Summer Sell a-thon

I started in the spring wanting to thin the herd, at that point I had 9 bikes which was way too much for my 2 bedroom apartment and I wanted to get down to a core 4.  I did NOT want to be the crackpot with a porch full of bikes and parts again.

I started with the Ibex, I paid $80 for it, rode it in last year clunker challenge,considered keeping it but couldn't get the fit quite right.  I put new grips and tires on it for $50 and basically broke  even with the sale at $130.  It went to a Mom who wanted a camping bike and something that could haul a kid trailer.

Next up was the 87 Letour that I started on last year.  I got this bike cheap, $50 but it had no rear brake, I spent $10 get a nice used long reach from the co-op.  This bike was odd in that I did all the normal full refurb stuff, stripping the bike to the frame, rebuilding all the bearings, cleaning the components, waxing the frame etc, but  I didn't change the bar tape or tires.  I picked up some misc cables to go with bits of housing I already had an a new chain so maybe $20 to get to about $80 all in.  The Schwinn sold for $130 to a nice local young man who was going to commute on it.

I had intended to keep riding the Novara Randonee but between its less than ideal fit, short TT, overlap with other bikes in the fleet and the fact it was prime selling time I put it on the market.  This bike gave me some challenges between seat post binders, shifters and trying to use a cartridge bb but it was in fine fettle by the time I sold it.  I paid $70 for the bike but then replaced the shifters, did the normal bar tape, chain, tires, cables and then also upgraded the cockpit.  I got $200 for it and we'll say that after getting use out of it riding (Including the Tour De Lopez),  I just about broke even,  It went to a Kid who is going to college in LA and needed a bike to get around, his dad is an avid cyclist and gave the Novara his blessing, and paid for it lol.  Had I kept the cockpit stock and not messed with the Symmetric shifters I could have probably done well on this bike but I did build it to ride it and I made it comfortable for me,

The Allez was the crown jewel of the bunch, I had a lot fun riding it last year to determine that a 56 cm bike just wasn't going to fit.  I got a great deal by finding this for $80 on CL.  It got the full spa treatment, I bought new tires and cables but the bar wrap and new chain had been in the parts bin for a few years, I hated the quick link on the Connex chain but used a KMC quick link instead which worked great.  I spent about $150 all in, and got $225 for it from a young guy who was already an Allez fan and was intending to use this one for winter commuting.  One of these days I will find a 58.

And tonight I sold the Rock Hopper to a tall gentleman who will use it to commute on the Burke-Gilman bike trail.  I got the RH for $65 and if I could have gotten the rear shifter to work I think I could have come close to doubling my $$.  As it was I put another $40 into for tires, really like the Schwable City tires btw, and used an orphan left friction shifter from the parts bin to solve the shifting issue,  I ended up selling it for $120 so I did make a little bit on this one.

I started with 9 bikes, adding the Rock Hopper brought me to 10, I have sold 5 and have the Trek  420 yet to refurb and sell and that will get me down to 4 bikes.  A lot more room and a bit of cash in my war chest for the potential coming unemployment, depends on how long it takes to find a new gig. 

I might have squeezed more $$ out of the above bikes but I am happy overall and my investments certainly did  better than sitting in a savings account,  and I had fun on most of these bikes to boot,  My plan is to refurb the Trek 520 over the winter an then do a lot of comparison riding between it and the Cresta GT,

Ride. Refurb. Thin the herd. Stack the Cash. Smile. Repeat

Rock Hopper Redux

I wasn't feeling like an extended session with Naval Jelly on the Trek 420 today so I decided to do something with the Rock Hopper.

After numerous efforts I have given up on fixing the trigger shifters, which is a shame based on the videos I watched it seemed so straight forward but I think there was something else besides a sticky pawl going on.  That decision made I put the bike in the work stand.

Since I was going to get it working to sell I put the original stock saddle back on.  No need to have a more comfortable saddle if I am not going to be riding the bike.

This box has been taking up room in a my entry hall for a while so it was nice to get it open and get the Schwable tires out.

They do look sharp, I found the directional mark and got them mounted up to the rims.

With saddle and tires taken care of it was on to the troublesome shifter situation.

