Silver Case

I rode my Brompton to the machine shop today. Michel, Sulaiman, and I were doing a non-invasive teardown analysis of it. The final conclusion is something like

It is an elegant design that has clearly been refined over many years. Almost every detail and part on the bike appears to be a bespoke design from Brompton’s factory in the UK. So while it works very nicely today, if anything ever were to break on the bike during a long ride, bar one or two M3 cap bolts , there is almost no chance of finding a spare unless you find yourself outside a Brompton Service Center.

It is a nice little minimalist bike. The 5pm ride home from the workshop was a bit rude from sun and hills, but a few stand-ups on the grades had me home in reasonable time.

On my long bike rides, I need to eat, otherwise I deteriorate after about three hours’ riding. I can carry stuff in my back pockets, but it tends to be out-of-sight and kept out-of-mind (I don’t enjoy eating in the saddle). So last night I designed a prototype mussett bag that hangs across my top tube. Its dimensions keep it out of the way of my cables, my knees, and water bottles. It’s big enough to hold some food and sundries.   

I made it out of my favorite canvas duck fabric that I used to make my first messenger bag (which turns out to be a really nice bag that i still sometimes use). I love this durable, low-tech fabric. It’s just tough cotton, so you can make it foul, it politely dries itself out, and you can always wash it later. I embroidered a pig on the side, for color, but I was not thinking clearly and ended up putting it on upside down. I haven’t sewn on eyes or nose. I did add two large snaps to lock down the bag so that it doesn’t slide anywhere.

I didn’t finish it by this morning’s ride because last night I went into a fugue. I convinced myself something was seriously mal-adjusted with my sewing machine. I believed the bobbin spinning part was out of adjustment, thus colliding with the needle. As I was fading to sleep last night it dawned on me I probably had the needle installed 180d incorrectly. This side has a notch that lets the bobbin finger spin by very closely and snag the top thread.

Sure enough, that was the answer.

Then I went into another brain-cramp where I spent twenty minutes fussing with the presser foot and feed dog to make them pull the fabric better before I realized that the problem was simply a dial adjustment had been left at 0 forward advance after I’d working on the embroidery. duh.

Anyway, the bag is ready for my next ride.

Bag installed; simple.

Think it’s finished, after more than a few hours of tinkering. Lateral deflection is around 0.2mm. Axial deflection, 0.3-0.4mm. The dishing is correct to a mm or two. I got all the spokes tensioned to within +/-10% of the mean. At 107kgf, I’ve got the tension on the drive side rear wheel towards the high side of the Mavic specs (according the Barnett Bicycle Guide), but I think my first wheel failure was from under-tension, so I’d rather err on this side.

Now I have no excuse not to ride a lot this weekend.

Cornholio joined us in sending Mom and Dad to the airport at 4:30am

Well Mom and Dad are back in Pittsburgh. We certainly enjoyed their visit. I think they enjoyed it to (everything except mom’s late night curry-refund at Mt. Alvernia). Hopefully we can make a visit back to Pennsylvania during 2010 Summer. I was really dreading so many flights to the USA this year, but already my business trip scheduled for next year was cancelled today, so that’s one less punishment-journey I have to make.

I changed color schemes for Auntie Mary. Let’s see if that is any easier for her to read.

The indentation into the aluminum flange is normal. The broken spoke is not.

Spent the evening lacing and tensioning a new rear wheel for my bicycle. I think I did a poor job the first time I built it, then never checked the wheel. Subsequently it went slack, fatiguing the spokes. They started popping furiously on my last big ride. Somehow we (Michel) managed to true the wheel salvageably so I could finish.

When I got home, the spokes were clearly junked, so I threw them all out and am rebuilding the wheel again. I laced it in about 25 minutes tonight without too much drama.

Mistakes made? Looks like I must have twisted the hub in the wrong direction because my pulling spokes are inbound spokes instead of being outbound spokes. A small(ish) detail but it annoys me. I know Sulaiman will notice.

Other mistake? When I bought my spokes (288mm and 290mm) my brain wasn’t working and I ordered 32 of each, rather than 16 of each. So I have exactly twice the spokes I needed for this project. I guess if I break the wheel again(!), I’ll have a third set of spokes to build. Ugh. Hoping that doesn’t become necessary.

The wheel is reasonably ok already. I’ll finish it tomorrow when I’m fresher. I spent about two hours on it tonight which (I know, I know) is about double as long as it should take a skilled wheelbuilder. But I’m not skilled; I’m barely even a wheelbuilder at this point…It’s just me and my Jobst Brandt.

Something wrong with my car. Steering vibrates and I can feel the car making tiny pulls left and right. Feels like a bushing wore out of a strut or something and now the steering system isn’t being held firmly. Will have to get that fixed this week. Thus I couldn’t drive to my workshop today.

