Odds an Sods from Presidents day weekend

I was fortunate on Sunday to get my market ride in before the real rain started.  You can see the ground is wet but heavy stuff came down later.

I did see a pair of his and hers Public bikes with nice Brooks leather saddles and grips.  Very nice for getting around and running errands.

And of course after picking up a few items of produce I did stop by the pub and broke out of my IPA rut with an Oatmeal Stout.

Since this beer (Skookum Brewery- Breakfast of crows) is made with espresso I figure this counts as coffeeneuring too.


I also picked up a wrench, ok a Y shaped hex wrench, and did some dry fitting on the Schwinn Passage.  I noted in a post last August that after riding the Passage I decided that some changes were needed.  I've had most of the parts for a while, stem and bars, and decided to finally get them out of the box.

I got the wider bars (Velo Orange Rando) and longer stem (Nitto Technomic) last fall and and was going to use some parts bin brake levers but I got an Amazon gift card for Christmas and purchased some Origin8 drilled levers instead.  First I had to get the old cockpit off the bike.

old cockpit - meh

After a few rides on the Passage when I first got it,  I determined I didn't like the cockpit; stem height too short, bars too narrow and I wasn't enamored with feel and function of the levers so buh-bye.  I loosely test fitted the new parts before putting the new cockpit on the bike.

Nitto is apparently convinced their customers might be gorillas so they included a nice warning in the packaging advising that you should NOT use a pipe extender to reef the hex bolt mega - tight...ok.

After the dry fit I put the new cockpit on the bike to see how it  looks.  Definitely going to lose the clunky reflector mount.  I am not convinced that much more than superficial work was done to this bike before it went on CL so I will be stripping it down and making sure all the bearings are cleaned and rebuilt with fresh grease.  The new cockpit won't be on for real yet but it looks good.

newer, wider, taller

Since I was in a small groove I decided to test fit the new saddle too.  It was a close out from Velo Orange - Model 5 Sprung touring -that I picked up for $50.  We'll see how it rides.

Hope to get to the real work of getting the Passage up and running with rebuilt main bearings and the other new parts I have for it.   I may be riding this bike in the 2017 Tour De Lopez. at the end of April.

I just signed up so I am committed, or at least I should be (rimshot).  I can't even remember the last time I did an organized ride - maybe 2010?  There are three distance options 12, 17 and 31 miles and Lopez is the flattest of the San Juan Island group so it shouldn't be too tough, but I will still need to ride to get in shape so that is a good thing.

As always ride.smile.repeat