ON the Beaten Path

   Last Wednesday I took a drive near the Delaware Water Gap to ride a loop that would cover parts of the Paulinskill Valley and Sussex Branch Trails in North Jersey. These rural trails connect many small communities along their respective routes, and I certainly was never far from some evidence of civilization, but the manner in which these paths beautifully weave along secluded waterways and through thick forests really make you feel that you are out in the middle of nowhere!

   The Paulinskill Valley Trail is on an abandoned branch of the New York, Susquehanna & Western, a route of particular interesting to me, as every month I operate on my friend Steve’s model railroad layout, which features the NYS&W, or “Susie-Q”, as it is nicknamed. I say “operate” because we use copies of old timetables and switchlists to deliver imaginary passengers and freight to stations and factories to locations around his layout. Yes, it might sound a bit geeky to some of you, but the experience is more about interacting with friends who share a common interest, and it’s far more appealing than just watching trains go around in circles.

   The hobby also allows some of us put our artistic abilities to use, as we create scenery and structures that look as close to the real thing as possible. To show my appreciation for letting me join his group, I built this Pompton Lakes station for Steve’s railroad:

   The Sussex Branch Trail was a section of the Delaware Lackawanna & Western, which is one of my personal favorite railroads, and in the past I have modeled portions of it on my home layout (second photo above). Although on this trip I would be riding just part of the Sussex Branch during the return segment of my loop, I rode its entire 18-mile length a few years ago, from Waterloo to Branchville. I remember that trip well for two reasons: 1. Along the route is a string of small lakes covered with pond lilies, and I was riding in the early spring when their flowers were in bloom, making much of the ride smell incredible. 2. On the return leg my rear derailleur blew apart, leaving me to ride single-speed for a few miles.

   The NYS&W and DL&W were big players in the transport of anthracite coal from the mountains of Pennsylvania to ports around New York City, but these specific branches hauled agricultural goods, milk and iron ore from the area and had regular passenger service. You can read more about the railroad history of these trails by clicking on the logos above.

   I started my journey by parking under the enormous Paulinskill Viaduct (photo below), named after the creek it crosses, and headed east. There are conflicting stories as to the origin of the word Paulinskill – that is, at least the first part of the word, because kill is Dutch for stream or river. I’m very familiar with this etymology, since I live in the valley formed by the Schuylkill River, which would really be a pleonasm – the use of more words than are necessary to make a meaning clear, as in “tuna fish” or “safe haven”. Deriving from the Dutch word schuylen (now spelled schuilen) for “hidden”, it seems folks in our area are incorrectly saying, “Hidden River River”.

   Anyhow, one will immediately notice that these two trails are not the type of manicured paths maintained regularly by a parks service. Many sections of both trails (actually, almost all of the Sussex) were just a singletrack of packed dirt. These areas were my favorite parts of the ride, as the surface was hard, flat and fast! There were some locations featuring two lanes of track which had the look of a lightly-used service road, and there were some wider spots with crushed stone that obviously see some type of maintenance, but not all good.

   There was about a mile or so of the trail near Stillwater over which someone had spread a thick layer of fine cinder. As this is a shared-use trail, I’m assuming the culprits may have been an equestrian organization, because it definitely wasn’t a surface conducive to cycling. The depth of the material made riding sluggish and as the cinder has settled, the path has become terribly bumpy. I can imagine that an extended ride over this type of “paving” would have caused major fatigue in my arms, but luckily the abuse came to an end! I was happy to discover that my return route avoided this section completely.

   I briefly considered using a more road-worthy tire on my ‘cross bike, as about 15 miles of the nearly 50 total were going to be on pavement, but I’m glad I decided to go with the more knobby rubber. Because this was a low area near a stream with plenty of tree cover keeping the sun from drying out the surface, there were some mushy parts of the trail that were more easily navigated with a wider tread.

