July Summary
Total distance (July): 171.77 miles
Total distance (Cumulative): 857.55 miles
Total time (Cumulative): 70 hours, 23 minutes

There are quite a few other updates as well. First, Rachel picked up a 700c urban/cyclocross/road/commuter bike. It is a flat black Specialized Sirrus from Klunk. We put on some Michelin knobby tires and it is set to cruise the hardpack trails. This example has a triple front crankset, flat bars and a cushy suspension seatpost (I’m pretty sure these are all original). See for yourself:

Sterance, the commuter bike, is doing well. The tan saddle is holding up well and there are no real problems to speak of. Here is Sterance transporting the shipping carton that Apple sent so I could return my PowerBook for a new optical drive:

Hmmm, oh, we also bought a new car. We needed an automatic to share in once we move, so the Acura found a new home and an ’03 Accord V6 with a slushbox took it’s place. So, why an ’03 Accord? Well, we started looking at the ’07 Fit and ’06 Civic, but they are both hard to find and if you do find one the prices are not that great. I considered a VW for about 30 seconds, but then remembered the last six I’ve owned… Anyway, the Accord gets reasonable mileage, is inexpensive to own, and most importantly not boring to drive. Honda notoriously under specs tires fort their cars, and the 240 HP V6 is a lot of fun with the woefully inadequate OE 205s. Luckily this Accord came with traction control. The Accord will be getting a class I hitch, which is surprisingly rated for a 200 lb. tongue capacity. That means I can run a Yakima Kingpin 4 and carry almost all of the bikes.

I think that is about it for the updates. The repairs to the M2 are progressing slowly and Sterance has remained unmodified since the head badge upgrade. I finally got around to setting up a team for the MS-150. I’ll post more later…

Ok, so I was bored. With my mountain bike out of action, and the cyclocross bike taking a break from the heat, I thought the commuter bike could use a little more attention. The one thing Sterance has been missing is a head badge. No more. After coming up with a drawing, I transfered the design to the unsuspecting head tube with some quality 3M painters tape. The idea for this design came from an interview with Gary Fisher I saw on the Trail Tapes podcast. This gloss white skull badge turned out pretty nice. Maybe a cross between The Punisher and a Tim Burton character? I used a pair of hemostats to pull the eye and nose masking off, leaving nice clean edges with no marring. but, if I get bored with it I can always find some sandpaper and start over, or possibly continue with the pirate theme.

On a related note, Sterance has been on the road for almost a month and has about 50 miles on the imaginary odometer. Prior to Sterance, I could not understand why so many people liked single speed bikes so much. Well, now I understand. Even though Sterance is heavy, old and slow, it is a lot of fun to ride, and makes both of my other bikes feel sluggish and immensely frustrating when they have drive train issues (like the M2). There is something nice about riding a silent, smooth and simple single speed. I am almost tempted to convert one of my other rides, but I’m not quite there yet. Although I’ve ridden a fixed gear bike, I don’t think it is something I’d like. I am a little partial to my still functioning knees; the swelling on the left knee has gone down considerably from the M2 crash (see the last blog entry).

I’ve been commuting everyday in the 90 deg. weather, but I had not ridden any trails since Colorado. I took the M2 out to Rock Bridge with Eric (on his Pisgah). Everything was going as well as it could considering the temperature and misbehaving front and rear derailleurs. On a climb about twenty minutes into the ride my chain broke, and I hit the ground. Luckily, my back tire and a large rock broke my fall. One of the chainlinks exploded (not the PowerLink), the crankset (not just the chainrings) is bent, and the rear wheel is a lot bent. To be fair, the crankset was already a little tweaked. To top things off the SID is acting up. So lets see what needs to be repaired/replaced:

• Rear Wheel (very bent)
• Rear Tire (cut sidewall)
• Chain (busted)
• Crankset (bent)
• Fork (dead)

On the bright side, I replaced the Kool Stop pads with XTR pads and the incessant squealing is completely gone.