Then was prepping my road bike for a ride and realized the front brake cable was frozen. Blamed the front cable housing run for being corroded. It was. However that wasn’t the only problem. The slack adjustment ferrule is also jammed up. The cable won’t feed through it at all, let alone smoothly. Now the question is can I replace that without having to replace the entire dura-ace brake?

Luke on his tiny purple mountain bike. Ling on the titanium Brompton bicycle I bought in London. Me on my Favorit fixed-gear (vvv de olx). We rode round the neighborhood, down to the river, and then a long uphill climb back for Luke. He ditched his shirt during the climb, finished with plenty of energy, and then buzzed my tire at-speed, flipping himself over in the process. haha Can’t wait to get the Gyrowheel for him so that he can go two-wheel.

The last third of my Seattle Sabbatical was a trip with Matt and Adam to Death Valley via Las Vegas. Only two hours away, we all flew to Las Vegas, rented an SUV, and drove to Death Valley. It was like our Outback 2003 trip in miniature: a car crammed full of shit and a lot of ruined tires. It meant we stayed in Death Valley one day less than expected.

I’ve endured enough trips damaged by bad outfitting. It’s time to figure out alternatives to at least two major problems.

It’s impossible to rent a 4×4 truck with all the equipment necessary to mount a trouble-free 4×4 trip.

No national rental car company offers vehicles capable to mount a desert 4×4 trip. That would require expensive heavy-duty tires, extraction and safety equipment, and a willingness to have their vehicles abused to a considerable degree.

When you rent a 4×4 SUV (availability not guaranteed) your tires will likely be road/passenger class. They fundamentally cannot take the abuse of driving up old mining roads or trails along streambeds. As soon as you lose one tire, you’re stupid to continue on unless you don’t mind getting stranded.

Your two fifty-pound luggages will be filled with lots of other travel essentials already, so you’ll need to buy your shovel, tow-straps, and air compressor at your destination for a single-use

Forget Loss-Damage Waivers (LDW) to protect against abuse and damaged tires. LDWs just make your rental even more expensive and driving the car on unpaved roads voids it anyway.

Occasionally you’ll see boutique 4×4 rentals, but their rates are insane and always give me the impression that they make a good second-income by issuing punitive damage assessments upon return.

Owning your own infrequent-use 4×4 seems expensive and logistically difficult. Even if I didn’t mind buying and storing a field-ready 4×4 for trips, it’s still another matter to get the vehicle to the trip destination. I wouldn’t have wanted to drive a 4×4 truck fifteen hundred miles from Seattle to Death Valley. That would have (1) sucked (2) wasted four days driving. There are car-transport companies, but they are slow (small problem) and cost around $1,000 one-way (big problem). Of course having a 4×4 depoted in Seattle doesn’t do me any good if I want to go exploring in Australia or Borneo.

Car-camping cooking is gross and inefficient

My earliest camping experiences were strictly backpacking trips in the desert. Carrying everything enforces a certain efficiency. Camping with a 4×4 makes me sloppy. I think my logic failure is that the vehicle has infinite storage, thus I can outfit myself with a mobile kitchen, enabling me to eat as if I lived in a studio apartment.

It turns out to be gross. Preparing fresh food requires more equipment to prepare and cook. It also requires a host of accessory ingredients and cleaning supplies. The consequence is meals that range from vaguely disappointing to vastly disgusting. And they all invariably waste a lot of time to prepare.

On consideration, the only real essentials are: sufficient water, hot coffee, some savory calories, and some sweet calories. If things can be heated up, that’s a bonus.

I’m guessing that the best solution is to rely exclusively on dried foods eaten neat and dehydrated meals prepared in-bag with boiled water. This means one stove, one pot, no plates, and minimal cutlery. On average the backpack-style meals shouldn’t be much worse than the mobile-kitchen style meals (for every pleasant sausage, jambalaya, and coffee meal, there is always a revoltingly-prepared egg-and-potato breakfast) They should be substantially easier, cheaper, and faster to prepare.

I only need to eat back-pack style, so why do I even need a 4×4 truck?

Hiking doesn’t cover much distance. Getting from Furnace Creek (a park HQ in Death Valley) to the valley we explored required a forty-mile drive across a baked, blasted playa. That’s two excrutiating days of hiking right there. Hiking alone cannot cover the distances necessary.

An enduro-style motorcycle is a step in the right direction. They’re less expensive than a 4×4 but they suffer from the same logistic problems. How to get from my depot to my destination? 1500 highway miles on knobby tires? Nah.

The conclusion I draw is to specially outfit an expedition bicycle for the job.

• They’re at least nominally air-freightable
• In a pinch you could cover 50-100 miles of road in a day.
• You can cover (perhaps more) jeep trails
• Emergency repairs are considerably more manageable
• They should be able to carry a better load burden (including more water)
• Riding bicycles is fun

Next article will flesh out the ideas around a bike-based expedition kit.