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Thread: The Lounge of Terrestrial Wheelmen

  1. #3891
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Servo View Post
    I wish this shop was better, they're only four blocks away from my house.
    Heck, that's almost close enough to ride your bike to!

    This doesn't look any harder than setting up a Stratocaster with a floating tremolo:



    This weekend I'll try to scrounge up the tools and parts for the job from a couple nearby LBSs that seem particularly well-stocked with such things. I think I need to be able to do this kind of work, especially since I lustfully gawk at older bikes on CL way more than things like that $1500 All-City Space Horse in dark green that I was jonesing for a year or two ago.

    Or, considering we still have shorts and tee shirt weather in November , I may go riding instead this weekend and worry about maintenance when it gets cold.

    I'm already shopping for my kids' next bikes, since their seatposts are both at the minimum insertion marks on their 20"-wheel bikes now and their legs aren't getting any shorter.

    From everything I've read, cheap suspension forks (which seem to come on all new kids bikes under $400 or so) are heavy and crappy, so why not go rigid like their old man, I figure? Dig these beauties from days gone by on my local craigslist!

    This one seems to be a Schwinn from before they became department store crap. This looks every bit as good as a full size MTB of its era, judging from the components. I don't mean to sound like an expert, but I do spend a silly amount of time studying such things.

    It's been for sale for at least a month and maybe more. I'm thinking $75 cash will bring this one home.

    Schwinn High Plains 24 - $100



    The dork disk isn't even yellow!





    And for the other junior mountain biker in my household, perhaps, or one like it. This post is 21 days old, so I'd be surprised if it isn't sold already, I figure if there are a couple of these kinds of bikes for sale with 24" wheels in good shape, that means there will be more. I stole that concept from a line Mr. Spock delivers at the end of "The Doomsday Machine" episode of Star Trek, and it has served me well on craigslist over the years.

    Specialized Hard Rock 15" Frame - $50

    "One side of the gears is not switching"

    Even a newb like me can (and has) fix(ed) that! All new cables and housings and the appropriate adjustments seem like child's play since I've done it once before.



    Plastic cantilever arms on the Hard Rock vs. new-looking metal ones on the High Plains above. Point Schwinn.



    If I'm not careful, I'm gonna have a whole fleet of '90s bikes in my garage, to go along with my '90s car.

    Thanks for putting up with my foolishness, gents. It's just youthful enthusiasm.

  2. #3892
    mAdminstrator Random's Avatar
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    Ha, that Hard Rock is nearly identical to my bike, as purchased, though mine is 14.5" frame. I bought mine summer of '92. It was on sale as a left-over, IIRC, so it may be a '91 model. I suspect those are actually 26" wheels--did Specialized even make a bike with 24"s then?

    FWIW, I still have those same plastic cantilever brakes on the bike, though I am currently keeping an eye on ebay ads for NOS XT or LX brake sets to (finally) replace them.

    The wheels/hubs are still original, as is the headset. I changed out the BB for one with a narrower pedal spacing a couple years after I bought the bike. Replaced the stock BioPace cranks with an LX set, ditto for the derailleurs. XT trigger shifters, XT brake levers. Pimpy (for the time) lightweight Scott handlebars with integral bar ends.

    Potato-cam photo:


    edit: this ended up being a lot more about me than I intended. My real point was there's probably not all that much to really do on the Hard Rock other than tune it up--the basic parts seem to have held up for me.

    edit 2: both bikes cross-chained big time. What's up with that?!
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Whoomah!

  3. #3893
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    26" wheels, Random? Hmm. While I can certainly see (and do see) craigslist sellers get things like that wrong, that ad also says "kids size bike" and, to my eye, it looks the same as the Schwinn, unless that's a 26-er also.

    To me, the "tell" is the distance from the rear derailleur to the bottom of the rear wheels, on both bikes. Seems like my RD is higher off the ground than those. And, of course, YOUR picture is no help at all with this comparison. Thanks a lot! I do like your go-fast tires, however.

    Mapper's (I assume) Specialized Crossroads looks very similar to my wife's Crossroads - it has same typestyles and decal locations, which I understand vary from year to year, and my wife's has cantis instead of V-brakes and has a different stem.

  4. #3894
    mAdminstrator Random's Avatar
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    Well, 14.5" is certainly a small frame...could qualify as a kids bike, I suppose.

    edit: the sad thing is that the bare frame weighs nine (9!) pounds. Good grief.
    Whoomah!

  5. #3895
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    Say pardner, mind if I tie my horse to your bike so he won't run off?

  6. #3896
    mAdminstrator Random's Avatar
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    Seriously!



    I realized this morning that Lou's new-to-him bike that was still in the rafters was probably a 24", which turned out to be true, so here's a comparison of his 24" and my 26". Pretty subtle difference!

    Bicycling related: the little guy (almost 3) is suddenly interested in riding in the bike trailer, so it looks like I'll have some motivation to get out on my bike again.
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Whoomah!

  7. #3897
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    Neat comparison there. Yeah, the size difference is pretty small, especially with your smaller street tires and his big knobbies.