   As this is a less-traveled path than some of the trails in my home area, there were plenty of small branches that hadn’t been cleared. These weren’t anything impassable, but just a few weeks ago while riding the Raritan Canal Towpath, a branch I had ridden over kicked up and took a chunk out of my right shin. The fresh pink scar reminded me to be on the lookout - not that I was going to be a “shin model” or anything, with all evidence of slashes and lazy stickwork the neighborhood kids have inflicted on my legs during neighborhood street hockey games, but does anyone really want to bleed?

   The ride was very pleasant with the thick tree cover keeping the sun off of my back, and there were a few railroad remnants along the way to catch my eye. I crossed several girder bridges and a large through-truss span that were NYS&W leftovers, as well as a couple mile markers and even an old signal mast just west of Stillwater.

   Determined just to “enjoy the ride” when I’m on my trail bike, I hadn’t installed a computer on it. The one disadvantage to this is that I couldn’t get a good grasp on how far I had to go to the connection with the Sussex Branch Trail. As I rode past a trailhead, I saw a gentleman unloading his bike and quickly asked he knew if I was nearing the intersection of the two trails, and he replied that he was just checking a map on his phone. He confirmed that I had just a short distance to go and pointed out Warbasse Junction Road, with which I was familiar, since it runs parallel to the Sussex Branch Trail. I loved that he referred to it as “Wasabi, something-or-other” Road!

   Sure enough, I shortly reached the junction of the two trails, nicely marked by wooden signs (photo above), and made the righthand turn to head south on the Sussex Trail. This was another fast section of hard-packed singletrack, eventually reaching the streets just outside of Newton. I quickly covered the four miles to my connection at Stickles Pond Road to take on the non-trail portion of my planned route.
   I have mentioned in the past how hard it is to navigate in some areas of New Jersey, as main highways are infrequently indicated on corner signs - most often, it's just the secondary streets. In this section of the state, some intersections were marked only with signs pointing out the direction of local towns. That can’t be particularly helpful to someone who has never heard of Frelinghuysen, Johnsonburg or Allamuchy!

   I had carefully mapped out my street route, following Dark Moon, Ramsey and Kerrs Corner Roads, in order to avoid a couple major hills, and knowing those street names was important to follow that plan. Things went pretty well except for one stop to speak with a passing driver to make sure I had turned onto the intended (but unmarked) road.

   The short, steep ridge that I had to get over in order to get back to the car was a shock to the system after so much flat riding, but once that was conquered, and after a mad downhill dash on the other side to rejoin the trail near Blairstown, it was back to cruising speed on a level path to finish the trip. I will definitely want to do this one again!

"MacGyver-ing" the first problem and then...

...Campagnolo strikes again...and AGAIN!

   I purchased a Shimano (or more accurately called J.I.S. – Japanese Industrial Standard) compatible spindle, in order to solve the worn Campagnolo crankset problem on Brendan’s Sean Kelly tribute bicycle. You may recall that the square hole (which was British or I.S.O. – International Standards Organization) had been “stretched” out of shape

   When I test fit the parts, it seemed that the more gradual taper of the Shimano part would indeed give me the needed area onto which I could bolt the cranks. Unfortunately when I inserted the spindle into the bottom bracket, I found that the supplier had not sent the length of spindle I had ordered, and this one would be too short.

   I had been growing impatient with the length of time it took for this spindle to come in the mail, and I didn’t want to wait again for the correct part to arrive. I headed over to Bikesport (to the rescue once more!) to borrow a tool for another Campagnolo outdated part - a Power Torque bottom bracket cap/bolt with an unusual hex key size. While I was there I asked James, a vintage enthusiast, about my vintage Campagnolo crankset issue.

   “You might need a shim - or should I say, make one out of a soda can,” he explained. I immediately thought of the little-known fact that Greg Lemond’s aero bars during his 1989 Tour de France victory (you know, the one he won by 8 seconds on the final day time trial) had clamps that were slightly too large for the handlebars. His mechanic fashioned shims out of strips of Coke can – click on the photo to enlarge and see them.

