Coffeeneuring Challenge 2019: Ride 3: Olympia Coffee

Ride number 3 I also kept local as the shifting on the Ponderosa is just ok, fine in the big and small rings very sketchy in the middle ring, 

Olympia Coffee is primarily in Olympia WA, the state capitol, but they opened up a West Seattle location in early 2018. I rode the Moto_GT here last year.

I had a very nice mocha and a fabulous cheese crossiant, I almost ordered a second but stopped myself.  I remembered the coffee patches this time, I have a 3rd one somewhere but couldn't find it.  It was cool and blustery but I managed to miss the rain so I am feeling pretty lucky as its been very wet this week.

The data:

1. Where: Olympia Coffee, 3840 California Ave SW Seattle, WA 98116
2. Date: October 18th at 9:15 am.
3. Consumed:  Mocha and a croissant 
4. Details:  blustery , 50 degrees, bike parking half way down the block
5. Mileage: 2.4 miles
6. Bike Used: 1988 Novara Ponderosa MTB

Prepping for ride #4.

I have gone through the 3 bikes that are in CL and were in some danger of not being available, I just lowered the $$ on the Takara and the Ponderosa although I am about ready to either part out the Ponderosa or put on a new chain and make it my winter trainer bike.  I had a nice college kid look at the 420 today and he liked it but is looking at other bikes before deciding.  I think it made a good impression so fingers crossed,  If I am going to complete my theme of riding 7 different vintage steel bikes then the Allez needs to be rideable,  As you know from the last post it now has wheels and 12 functional gears, but the brakes weren't hooked up and it had no pedals.

I cut off the frayed ends of the brake cables and was able to get them hooked up both front and rear which should be adequate for a 2 mile coffee run.

And the Shimano dual side pedals were in the parts bin so I slapped them on the bike as a temporary measure.  The drive side pedal was a bit stiff going on despite my greasing the threads so I may have to check the pedal arm threads when I rebuild the bike,

As I was working on the bike it occured to me just how racy this model is, the 56cm Sport model I sold this summer was more relaxed with a triple crank and fender and rack mounts, this Allez has no braze ones, a fork with minimal rake and a short cage RD that isn't really set up for more than a 25t big cog on the cassette paired to a 52/39 crank.  It would be pretty easy to make this a more hill friendly bike, compact crank, Deore LX RD, 34t big cog in the rear, but I have lots of hill friendly bikes and I kind of like that this is different than the rest of the fleet.  Its why I keep wondering if I should just jump in with both feet and get the spec Suntour GPX wheelset to make it even more stock.  We'll see, lets ride it to coffee first.

Ride. Caffeinate. Smile. Repeat