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This is a he said/he said story. I was getting ready to write about my fixed gear and when Walter provided his side of the story.
So as you read along everthing that is left aligned is my (Michael Rasmussen, owner of the bike) side of the story . . .
and every thing that is right aligned is his (Walter Lapchynski, service guy for Bike Friday, ex bike messenger, fixed advocate and nice guy) side of the story.
I first encountered the idea of a fixed gear bike - one that allows no coasting - on Sheldon Brown's website. The idea sounded weird, but intriging. Two of the reasons Sheldon lists were of special interest. Fixed for Fitness and Form and Fixed for Feel Of course Fixed for Fun sounded good too. Another early encounter came from Kent Peterson's writings on randoneuring, like this story of a 400K brevet. It amazed me that someone would undertake a ride for 250 miles on a bike that wouldn't let you shift or coast. It amazed me even more that he reported going faster up hills than people riding bikes with lots of gears.
You can see fixed gear bikes in most cities if you watch the bike messengers. A sizeable portion of them ride one. It wasn't until after a nerd meeting that I actually put my hands on one. Jeme Brelin was on his fixed gear bike and I had my Bike Friday Llama. We were admiring each other's bikes when we traded rides. Jeme is three or four inches shorter than I am but when I straddled his bike it was good and snug in the crotch. "This frame is too big for you." "Yeah, I know but I can't afford the one I have my eye on." I pedaled off and started to laugh at the odd, the pedals keep moving sensation. After the rides I offered to buy Jeme the frame he was looking at (a used frame in a local bike shop) in exchange for the one I had just ridden. He declined, because the frame I was on had been traumatized by a dremel tool. But he did have a nice Schwinn Super Le Tour in exact same size that would make a good base for a fixed gear project. We agreed on a price.
Black Beauty's birth is a story of rebirth. When she came to me she wasn't so pretty.
Walter ain't kidding. It was a medium grey color with pastel lettering. The headbadge was pretty cool though. I'm sorry I never photographed it for posterity. With frame in hand - with brakes, cranks, and all - I was thinking of a pretty straight forward conversion of slap on a set of wheels and be good to go conversion. Jeme warned me that the bottom bracket needed to be replaced. At 22 years old the headset was probably due for some work too. Then we talked about cool Chub hubs and between one thing and another the beast took on a life of its own. From the original frame I kept the brake levers and the frame. Everything else was purchased for the project.
After weeks of working on getting parts ordered, Michael and I finally managed to get together after work on Friday.
Now think about this. The guy works with bikes all week. What does he do on a Friday night? Helps the clueless build a fixie! Way cool, way cool too to Ted who was also in on this. My wife and I drove to his place and got ready for "a couple of hours" of work to make the conversion.
He and his lovely and ever patient partner brought this frame that he had so long talked to me about, along with a trunk full of wine and beer. The bike came complete with shifters, derailleurs, multiple speeds, and one of Schwinn's worst paint schemes -- clearly there was much work to be done. We worked first on getting off all the crap attached to the bike, the bottom bracket, as usual, posing a rather tough problem to solve. I'm used to removing crown races by setting the crown race on a flat surface and lightly tapping on the steerer tube, but this one had an annoying bevel to the bottom and that wasn't very fun, either. But finally we managed to get rid of all the crap. We even managed to remove the bolt-on chain hanger and headbadge. And then it was off to the machine shop to remove all the crap on the bike: all the cable guides, extraneous braze-ons, derailleur hanger and what not. The brazing torch did a quick job of popping it all off but the cable guides on the top tube, oddly, were tacked into place by way of Argon-shielded welding. So we had to grind those off. Once done, the bike was sandblasted and powder-coated black diamond. Meanwhile, Ted worked diligently on building the Miche hub into a Velocity Dyad rim. When he was finishing up and the paint was about to come out, I suddenly realized I didn't have the fork in the oven! So I rushed to get it going and then took off to get some Taco Bell for all of us. We got the frame out, faced the headtube and bottom bracket shell, honed out the seat tube, aligned the dropouts and fork, and pushed Ted to finish truing the Chub wheel so we could get out of Bike Friday before the owners started to get grumpy about us being there so late. We barely made it.
Ok, so we got a late start. We had a few issues. By the time we left Bike Friday night was falling - in July when night takes its own sweet time to arrive. But we had all the bike stuff and the beer and it was off to Ted's place. Fortunately Jennifer had brought a book and was somewhat entertained by our banter.
