Moustache bars rock! Plus misc. happenings...
MOUSTACHE BARS:
A few weeks ago I bought a pair of these moustache bars from Nashbar.
one each in the 52cm and 56cm width, the intention being that I'd use the 52cm bars on my fixie and maybe use the 56cm bars as USS (underseat steering) bars on my ActionBent Tidal Wave bike.
Since the bars are a 25.4mm clamp diameter bar, I'd either have to use the adjustable height, threadless stem from my parts bin (long removed from my Specialized Sequoia Sport road bike), use a shim with my 26.0mm stem, or heck, get rid of the kludge of a threadless quill adapter and threadless stems and get an apropriate quill stem.
Since I was at Performance and needed to get over a certain total to get a discount for a grand opening sale, I bought this stem.
(strangely not on the Performance site, but it cost only $15, so why not!?)
It's practically perfect for what I need. If the reach were maybe a little longer, it'd be perfect, but it's pretty good the way it is.
The moustache bars work really well. Lots of hand positions, good access to the brake levers. I haven't done any long riding with them, but I expect them to work great. In fact, I may even convert my regular road bike from Sora brifters to these with barend shifters. We'll see.
There's gotta be a downside though, and it is weight. The bars and the threaded stem are made of steel, and are *heavy*. But they're also quite solid. I know that aluminum (heat treated) moustache bars are available, but they're $$$. I got the ones from Nashbar for like $10 each on super sale, before 10% discount.
FENDERS:
I also got some Planet Bike Freddie Fenders full coverage fenders for the fixie. I'm working on equipping this bike as my "go to bike", my "foul weather bike". They went on fairly easily, nothing exciting there, except I'm hoping for the next rain to come so I can try them out :-).
I hope to have a picture or two of fixie with the moustache bars and fenders installed, but in the mean time, it kinda looks like this bike.
FRONT BRAKING ON THE FIXIE:
The pulsing I was experiencing while braking the front wheel on the fixie turns out to have been a loose headset! I tightened it up and now the front wheel breaking is "like buttah".
Oh, and because I put on the front fender, the Tektro Mini-V brake I had on there previously won't fit anymore. I tried to put on the original cantilever brake, but then realized I didn't know how to reassemble it. After a few hours of futility, I decided to look for instructions. I found an exploded diagram on the net for a similar brake and that worked great.
I'm still using road brake levers though, so until I get a Travel Agent installed up front, I'm living with having close-in brake pads and a very light (too light) action to actuate the brake. It seems to work fine, but definitely will put the travel agent on there unless I can find a cable guide solution for the cantilever brake at a local bike shop (I know I can mail order it from some places, but it's not worth ordering just for that).
DESTROYING A WHEEL (the no fun way):
I was doing some bike maintenance and noticed my Sequoia's rear wheel (the spare I took off my Tidal Wave when I broke a spoke nipple on the Sequoia's original wheel) was slightly out of true. This is a Ritchey Aero OCR Comp wheel with zero dish rim and hub. I bought this wheel from REI a while ago pretty cheap and it was out of true out of the box, came with the wrong size skewer, etc. A trip to REI took care of both problems. It was destined for my Tidal Wave, but since I don't ride that bike much anymore, I used it as a spare.
The issue with truing though is kind of difficult--due to the zero dish nature. You'd think it should have even tension on both sides, but it doesn't. But it's also not like regular, dished rear wheels, so bike mechanics may not be used to dealing with it.
Anyway, when I plucked some spokes, I noticed that the tension was quite uneven around the wheel even though it was fine in roundness and only a little out of true. Rather than taking the practical route of just tuning it up to be true, I figured I'd follow some net.advice about how even tension is more important than absolute trueness. Well, as I made the tension even, the thing turned into a slight potato chip. I backed off all the tension and redid it and got it nearly true, but then it was quite out of round. In trying to round it, I turned it into a major potato chip.
I'm on the verge of giving up on this wheel, or at least the rim. I suspect that the rim wasn't really round and flat out from the factory and when it was built up, they tweaked the tension to make it kinda, sorta close to round and true. I tried a few tricks to flatten the rim, but to no avail. I think I'll try to rebuild this wheel from scratch one more time and if it comes out OK, I think I'll just keep it for trainer duty, as I have intended to do with the Tidal Wave for a while now.
In the process of adjusting tension on this thing, I squashed like 8 or 9 of the nipples. Not rounded, but squashed. They went from square necked to oblong necked. I was lucky I had a few spares. I need to be more careful and make sure the spoke wrench is fully engaged before turning up the tension.
I got those spoke nipples a while back to fix that one broken one on the Sequoia's wheel. So I finally put that wheel back on that bike, and I'm good to go again.
