Ostrich Handlebar bag. It's small enough to work nicely as a handlebar bag rack without having tons of extra metal and large enough to carry my messenger bag. I originally built the rack with the decaleur at 73 degrees back (to match the angle of my headtube) but the bike's stem and handlebars got in the way. So it is vertical (for now). The rack needs some stays to the rear corners and a headlight mount, but it's done enough to ride.
Rory and I built a rack for his new bag. He is going to have a small run of similarily large bags made. This one uses Cordura, but he is thinking about canvas for the production run (and the colors will be more muted). He used a unique and wonderful mounting system for the bag -- Ortlieb hooks mounted to a bar on the front of the rack. I'm going to buy one of these bags from him for the MiniMax rack and setup Ortlieb hooks too, except that they'll be on the bottom of the bag instead of the front. Click the photo for more photos that show the mounting system.
Last week I settled my insurance case from getting hit by a car while riding on Seattle's streets. I'm glad that the whole ordeal is over with and I'm happy with how everything was resolved.
Next weekend I'm taking the IvyCycles bike camping and I'm sure I'll report back with more at that point. It's been a busy and great June and I expect the rest of the summer to keep pace. I hope everyone out there is having fun too.
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Haulin' with the Porteur Rack
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I've written about the Porteur Rack that Alistair made for me before, but I used it a couple of times this weekend and just need to rave about it again.
Last night it hauled my polo mini bike back and forth to polo. Yup, a bike on a bike. Sorry, I didn't take any photos.
When I got back from the Fremont Solstice Parade I found a package from USPS sitting on my porch -- it contained a nice "The North Face" messenger bag that BOB list member Geoff sent me. I loaded up the bike and headed down to the homebrew shop for making a batch of hefeweizen. I rode down with about 20# of grain and came back with about 32# of grain (16# ground, the rest isn't being used for this batch). The messenger bag works great on the porteur rack.
Here's what it looks like when riding:
Drop handlebars do get in the way, so I can't go with loads too much bigger than this. Alistair recently rode home with some huge floor pads for his workshop on his porteur bike with Albatross bars:
These things are great. I already have a huge mental backlog of racks to build and two of them are porteur racks (one for my tandem, one for my IvyCycles/Rohloff bike). I'm going to try commuting with the messenger bag + porteur rack for a few months and see how that goes. It might be the best mix of a briefcase/laptop style pannier and handlebar bag.
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MiniBike Polo!
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Mark found these guys last weekend and told me about it. We fixed up a 16" BMX bike (by putting on a much longer seatpost), built a few mallets, and showed up at 65th and I5 park and ride last night. It was a blast. The bike requirement is 16" wheels or smaller. I'm going to try and find one today.
Pictures are better than words. Click them for more.
On 7/7/7 there is Bruised By Bike, a tournament:
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Backpacking at Lena Lake
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This weekend Christine and I hiked in the Olympic National Forest up to Lena Lake. Christine hadn't been backpacking in 6 or 7 years and this is a great hike to get back into things with. It starts with a moderate climb that is a little boring, but once you get to the top the trail meanders through nice forest for a couple of miles before coming to the massive Lena Lake. There are tons of campsites around the lake so even on a busy weekend (and it was busy this weekend) you can find a secluded spot. We found one on the north end of the lake a bit up from the water and well out of earshot of our nearest neighbor.
We made one trip to Lena Lake before, in May 2000. It was very interesting for me to constrast the lake conditions. The lake has 2 major streams that feed it, both on the north end. In 2000 both of these streams were dry and I hiked a couple of miles up one into the Brothers Wilderness. This year they were both flowing fast and loud. The lake itself was flooded by around 3-5' and many of the lakeside camp sites were flooded.
Christine had a great time and asked me to remind her how relaxing and fun hiking and camping are whenever she tries to think of excuses for not going. This is good news for me because I'm hoping to go on at least one backpacking trip and one overnight bike camping trip per month through September.
More photos...
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Lightweight camping equipment -- what a difference
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Christine and I are going hiking this weekend to Lena Lake in the Olympic National Forest. It is a nice early season hike with good camping and nice hiking beyond the campground. Last time I really loved the contrast between the dry river bed and the mossy boulders. The old digital camera that took these photos doesn't do it justice compared to the mental images in my head. Christine hasn't gone backpacking in many years and this might have been our last backpacking destination 7 years ago. I've gone on and off over the last 10 years with other friends. I'm excited that the two of us are finally going backpacking again.
It's interesting for me to compare the weight of our basic equipment and how it is has changed in those 7 years. I still do a good amount of bike touring and backpacking with friends and camp around 10 nights per year. In the past 5 years almost all of my gear has changed and I've bought it with an eye for lightweight and compactness. On our last trip to Lena Lake we used a Sierra Designs Alpha CD tent that weighed 9lbs with groundcloth, it has been replaced by a Tarptent Rainshadow II that weighs 3lbs with ground cloth. My old backpack (a huge Kelty internal frame model) weighed about 8lbs too and has been replaced by a Mountainsmith Ghost at under 3lbs. The sleeping pad weight is about the same, but a 1" thick Thermarest has been replaced with a 2.5" thick Exped Downmat. Our synthetic and bulky 3 or 4lb sleeping bags have been replaced with sub-2lb down bags.
As a result the weight of a my setup (backpack, tent, sleeping bag, pad) is 9lbs. In 2007 I think that same basic setup was over 20lbs. That is a significant difference. The weight isn't the only difference, the volume of gear is smaller (mostly due to the lighter weight tent and down sleeping bag). In the photo at the right (taken at Lena Lake) my backpack towers up to my head -- the smaller one barely reaches my shoulders.
Now I just need to avoid making up for it by carrying too much food and camera gear -- my normal failures.