Category: Toys

the foot rub of shame

/ Matt Talley / 5 Comments

On a recent trip to Little Rock, a great friend had the huevos to challenge me to a shooting match.  There was even some smack talking.  Well, we (as in the Queen Victorian “we”) just can’t let such a transgression stand!  The loot for this wager is a case of beer and a foot rub from the loser.

The bet is that he can shoot a tighter group with a .380 pistol than I can with a .45cal at a high rate of fire.  To level the field, I am not allowed to use my hand-build tack-driving competition pistol.  We have to use range-owned guns and cheap ball ammo.  If you know me, you know that I don’t gamble – it just doesn’t do anything for me and I HATE to give money away.   I tried to let him out of it, but he pressed…  The gentleman and scholar who made this gross miscalculation of his shooting abliity is 6’1” and 210+ pounds and the shame of rubbing my tootsies while I drink his beer will last for his entire lifetime, which makes my evil black heart giggle and sing with delight.

I went to the range at lunch today and rented one of their pistols.  I put 8 rounds in the center (size of a quarter in less than 4 seconds at 5 meters (16.4 feet).  I then moved the target out to 10m (32.8’) and put 2 in the center, one a little high and five just below the center – all 16 shots with-in a 3” group circle.  I sent him a taunting e-mail with a phone pic of the pistol and the target, asking about taking his “shooting-vitamins”     heheheheh…

The Magic Book Press

/ Matt Talley / 3 Comments

As a constant list maker and recorder I go through Moleskine’s like a fat kid tears into Halloween candy.  It gets pricy at $15 each and I had long thought about just making my own notebooks, but book binding/making is not a skill found on every corner.  A few years ago, while on a train through the Czech countryside a dear friend and book nerd started my binding education with a list of materials needed (I had just picked up a bone folder at an estate sale and it started the book making itch anew…) for my first notebook and a few sketches to get me started.  She stayed with us some weeks later and by the time she left for the airport I was the proud maker/owner of a monastery-bound 6” plain cotton paper notebook.  I had to improvise a bit during the construction because I lacked the one serious tool required to make books – a book press.  I used a combination of cement blocks and carpenters clamps to get the job done, but it wasn’t pretty or particularly easy.  I have been on the hunt for a simple iron press since then and while I have found a few online or in antique stores, they have been REAL pricey or in terrible shape.

I stopped by one of my favorite recycled building material places the other day and as I walked in the door, this sleek and sexy press appeared in my line of vision.  I was drawn to it and I got all fuzzy inside.  It was amazing!  Steel & brass, in perfect shape, not a spec of rust, it had not been refurbished, was the right size, and instead of the ubiquitous gear wheel on the top it had thick bar ended with globes of steel so that one might be able to exert serous pressure.   Laurel couldn’t look at it.  She felt that if she acknowledged its beauty that I would plop down the credit card right then and there.  She knew that I wanted it, that I NEEDED it.  I placed a hold on the magic press until I could find out a little of the piece’s history and negotiate the price the next Monday.

The press was built in the 1920s, imported from London, and used by a lady that had a part-time bindery in her home here in Seattle.  I bargained lightly (I didn’t want to lose the item) and got them to come off the asking price by 15% – it was worth every penny.  The final price included some serious bargaining with my better-half and I had to finally agree to give up my part of discretionary funds from our household budget until September: no eating out for lunch, no book buying at B&N, no new tools from Woodcraft, or Starbucks Coffee at break-time…  It’s going to hurt some…

book press

Garage Sale Weekend Booty

/ Matt Talley / 2 Comments

This past Saturday was the West Seattle Annual Community Garage Sale.  There were 197 “official” sites and who knows how many people saw their neighbors selling stuff and flung open their carports and started bargaining old stuff away.  We went just looking for a food dehydrator and a trail-a-bike.  Laurel found the former and I struck out with the latter.  I did manage to pick up a few other items though:

snowboard bag – $5
Baguette cutting board – $3
Food dehydrator – $2
New Belguim Beer Glass – $.50
iPod Nano sports band – $1
Connect-Four game – $4
Moonshine Making Book from 1909 – $19

