Sunday, May 17, 2020

Riding during the COVID 19 shutdown and new bike day!

Taken at Auburn State Recreational Area in early May.
COVID and me.

While COVID-19 has brought the world to a halt, strangely it's had little effect on a retired guy's riding in California! Even when the Governor issued the Stay At Home order, there were exceptions for solo bicycling which is pretty much all I do. I did restrict my riding to 20 to 30 mile rides through April, but in May I started extending them out a bit. As of the time of this writing, (5/17), my longest ride has been 49 miles.

Even with these restrictions I've been able to keep my mileage up to 4-500 miles per month for all but December thanks to good riding weather this Spring so I'm on track for at least a normal yearly mileage.

New Bike Day!!


In the U.S. the Federal Government issued "Stimulus checks" to virtually all citizens, (at least those who had filed taxes in the recent past). In my case, my wife and I each received a $1,200 stipend! What could I possibly do with $1,200 that had to be spent to keep our economy going? 

I had been following a thread on Google Groups iBOB list about a recently discontinued "Allroads" bike by Tom Ritchey, the Ascent. This bike was designed for Quick Release disc brake wheels which probably doomed it in 2016...by then the trend was going to thru-axles. However, I had a set of 650b, Q/R disc wheels left over from my Felt and I had been searching for the right frame. I had been considering the Surly Bridge Club and Midnight Special as well, but the Ritchey is a slightly higher quality frame with lighter tubing and the stack and top tube measurements looked better for my size.

Best of all, Universal Cycles was closing the Ascents out at $500 off! So I pulled the trigger on a "Large" and it arrived withing 2 days of my order!

New bike day! The Ritchey Ascent.
I had almost everything I needed to assemble the bike except for handlebars, cabling and bar tape. I opted for mustache style handlebars since I have enjoyed them so much on my Mercian. I have learned that you really should use bar end shifters when running mustache bars and I had a set of Shimano 8-speed shifters in the parts bin. For derailleurs, I used a Shimano RSX double up front. The rear derailleur was a little trickier, as I wanted to use the shifter's indexing. After a few different attempts, I finally found that a long-cage, 9-speed Tiagra, again from the parts bin, worked quite well.

Inititially, I installed the Tiagra 4700 series compact crank but I wasn't satisfied with the gearing it provided. I finally took the Sugino Messenger crank from my KOM and installed it on this bike. More about the K.O.M. later!

The Spyre brakes were left over from my Felt. I used some Shimano aero brake levers with them. It's taken a bit of patience to install and adjust these to feel about right to me. The flat mounts provided on this frame are nice and eliminate the need for additional brackets. The rear brake cable takes a really long run of housing! I needed an extra length from the parts to be able to install the front!

Front 3/4 view showing off the Origin 8 Tiki (mustache) handlebars.
Once everything was assembled I took it out for a test spin around the block. No longer rides initially as I was awaiting the handlebar tape to arrive. Everything felt pretty good, although I had to tweak the brake adjustment a bit.

A look at the rear brake, a TRP Spyre

...and a look at the front.
Finally, the tape was installed and it was time for a real ride! I planned to do a short 20 mile hop over to Lincoln. Everything was going so well that once in Lincoln I decided to press on to Chamberlain Road to get a taste of gravel with this bike. That went quite well so I continued into the foothills via Wise Road. The ride ended up being 39 miles with no problems. The bike handled quite well after I got used to the feel of the 42mm Gravel King tires again! That takes a little getting used to but once you are, then they are a lot of fun!

The only complaint I have about this bike is the (to me) excessive amount of seatpost that is exposed with this compact style frame. It is a "Large", so the stack and reach are okay, but I feel the seat post is a little short, (for aesthetic reasons only). Had I gone with an "Extra-Large", the top tube would have been a bit long and I would have required a very short stem, (and have only gained 2.5 cm's of seat tube). I suppose this is just a question of style, as the feel of the bike is just fine.

One final comment, I did not even touch the steerer tube of this frameset. You can see in the pictures that there is about a centimeter of steerer above the stem! I'll just leave that alone.

Post-maiden ride shot. 
A new Crankset for the Mercian K.O.M.

I mentioned that I had installed the Messenger crank onto the Ritchey. Lest you think that I've left the Mercian hanging there without a crankset, here is an update!

Some time ago I had found an 86mm BCD crankset on eBay, a Stronglight 80. I have been interested in the 86mm BCD pattern since reading an article in "Cyclist" magazine in the mid 80s! Here's the article: Cyclist magazine tourlines

The crank came with 42/52 chainwheels but I eventually found some NOS chainwheels on 30/46. Later I also found a 28 that I'm saving. I'll want to try 28/44 for loaded touring sometime.

With the Messenger crank now on the Ritchey, I was able to install my Stronglight on the Mercian. The one catch with this crankset is that you really should use a bottom bracket with an ISO style taper which is a little different from the standard you find on the ubiquitous Shimano UN range of BB's. I did find a nice unit, (another Origin 8 product!) and used it. The BB didn't want to fit into my frame's shell initially. It had two raised ridges on the dust cover that fits between the cartridge bearings. Well, that was weird, I filed the ridges down until they cleared the shell. I don't know why they are even there!

Anyway, the crank is now installed and looks great! I took the bike out for a ride and the gearing is quite good for day riding, although I may want to go lower gears when camping.

The Stronglight 80, finally installed.
Refreshing the older Mercians.

Since my Ritchey will now be my 650b bike, I decided to revert my older Mercian Olympic/Classic to 700c. This entailed swapping wheels of course and swapping brakes; I returned the Campy Nouvo Record sidepulls to service. Since I had been swapping cranksets all around, I also changed the crank on the Olympic back to the Velo Orange compact 110mm BCD crank for no particular reason!

I took this bike out for a longer ride the other day. It seemed kind of sluggish. By the time I got to Lincoln I thought I had a flat tire it was so slow! I pulled over to inspect the wheel. It turned out that the rear wheel had slipped,(horizontal dropouts!), and the tire had been rubbing against the chainstay! I would guess this had been the case for at least 5 miles!

The '80 Mercian with 700c wheels again.

After adjusting the wheel and tightening the Q/R, the bike felt like a rocket!

Finally, in order to make room for the Ritchey, I had to get rid of a bike. I sold the Nishiki as a frame and transferred the fixed gear equipment over to the '82 Mercian since I still wanted a fixed gear bike available.

The '82 Classic in fixed gear mode.