We packed the parts into Michael's car, Ted donned his Pista and I mounted my trusty Mojo and we led the way down the busy West 11th, meandering our way eventually down to Ted's house. I'm sure it was a rather comical sight seeing two guys on fixed gears leading a little car through Eugene.
Little car being a Mazda 626 four door sedan. Eugene Oregon is one of the most bike friendly cities in the USA with bike paths everywhere. Why two guys would choose to take a major street through town on their bikes is an open question. Must be that bike messenger mentality. But on bikes with low gearing they cruised on down the street at 20 mph.
One hoochie chick from California tried to gun it passed us all (on a two way street with a thick double yellow line through the center) but I cut her off and honked at her with my Delta AirZound horn. So we finally made it, pulled out Ted's tools and his bike stand outside in the warm air, cracked open a cold Hoegaarden, and got to work.
Cool Hoegaarden? In the interest of a quick cooling it had been put in a freezer. Now three hours later it was frozen. Ted's good taste in beer shows through here in that he chose this excellent Belgian Wit to be the first beer to drink. Hoegaarden at dusk in July. Just say heaven.
One of the first things we started with was installing the fork but we ran into a problem. There was a bad thread near the top of the fork and we couldn't get the headset nut started on it. We fought it for quite a time while Ted brought out obscure part after obscure part for show-and-tell. More beer. Finally I decided it was time to use a file. Surprisingly, Ted didn't have one so we elected to go to Fred Meyer and pick up one, which Michael and I did. Meanwhile, Ted worked diligently on getting the rear wheel on. It's good something got done because sadly, even despite our best efforts, the file wasn't enough to do it. So we decided just to hacksaw off the offending piece, which actually did do the job. It was then that we discovered the headset sucked but having no alternative, we installed it anyways. We got the whole bike together: all that was missing was to install a cable run to the front brake and and tape the bars.
My part in all this was to keep the beer pouring, put the cleats in my shoes and to ask questions. Ted did DJ work. Walter and Ted QA'd each other's work. Think "you hoser" translated to Eugene-speak. By the time the whole bike was together it was close to midnight. A lot of time went away while trying to get the fork and headset to meld.
But we didn't need brakes, lights or bar tape for a test ride. The three of us went on a lightless fixed gear ride through the night to the store parking lot nearby. We went slow as Michael was still trying to figure it out. Luckily he got to experience some uphills and downhills and the slow pace gave me some time to finally figure out how to skid-stop. Ted tried to teach us how to trackstand and in the process Michael had his first crash.
Jennifer was going to ride with us. Something about one light for the group, her husband riding with only his weak legs for brakes, and the beer changed her mind. While Ted and Walter got ready I did a couple of little pedals around the street. The strange euphoria I got when riding Jeme's bike a month earlier returned. Fixed gear bikes talk to you. "Pedal" being the most frequent statement to the new rider. We went off nice and slow. It being late and this being a residential neighborhood there was very little traffic. The little hills were exilerating as the pedals let me know about my responsibilities as a rider. Yeah, I crashed. It was simple and quick. It left nice scabs on my right knee. All in all it was fun.
Then we came back, drank some more beer, and talked story. We cleaned up, Ted blessed Michael with a 7mm wrench (for his Chub's fixing bolts), Ted and I split the remaining beer, and Michael gave me a ride home. When I went to sleep it was 2 am. I can't believe it had taken so long. I was so excited to help another person experience the joy of being fixed I lost my entire sense of time.
No shit late. He got to bed after 2:00. Jennifer and I had a two hour drive back to Portland. We pulled into the driveway at 5:30 or so. The sky was bright in the east. My morning person self asserted itself and I was up at 8:00. Didn't get much done that day.
Front hub - Miche 36 hole Front rim - Velocity Dyad 36 hole, silver Front spokes - Wheelsmith 14 gauge Rear hub - Chub 32 hole, polished flanges with black carbon shell Rear rim - Mavic CXP33 32 hole Rear spokes - DT 15 gauge Rear cog - EAI 17 Tires - Continental Grand Prix 700x28c Seatpost - Kalloy SP-243 26.8 (???? remind me to check if that's the right part number) Saddle - Brooks B17 Chain - KMC (???? which one?) Crank - Shimano 105 Octalink 165mm, black Chainring - Shimano 105 39 tooth, black Pedals - Crank Brothers stainless steel Egg Beaters Front brake - Shimano long reach brake (???? STX?) Headset - Whatever Dean provided Stem - Nitto Technonics Handlebars - Nitto Dirt Drops 48cm! Levers - Original Schwinn Diacompes Miscellaneous - ????
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