Yikes.

Dutch Bike Madness

Online design magazine Core77 has a great photo gallery from a large bike exhibition in the Netherlands last year.  My favorite is probably the 20 frame CNC milled from a block of oak.

Same as it ever was

You might ask yourself, what could possibly be more appropriate for sweetnourishingbikes than bicycle racks designed by David Byrne?

Mr. Byrne just played here in Albuquerque, which has prompted me to start reading his web site.  There is a veritable crapload of great stuff to be found there.

Just to spoil the surprise about these bike racks:  The City of New York apparently uses some standard size of square tubing to make its bike racks.  Since David Byrne wanted his funky designs to still be recognizable as bike racks, he wanted to use the proper tubing.  But it was too difficult to bend square tubing in contorted shapes... so they pieced them together out of small, cut, angled sections, welded it all together, and ground the edges down!  Voila! Curved tubing.

Drivetrain Challenge

We all showed up for a ride a couple of months ago with a new and different drivetrain.

H brought the homemade singlespeed:

jsn with the Nexus 8 speed:

Eric with the 1 x 5 (custom stack, friction shifter):

Me with 1 x 9:

After a couple of months of trial use, one bike stayed the same, one got upgraded, one converted (back) to the singlespeed, and one was never ridden again...

Stay tuned!

Civia Hylander Alfine

I want one.

The Civia Hylander city frame, decked out with a veray sexay black Alfine gruppo. And they are pretty cheap - only 2 grand from JensonUSA.

Usually I'm all steel-is-reel and shit, but aluminum kinda makes sense for a city bike since it won't rust, so you can bang the paint off with your lock without feeling like you should apply nail polish.

More Veen-Ho De Bicicletas

Check out this sweet "Pannier" - or Bici-Boulangier, or whatever you call a French dude who sells bread on a bike.

NYC Steez

Not sure when bmxers decided against rocking brakes...

Bike Lift in Norway

I'd love to see other simple, elegant solutions to this very common problem.

Veen-Ho De Bicicletas

Sometimes when you're shopping for a nice bottle of Veen-Ho, you cast aside bouquet, legs, nose, vintage and all that crap, and just buy the bottle that has a naked chick and a bike on it.

Crazy ass motorized bike seen in Waikiki. Genius!


OMG it's a fixey! Well actually it had a centrifugal clutch that is basically a freewheel, but still.

Dinosaurs and Robots: Dispatch

Those of you who frequent the whole Make:Blog sector of the bloggosphere have probably seen Hooptierides. That is the blog by the dude who made that drive-in theater projector trike thing. Remember that? Anyway. That same dude has a new project that appeals to all of us garage sale cruising, junk worshipping, tool obsessing, vintage hunting miscreants. He calls it Dinosaurs and Robots: Dispatch, and the first issue is really nice.

Skibike on MAKE:Blog

I love MAKE:Blog. Today they feature the Boozhoundlabs skibike. Aw yeah.

World's Most Dangerous Bike Birthday (Observed)

The latest project: dump-bike fixie.

Custom J-B Weld track cog should keep everything in place. Right? What could happen?

The finished product.

Welcome to the world. Please don't try to kill me like me your friends.

Future Taco

Remember this?







Bam! Thanks to jsn for not allowing me to make it a complete death trap... Now it just needs a maiden voyage to break it in. Note one-cross versus radial lacing. A considerable improvement in strength and reliability? Stay tuned.

Sheldon Brown 1944 - 2008

I hate to break the sweetnourishingbikes winter dry spell with bad news. More at Harris Cyclery.

If you like bikes and you've never heard of Sheldon Brown, you absolutely must visit SheldonBrown.com.

Buy Eric's bike

Eric is selling this kickass full-suspension frame, and he wants to buy more toys, so someone buy it.

2004 Specialized Stumpjumper FSR Pro. Size XL (21in)
Fox RLC Triad Shock w/Propedal and Lockout (Rebuilt by Push Ind. last year)
Seatpost included (Sweet!)

Small ding in the drive side of the down tube and usual wear and tear throughout. Shock and pivots are in great working order.

Rack Test 2 (Anticipation)

I was wondering how much weight you could put in a milk crate on the DIY rack featured here:

http://sweetnourishingbikes.blogspot.com/2006/08/rack.html

This is too much:



The rack didn't fail. But the bike was so unstable I was white-knuckled all the way home fighting the thing. The weight wasn't necessarily the issue - it was the wobbling. I think the rack needs more lateral rigidity or something, because the only way to keep the front wheel from trying to kick out to the side was to keep my own center of gravity as low as possible, eliminating any stand-up pedaling. But the uphill grind home paled in comparison to the urge to reach back and drink the center of gravity down...

Catastrophic Failure

Behold the catastrophic failure of a hub:

About half of the flange on one side just broke completely off. Fortunately, it was right at a switchback, so low speed prevented a serious pile-up. Not so lucky was the resulting ~3 mile walk out of Guaje Canyon. I loosened the spokes as much as possible with the hopes of getting the wheel straight enough to turn inside the fork, but the best I could get was a really annoying rubbing sound every time the wheel came around. With the tire deflated, some persistent pedaling - even downhill, and a high tolerance for a nature-destroying racket for every tire rotation, some riding was possible. Most of the way, however, was on foot. At least it was a nice day.

Dave's commuter

Photos of The Commuter.




Dave sez:

I found this frame at the now-out-of-business Albuquerque Bicycle X-
change. They mostly sold a lot of fixed-up used bikes. There was a
side room full of crap that you could barely get into, and this frame
was hanging from the ceiling-- no wheels, seat, or seat post -- with
a tag that said "$30 AS IS." Given that this place made its money
from fixing up old bikes, I had wonder... as is *what?* But it was a
pretty tall road frame, so maybe it wasn't worth their time to build
up. So I bit.

A few months after I got it, a loud clicking noise started coming
from the bottom bracket. I took it to the shop for a new bottom
bracket. The repair guy called me later and said that the bottom
bracket was fine, but the grease had hardened! It was probably the
original grease. But the bearings looked fine, so he just cleaned
and repacked.

I included a crappy shot of one of the pedals. I put these on this
summer. When you're crossing a lot of intersections, its nice not to
have to think about where your foot is going to go. Its hard to tell
how big the pedals look, but its like a guy in a suit wearing Doc
Martens.

The Carradice saddle bag is awesome, but I've decided it really needs
a quick release of some sort. You have to buckle it to your seat.
I'd also like to modify the pannier rack with some fuel line
extensions to get it up higher.

Currently, the brakes are fairly sucky and need an upgrade. Also,
the wheels are on long-term loan from my road bike. I'd like new
wheels with fatter tires for better cush. Black spokes might look
good with this frame! Also, I'm very tempted to get an internal gear
rear hub. Something you can shift at a stoplight.

rack update

Originally one idea for the supereasy DIY rack was to pit J-B Weld against PC-7 Epoxy in a no holds barred deathmatch of destruction. The J-B Weld died a quick and painless death. Perhaps PC-7 will do better...


The consistency of PC-7 is very different - more like roofing tar. Pasty, but kinda stringy too, and without the nice surface tension that makes the "fillets" look nice. Definitely lumpier. It also takes way longer than J-B Weld to dry/cure. Overnight at least, and 2 nights would be better.

Stay tuned for the stress testing... Can it hold a 30-pack? On the trail?