   James emphasized that I was just putting back the metal that was stretched out of shape, and it should work fine. The only problem was figuring out some way to keep the metal strips in place so that they wouldn’t slide out when I tightened on the cranks. My MacGyver (TV show character who had a knack for solving huge problems, like disarming a bomb, with toothpicks, pocket lint, generally whatever he could find) job was to size a strip that would wrap over two sides of the spindle end and then cut out a hole for the crank bolt to fit through.

   Flattened out, the piece kinda looked like a Band-Aid with the gauze section cut out, and in fact, this little sliver of ginger ale can (the green went nicely with the Irish legend’s bicycle, I thought) did heal the bike’s boo-boo perfectly. The crankset went on tightly and with the needed frame clearance. Brendan was very pleased with the final results.

   I was excited when the Ultra Torque bottom bracket cups for the Ridley bicycle arrived just a couple days after I ordered them, and the remaining build went quickly, as I assembled the cranks and fit the chain. With the derailleurs and levers already in place, all that was left was adjusting the shifting, but my enthusiasm was ground to an abrupt halt when I found the right-hand shifter slipping over multiple cogs on the way down from large to small sizes. This was a sure sign that the ratchet might be stripped.

   I started to take the lever apart, as I have rebuilt (very) early Shimano and pre-2009 Campagnolo Ergo levers, but I found the internals on this Centaur shifter unlike others I have seen. Sadly, I found out by looking at some online Campagnolo manuals and by consulting some online forums regarding these shifters that they are NOT rebuildable.

   Within the shifter mechanism there is a notable inclusion of plastic gears that of course wear out, which seems to be the issue here. Several folks have told me parts are not available, and I searched - with no luck finding anything - to confirm this. Apparently Campagnolo’s idea was to sell at a lower price point (by lower, I guess they mean for folks with bigger wallets than me!), where simply replacing the whole shifter would be cheaper than the parts and labor would cost.

   Evidence of this line of thinking is in the recent Campy catalogs, which show complete blow-up parts diagrams for all the higher level shifters, but for Veloce (which have the same internals as Centaur) only the hood, body, lever and mounting bracket are shown as separate pieces. The solution to any needed "repairs" is supposedly to purchase a complete shifter body (photo right) for $65+, and personally I don’t find that to be an inexpensive proposition!

   Yes, the hoods are another $25 or so, and the levers (especially if they are carbon) can be pricey, but still - doesn't it seem like you would pretty much just be buying a completely new shifter? What I’m going to do is attempt to find a donor shifter for the couple of parts needed, or perhaps locate a cheaper Veloce shifter body and switch out the Centaur logo-ed lever and red anodized bolts. Yes, RED definitely seems to be the appropriate color!

To clear my head a bit, tomorrow I’m taking off on another new cycling adventure, so tune in next week for details.

Italian Irritation

   While looking for component groups with which to build the Pinarello Veneto bicycle, I came across a couple other very inexpensive sets and decided to purchase them for future use. One is a Campagnolo Record 10-speed group which I’ll call “vintage modern”, with carbon shifters and derailleurs, but an alloy square-taper crankset. The other was a modern “Campy” Centaur 10-speed group that was only a couple of years old.

  I also picked up a couple of reasonably priced frames, so I can officially postpone my eBay/craigslist searching for the rest of the summer, as I may now have plenty to work on (and sell) for the rest of the calendar year. I really liked the Ridley “Flandrien” bicycle I recently built and had one of the company’s cool angular Boreas framesets (brand new condition) in my sights for a couple of months. When the price dropped within a budget-comfortable range, I snapped it up.

I love the subtle "Tested on pavè" decal!

   The other frame is much more of a project, but has more of an upside towards collectors – a 1980 Ciocc (pronounced “CHEE-oach”) ’80 Mockba (Cyrillic for Moscow). The limited edition bicycles were built to commemorate the success of the Polish team, who rode Ciocc machines during that year’s Olympic Games in the Russian capital. This bike will require a bit more work, as it’s not exactly pristine, so I’ll save that for future blog talk.