New Wheels for My 9-Speed Steed

/ Matt Talley

Friday was payday and you know what that means…  a 16oz yummy Starbucks coffee, paying the mortgage, lunch at a restaurant (not carried to work in my Marvel Super Heroes metal lunch box), and if there is a few bucks to spare, something small like a new chisel, a jersey, or a new climbing cam.  This was an exceptionally good Friday!!  Not only did I get my $55 REI year-end dividend (just enough for a blue Patagonia  pullover off the clearance rack), but I also found a super-sweet deal on a new set of wheels for my bike.

The set I am currently rolling have about 7K miles on them and they are real heavy.   While they will continue to work for commuting wheels for another 2,500 miles or so (15 months..?), they are not great for rides and races.  A fact that became painfully obvious last fall when 113 miles into a 104 mile charity ride, climbing up the correct mountain after some jokester swapped some route signs that led a group of us up the wrong mountain.  I was in my biggest gear sweating away, on the precipice of dry-heaving, watching the front wheel flex on each down stroke of the peddles – robbing me of substantial forward momentum.  I have been keeping my eyes open for replacements and after applying a store credit for a failed part, I picked up a set of Bontrager raceXlite Aero wheels for the whopping sum of $38.00.  It made me feel all funny in the lower abdominal region when I carried them out to the car and I felt a little paranoid, like I was doing something a little wrong and a touch naughty.

I spent an hour or so on Sunday in the garage cleaning and installing a 12-25 cassette, taping the rims, putting on my set of racing tires, and filling the tubes to 105 PSI.  I am going for a 50-mile timed road ride on Good Friday with them and I can hardly wait!

The Fixie is Officially dead… Long live derailleurs!

/ Matt Talley

The fixed gear craze, like disco before it, is now dead – see link below.  I will observe a moment of silence at 7:00 PM this evening with beer in hand – pouring one out for all the hipster hommies who will need a new trend to follow.  I will then forever remove the 16t track cog from my flip-flop hub and place it lovingly on a lonesome nail in my garage.  Maybe my son won’t make a “ninja star” out of it and it will be there waiting, much like polyester and bell bottoms, for the day when it is once again socially acceptable.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/700C-Men-s-Mongoose-Cachet-Fixed-Speed-Bike/13398142

I will continue to spin my Single-Speed to and from the grocery store/coffee shop and will occasionally ride my one-geared beauty to work.  She has made me a better, stronger cyclist and I DO love to ride that bike.  I can’t and won’t give her up just because of the semi-share pedigree with the now passe wanna-be track bikes sold by the likes of Bentonville.

My multispeed, derailleur equipped, steeds are at this very moment spinning their wheels with glee.  No more dismissive looks and snide velo comments from the day-glow orange rimmed and narrow barred bikes locked up at East Street.  Yes, it is now their turn to snicker as my bike chain goes click, click, click – moving down the rear cassette, propelling my 9-speed racer ever faster away from soon to be re-purposed and repainted frames and into the reclaimed future of cycling.

My iPhone is the SH!T

/ Matt Talley

If iPhone lovin’ is wrong, I don’t wanna be right!  I was SLOW to jump on the iPhone bus for all sorts of what, at the time, were goods reasons:  It was expensive, promised upgrades were just around the corner, and the data plan was an additional monthly expense that it pained me to even think about dolling out.  I am already hemorrhaging funds every month $40 at a time for phones, security systems, insurance, internet, cable, trash collection, etc…  I just didn’t need another expense.