A few weeks ago I bought a pair of these moustache bars from Nashbar.
one each in the 52cm and 56cm width, the intention being that I'd use the 52cm bars on my fixie and maybe use the 56cm bars as USS (underseat steering) bars on my ActionBent Tidal Wave bike.
Since the bars are a 25.4mm clamp diameter bar, I'd either have to use the adjustable height, threadless stem from my parts bin (long removed from my Specialized Sequoia Sport road bike), use a shim with my 26.0mm stem, or heck, get rid of the kludge of a threadless quill adapter and threadless stems and get an apropriate quill stem.
Since I was at Performance and needed to get over a certain total to get a discount for a grand opening sale, I bought this stem.
(strangely not on the Performance site, but it cost only $15, so why not!?)
It's practically perfect for what I need. If the reach were maybe a little longer, it'd be perfect, but it's pretty good the way it is.
The moustache bars work really well. Lots of hand positions, good access to the brake levers. I haven't done any long riding with them, but I expect them to work great. In fact, I may even convert my regular road bike from Sora brifters to these with barend shifters. We'll see.
There's gotta be a downside though, and it is weight. The bars and the threaded stem are made of steel, and are *heavy*. But they're also quite solid. I know that aluminum (heat treated) moustache bars are available, but they're $$$. I got the ones from Nashbar for like $10 each on super sale, before 10% discount.
FENDERS:
I also got some Planet Bike Freddie Fenders full coverage fenders for the fixie. I'm working on equipping this bike as my "go to bike", my "foul weather bike". They went on fairly easily, nothing exciting there, except I'm hoping for the next rain to come so I can try them out :-).
I hope to have a picture or two of fixie with the moustache bars and fenders installed, but in the mean time, it kinda looks like this bike.
FRONT BRAKING ON THE FIXIE:
The pulsing I was experiencing while braking the front wheel on the fixie turns out to have been a loose headset! I tightened it up and now the front wheel breaking is "like buttah".
Oh, and because I put on the front fender, the Tektro Mini-V brake I had on there previously won't fit anymore. I tried to put on the original cantilever brake, but then realized I didn't know how to reassemble it. After a few hours of futility, I decided to look for instructions. I found an exploded diagram on the net for a similar brake and that worked great.
I'm still using road brake levers though, so until I get a Travel Agent installed up front, I'm living with having close-in brake pads and a very light (too light) action to actuate the brake. It seems to work fine, but definitely will put the travel agent on there unless I can find a cable guide solution for the cantilever brake at a local bike shop (I know I can mail order it from some places, but it's not worth ordering just for that).
DESTROYING A WHEEL (the no fun way):
I was doing some bike maintenance and noticed my Sequoia's rear wheel (the spare I took off my Tidal Wave when I broke a spoke nipple on the Sequoia's original wheel) was slightly out of true. This is a Ritchey Aero OCR Comp wheel with zero dish rim and hub. I bought this wheel from REI a while ago pretty cheap and it was out of true out of the box, came with the wrong size skewer, etc. A trip to REI took care of both problems. It was destined for my Tidal Wave, but since I don't ride that bike much anymore, I used it as a spare.
The issue with truing though is kind of difficult--due to the zero dish nature. You'd think it should have even tension on both sides, but it doesn't. But it's also not like regular, dished rear wheels, so bike mechanics may not be used to dealing with it.
Anyway, when I plucked some spokes, I noticed that the tension was quite uneven around the wheel even though it was fine in roundness and only a little out of true. Rather than taking the practical route of just tuning it up to be true, I figured I'd follow some net.advice about how even tension is more important than absolute trueness. Well, as I made the tension even, the thing turned into a slight potato chip. I backed off all the tension and redid it and got it nearly true, but then it was quite out of round. In trying to round it, I turned it into a major potato chip.
I'm on the verge of giving up on this wheel, or at least the rim. I suspect that the rim wasn't really round and flat out from the factory and when it was built up, they tweaked the tension to make it kinda, sorta close to round and true. I tried a few tricks to flatten the rim, but to no avail. I think I'll try to rebuild this wheel from scratch one more time and if it comes out OK, I think I'll just keep it for trainer duty, as I have intended to do with the Tidal Wave for a while now.
In the process of adjusting tension on this thing, I squashed like 8 or 9 of the nipples. Not rounded, but squashed. They went from square necked to oblong necked. I was lucky I had a few spares. I need to be more careful and make sure the spoke wrench is fully engaged before turning up the tension.
I got those spoke nipples a while back to fix that one broken one on the Sequoia's wheel. So I finally put that wheel back on that bike, and I'm good to go again.
posted by Victor at 8:45 PM
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