Blog Post #1000

Some thoughts on blogging ... skip this if you want. There is an actual post, below this.

Next month will make seven years that I have been posting on this blog. During that time, the "Golden Age" of blogging, it appears, has come and gone. I have bemoaned the exodus of bloggers to Facebook, before, and it probably means little to most of you. But, I do still miss the community of bloggers that existed back then. It seemed so much more social than "social media" does.

But, enough of that. Until Google kills Blogger, I will continue to post here. This truly is a web-log, for me; a public journal of my life and what's going on around me. I really like looking back through the posts to see what was happening at certain times, or even to check and compare the weather, today, versus at some other time. I hope someone continues to enjoy reading it, as well, but I will post, no matter what.

That said, the frequency of posts has certainly decreased, lately. That is partly because the audience has shrunk, and partly because I have gotten lazy. I'm thinking I will change that, going into the new year.

 

I'm still working on my fat-front mountain bike. As I mentioned in my last post (2 months ago!), the aluminum frame I had built up did not have enough clearance for the 27.5x3" rear tire, if the tire was inflated to over 27 psi. This was fine for street use, and slow cruising off-road, but riding with any speed over rough terrain caused repeated pinch flats. I also mentioned, in that post, that I had a possible fix in mind. That fix is shown in the picture, above.

I bought a cro-mo steel 29er frame from a vendor on Amazon, for $139.00. At that price, I figured I could take a chance on tire clearance and, since the frame is steel, I could  attempt to dimple the insides of the chain stays, or even re-bend them, if necessary. And, if all else failed, I could build it into a 29er and sell it cheap on Craigslist.

The clearance was better than the alloy frame's, but still not optimal. So, I did end up dimpling the insides of the chain stays. I might even do a little more, later, but I'm able to run 40 psi, now, if I need.

The front fork is certainly going to need a paint job, if this ends up being a permanent installation. The blue really doesn't complement the green frame.

 The frame looks enough like a Surly (especially with the green paint) that everyone seems to assume that it is. If I was that type, I could sticker it up and most people would never know the difference. The biggest difference is that the rear dropouts and triangle were way the hell out of alignment, when I received the frame. I spent about an hour and a half tweaking it, after I got it.

But, what do you expect for $139.00, shipped?

 I bought this rear fat wheel off of Craigslist, a couple of months ago. The rim is 80mm (like the one on my Surly 1x1), but it had the offset drilling and was dished to run on the rear. I re-drilled it, and  re-laced it to center it and even up the spoke tension. Works like a charm, and gives the front tire a much bigger footprint than the 50mm rim did.

I haven't had a chance to go mountain biking, since I put this together, but I have done some around-town riding on it and it's mostly working to suit me. I did get some thumb shifters for it, since the old GripShift shifters I have on it are a little stiff to operate. And I bought another 1990's LX rear derailleur to replace the one I removed from one of my Trek 930's just to get this bike rolling.

Hopefully, I will do enough mountain biking, this year, both just riding and bike-packing, to justify this build. More on that, later.

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