A Whirlwind Of Bike Modifications During A Storm

So...what am I doing to weather Hurricane/Tropical Storm Sandy?  Bike stuff, of course.

I started with Arielle.  The Dia Compe Silver Shifters are pretty, but they haven't worked out very well.  I've had to replace the nylon washers three times because to keep the levers from slipping (and giving you an unwanted shift), I've had to tighten them really hard.  

I think the action on them is smooth.  As they are patterned after the Sun Tour Micro shifter, I though I could find a pair.  I could...for about $200 on eBay.   So, I went for a Dura Ace downtube shifter, which can be switched from indexing (click-shift) to friction (traditional) mode.

They're not quite as pretty as the Silvers, but they aren't bad, I'd say.  Plus, it's part of the same Dura Ace gruppo as my derailleurs.

I also plan on changing the levers on Helene.  Right now, I have Silver shifters mounted to Velo Orange handlebar pods.  The shifters were originally mounted on the downtube, and I decided to try them on the bars.  Since I ride the bars tilted downward, it's really not much of a reach to the downtube.  Plus, each shifter will need about a foot less of cable and housing than it would need on the handlebar, which will result in a quicker, smoother shift.

I'll probably make the same change to Vera. However, she had a more urgent problem, to which I attended:  Her rear rack was falling apart.  It broke at two of the welds.  Old bike mechanics' wisdom says that if a spoke has broken on your wheel, others will break soon.  I applied that sage advice to my rack, and replaced it.

I got a good buy on a Civia Mission rack.  I tried installing it on Helene, with the idea that I would transfer her Blackburn rack to Vera.  But I didn't like the way the Mission fit on Helene.  The Blackburn fits perfectly, and I didn't want to readjust it for Helene.

As it turned out, the Mission fight nicely on Vera.

Helene's rack mounts are higher on her seat stays than Vera's are on hers.  If I recall correctly, when I ordered Helene's frame, I told the folks at Mercian that I intended to use a Blackburn rack, mainly because I've been using them for about 30 years.  

Anyway, I rather like the way the Mission looks on Vera.  It'll be interesting to see how it holds up under daily use.

So far, it looks like only Tosca and the Trek will be spared this whirlwind of bike modification!

How I Want It To Be, Just About

Well, the Miss Mercian is just about done.  Oh, it's been rideable for more than a week now.  But I finally got the rack I wanted for it.  


I know that there are all kinds of fancy-pants racks out there.  Some are quite good; nearly all of them are overpriced.  I'm not talking, now, about the constructeur racks, vintage or current, made by hand by a few small builders.  Rather, I'm thinking about some that try to be more, and end up being less, than they are.


One high-end rack in particular that I saw fits that description.  But Hal said that it's really no stronger or otherwise better than the rack I bought.  Plus, it was ugly, at least to my eye.


So what did I get?  The "old reliable":  a Blackburn Expedition rack.  I know it's good because I've owned a couple of them before. In fact, I used them for all of my multi-day (or -week) tours.  And I very stupidly left them on bikes that I sold.  Hal has used the same model to cross the USA by bike--three times.  In fact, he used the same rack all three times!


So why was getting another one such a big deal?  These days, it's made only in black.  That probably would've looked OK on the bike, but I thought silver would be prettier.  I thought I was going to get one on eBay.  I submitted what I was sure would be a winning bid.  That was a few hours before the end of the auction.  But, in those last few hours, someone submitted a winning bid--fifty cents higher than the one I submitted!  


I guess if I'd waited a bit longer, another would've turned up on eBay.  But I didn't want to to lose in the same way.  So, I broke down and bought  from one of the few retailers that still had silver racks in stock.  I ordered one from Probikekit which, like the other retailers that had it in stock, is located in the U.K.  Surprisingly, the rack, even with shipping, cost me slightly less than it would have cost to buy it here.  Thank the still-favorable exchange rate and the fact that the quoted price included VAT, which you don't have to pay if you're not in the UK or EU.  


For good measure, I bought two.  At that price, why not?  I could always use it on Arielle if I need to carry more than a Carradice saddlebag on it.  Or I could use it on some future build.  At least I've got another good rack in silver that didn't cost more than the first five or six bikes I owned.