   Well, I had collected (I thought) all the parts for two of my projects, the Vitus Sean Kelly tribute and the Ridley Boreas, and had recently set about to complete those bicycles. However, thanks to my old friend and nemesis Campagnolo, I was again left searching for solutions. I am a huge fan of Campagnolo parts for various reasons, but regular readers will have heard stories of issues with the Italian manufacturer, particularly compatibility among their own products, that have been a major annoyance. Maybe it’s time for me to take the advice of a fellow cycling blogger and “stop drinking the [Campy] Kool Aid!”

   Since Brendan had supplied the majority of the Campagnolo Super Record gruppo necessary for the Vitus build, I was left to acquire just a handful of parts. The stem was simple enough, just requiring a bit of patience for a reasonably priced Cinelli 1R to come available, so we would have something to match up with a nice set of the company’s handlebars that he had already provided.

   We were considering Everest vs. Regina for the freewheel/chain, in order to keep the build Italian. I pointed out that both product lines were a bit overpriced and the chains were actually a bit clunky, as they had large bushings on the chain pins (photo below). I suggested that since Sean Kelly would have had all Mavic (French) parts on his bike, we weren’t really being totally accurate with our build anyway.

   I proposed going with a Sachs/Malliard freewheel, along with a Sachs/Sedis chain. This brand has a similar look to other versions of the era, but theirs is bushingless like modern chains and has a narrower profile to work more smoothly with 7-speed freewheels, instead of just 6.

   The photo above was taken without the drive train fully assembled because bottom bracket issues have popped up. Before I even tightened the crankset onto the spindle, I noticed there was very little clearance between the smaller chainring and the frame. I thought at first I had purchased the wrong length of spindle, but it seems that the crankset may actually be worn. Each time a crankset is squeezed onto a tapered spindle, it stretches the square hole a bit, and it appears this Campy crankset may have seen a lot of "action". 

   Usually with a worn crank there is a threat of the bolt "bottoming out" on the end of the spindle, so that tightening further is impossible. However, in this case there is a lack of room left on the taper. I want to try a longer Campagnolo spindle, but there is no guarantee that it will work. A possible solution is using a Shimano spindle, which has a more gradual taper, not abruptly squared-off like Campagnolo’s (see second photo below for comparison).

   In comparison with gathering the required components for my vintage projects, putting together modern bicycles is relatively easy, as most parts are readily available at decent prices, often in new condition! I had everything ready to go a few days before the Boreas frame arrived at my door. As I did with the “Flandrian”, I was using mostly 4ZA (Forza) parts, which is Ridley’s in-house brand, with the modern Campagnolo group I had purchased. This set is the Centaur “Red” 10-speed version that has anodized touches of the color on rivets, chainring bolts, etc. to jazz things up.

   Although wrestling new hoods onto the brake/shift levers was an adventure, pretty much all was going smoothly until, again, I went to assemble the crankset/bottom bracket. I wasn’t sure if this 2008 new-old stock frame required British or Italian threading, as I couldn’t find the detail anywhere online. I also hadn’t bothered to check which part was included with the groupset, but it didn’t really matter until the frame arrived to check what was needed. And if you guessed that I'd end up with an Italian part with a British bottom bracket shell, you’d be correct. However, the real issue wasn’t the mismatched threading, it was that the seller provided parts from different product lines – a Centaur Power Torque crankset with an Ultra Torque bottom bracket that was marked “For Super Record Only”.

   Now, I know well from experience that this is a bad sign, but I noticed that the whole configuration came assembled in the box and seemed to fit perfectly. Things became more confusing when I researched the situation online and found Campagnolo’s website explaining that the two product lines were not compatible. Argh!

   To keep a long story short(er), I am going to have to experiment with this a bit. I ordered a British threaded set of cups, hoping the bearings will fit, as I found no specific information telling me they wouldn’t. There seems to be some type of retaining clip missing, but I think this has to do with the Ultra Torque spindle being in two pieces that join in the middle, while the Centaur Power Torque spindle is one piece locked at the non-drive crank. I’ll leave you to look up details on these, if you are that interested.

We’ll have to wait to find out how this bottom bracket dealio (Italian, right?) works out, but here’s a quick look at my build progress in the meantime: