Simply Gorge-ous

I had a great time riding on the D&L/Lehigh Valley Gorge Park Trail yesterday, mostly because of the company, but also because of the fantastic cool weather up in the Poconos. Along with me on the 27 mile round trip that became known as the "Tour de Thorpe" (nearby town is Jim Thorpe, PA) were my dad, Uncle Dan, cousin Wendy and her husband Sean. Dad is fairly close by in Bethlehem, but I don't get to see my other relatives as often as I would like since they live in North Carolina and Virginia, respectively. It was a wonderful opportunity to catch up on things during a VERY relaxed pace on the flat trail.

I was able to finish the first round of painting on Tuesday, including the layers of clear coat that needed to be applied before the decals. I had previously sanded the primer coat and then removed all of the dust by rubbing the frame completely with tack cloth.  I then undertook the painstaking process of masking around the decorative curves of the lugs.

I applied several coats of Krylon red to the headset and fork, and then allowed a day for that paint to dry. I proceded with the blue and white, masking off each section and allowing a day for each to dry as I went along. Finally, on Tuesday evening I sprayed a couple clear gloss coats over all of the color sections of the frame, leaving the lugs (that I had previously masked) covered.




I bought some Mirage decals from Velocals, which have an outstanding selection of vintage bicycle graphics in stock. The sheet included all of the Motobécane decals which were on the bicycle before I stripped the paint, so I was careful to note beforehand where each would go on the frame. The manufacturer suggests, because of the outgassing of some paints, that you let the bicycle dry for at least a week so that no bubbles will occur under the decals.

So a bit of a break on the project is in store, but as usual I'll come up with some things to talk about in the meantime. Stay tuned...

At The Movies

I'm really hoping to have a chance tomorrow morning to get some painting done, but we'll see. In the meantime I thought I'd point out some excellent vintage cycling film that has been made available online. Even if you're not big on cycling history, these movies have some really interesting things that you just don't get to see when you watch a bicycle race on TV. Sure, improvements have been made in the way a professional cyclist prepares, but you can see that the same basic organization of the team on race day is still there. Just click on the title links in bold type and enjoy - you officially qualify as hard-core cycling fan if you watch ALL of these in one day!

A Sunday In Hell  is a great documentary that just happens to be about the 1976 Paris-Roubaix. "The Hell of the North" is the most dramatic of the spring classics, with much of its latter portion having narrow, cobbled tracks that choke with dust on dry days and become slick and muddy in rain. The winner is often the one who is the most fortunate to avoid tire punctures and/or crashes. Eddy Merckx, Roger De Vlaeminck, Freddy Maertins, Raymond Poulidor, Bernard Thevenet and Francesco Moser are among the cycling greats shown.

Stars and Watercarriers and The Greatest Show On Earth are films highlighting the 1973 and 1974 Tours of Italy (Giro d’Italia). Both feature excellent race action with greats like Merckx, Moser and Felice Gimondi. The films also contain behind-the-scenes footage of team mechanical and medical staff, and a comical look at the responsibilities of the race director. My favorite scenes are the high speed descents, watching the older sedans struggle to keep up as the more nimble bicycles are negotiated around the tight hairpin turns.

An enjoyable segment of the ’74 film shows the domestiques (lower-level riders who do the “dirty work”) at a time that they were allowed to raid bars and restaurants along the route. Many owners thought this was an honor, and were happy to watch the cyclists take off with a supply of soda, beer, wine and mineral water to share among their teammates. It’s quite amusing watching the riders with their jerseys all stretched out with several bottles crammed inside. I will warn viewers ahead of time, particularly those with dental issues, that not all of their methods of bottle-opening will be fun to watch. NOTE: the first film comes in several parts, unfortunately with a lengthy title which doesn't always display the segment number. You can move your mouse over the title selections on the right of the page, and the full title with the episode number will pop up, so you can follow them in succession.

The last film is a montage of a YouTuber's picks for top thirty cyclists of all time. He has a fantastic collection of footage with an interesting soundtrack accompanying each of his choices. I’ve supplied the link to the three parts of the video because they don’t show up in succession onscreen:

Top 30 Part One      Top 30 Part Two 

Top 30 Part Three

I'll leave you to identify the cyclists pictured above, but on the left is Ireland's legendary Sean Kelly. His hometown of Carrick on Suir (pronounced like the word "sure") was the inspiration for my son's name. Carrick means "rock" and the Suir is the river in that particular area.

