Two Wheels - Six Strings

Random news and thoughts about various two-wheeled projects and music, especially my band, Skull Full Of Blues.

Saturday, November 09, 2013

One Of Those Days


First off, I overslept. I meant to be on the trail, at Mt. Falcon, by 6:00, but I didn't get up until 5:30.  As I loaded the bike, I took the front wheel off, and noticed that one of the mounting bolts on the front caliper was missing!  What next?

I got to the trailhead, and put the wheel in the front fork (I had replaced the missing brake bolt). At that point, I noticed that the front tire was flat. I apparently picked up a thorn on my ride around town, yesterday.

Two hundred fifty strokes of my frame pump later, I had the front tire aired up sufficiently, so I took off up the hill.

After I had ridden through the ravine, just out of of the parking lot, and started up the side of the mountain, I noticed that the freewheel was a bit balky about back-pedaling. Eventually, it got to the point that I had to constantly pedal forward, or the chain would get dragged down around the cog. I stopped to check it out, and realized that the freewheel was pretty much locked up.

At that point, I turned around and headed downhill.

Once I got home, I disassembled the freewheel and found that one of the pawls was broken, and one was bent.

So, I removed the cogs from the freewheel body, and put them on the body of the freewheel I had been using, before. (They were the same freewheel, just with a different range of cogs.) Then, I patched the tube, and I was back in business.


On the plus side, I did answer the three questions I wanted to address, on this ride:

1. Do these tires work well, on dirt? Yes, they do. Even with the rear tire somewhat over-pressure, the tires hooked up well and performed nicely.

2. Does the weight of the bike make it unpleasant to ride, on the big climbs?  No, it does not. I was probably not as fast on the bike as I would have been on the 29er, but I didn't notice that the heavier bike was harder to deal with.

3. Does the longer rear end (compared to the Mukluk), and the "cruiser" geometry have a negative effect off-road?  No. I had no problem lifting the front wheel and climbing over the waterbars on the trail, and it handled just fine. In fact, it reminds me of late 1980s/early 1990s mountain bikes.

So, I am happy with the bike, when it comes to performance and handling. Now, if I can just keep from having a mechanical, on the next ride...

x

3 Comments:

At 6:22 AM , Blogger Janet Johnson said...

Really great to see you on the trail, but a huge bummer on the barrage of tribulations.

That thing looks like an adventure bike. Ever considered an overnighter?

 
At 6:24 AM , Blogger Pondero said...

Whoops, the comment above was mine.

 
At 11:28 AM , Blogger Jon said...

The tribulations were largely my own fault, so i can't really complain. Next time, I just need to prepare more, and pay more attention to the bike.

I do plan on doing some overnighters with that bike. I'm actually planning on busting out the sewing machine and making a frame bag for the bike, one day, for that purpose.

 

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