Fruddled Gruntbugglies

Author: lpaulriddle

  • ’93 Rockhopper Rebuild

    My first “good” bike was a ’93 Specialized Rockhopper, which saw lots of mountain biking action in the ’90s, but has been largely neglected ever since.  It has an old front suspension fork with a blown seal.  I’ve decided to fix the bike up and use it for winter commuting, and maybe some occasional single track.  I think with a little TLC, it’ll make a great third commuter bike.  The initial plan is to install a rigid front fork with threadless headset and stem, then possibly convert it to single speed.  I’ll also swap out the cantilever brakes for v-brakes, and replace the brake levers.  Among other things, the bike will need new tires, tubes, brake cables, and pedals.

    I started out by removing the front fork and headset cups. The bike has a 1-1/8″ steerer tube.  Following instructions I found at http://davesbikeblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/headset-removal-and-replacement.html, I fashioned a cup removal tool out of 3/4″ copper pipe I had lying around.  1″ would have been a better fit, but I didn’t have any on hand.  With a little care, I was able to pop the headset cups out of the frame without too much trouble.  I put the frame in a repair stand, braced the head tube against my work bench (padded with a towel), inserted the makeshift removal tool in the tube, and pounded the cup out with a ball-peen hammer.  The frame is now ready for a new headset and fork.

    Next step is to pick up a new threadless headset, and make sure it fits the frame.  I’ll buy the headset locally, so I can return it if it doesn’t fit.  Then I’ll buy a new fork and stem and put everything together.  I’m considering a Surly 1×1 fork.  Stay tuned.

  • Long Sleeves

    Not much noteworthy about today’s ride, except that I wore a long sleeve jersey, for the first time since probably May.  As hot as this summer has been, I didn’t think this day would ever arrive.  Won’t be long, and I’ll be griping about how cold it is and how I wish I could get back to wearing summer clothes.  I did pack a short sleeve shirt for the return ride this afternoon.

    I raised the stem height on my fixed-gear bike yesterday, hoping it would make the bars a little more comfortable.  Fortunately I had a little more height available on my threadless steerer tube, and was able to rearrange the spacers and get the stem up about ¼”.  It helped a bit with the reach, but not really with the hand positions.  I think I may need to swap out handlebars.  The bike currently has “bull horns,” which are indeed popular on urban-style fixed gear bikes (and also time trial bikes), but I just don’t find them comfortable for everyday commuting.  I’m still undecided as to what to try.  Standard drop bars are an option, but I’ve also heard good things about “moustache” style bars.  Either way, I’ll also need new brake levers.  Will need to give this some thought.

    Going to try to get in a quick swim this weekend.  It may be my last time in the pool this season.  Our solar blanket was falling apart, so we got rid of it earlier this summer, and now we’re missing it.  It can be a pain to deal with, but it does extend the pool season a bit.

  • Mid-life crisis?

    My latest kick these days is getting rid of stuff.  The junk accumulation phase of my life is over, and it’s time to downsize.  My new best friends are the recycle bin, the dump, the paper shredder, eBay, and the Salvation Army.  I’d like the house to eventually be neat and organized.  I’d like us eventually to move to a smaller house that’s less of a money pit.  When that happens, I don’t want to have a lot of junk to move, so I’m getting a head start on things now.

    There have been a couple of recent exceptions.  I recently repaired my old electric guitar, a ’79 Peavey T-60 which I bought in the mid-1980s.  These are versatile, well-made guitars that can produce a wide variety of different sounds, due to a unique “coil tapping” circuit that uses the tone control to dial in variable amounts of resistance across the pickup coils.  However, on mine, the neck pickup never worked.  I found an OEM replacement on eBay and soldered it in, and now it’s good as new and I’m having lots of fun with it, after it sat neglected for 20-odd years.  (Incidentally, when I first picked it up, it was still in tune.)

    Next up is my old mountain bike, a ’93 Specialized Rockhopper.  It’s been mostly neglected for around 10 years. The old front suspension fork is shot, making it unrideable.  My plan is to replace it with a rigid fork, upgrade the headset and stem, and use it for winter commuting and some occasional single track.  If it works out, I’ll replace the old cantilever brakes with v-brakes, and possibly convert it to single speed.  It’s got a well-built frame, and if I can fix it up for $250 or so, then there’s no need to shell out big bucks for a new mountain or cross bike.

    It’s a bit nostalgic fixing up the guitar I had as a teenager and the bike which I rode in my 20s.  If this my mid-life crisis, I guess it beats buying a sports car or a boat.

  • Grind.

    I slogged up Ilchester Rd. again today.  It went a little more smoothly than last time.  Hill-climbing rule no. 1:  If you know you’re going to need the granny gear, shift into it while still seated, before it gets too hard to pedal.  If you wait ’till you’re standing up, your derailleur will pick that moment to dump the chain, and you’ll either fall off the bike, or nearly fall off the bike, looking really stupid in either case.

    Ilchester Rd. is one of 3 hills in my area (along with Gun Rd. and College Ave.) that are so steep, that it feels like the front wheel is going to pop off the ground if I don’t lean forward to weight it.   It would probably help if I wasn’t riding with loaded panniers.  I’m trying to do Ilchester around once a week now.  I go up Ilchester, then right on Beechwood, and right on Bonnie Branch, back to the starting point.  It’s a nice loop that extends my morning ride while keeping me out of school traffic.  The initial goal is to be able to get up Ilchester in the granny without feeling winded.  Then we’ll see where it goes from there.

  • Rite of Passage

    School has started, both at UMBC and in the surrounding counties.  That means more traffic to deal with, particularly during my morning rides.  The first week is always the worst, after which things start to improve as people fall into a routine.  I’m not crazy about this time of year, but it does have one thing going for it — weather conditions are slowly starting to get better for riding.  It’s still hot, but it’s a dry, more tolerable heat.  The biking nirvana of early Fall is right around the corner.

    Today marked my 20th and final ride of August, making it my most prolific bike-commuting month to date.  That record may stand for awhile, as holidays, vacation and random days off tend to keep my ride totals under 20 most months.

    New route today.  I wanted an option for a longer ride, without dealing with traffic on Montgomery and/or Frederick Rds.  I went down Lawyers Hill, through the park on the Grist Mill Trail, left on Ilchester, right on Beechwood, and right on Bonnie Branch.  This took me right back to the park entrance, where I doubled back through the park and rode to UMBC through Relay/Halethorpe.  This was my first time ever doing the notorious climb up Ilchester Rd., and it was humbling.  My bike dumped its chain when I dropped into the granny gear, and I almost fell over.  I then had to ride a quick loop to get the bike moving again up the steep grade.  But after that it wasn’t too bad, and it kept me out of traffic.  I’ll probably ride this more often, as it’s good hill training.  Won’t be doing it with fixed gear any time soon, though.

    I came into UMBC via Poplar Ave.  Traffic on that side of campus was not bad when I arrived, around 8:45am.  I’ll probably avoid coming in via Wilkens/Hilltop for at least a week, when things have settled down and I have a better sense for what time classes start.

  • Final Summer Fling

    It’s the last week of summer vacation for Howard and Baltimore counties, with students returning to school on Monday 8/30.  That means this is the last week I get to enjoy relatively light traffic on my morning rides, before the roads get clogged with buses and other school traffic.  This week I’m enjoying a few last rides on roads that I tend to avoid during the school year.  One example is Ilchester Rd. between Montgomery and Landing.  I’ll occasionally ride eastbound on this road during school, but westbound (approaching the light at Montgomery) I avoid like the plague.  Today I took the fixie down Landing Rd – first time I’ve ever ridden Landing on this bike.  Then I turned left on Ilchester, rode all the way out to Montgomery, turned right and headed down Bonnie Branch Rd into the park.  The weather looks nice for biking through the end of the week.  I’ll likely switch to the road bike for Thursday and Friday’s rides.  One of those days I want to ride out to New Cut Rd. and then through Oella and Catonsville, and the other I was thinking about taking College Ave. out to Ellicott City and then taking River Rd. and riding through the park.  Next week, the plan is to start my rides out by going down Lawyers Hill Rd, to avoid the traffic on Montgomery Rd. in Elkridge.

    Classes also start at UMBC next week, which means that navigating through campus is going to become a challenge, particularly with all the construction for the PAHF building going on, combined with all the new parking regulations.  The first week of classes is going to be a traffic nightmare.  I’ve already decided that I’m going to avoid Wilkens Ave/Hilltop Rd and come onto campus via Poplar Ave., at least for the first week.  After that, I’ll try to time my arrivals so they don’t coincide with the start of morning classes, to avoid the massive gridlock coming in on Hilltop.  The PAHF construction has pushed the student parking up beyond the Hilltop Circle traffic light, which means there’s going to be a LOT more pedestrian traffic in that area.  UMBC’s new zoned parking plan seems like a good idea, and I’m sure they’ll do what they can to manage things, but the first week is still going to be rough.  Hopefully things will settle down after that.

  • Canceling Mortgage Escrow Account

    A couple years ago, I wrote about how my mortgage company consistently mis-calculated my monthly escrow payment, arriving at figures that were either too high or too low, depending on the time of year the escrow analysis was done.   Well, this past summer, the mortgage company ran another analysis and again came up with a figure that would have had me paying too much into escrow.  When this has happened in the past, we’ve called them and had them correct it, a process which typically involves sending a fax and spending about an hour on the phone.  This year, though, we decided to ask them what it would take to waive the escrow requirement on the account.  I figured that I’m responsible enough to set aside money for insurance and taxes on my own, and I stay on top of our local property tax rates, so I can do a better job anticipating these expenses than the mortgage company can.