    I like the trailer, too. I really wish I had been into bikes before the kids were born and had a suitable bike to attach one of those to. I used to push the kids all over the place in a two-kid jogging stroller, but pulling them around on a bike would have been more fun, I think.

  8. #3898
    Jedi Cam's Avatar
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    Went to my LBS to get my wheel. They could not find it for about 20 minutes. They even checked the dumpster to make sure it was not accidentally thrown out. It's cool though. I have been there enough and been on enough rides with them that we know each other pretty well. The wheel was hiding among some bikes.

  9. #3899
    Jedi Cam's Avatar
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    Totally planned on going cycling both yesterday and today. Alas, I had to help Lori with some last-minute work stuff.

  10. #3900
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    Smart phones:

    Pro: can keep track of how far, how fast, and how often you ride

    Con: when you don't ride, everyone knows

    My excuses for not riding this weekend:

    (Spoiled so as not to bore everyone even more than I usually do. No pictures of me not riding are not posted, neither)

    Spoiler:


    Saturday:

    -Made coffee, tried to get kids to eat breakfast (always a battle)
    -Wife took son to pediatrician appointment while I took daughter and cat to veterinarian appointment (app't for cat, not daughter).
    -Took cat home, $180 poorer. Should have left the cat there and taken home my money instead.
    -Drove to auto parts store and installed car battery that Manny, Moe, and Jack said they were too busy to do for her - WTF?! Since when does a battery purchase not come with free installation?
    -All of us drove in two cars to nearby shopping center with notoriously tight and crowded parking lot for lunch, and ended up going to two different restaurants (daugher and I to one, son & Mom to other - kinda fun and unexpected)
    -Long afterwards, delighted in hearing about how son and wife watched daughter and me walk across the street to my car parked in the huge and far less crowded parking lot there and quickly escape from the Saturday retail hell zone as they waited for four cars to fight over two parking spots so they could back out of their parking space when we were all leaving restaurant row

    -Went to Home Depot for a wall-mounted dimmer switch and Bad, Barf, & Bellyache (Bed, Bath, & Beyond ) for a shower squeegee (yeah, I'm really livin' the life here)
    -Visited library for audio books for me, bedtime story books for kids, a couple audio CDs, and a DVD for Saturday night family movie night (Toy Story 3 - wonderfully delightful when you haven't seen it in a few years), paid late fees and an additional $20 fine for "lost" DVD that I thought we had returned. "If you find it, bring it back, and we'll give you your money back", said the cute young librarian. The italicized part is important later.
    -Came home, dropped off daughter, since wife and son had finally escaped the world's worst parking lot, loaded snow tires in trunk, grabbed unwatched DVD (Ant-Man) that I had just paid for as being lost from on top of DVD player, where it sat since I brought it home weeks ago.
    -Went to library and triumphantly presented "lost" DVD to cute young librarian and happily extended palm to receive $20 bill in return.
    -Watch disappointedly as she went to find her supervisor, and then another, and then another, who all came over to inform me that library policy says they will mail me a check for $20 in two weeks.
    -After some very polite and smile-filled negotiations, which included frequent pointing to the cash drawer where my $20 had been deposited less than an hour before and still resided, and much waving of the receipt proving same, departed with my $20 bill and four librarians giving each other the "well, I never!" routine

    -Drove across the street to my local Shady Tire emporium, land of the quick & cheap snow tire swap, congratulating myself on finally going on a weekend with another week of warm and sunny weather forecast, rather than going just before the first snow of the season is called for. Surely I'd be in and out in a flash.
    -Didn't even get out of the car after seeing cars packed into the Shady Tire parking lot as densely as they had been in LunchLand a couple hours previously. Crap. Well, there's always next weekend.
    -Drove to Performance Bike to get ball bearings, cone wrench, long stick magnet thing as seen in how-to-videos to suck old bearings out of funky old grease, cassette wraparound chain thing, and that big socket to get the freewheel/freehub (still not sure which is which) off. Oh, and some 700x28 tires for the Allez, which I was going to buy at Veloswap, but couldn't find except at $45 each - no thanks, that's car tire prices!
    -Of all that, found only the cassette wraparound chain thing. They had none of the other stuff, including the tires. Hmm. I thought 28s would be a popular size. Maybe it's TOO popular?
    -Visited old-school hardware store on way home and got long stick magnet thing (which I've wanted for a long time anyway and am glad to finally have a good reason to buy), decided against going to another LBS since I was tired off all this driving around
    -Drove by Shady Tire again, just before they closed, and found them as full o' customers as ever. Dang.

    All that was between 9:00 AM and 6:00 PM.

    Today was similarly busy, but I chose to spend the time I could have been riding at a movie theatre, where I saw the first movie that wasn't a Star Trek movie in a theatre since I can't remember when. Might have squeezed in a ride later on, but dang ol' Standard Time is back in most of the USA, so it was dark way too early this afternoon.

    And that's why I didn't ride this weekend, with a bunch o' stuff from today omitted because this is absurdly long as it is.

    Last edited by George; November 6th, 2016 at 07:12 PM.

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