Standard fare with incredible warm weather, out to Oxnard along the coast to get the veggies, then back home into the wind. You cannot ask for a nicer ride.
The green and the flowers are going stong, although it is fleeting here in Southern California. Some neighborhood ice plant on the way home.
Today I had the bright idea of riding over to the Santa Clara river to eat my lunch, then over to one of the farm stands to get some veggies for dinner.
The tail wind getting there made things, a breeze, literally. Getting home was another matter.
Today was supposed to ba a bit of exploring, and a grocery run. Most of the explorations ended up in dead ends, I headed out Canada Larga Rd for a bit, and then had to head home before Getting the food. The fog is still in tight through the mornings, and the flowers are getting thicker every day.
At least I finished off the fun parts, now to figure out when I am getting the groceries.
This afternoon I had some time to take the Roadeo fork over to the big brown trucks and ship it back to its creator for repair.
Then I rambled all through town, followed the signs for the "Bike Route" for the first time, Up through the hill-side neighborhoods finding many dead ends, and then up through the park to home.
Perfect way to cap off the week. Now to get dinner ready.
Enjoy your weekend, Play outside!!
I had this rack kicking around in the garage as a keeper from a craig's list find. The Bruce Gordon Front Mountain Rack made it into my possession a couple of years back when I was lucky enough to be the first responder to an ad for a "grocery getter" that turned out to be a 1985 Specialized Stumpjumper Sport, thanks to sharp eyes, was wearing this rack. The bike was a very fun fire road machine, but had to go and now lives in the Pacific NW. The rack however, stayed on the shelf for a later project. Based on the Oregon location for Bruce's shop on the sticker the rack is likely as old as the stumpjumper, Bruce is now in Petaluma, Ca.
I have been thinking about fitting a front rack to the Rawland, but after looking at the front racks available I was not really happy with what I saw. The most likely candidate was a Surly nice rack with a bit of grinding it could be made to work, but all that hardware looked like trouble for trail days. The BG rack was originally intended to clear the cantilever brakes that were popular for touring and off-road back in the 80's, while keeping the bags clear of rocks and the load as close to the steering axis as possible. I had used the rack on the stumpy and it had actually helped with the handling of the older slack geometry. I pulled the rack down to see if and how it would play with the disc brake calipers on the Rawland.
Low and behold the fit was almost perfect. The biggest problem was with the design of the plug dropout and brazeon for the front fork. This has always been a problem with this bike and required spacers to bolt on just about anything. I mounted it up with 4mm of spacers, the original 2mm, a presta nut and the fender R-clip on each side. The top is held in place with clamps for now, but if need arises or I get this bike re-coated, brazeons will be added. I have now used the rack for a few weeks both on and off-road and it has been rock solid.
The load has little detrimental effect on the handling at all. I have used it mostly for errands and trips to the Sunday farmer's market. Average loads are around 15 lbs and handling was fine. The heaviest was around 35, and yes the handling was a bit slow with that much weight in the front, but things never got out of control.
I would recommend this rack to anybody in the market for a front rack that can clear you brakes. This design proves to be fairly timeless as it predates the disc brake design by decades yet adapts easily. Bruce is still making and selling these, and you should look him up if you are in the market.
Saturday started off with a drive down to Santa Monica for a screening of Ride the Divide put on by Erik Mathy of 1Gear1Cause fame. The movie was awesome, it really put the difficulty of the ride into perspective. For readers not familiar, the Divide race is an informal unsanctioned race along the continental divide that was pieced together from a collection of forest service, ranch, logging and other dirt roads and trails by the Adventure Cycling Association. The route is over 2700 miles with 200,000 feet of vertical climbing, and the racers that do complete are averaging it in around 20 days, that is really hard to think about when you sit down and think about the sustained daily averages. Erik had organised the screening as part of his pursuit to raise funds and awareness in the battle against cancer and will be riding the race next year on a single speed Salsa Fargo. Prior to the race Erik had ridden down the coast with Jason and Joe from Salsa and Eric from Adventure Monkey. It was great to meet these guys after reading on their blogs about their inspirational adventures and photography for so long. Salsa had helped to sponsor the event, and after the movie there were raffle prizes from Swerve, Ergon and 1Gear1Cause, as well as water bottles from Salsa. I won the first draw and took home a set of Ergon Grips, the only time I came in first all day. Thanks guys
After the movie everyone headed over to Topanga reek Bicycles for a BBQ and ride. If you are in the area and have not been to their shop yet, you are really missing out. They are one of the few shops have been to in southern California that actually sell and STOCK touring bikes and gear, Arkel, Brooks, Berthoud, surly, salsa, tubus etc. Great shop and great people. The food and company were great. After the BBQ most of the group headed on a ride up Santa Maria Rd for a little dirt and single-track in the Mulholland area. Genius that I am, I had all my camera gear, tripod too, and even my 6lb Ulock. It is likely I was hauling more gear than the guys did on their tour. Needless to say I was running sweep the whole time and my legs were feeling dead, thanks to the whole crew for waiting for me to catch up more than once. Again though it was a great time. Here are a couple of pics from the trail:
I was pretty Lazy with the camera and hopefully some others will chime in with more pics from the ride.
Sunday
Sunday was back to normal 22 mile loop to the farmer's market at Chanel Islands Harbor. It was a beautiful day and a chance to run at my own pace, working out yesterday's sore legs. The haul was not as big this time, but respectible:
The Rawland performed well when front loaded.
I am working on a writeup for later this week on the Bruce Gordon rack and bag set up I have switched to with this bike. Even with 20-30 lb loade on the front the handling has been fine, but that is another post.
Fun weekent, lots of time in the saddle, and it feels good.
While I have loved my DiNotte 140L tail light for a few years now it has been a mixed relationship due to the mounting. If you are not familiar with these lights they are extremely bright AA powered LED lights with a very simple O-ring mounting system. While elegantly simple the mounting requires attachment to a round tube, i.e. handlebars, seat post or frame tubes. Not so easy when you have an assortment of racks and bags that can block the light from behind defeating the whole purpose. I have a Old Man Mountain "Cold Springs" rack on the back of my Rawland. This rack combined with my saddle bag has always left me a bit challenged with mounting solutions that leave the light visible, yet allowing for a secure place to mount the battery pack and panniers.
Then I had my eureka moment while modeling ideas with a short piece of scrap dowel. I will expand on my love of dowels and wood for prototyping in a future post. This time I only needed a short piece less than 2 inches long, drilled a hole through the center, and filed some grooves in the top side for O-ring retention. I ran a long M5 bolt through the mounting track on the rack and bolted the mount between the rack and wheel.
I used the light this week in the rain on multiple rides, and it worked fantastically. The cord is the perfect length to put the battery pack into the side pocket of the carradice bag, and everything has stayed in place.
This light when mounted well will not blind approaching motorists but they will have little excuse to not see you. I have found that even on the lower powered non-blinking settings cars still give far wider birth when passing then with any other tail light in my collection. Hopefully this or a similar solution can be adapted to help you better mount your own tail light far a safer night ride.
My RawlanddSogn has been one of the best value bikes I have ever put together. I was able to pick up the frame and fork as a blem in the fall of 2009 and build it up almost completely from components I had in the garage, keeping the utility to out-of-pocket cost ratio very high. These were designed to be run as 650b mountain bikes with a heavy nod to the bridgestone Bridgestone XO-1. Many of the bikes designed and sold by bridgestone during the 90's were intended to be as versatile as possible and not just a "mountain bike "or "road bike". The sogn's design intent was to be everything from your dirt road touring to daily commuter. While designed for 650b x 55mm tires, the disc brakes allowed me to easily build mine up as a 700c x 42mm and still have room for fenders when things get wet. The rest of the build settled into the following after a few changes:
Handle bar: Nitto RM013 Riv Dirt Drop
Levers: Shimano Tigra
Shifters: Shimano Bar end / Suntour Barcon NOS
Cables/Housing: Jagwire Ripcord
Stem: Velo Orange
Tape: Soma Thick and Zesty
Bell: Crane Brass (mounted to drilled and tapped spacer)
Headset: Chris King Sotto Voce
Brakes: Avid BB7 Disc Road
Seatpost: Salsa Shaft
Saddle: Brooks B-17
Bottom Bracket: Shimano cartridge
Crankset: Shimano Shimano LX vintage 94bcd
Pedals: Sakae Low Fats (I have wide Feet)
Tires: Jack Brown Green - Panaracer FireCross - Schwalbe Marathon Extreme
Rims: Velocity Dyad 40h
Hubs: Whit industries M16
Bags: Carradice Nelson longflap and Carradice Hobo bag (Rivendell Prototype)
Racks: Old Man Mountain Sherpa rear and Bruce Gordon front
I have used this bike as my weekend produce hauler, after work mountain bike, 200K ride, mixed terrain bomber, commuter and rain bike. While the ride is not nearly as lively as the Roadeo, it is still far better than either the Surly Cross Check or the Haro Mary that this bike replaced. The steel frame is comfortable for long days in the saddle, especially with loads, and does not leave me feeling beat up.
While not my "One" bike, this one has come close, and there are only a few tweaks I would make if it were ever to be replaced. I would not say it is perfect, but when cost is factored in, as well as level of expectation for an off the shelf production bike it is an excellet value.
I ended up putting the fenders back on the Rawland last night. 3 days in a row of wet misty mornings, with a week more due to come. Yesterday saw th MS ride come through town and I was daydreaming of being a fender salesman as hundreds went by with wet grimy stripes up their backs. Oh to spread the fender gospel, even here in sunny California
The green and the flowers are going stong, although it is fleeting here in Southern California. Some neighborhood ice plant on the way home.
The tail wind getting there made things, a breeze, literally. Getting home was another matter.
At least I finished off the fun parts, now to figure out when I am getting the groceries.
Then I rambled all through town, followed the signs for the "Bike Route" for the first time, Up through the hill-side neighborhoods finding many dead ends, and then up through the park to home.
Perfect way to cap off the week. Now to get dinner ready.
Enjoy your weekend, Play outside!!
I was pretty Lazy with the camera and hopefully some others will chime in with more pics from the ride.
The Rawland performed well when front loaded.
I am working on a writeup for later this week on the Bruce Gordon rack and bag set up I have switched to with this bike. Even with 20-30 lb loade on the front the handling has been fine, but that is another post.
Fun weekent, lots of time in the saddle, and it feels good.
Weather actually came to Ventura, lightning and all. I love being at the edge of a storm.