True blue

   Wow, I really wish I had finished all of the painting before this heat wave hit, then all this sitting around would have provided a good amount of drying time prior to applying the decals. It's not like I'm facing a deadline or anything, just anxious to see the job completed.

   In the meantime I can tell you about one of my homemade tools in my workshop. Back in the spring of 2008 I was hit by a car during a ride. I was fortunate not to be seriously hurt, but my 1989 Cannondale was not so lucky. While the damage wasn't very obvious, the frame was knocked out of alignment about 1½ inches, making it dangerous to ride. I took very good care of the bike, and I really didn't want to just toss my old friend on the scrap heap. The bright blue, nearly scratchless frame deserved a better fate!
   After taking a mechanic's course at Bikesport, where a segment on wheel truing was included, I came upon the idea of using my damaged frame as a wheel truing stand. While I'm sure the complex and expensive-looking stand at Bikesport would give a super accurate gauge for the perfectly straight wheel, I was hoping to avoid having to dish out serious bucks and yet create something that could do a reasonable job.
   Since front and back wheels have different axle lengths, I planned on making two separate stands from the frame. After completely disassembling the bike, I hacksawed the frame near the seat tube at the end of the top and down tubes, leaving the rear triangle intact. I used a couple of leftover step boards from a porch repair project as bases for my truing stands.
   To provide stability for the mounting post, as well as additional wheel clearance height for the rear wheel platform, I planned on adding a raised block on which to attach the rear triangle.  I screwed the two pieces of board together and drilled a hole the diameter of my old seat post. I then glued in a dowel with the same diameter and mounted the triangle upside down on the dowel, securing it with the existing seat post clamp.
   The front truing stand was made in a similar manner, but in lieu of a wooden dowel, I cut off the fork's steerer tube to the appropriate length. I made sure to drill a hole the diameter of the steerer tube in another riser block and attached it to the second platform with screws. The fork was then secured to the platform simply with an eye hook and a bolt through the brake mounting holes.

   For my truing "gauges" I mounted zip ties with the free ends cut to a point on each side of the fork and on the seat stays. I can slide them to the location needed for the rim size, and a simple twist adjusts the distance from the tips to the rim surface. During a truing job, I install a wheel in the appropriate stand, and set the zip ties exactly opposite each other at the rim height and twist them towards each other until they are just barely out of contact with the rim. As I slowly rotate the wheel, I listen for the scratch of a tip on the rim and locate the warp. I then tighten the spoke nipples on the side opposite the spot where the tip scratches in order to pull the rim away from that contact point. When I spin the wheel and hear no more scratches, it means the wheel is straight.

   Although I get a twinge of sadness when I see the still flawless blue paint, I'm so glad I found a way to re-use the old bike instead of just making it a memory.

Trés bien, monsieur Voeckler!

I have been enjoying watching Frenchmen Thomas Voeckler mix it up with the favorites at the Tour de France and hang onto the yellow jersey for the last week or so. Even if he can get through the Alps on top, he's going to have a tough time winning it all since Contador and Evans are so much better at time trials. We'll see, but it's hard to believe a French cyclist hasn't won the Tour since Bernard Hinault in 1985!

Thomas Voeckler kisses (hopefully not goodbye) his precious yellow jersey - go Tommy!

The shop is emptying out a bit since I finished up three bikes on Tuesday evening, and that's a good thing because the heat has even gotten to the basement lately. The past couple of days things were okay with just a fan, and I was really too focused on what I was doing to notice the temperature, but now I think that I finally have to postpone operations until the heatwave breaks.

I’ve had some interesting projects handed to me this year, including what I call “Pro Peleton Service” on my neighbor's Cannondale. Completely taking a bicycle apart for cleaning and re-greasing, etc. may seem a bit extreme, but for a ten-year-old bike that was used heavily and never had any significant work done on it, the service was quite necessary. His bottom bracket (where the pedal axle goes through the frame) was completely dry - not good for the bearings! Turns out he rode in the rain and didn’t realize that water sprays up from the wheels onto the back of the seat post and works its way down the tube into the bracket. Overall this bike was actually very well cared for, and other than some truing of the rims to get a bit of wobble out of them, the job was fairly uncomplicated, just time-consuming.