I removed the non working shifter pod leaving behind the perfectly functioning brake lever, sacked up the shifter so I can include with the bike and then cut a rubber strip from an old tube so when I mount the stamped steel clamp of the friction shifter it won't scrape up the handlebar.

I got the friction shifter mounted and cabled with a minimum of fuss, I used the existing housing to save time.  I had to adjust the low limit screw a touch to get the chain to go into the big cog in back and then it was time to cut and cap the cable.

Hopefully I can do slightly better than break even on this bike, the plan is to do some test riding and then list on CL.

After that blitz to get the Rock Hopper ready for sale I decided it was time to kick back on the balcony with an IPA and some snacks.

Ride. Make it functional. Smile. Repeat.

Trek 420 Refurb: Assessment

Well my 420 refub is not going to be exactly like the catalog shot above, although I am taking a few tips from this shot.  Much of the bike is stock but two areas that will change are the wheels and brakes.

The 420 came stock with 27" wheels and I am usually a champion of sticking with 27" wheels as many folks have the mistaken impression that either A) you can't find 27" tires or B) there is only one size to choose from which is not the case at all as I have talked about here before.  In the case of the 420 however it came to me with the rear wheel already 700c, I also have a set of 700c tires I can use, so I picked up this 700c front wheel that had the same rim as the rear earlier this summer for $20.  This will be my first ever 700c wheelset on a bike made for 27".

I picked up this pair of Tektro 539 Dual pivot brakes with nutted mounting a few months ago thinking they would be good for one of the many projects in the queue.  I tried them on the Novara Randonee but they weren't a great fit so I am hoping they will work on the 420, they should provide  improved braking over the stock single pivot DiaCompes.

From left to right above, the new 7 speed Cassette I talked about arrived and as a 12-32 will give a good range of gears, much better than the narrow range racing cassette that is currently on the rear hub.  A KMZ chain with quick link and some cloth tapes that mirrors what came stock and should play off the maroon decals on the bike.  RJ the bike guy has a video on wrapping cloth bar tape the Trek way so I will be following that.  And in finally the humble bell cable and housing set, for a friction set up I find this works fine and its about $6 for a full set vs. $20 if I went the Velo Orange route or more like $40 for Jagwire or Shimano.

I have new bearing for both the bottom bracket and headset ready to go.

I have the set of 700 x 32 Panaracer Paselas, with tubes, that I had on the Allez.  They probably have 50 miles or less on them and should clean up nicely and fit better on the 420 than they did on the Allez.  I will certainly note they are nearly new not brand new when I list the 420 but they have the advantage of being paid for.

starting point

first pass with goof off

More Goof Off and some scrubbing

The frame is going to demand a lot of attention. I have started removing some of the road tar spots on the frame, the Goof off works great, there are more spots on the fork.  And the more I look at the frame the more rust spots I see from chips and scrapes that went down to the bare metal.  This bike was definitely not a garage queen and may have been stored outside in its life as a college bike although the components don't show signs of rust from being left in the elements for long periods.  I am going to have to spend some time with the Naval jelly to remove the rust and try to find a decent nail polish match to protect the bare metal.  I think I can get the paint to the looks good from 10 feet away stage but it will have some patina close up.

Ride. Scrub away years of grime. Smile. Repeat.

I have a 3 speed

Ok its supposed to be a 21 speed mountain bike but I continue to struggle to get the trigger shifter to work, this is a $5 Deore XT shift unit I picked up at Bike works thinking I could hot swap it in and be on my way but no such luck so far.

And this is the stock Deore LX that came with the bike that I could not get to work despite watching and following a couple different videos.  In theory these Trigger shifters mostly stop working because the pawls get stiff with old grease and lose their snap and then you lose your ability to shift.  You solve this by cleaning up the pawl area with something like Brakleen and work the pawl until it gets its snap back.  Either I am missing a pawl somewhere or there is a different issue.  I haven't totally given up on the trigger shifter(s) but I am close.

My next step, if the trigger shifters won't work is to use the inexpensive thumb friction shifter I dug out of the parts bin, hasn't been used that I can see.  I can mount this without having to remove the current shifter, it would look a bit of a kludge but it would be perfectly functional and should go through all 7 gears in friction mode.  I could buy a XT unit off Ebay that would look the part and is advertised as functional put that is $35 plus tax and I would rather not sink more $$$ into the bike right now.

