Presidents day Ride and Projects for 2019

Partly sunny was as good as it was going to get this weekend so I chose Presidents day as the day for my first ride of 2019.  Before I could ride, however, I had a few tweaks to make.

To mount the Nitto Front rack I'd had to disconnect the straddle cable for the front brake, and with the rack mounted the yoke wouldn't clear the rack tang with the original straddle cable so I subbed in a new one - you can see the comparison above.

With the new cable the yoke clears the tang no problem.

And I had plenty of straddle cable to spare, to be fair the original length wasn't off by too much but I needed more cm's to make it work.

I had to spend some time fiddling with cable length to get the brakes to work at a level acceptable to a short test ride but I finally got them dialed in.

My old Rivendell bag has a loop on the front for a light so I was able to free up some real estate on the handlebar.

After  I was done fiddling with the front brake and putting air in the tires it was finally time to ride!  I didn't go far,  a bit more than two miles, but the bike felt good.  No issues from having more weight up front and the brakes were fine.  I will need to get in some decent miles as I bit the bullet and signed up for the Tour De Lopez at the end of April.  I would love to increase my distance from 2017 which was about 20km riding from the dock and doing a short loop and riding  back.

A thumbnail of Projects for 2019:

Schwinn Le Tour. Much like the Motobecane Mirage from last year that I did a ton of work on in 2017 and then stalled out on the hubs, the 87 LeTour has had a lot done to it but I have stalled out on working on the hubs.  Since this project is so close to done I will do the hubs and then run cables and chain, hopefully in time for spring.  If I do it any earlier that about April its going to languish on CL.

Bianchi Ibex.  I rode the 1990 Ibex for the 2018 clunker challenge and there is allot to like about this bike; lugged steel, interesting color, lots of braze-ons etc,  but I could never get to fit just right, it was fine for the 100km challenge but its not speaking to me as a keeper, which sucks because I would love a lugged steel mountain bike in my quiver.  I have decided that I am only going to keep bikes I really love as a way to keep the quiver to a minimum.  I don't need a full balcony again LOL.  The plan is some general clean up, mount the matching front wheel I acquired and put on some bargain new tires and call it good.

Specialized Allez.  I have wanted an Allez for a while and I've also wondered if  a 56 cm would fit me, so when this bike came up for $80 early in the summer I jumped at it.  I rode it allot over the summer and messed around with the cockpit since I had parts for the Nishiki Cresta GT.  Again I could never get it to feel quite right so I am going to give it a tear down and rebuild and then sell it on.  It already has new tires, I have bar tape and cables and housing so it should be pretty sharp when I am done.  I might even make a little $$.  Ideally I will get it done during mid summer so it can attract a crowd on CL.

Trek 420.  Currently languishing on the balcony as my trainer bike, my plan for this bike is to build it up without breaking the bank and see how a 22.5" frame works for me as compared to the 23" I normally ride.  I need to get the wheels to match, I bought a set of wide bars on sale and I will need a Nitto Technomic to go with them.  A set of consumables: tires, tubes, chain, cables. wrap and housing ought to complete the rebuild.  I would hope to complete this one by early fall so I can actually ride it.

Now I just need to focus my energies on what I have in front of me and not acquire any more projects for a while.

Ride in 2019. Smile.Repeat.