Sue and Carrick even drummed up some work when out for a drive, coming across a cyclist at the side of the road, struggling with a broken front derailler. In the process of his continued pedal stroke, he had managed to wedge the chain in between his rear wheel and the frame, rendering the bike completely immobile. The rear wheel had screw-on bolts instead of quick-release levers, so he had no way to free the chain. Although they stopped mainly to make sure he was okay, when they found out he lived just a couple blocks from us, they offered a ride and then told him where he could get an inexpensive repair. Now, are they entitled to a finder’s fee?

Some like it hot, and some just DON'T

Ugh, it was brutal riding out there today! I am not a morning rider, but when better to avoid the excessive heat? I felt surprisingly good going out, but the return route was into a convention oven-like headwind (of course), and there was a bridge out that forced me on a detour which included a long, nasty hill that just sapped the remaining energy out of me!

Unfortunately, hot and humid weather is not good painting weather, but I did receive a delivery of parts to finish some of the bicycles hanging downstairs. Being banished to our cooler basement isn’t a bad alternative on days like this. Currently I am restoring a couple of ‘70s ten speeds that had been just hanging in a garage for way too long - plenty of cleaning and lubricating for both machines! One of the bikes is also in need of new handlebar tape, while the other is being converted from drop handlebars to an upright, sweep-back style bar – some folks call them “cruiser” bars.

Before I get to work, I thought a short tour of the shop would be in order. The first shot shows the workbench on the right and the shelves with all the tools and parts in the background. Sue recently surprised me by buying AND installing an additional fluorescent fixture to hang over the wall clamp (far left, with dark blue bike). I had been working in less than optimum lighting conditions since I installed the clamp on that side of the room, away from the main lights. She was very frustrated trying to learn derailleur adjustments on her bike in the dark, so she decided to take care of the problem right away!

My floor stand (center, with the orange bike) is great for holding bikes with traditional frame tubing, but its clamp will not fit the large diameter tubing often found on modern road and mountain bikes. I borrowed an idea from someone online who built their own floor stand. I reworked his plans to build a wall-mounted clamp (see close-up) that, when faced with larger tubing, can be used to hang a bike from the seat post. In this case, not enough of the seat post was exposed, so I clamped onto the seat tube.

I purchased a pipe clamp and a two-foot section of 1” diameter pipe at Lowes. I filed a semicircle out of two wooden blocks, then drilled holes to mount them on the clamp to make a softer gripping surface. I didn’t want to leave the clamp in the wall permanently and have people keep knocking into it, injuring themselves. So I used 1” thick boards to construct a frame from which to easily slide the pipe in and out. I drilled a hole through the frame and supporting post and use an old screwdriver to lock the pipe in place and keep it from rotating when a bike is in the clamp. I am really happy with the results!

Time to get to work.

Oh, there's no place like chrome for the hollandaise...

It’s a bit of a lazy day, and who doesn’t occasionally need one of those? I watched the Tour de France coverage this morning and then went on a relaxed ride with Sue (she would argue it was only relaxing for me). I didn’t have time to finish my next round of masking and painting, so I spent some time researching for my “chroming” the lugs process.

To give you an idea of what I’m looking for, here are a couple pictures of the chrome lugwork around the headset of the Rabobank cycling team bike, though I've never been a big fan of the orange and blue combo. The other picture is from a vintage Garlatti, which looks pretty spectacular, but I’m glad my Mirage doesn’t have lugs that extreme – can you imagine how long it would take to mask those?

From everything I’ve read, no rattle-can spray paint will give you that mirror-like chrome finish, but I didn’t want to spend the money on chrome-plating the frame or buy an $80 can of automotive specialty paint and another $100 or so for the airbrush equipment to apply it!

I did learn that a base of gloss black will greatly improve the look of some metallic paints, so I’m going to test out the results before I proceed. From videos I’ve seen online, it looks like the Dupli-Color Chrome best replicates the reflective surface, so I’ll start there.

Busy, busy

   Before I get into the next steps of my project I wanted to ask if anyone else has tried SportLegs capsules. I'm don't usually experiment with suppliments, etc. when working out, but Carrick and I met a rep for this company at a endurance sports expo a few months ago. What he described sounded interesting, and he supplied us with a few samples. I used them today before a long ride and felt amazing! SportLegs contains lactate compounds of calcium and magnesium.  Taken an hour before exercise, it pre-loads your bloodstream with lactate and tricks your muscles into thinking they don't need to make more. You just don't get that terrible burn in your thighs after pedaling hard, enabling you to go faster for a longer period of time. I probably wouldn't use it for every ride, but for the longer or hillier routes, it sure seems like a great product.

