1996 Kona Hahanna

[moonlite]

Well, that was extremely fun. My first time ever touring and I already am planning the next one. My setup felt like a pretty mixed bag overall and there's lots of things I want to change. I managed to complete 109km the first day and 129km the second day. Not sure how I didn't notice this before but my rear mech was setup totally wrong and I didn't have access to my smallest cog so I was basically using 3x6! Many situations arose where I needed that extra gearing so it's nice to know it's there for next time. I had no mechanical issues apart from a loose bottle cage but I did manage to crash twice.

On the second day there was about 25km of farm track that had been driven over by big 4x4s in the wet and as a result you got this stripey, alternating (parallel to direction of travel) grass and dry mud. The dry mud was about 20-30cm lower down than the grass verges so if you rode in those your pedals would strike the grass either side of it, but if you rode on the grass it was only about 30-50cm wide and sometimes narrowed to even less. My tires just being BMX tires repetitively slipped down the grass parts into the mud! Pretty minor most times but it happened once on a sweeping downhill left turn and I tumbled pretty hard. Second time was on my way back into London, a Lime bike rider was on his phone and pulled out without looking and hit me. ._.

My route was pretty bad and I put myself through a lot of pain and misery just to avoid roads with cars on them. I ended up ignoring my GPS for certain sections just to get the kms down. Definitely got a lot of planning to do for my bigger trip in summer.

Good job mate -- some serious distance covered . . . and sounds like some serious 'learnings' there ahead of the longer trip!

 

[bikeworkshop]

Great riding
The experience teaches you where to draw the line on the map.

Trapped at high speed in a 4x4 rut is a classic - you get time to consider how it's going to end
Sometimes you can bunnyhop back onto the raised grass, but often that's the last thing you do before tumbling down the trail face first.

Post a pic

 

[originsoundd]

Great riding
The experience teaches you where to draw the line on the map.

Trapped at high speed in a 4x4 rut is a classic - you get time to consider how it's going to end
Sometimes you can bunnyhop back onto the raised grass, but often that's the last thing you do before tumbling down the trail face first.

Post a pic

Will post some pics later this eve.

 

[originsoundd]

Here's some pics of the London to Bristol ride. Took a film camera with me and shot some more artistic photos with that so will put those here when I get it developed.

 

[bikeworkshop]

Here's some pics of the London to Bristol ride. Took a film camera with me and shot some more artistic photos with that so will put those here when I get it developed.

Epic ride
It can be hard to read bridleway rideability off a map - Google earth can give an idea, some people use cycle route apps to see ride history, some people ask around.

One minute it's a sublime track through scented woodland,
next it's a flytipper's paradise of oil slick puddles and thorns.

Proximity to urbanisation and busy roads plays a large part, but if its too far, the undergrowth can get the upper hand.
Some of the mid-dartmoor bridleways are seriously unrideable,
Equally some green lanes near Bristol are unrideable for the opposite reason!

 

[originsoundd]

Quick bit of work on this. Swapped out the shifters/brake levers for a combo Deore DX pair, swapped the front brake for a better one and got rid of the adjustable stem. Probably will stay this way for a while as its the pub/commuter bike. Does need some pedals and maybe a different saddle.

 

[originsoundd]

Also some APS snaps that I got developed from the London -> Bristol ride.

 

[originsoundd]

Thought I'd write a little update on this, it's still going strong and powering me through the weeks. Haven't changed the chain and cassette since a couple months before the London-Bristol ride and I don't feel very eager too as it's doing it's job. I know that bike chains stretch and you lose performance, but on a commuter does it really matter? It also bugs me that a chain has a much shorter lifespan than a cassette. I've been throwing 75% condition cassettes away just because the new chain will slip on the cogs. Is there a way to not do that?



The rear wheel finally popped the other week and considering it's ~30 years old, I'd say it had a good run. I had a spare, but after fitting it I found the that the freehub body was f*ked and it has loose spokes that creak on every rotation. Haven't been arsed to sort those things out and it seems to be doing its job just fine for now! I'd love to get a wheel truing stand but I can't really justify it, maybe one day. I bought some 3 by Specialized cranks to replace the heavy, poverty-ish spec original ones but it turns out the pedal thread and thread for the crank puller on the non-drive side was messed up. Not bad for £8 I guess. If anyone has a matching single left hand crank arm I'll take it . Also in the parts box is a Deore LX M570 RD to match the shifters.

In other news, I built this Lava Dome for my brother. Didn't want to make a thread for this since I didn't really document the build process at all, but I thought I'd mention it here.



It was cheap as chips and has cost about £300 total to get it to this point. It's an interesting frame, the woman I bought it from said it was her fathers, who resprayed it a particular Peugeot colour, since he worked in a Peugeot dealership. The decals are a bit rubbish and not very straight, but the paint is lovely and laid on thick. The fork is quite tatty but the time and money required to find a good matching rigid fork was too much. I gave it new tires, crankset, deraileur, pedals, chain, cassette, saddle, grips and bars. It rides great now. A rack is also meant to be there, but annoyingly one of the bolts sheared off when I was attaching it. There was a bunch of paint in the threads and I guess the added resistance of that caused my cheap bolt to brake. My attempts to remove it have been futile despite me buying a broken screw extractor set. Probably take it to a bike shop.

 

[bikeworkshop]

Looks nice in that colour!
You can make a good trueing stand out of a steel mtb rear triangle, use canti bosses to mount the vert and horizontal gauge.

Looks like the rear wheel rim is worn through by the brake though