Project: Old Trek MTB

A while back when we moved, there was a conversation on what to do with my wife's old mountain bike. This bike had been with her for a dozen years or more. The abuse of commuting to class wore harshly on it. The handlebars were not comfortable either. She bought a nice road bike a year or two ago, and at that point I thought this bike was on it's way out.

However, there are few things I like more than a bike project. This bike was actually pretty nice and had lots of potential. So I set to sprucing it up for a good around town bike - something a little less sporty for bumbling around the neighborhood or for a quick trip to the store.


Cleaning it up and replacing the rusty bits was the first order of business. There is something extremely satisfying about stripping crumbling cable housing and attaching new set of cables to bring the brakes and derailleurs back to life. The front skewer was also a mess, and seatpost binder bold was just plain ugly....both replaced.


To make the front end more comfortable and ergonomic, I added a set of On One Mary handlebars which have a very natural hand position that's a little higher and a bit closer to the saddle. They are indeed easy on the hands and wrists.


And last but not least, I replaced the broken pedals and rusty cargo rack with a spare rack and some spare MKS pedals. The bike turned out great. It is 100% better than the dusty rusty mess I started with. I'm really excited for my wife to take it for a spin. I think she'll really like it.

Dog is My Co-Pilot

Peanut

This explains about 99 of the 100 ways I've been busy lately. Claire was born June 15, 2009. I call her Peanut mostly. She's a good baby, but taking care of her is still a full time job. So far her tricks include smiling and sucking her fingers. It may be a while until she gets more clever than that. Below you can see that she got mom's family hair genes, and I'm making the most of it with a post-bath mohawk. I don't have a picture to show it, but Claire tends to be a quite surly when hungry. The apple fell very close to the tree on that one.

Welcome. Thanks for coming.

My head is full and needs emptying. Blogging took a backseat for a while because life has been very busy and exciting; there will be more on that later. I'm making a fresh start with this but only to a point. I generally liked the content of wheeliebiscuit.blogspot.com so that stuff stays, but I did not like the name and url so that gets left behind. Circling Bits sounds fitting in many ways. Try not to think about what it means because it's mostly nonsense. Maybe there are bits of life that aren't particularly related but seem interesting as a singular bit. Those bits are circling in my head, or maybe it's the merry-go-round of life that doesn't really have a discrete end or beginning. And surely there is some relation to cycling. Whatever the case, things are anew. Thanks for coming.

8-9-10 Y socket

The 8-9-10 Y socket is small but mighty. It's good for so many bike-
ish adjustments and feels just right. How did I ever tinker without
one?

More tracks

Yes, more snow. Winter is unusually wintry lately. I'm making the most of it. The woods are offering plenty of snow for a quick trip.

Fluff

Perfect beautiful snow, it's a rare thing. For the record, not all snow is created equal. Most of the snow that falls around here is wet, heavy and dense. It's the stuff that we get when it's just barely cold enough to turn from snain (aka wintry mix) to snow. Heavy snow still provides for winter sports, but it's barely tolerable. Every once in a while we get a good dump of cold dry snow that piles up so gently with a magical weightlessness. Even less often does it stay cold enough after the storm to preserve the fluffiness long enough for me to enjoy it.

This weekend about 6 inches of the good stuff fell, and it's still cold and fluffy today. I skied around in the woods at lunch today. There is a pocket of winding wooded trails near the office with plenty of routes for a short romp. It was perfect. There were a good number of tracks on the ground - boots, paws, snowshoes, etc. It didn't really matter because the persistent loftiness of this snow remained there for me. Additionally, last week's baked cruddy snow shielded me from the rocky rooted trails underneath. Gliding through the cloudy layer was flawless. It was sunny also. There aren't many bluebird powder days around here, but I certainly won't miss any of them.