Another option would be to push my chips all in; strip the current shifters, brake levers, grips and bar ends off the bars and replace them with some nice Ergon grips, a set of SunTour thumbies I picked up and some basic mtb brake levers I have in the parts bin.   Then  I would also slap on the city tires I picked up last month.  And I could get a basic bell cable and housing set to wire it all up.  The draw back is I am not sure I could bring in enough $$$ from selling the bike to justify all those nice parts. but it would help move the RH on out of the apartment.  I really don't want to go underwater on the RH and those parts have value of their own if I don't use them here.

Since I had no shifting I removed the shift cable, I have a new one on deck for whatever solution I go with, but that of course leaves me with the aforementioned 3 speed.

0 gears on the right

3 gears on the left

After a decent spring my riding started falling off in June due to first illness and then one thing and another,  I have decided in August I am going to just try to ride and not worry about distance just to get back into the habit.  As noted last weekend I rode the HD, Moto_GT and Cresta GT.  This week I took the Trek 520 out of mothballs and rode it on a short jaunt to the happy hour at the local Pizza Joint.

I enjoyed it so much I did it again tonight on the 3 speed.  That is all my ride-able bikes except the Allez which I am trying to sell so no casual rides for it.

hmm Pizza

One drawback to removing the shift cable is that without any cable tension the chain comes to rest on the smallest cog so even in the small ring up front its not much of a climber as I found out huffing and puffing up the slight incline to get back home, I got there but in its current configuration its definitely a flat bike path bike.

Ride. Gears are your friend, Smile there's Pizza & beer. Repeat.

Trek 420 Refurb: Tear Down

I got the Trek 420 in the Stand on Sunday so I could work on tearing it down to the frame this week.  Man is this thing dirty, just standing next to it makes me need to was my hands lol.

I hadn't really intended to do more than a clean up, refurb, and replace the consumables but this ridiculous corncob cassette forced my hand.  For a race bike it would be fine but for a touring bike, even a sport tourer like the 420 with a triple it totally defeats the purpose, so I ordered a Shimano 12-32 7 speed cassette which makes much more sense and will give the 420 a nice wide range of gears for hilly Seattle.

On Monday I was just looking to get started; stem, seat post, derailleurs and wheels got removed that and tossing the old chain.  No issues so far but it's early yet.....

Three of 4 bolts holding the rack to the frame came out fine, but the worthless 3 mm allen cap head bolt had rounded making it impossible to get out with an allen head wrench.   People use a 4 or better yet 5 mm head but never a $%^ing  3 mm.  Sigh.

So I thought I will just use my hack saw to create a groove so I can use a screw driver to get it out.

Here's a tip when you are trying to use a large screw driver on a half assed groove you just cut in a allen head bolt don't position your hand where it will be in the way when inevitably the screw driver slips.  Literally a self inflicted wound..sigh.

Eventually I got the little bugger out with only minor scrapping on the rack.

And the rack joined the growing pile of parts in the box.  On to the crank which I removed the pedals from a while ago thinking I might need to loan them to someone.

Bolt covers are intact on both sides which is nice.

Here's a pro tip remove the crank bolt nuts BEFORE you try to use the crank extractor, it makes the job much easier, ask me how I know.  No idea how I skipped that step.

With the nuts removed I am ready to try again and..

wow it is much easier this time around.  So far besides a rounded allen head bolt I am mostly getting in my own way.

The headset came out fine and I secured all the parts in order with a zip tie to keep them together.  The picture will also help me to remember the order of the spacers.

I had intended to remove the headset cups too as they are easier to clean that way but for the first time ever my cup removal tool failed, it couldn't get purchase on the lip of the cup inside the head tube for some reason, not the end of the world and I could use other methods but for now they will stay in.

The bb didn't offer any issues, I didn't even have to use through bolt method to loosen up the fixed cup.

And so we are down to a frame and fork.  I think the paint is mostly good but there are number of what I think are tar spots I hope the Goof off will remedy and then there are some scrapes that went down to the metal and rusted so a Naval jelly session will need to happen. I will need to try to find some nail polish that is close to the color to cover the metal once the rust is gone.  And while I am at it I will frame saver the inside of the tubes.

Ride. Try and stay out of your own way. Smile. Repeat.