    Canceling the escrow account was easier than I had anticipated.  There were, however, a bunch of prerequisites.  Going from memory, they were:

    • A 12-month history of no late or missed payments
    • A 75% loan-to-value ratio (in other words, you need at least 25% of the property’s appraised value in equity)
    • No escrow disbursements due in the next 60 days

    When we initially called, they checked to ensure that we met these requirements, then they mailed us a waiver which we needed to sign.  This arrived after about a week.  We signed it and faxed it back to them (along with a brief cover letter).  Within 24 hours of sending the fax, they had canceled the escrow account.  After another week, we received a check for the balance of the account.  All in all, it was straightforward and painless, and now they just bill us for principal and interest each month.  For taxes and insurance, we set money aside separately each month, which we can now do accurately, setting aside only what’s needed.

    We were happy that our mortgage company was willing to waive the escrow account without too much fuss.  If you’re in a similar situation, you might consider checking with yours and see if they’ll work with you.  If not, there’s always the option of refinancing into a mortgage with no escrow account.  At today’s interest rates, that may make sense for a lot of people; in our case, the interest savings would only barely outweigh the closing costs, so for now, it was easier to waive the escrow account and stick with our current mortgage.

  • Dog Days

    Yet another morning riding in the August soup.  The beginning of the week was hot-and-sunny soup, and the past 2 days have been damp-and-cloudy soup with the requisite messy storms mixed in.  I biked to work 4 days out of 5, shrewdly taking off on Tuesday, which was the hottest day of the week.

    This morning I headed out Montgomery Rd and down Bonnie Branch Rd, only to find it blocked by a downed tree not far from the intersection with College Ave.  I would have tried to squeeze around it, if not for the truck on the other side of it, presumably there to attempt to remove it.  So I doubled back and took Ilchester Rd instead, cutting back to Bonnie Branch via Beechwood Rd.  I’d say it added around 3 miles to my ride.

    I remember around this time in February, I was pining for summer and wondering if I’d ever get to shed all the winter gear and clothes.  Now I’m missing winter again.  I’m all for the changing seasons, and I’d probably get bored living in a temperate climate, but part of me wishes that summer and winter wouldn’t outstay their welcomes the way they seem to do so often around here.  🙂

  • July finally over

    Well..  a truly miserable July, the hottest in recent memory, is finally over.  Let’s see what August has in store.  I finished July up with roughly 15 rides.  I say “roughly” because I’ve gotten kinda lazy with keeping ride stats lately, and sort of forgot to record any of my rides after July 14.  So I went from memory and couldn’t remember how many days I rode the rest of that week.  It could be argued that that is a good thing, as it indicates that my riding has become more of a routine, and less of a “novelty” where I feel like I need to record stats.

    Despite the heat, I conveniently managed to avoid riding on some of the hottest days of the month, particularly last week, where I vacationed in the somewhat-cooler midwest, while temperatures here were in the triple digits.  I did have to ride home once when it was 100 degrees, but it was a dry heat, and in spite of the “blast furnace” nature of it (at 100 degrees, it no longer feels cool riding downhill, in spite of the air movement), it was actually more comfortable than riding at 90 degrees with high humidity.

    Been doing most of my riding on the fixed-gear bike the past few weeks, which is atypical for the season.  It’s been mainly out of convenience..  I’ve needed the fenders for a few rides, and haven’t wanted to deal with switching bikes on the other days.  I really think I’m going to need a third bike for the colder months, preferably one that can ride off-road and in snow.  Not sure if it’s going to happen for this winter, but I’d definitely like to have one for 2011-2012.

  • Heat Wave

    So we’ve hit one of the two times of year (the other being the dead of winter) where you really have to be hard-core to be out on the bike.  This afternoon I should easily break my record for hottest ride home.  It was already close to 90 when I rode in this morning, and the predicted high is 102, though with some luck we’ll be a bit off the high by 5:00pm.  We’ll see I guess.  I will say this: I see more cyclists out in the extreme heat than I do when it’s extremely cold.  Personally, given the choice, I’ll take cold, but that’s just me.

    This has been an extreme summer for construction.  On a typical ride through Patapsco, Relay and Halethorpe, I go through no fewer than 5 construction zones.  Of particular note, the lower Grist Mill Trail is currently closed down for repairs.  According to the DNR web site, they’re repaving it and fixing drainage issues.  It’s supposed to take 4 weeks.  That part of the trail definitely needed some work; there were 1 or 2 very rough patches, and I’ve experienced first-hand how badly it has flooded out on occasion.  Should be nice when it’s finished.  There’s also some kind of work going on along the entrance road, not far from the viaduct.  I haven’t seen anyone there for a week or so, but there are two rough patches where it appears that they dug a trench across the road to lay some sort of pipe.  Probably more drainage-related stuff, though there’s nothing about this on DNR’s page.