This is the only clip i have from the Bike Party. Way to go guys…. it was a good time.
Just built this up yesterday and got hit durring my test ride. Surprisingly the bike seems okay. Its got a few scuffs, broke a pedal and had to re-tension the rear wheel. I put it together from parts i already had around. Lucked out to have a ratio that worked on this frame’s vertical dropouts. I miss my steel fixie, but in my situation this should work out just fine.
DESTROY!
Finally got the ol’ Paramount ready for Viers to level up. The wheels/tires/bars/stem change saved some weight, but more importantly diminished significant rolling resistance, fits him much better, and added much needed stiffer wheel response for attacking those climbs we love to ride so much. Clinch Mountain is next in the crosshairs but i hear he is setting goals for the Mountain Empire Pink Ribbon Century this year. Clinch is about 3000ft of climbs, but MEPRS is 12,000+ and that means its TOUGH….. i should know. Cody is in on it too and i feel there may be more of my pack harboring the same ambitions. Id love to see PT and his Bridgestone cresting the bigger climbs with us. Tipton , im sure, is down for the suffer-fest. Our rag-tag bunch is going to have to spend more saddle time in these Great Smokeys training this year. I’m looking forward to it!!!!!
To Patch a Flat or Knot
I’ve been doing morning road rides with a couple buddies three times a week. Its been rough but were getting better. My homeboy ‘PT’ keeps puking, and ‘Viers’ is in the process of quitting cigarettes. If that wasnt rough enough, PT busted a tube on the Bridgestone the other day, and our other buddy was out of his patching supplies. Luckily im a nut and wont hesitate to do whatever drastic measures it takes to make it home. So i looked at the double snakebite in the tube (thats right! he bottomed out hard! Damn Michellin Dynamics!!). I said f-it and cut it in half and tied it in a knot and re-installed the tube in its new configuration. We got it to nearly 70psi and rode up the Roan Groan to make it home where i fixed his issue up properly. So, if ever u have a flat so bad that patches wont do, but u have at least a travel pump,… 1. cut it (i rubbed the damaged area on the corner of a curb) 2. knot it, yup.. just tie the two ends together. 3. Re-install it making sure that the bead of the tire still lines up with the hook of the rim. 4. SLOWLY add air till u got enough to at least ride without damaging a rim. Your PSI will be very low….. but u will roll as long as ur easy on it. 5. once ur home throw the old tube away and replace it with some fresh rubber. oh and a little extra advise….. Continental Ultra Gator Skins. <— now that ive been riding them ill never have to smell another Dynamic on my wheels again!
Looks like we have a promising potential in this location. It also looks like nobody has been here in a while, so the place needs some attention. I doubt that should be a problem.
Polo Locations
We need to find a new location for polo. Matches will be played in the same place as before until we find something better, but there are reasons to keep our eyes open for a new place. Most people are playing on fenced in basketball courts, tennis courts, and parking garages. This wards away timid ball handling and keeps gameplay flowing. Playing off the wall is supposed to be an integral part of it. If we can find a spot and maybe get together to sweep it up or whatever else might need done, then our gameplay should be that much more fun. Be thinking parks, schools, neighborhood courts, abandoned lots… anything with the enclosed space. E-mail me, or post on the Destroy FB page any ideas that you come up with.
Once I finished my new mallet V.2.5 I realized our old mallets are junk that really bottleneck gameplay. Full thru-axis construction and the 2”x5” diameter are the major fixes here. Much, much stiffer feel when shooting. Oh and some creative drilling. There isnt a single thing that doesnt feel better about this.
Last Sunday’s bike polo gathering, where Cody was certainly player of the day. He had a pretty goofy little crash, and then despite saying he’d been psyched-out by it, came back to win a five-point game on his own. I’m on to his psychological tactics. In my defense i was feeling crappy and Cody had PT on his team, bringing them some beginners luck. Either way it was fun.
Shot by Justin and David 720p @ 60fps. Edited by David.
The music is ‘Once Around the Block’ by Badly Drawn Boy.
I love working on bikes almost as much as riding them. Its when it all comes together and great mechanisms from times past come back to life, as eager as ever to work together and take the rider out on the road, that i find my satisfaction in the work. When it is a bike of my own that i have given attention to, the satisfaction multiplies. Thats the way i feel about the Bridgestone right now. I gave it the bi-annual overhaul it always gets. As usual the grime cleans away and all the chips in the paint are revealed. Even so, old school gruppos clean up well and add to the vibrance of a well used and well cherished frame. I know its not an SLX tubed, and that some of its gouges leave it a bit more vulnerable to corrosion, and its only ‘kinda light’, but i put most of the nicks in it myself. I wipe the road grime off the bottom of the frame. I brought it back from the dead and accumulated over 7,000mi on it since. When i got this bike it was a gift. I almost died in a crash and my roomate had this bike donated to me from his brother-in-law while i was bedridden and trying to gain the energy to recover. I crashed a Cannondale and hadnt even heard of a Bridgestone bike. It was in bad shape. The rims were shot. Every bolt head was stripped. I had some P.T.S.D. about bikes that haunted me. My brother was diagnosed with cancer at the same time of my crash. He fought that disease head on and lost with valiant effort. He encouraged me to fight through my recovery as well. I don’t know why i recovered and he didnt, and maybe there isnt a resolution to it in this world anyway. What i do know is that the encouragement from mostly him is what i used to drive me to not only sit up on my own again, but to learn from my experience and not be driven back by the fear of it all. Iv’e overcome the P.T.S.D. and the Bridgestone was a valuable tool in it all. The frame was in pretty great shape, but everything else was shot. ( id say a home mechanic didnt own a metric set) At one point i remember having to saw through a Cinelli stem to salvage the 26.4mm clamp bars (that im still riding). When i look at it i think ‘boy that Bridgestone sure has come a long way’ and it reminds me that i personally have to.