   It took a while for me to really get going on the Motobécane restoration, mostly because Sue drummed up so much repair business for me through her colleagues at school - word really got around! At one point a couple weekends ago I had six bikes in various stages of repair completion around the house. I was awaiting parts for some, and wanted to get started on the others, so I was struggling to find places to put everything. I was somewhat glad Sue and the boys went down to the shore early without me so that they weren't having to negotiate their way through the obstacle course. I finished two of the bikes and had them picked up, only to have some Oakies (Sue teaches at Oaks Elementary) bring over a couple more!
  

  



   I completely disassembled the Motobécane, and was pleasantly surprised to find how shiny the chrome was after some polishing with light oil and fine steel wool. The cranks and chainrings cleaned up amazingly well, as did the Suntour derailleur and shifters.

   I masked the bottom bracket and headset with layers of duct tape and set the frame out to my local sandblasting connection. Before painting, I sampled some paint schemes by using a simple outline of a bike frame and the Microsoft Paint program and filling different sections with color. I love the look of the chrome lugs on classic Colnago bicycles, so I’ve decided to replicate that with a French flag tricolor design for the rest of the frame.

  

   After masking the headset, bottom bracket and dropouts, I threaded a section of clothesline through the headset from which to hang the frame for painting. Because the fork will be red, I used brown primer on that section, but I used gray on the frame so that there won’t be as much of a problem with the primer showing through the white paint. The photos actually show the frame pre-primer and the fork ready for the next process…color!

Start up

This spring I started up a small business of bicycle repair with the idea of doing something I really enjoy, while helping fellow cycling enthusiasts save a lot of money. I started out helping family and friends, but when word spread of my CHEAP prices, my shop starting filling up with bikes. I'm still having fun, but why is it that the simple fixes end up being anything but that?

   Last summer my son had expressed an interest in ROAD cycling, instead of mountain biking - I think the speed factor was involved. Unwilling to purchase something new, in case his attention span is short (duh!), we decided to repaint my wife’s 1988 Schwinn Traveler, which is actually a smallish men's bike anyway. Not being a big fan of the Bianchi-like celeste green, Carrick found the old paint scheme was rather effeminate.

   After totally disassembling the bike, we had the frame sandblasted. We polished the top, seat and down tubes with a wire wheel and left them "raw metal". Priming, sanding and painting the fork and rear triangle was next, after masking out the decorative lugs. After a couple clear coats over everything, I applied some great Schwinn vinyl decals I found on Ebay. A few more clear coats and many days of drying later, we put 'er all back together, except that we added new brake levers with the cables routed through the bars, a new saddle, a set of clipless pedals from another bike and a computer.

   This summer I am undertaking a project for myself – repainting of a Motobécane Mirage road bike. After tracing my family’s heritage back to the Alsace-Lorraine region, I thought about trying to find a vintage bike manufactured in France. I first heard about Motobécane bikes on an episode of American Pickers and found out later that, after Peugeot, they were once the most prestigious French manufacturer of bicycles to the pro pelotons in Europe.

   I searched for months on Ebay for a machine in the right condition and (most importantly) the right price. A gentleman near Middletown, PA, had the bike I was looking for and was within a reasonable range for a pick-up, being only about 1½ hours away. The Mirage had some cool features like the monogram bar plugs and the older metal headset badge, which for me was a MUST. I hated the tacky plastic badge from the late ‘70s - early ‘80s, and there was no way a decal headset badge would be on my bike!  I will replace the bolt-on wheels with quick-release, and I intend to upgrade the brake levers and hoods (who really wants the cables in front of their face?), although I want to keep the quirky headset-mounted brake levers.

   I’m not too concerned with not having index shifting anyway, since I won’t be changing gears a whole lot.  My plan is to give the bike a cyclocross-type setup for use on the many rail trails in our area, particularly those with a hard gravel surface or with a combination of asphalt and cinder. Mountain bikes are a slow drag on asphalt! I have purchased a second wheel set with slicks for riding when my family travels to the South Jersey beaches. I sold my regular shore ride to help pay for the Mirage project, and I’d much rather put its rugged steel frame on a car bike rack than either of my other bikes with their lightweight frame materials!

More to come as work progresses…