Minus Fourteen

That was the temperature in Bremen when I checked the weather forecast before I left for work. 


Nevertheless I opted for Bad Boy to take me to the university where I arrived much later than usual because I had to ride slow and carefully over large patches of exposed ice on the road. That is still much better than being left stranded at Frankfurt or Heathrow airport. Winter salt is now much in demand but also useless at this temperatures to unfreeze the ice.


My Assos early winter gloves are also now useless: Being designed for down to six degrees plus, their protective value doesn't last for the 15 minutes ride to work.


Surprisingly enough the German postal system is still working and another batches of parts for the Galibier project arrived on Sunday and today.


I cheaply bought a set of wheels, consisting of Maillard 700 high flange hubs and Mavic rims with glued-on old tubeless tires. I am not a big fan of tubeless tires, to cumbersome in event of a puncture on the road, so I completely de-assembled the front and rear wheel. Then I de-assembled the front wheel bearings. There were only eight balls instead of nine on one side of the bearing so I will need to look for an replacement. Nevertheless I greased the bearing and started to polish the chrome of the which now looks pretty good. Supported by a red rubber bear.

I will buy some spokes and a new rim and try to built my first wheel. Well at least I will give it a try and complete it as far as I can but most likely the truing needs  to be done by a pro from a bike shop.


The same for the rear hub. The spokes on the side of the cogs couldn't be removed so I cut them with a cable cutter. Then I went to the local bike shop and asked them to remove the cassette, which is old-style, screwed on cassette with integrated freewheel. They gave me a big laugh and told me that it is impossible to remove the cassette without the complete wheel: Opposed to modern cassettes, where only the last and smallest cog is screwed on to hold all other cogs in place and where you need to counter the against the stripping tool with a chain whip on any other cog, here need to unscrew the complete cassette with the freewheel that is screwed as one piece on the hub. So you need to counter with the lever of the rims. So it could very well be that this hub will never be usable any more at is neither possible to put new spokes in nor to remove the cassette. I should have read the Sheldon Brown advise before starting where all of this is described in detail. So let's see if I perhaps cannot find another way.

By the way, this thing is pretty heavy, perhaps more than a set of lightweight wheels.


I also have now a almost new Shimano 600 Arabesque front derailleur. Design-wise that was my first choice for the Galibier and I am happy that I could buy one rather cheaply. I still need to de-assemble, grease and polish this baby. These derailleurs are still working friction-based and not indexed so it depends on the rider to adjust it properly while riding. It can be used with index shifters nevertheless, so I will have a wide range of options. I will probably end-up with a strange mix of components, so the re-sale value of the bike will be rather low as real connoisseurs will not be interested. But I would like to use the components I think will look best, regardless of epoch-correct assembly.

During assembly I found out that I am really a poor mechanic. For me, perhaps because of my academic-theoretical background, if a problem is intellectually solved, I am not much interested in the implementation. I guess my marriage may serve as a prime example. I am getting really impatient when the bloody handle bar can be fiddled around the bloody handle. Or the rust cannot be polished away on the hub. So perhaps by doing this kind of mechanical work I can learn to become slightly more modest, patient and thereby by also nicer to my wife.

The question is, will she be nice to me, when in due time even more nice bike that bought will arrive on our door steps. Ah, the temptations are so big in Germany and the winter is so long. So I better start working patiently on this beautiful piece of Shimano 600EX Arabesque rear derailleur. Again, this one was produced between 1978 and 1984, as the FD. The cage is open, so it is possible to remove the chain from the derailleur without opening the chain. I am not sure what this is good for, but I like this small, useless engineering details.


The Galibier, however will need some more time. I will keep posting pictures 
of it's progress.

Winter Goals

The morning after another day with heavy snowfall in the Bremen flatlands.

On Monday the sky was blue and the roads were dry so I took my Cervelo out of the garage for a 80 km standard spin. I made it just up to Worpswede, about one hour, when it started to snow again. There must have been some very well blue-camouflaged snow clouds somewhere up there. I had to ride about 25 km back to Bremen against the snow and the roads were slowly becoming white. The snow was rather dry and while there wasn't sufficient quantity accumulated on the surface, it formed in small hurricane patterns. When I came home it was snowing heavily and when I left for work an hour later on the Gazelle, I was hardly able to steer through the snow.

I rode to work early in the morning the next day on the Gazelle through the snow. It is a little bit tricky to ride on a racing bike with 700 x 23C tires as every little bump below the snow forces a sudden and unexpected change of direction. I thought it as a good exercise to learn how to control a slippery bike. I was probably just thinking that and how great I was handling the steering already and how fast I could go, when I came to a crossing where I had to brake a little bit harder. I did it too hard, so that the rear wheel went to the right and me down hard on the road.

After that I thought what a bloody stupid prick I am. I am not 26 any more when I rode home in the rain on my Motebecane on a bicycle lane than was separated from the pedestrian walk by a line of randomly spaced bollards and I crashed directly with my right knee into one without seeing it. That hurted very much but I survived, nothing was broken and there were no consequences at all. Now I am 48 and every time I fall it takes weeks until all of the pain is gone and I really should consider this when making cycling decisions.

So after spending a day in the office, trying not to move at all and after another night at home, trying not to move as well, I went into the garage and refitted the Bad Boy with the winter Schwalbe tires (700 x 30C). I was reluctant to use Bad Boy in the winter, first it is very messy to clean the bike, second the paint is very sensible to scratches (strange spec for a MTB or urban hybrid) and third it has no mud guards. And forth, the last time I crashed really hard was riding down from Yabistu Toge to Hadano on Bad Boy with winter tires.

But winter in Bremen leaves me no other choices than to ride on fat tires:  The Bad Boy was placed just behind the Cervelo and the Gazelle and the electric shopping bike of my wife and the new green Giant of my son and the Peugeot Galibier frame I am working on. Which stands in front of the old Pinarello frame which I am polishing and the beautiful Peugeot I have bought recently for fun and just leaves enough space for this super cheap Pesacarola racing bike I incidentally bought and the beautiful Gianni Motta I could not resist to buy. If performance really depends on the number of newly acquired bikes, I should be ready for Paris - Roubaix.

In other words, I took me some time to get the bike out, mount a saddle, pedals, tires, saddle bag, speedmeterand lights, which took another half an hour. All of this for 15 minutes of riding to work.

After having done the commute now three times I have to say that it is actually much more fun than on a racing bike. It is also stimulating not to been overtaken by grandmothers on their sturdy Holland-bikes while trying to stay upright on the Gazelle.

On the weekend I will utilize my newly rediscovered cycling courage to ride through the white planes on the Bad Boy.

And after coming home an having enjoyed a cup of hot instant coffee, I will go to work on the Peugeot Galibier frame. I am still waiting for parts to arrive at my home and I am excited how some of the purchases, like the charge saddle, the Maillard 700 high flange hubs will look like. Although I have to admit that assembly of a bike is a tricky business, even if one has most of the tools. I wasn't able to remove the crankset covers from the Pinarello frame and had to ask for assistance at a bike shop. I am also not able to mount the Shimano 600 rear tube shifters properly. And it was an absolute nightmare to fiddle white handle bar tape around a bullhorn handle bar. Well, this must be the fate of the Euro-cyclist, I guess.

I will post some pictures once the wheels have been mounted.
Meanwhile have fun in the snow, if you have snow.