So, here’s a toast to that bi-annual reminder.
The Destroy riders in J.C. have recently started playing polo. it looks like the only thing we needed was for me to finish the gear. now that i have we’ve been playing on Sunday evenings. There have been goals scored and wheels destroyed. all in all its turned out to be a really fun time. Im even working on a polo-centric alter ego im calling “El Polo Loco”. Here are some highlights.
Road Bikes Are Preferred For Daily Commuting
Road bikes are better than other bikes. There it is. I said it. Specifically, road bikes are better for commuting than other bikes. Of course road bikes (were gonna call this “rb” from now on) are better for road racing and road touring. Just the same way track bikes are the best thing on a velodrome and mountain bikes are best thing on mountain trails. The thing is, there are a lot more options out there. Many bicycle companies have categories specifically for this application. Truth is, i believe it is a marketing trick. Ive listened to Dave at my local bike shop time and time again selling path bikes and “hybrids” to customers new to cycling who want to commute around our town. Path bikes are for greenways and to tote around toy size dogs or even to waste the day away putting around to cafes etc. (which is the best way to use this type of bike and a spare afternoon). Hybrids come in two main flavors. Mountain bikes with faster drivetrains (for a mountain bike anyway) and road tread tires and road bikes with fatter tires and mountain bike handlebars. Now either of these bikes serves a purpose. The first is to sell to those who want a tough big boy bike. We are raised with overly masculine and overly feminine ideals. The mountain bike style hybrid is the testosterone package just the same way as 50 Cent was packaged for aggressive adolescent boys using overly masculine, homo-erotic imagery. These bikes are heavy, slow, and lack agility, but they give off a more “tough” image compared to the petite frame of a rb. Truth is i’d rather rollerblade. The second is more comparable to the rb family, but they are usually equipped with a lower end grouppo and less than awesome materials. If you want a road bike with flat bars….. put flat bars on a road bike. It makes sense for a lot of commuters.
So lets say you want to commute. You want to do it quickly. You want to have energy left after you get to point B to be able to function. You want versatility. You need to bring your laptop, or gear for hockey practice, or some tools for work, or whatever it is that is required for you to live your life. You need reliability. Two words : ROAD BIKE . Its tried and true. It’s nothing new. The big thing is that its fast. It can be equipped for versatility in the form of wide range of gears, cargo solutions, tire treads and dimensions, a variety of wheelsets, a variaty of bars, accessories, and too much other things to list. Its efficient in that the versatile gear ratios and light weight let you set whatever pace is good for you. Don’t think that fat seated cruiser, path, or hybrid is going to be more comfortable. Does hauling more weight at slow speeds sound comfortable to you? Many people get path and “hybrid” bikes and feel so defeated when a roadie blows their doors off (metaphorically, of course). The fact is your bike might weigh twice as much as his. At those percentages it becomes obvious that you feel worn out because you just wasted your energy toting your anchor around.
My main point is this : Dont let the industry, including, but not limited to, floor sales reps. and product catalogs tell you this new path or hybrid is the only commuter out there and the one for you to buy when, Truth is, you will get more for your money buying that old road bike selling on consignment over new commuter advertised packages. Of course there is more to look into if you want to avoid a lemon and get the best deal out there, but im not going into all that right now.
I have used the blow in, hairspray, blowdrier, air compressor, and glue methods on many grips. i typically just blow in em and put em on. If it doesnt work ill try the next most involving and drastic step until the grips are installed without slip. i just kept having problems with my new oury grips. i wasnt going to glue them, but it always seemed that with ourys they would continue to otherwise slip. After hairspray didnt work, i rinsed my bars and grips and dried the ourys with a blowdrier and tried this method. if u ride ourys, this is THE way to get them on easily and WITHOUT SLIP! Seriously, it works. try it!
D.I.Y. Indoor Bike Storage Solution
So, for a long time now folks have been asking, “how do have so many bikes in your place? Isnt it hard to navigate with them all inside?”. This is how I do it, and something that may seriously help your living space as well. I made this rack system myself with a little help from this tutorial.http://www.instructables.com/id/simple-bike-storage-rack-for-many-bikes-in-small-a/ I painted the wood for a more domestic appearance. these three bikes are hanging is just under three foot of wall space. I used measurements based on the bikes that will be using this private parking. its been six months now and the rack is working just as it should. Check it out.
My mission is to promote urban cycling, commuting, and sport touring in East Tennessee and beyond. 