My lovely wife got the iPhone bug after playing with her best friend’s for a weekend and badgered me about it for a while, but I stayed strong and resisted – even in the face of threats concerning sleeping on the couch.  Well, my employer recently signed a deal with AT&T that gave DEEP discounts which meant I could convert and pay the same amount, so I made the leap.  I am now in love, not the old tired version of love reserved for a cat, no, no this is new hot freaky girlfriend lust!  It is like my hand was incomplete until just now.  I feel like Schmeigel with that pesky golden band….  my precious…

In addition to the normal bells and whistles on the unit, I have loaded Peak.AR, NPR, a unit converter, Distant Suns, and Stanza e-book reader Apps to the home screen.  This thing is now a proper tool to help me navigated the complexities of always-on 21st century Engi-nerd professional life and is almost as handy as a three-armed man in a titty bar.  While I have researched what I have installed thus far thoroughly and I am not App crazy and I am not looking to install every semi-cool/useful App that I come across.  If I will only use it once a month, then it can stay at the App store.  I am currently deciding between iTrails and RunKeeper Pro for a running/cycling companion.

The only real issue I am currently experiencing is iPhone envy.  Laurel looks at me with daggers in her eyes when I pull it out of my pocket.  I am going to have to concede defeat and see that she gets one of her own if I want to keep peace in Casa D’ Talley.  So, in the end I get to spend the money I was trying so hard to save…

Tools on the Cheap

/ Matt Talley

Yard sales are the SHIT!! This weekend we happened upon a garage sale and an estate sale in the middle of the afternoon. I hit the mother-load of man-nesting paraphernalia – yard tools! I loaded our Subaru down with a 2-Stroke weed-eater with attachments, hoe, two edgers, 3 shovels (two round end and one square, tree saw, hack saw, joiner fence for 1942 Homecraft machine, pruning shears, garden trowel, pitch fork, electric chainsaw, rake, yard-broom rake, two water hoses, sprinkler head, edging shears, two tablesaw miter fences, a bench top vise, a grinder base, an old-school milk crate, and the board game RISK with all the pieces still in plastic. I paid a grand total of… drum roll… $43. The weed eater alone is worth $200 – I made out like a bandit! There are a couple more things that we need/want concerning yard tools (splitting maul, pick, maddox, posthole digger, 1928 Model-A coupe, etc…) and you can bet that I will be hitting the garage sales and pushing the blue-hairs out of my way in my quest for bargains.

Water hose, a chain saw and RISK – the makings of a fine par-ty!

My AWESOME wife:

/ Matt Talley

It is windy and raining today and we are sitting inside snuggling with the heater in the living room, but the weather last weekend was nice enough for us to get out and ride our bikes to the city center on Saturday and to Altona the next day for coffee and books. My muse/wife was also gracious enough to let me snap a few pictures of her. She is her own special Betty Crocker/Jenna Jamison/Laurel stew and I couldn’t ask for a better friend or wife or partner in crime.

Fact: My bike is cooler than yours.

/ Matt Talley

Earlier this summer, Laurel (my amazing wife) and I took her bike to the shop to have it repaired – warranty issue. While there, we saw a Penny Farthing (also called a Hiwheel or a Bone Shaker) in the window of the shop with a price tag on it. You NEVER see these things for sale! Some guy will have one is his window as advertising or just to be cool, but they never sell them. Well, we found a place that did. Laurel wouldn’t let me leave the shop without taking this baby home: that is how cool she thought it was. She even let me stay in the shop stroking it sweetly as she went to an ATM to get cash. I love my wife!

I am not going to tell you what she paid for it, but it wasn’t much. We had to walk my “new” bike home because I was wearing flip-flops. About halfway there she looked over and asked me, “Umm, can you actually ride this thing?” Fvck yes I can!! I went right home, put some real shoes on, and took it for a cautionary spin around a local school yard to practice mounting and un-mounting – it has been about 22 years since I was shown how by a visiting clown at my elementary school. Just like riding a bike…

After a few adjustments, I rode the thing from the house to downtown Hamburg, around the Klein Alster Lake and back – about ten miles. I turned heads and made people smile and wave (neither is a common site in Hamburg) wherever I went. I even let some old guys have their picture taken with it. Not a chick-magnet, but it pulls old dudes out of the woodwork to talk about classic bikes. I had a lot of fun that first day, but paid a high price. The seat that came with the bike was an old unicycle saddle with no springs to cushion the cobblestones and bumps. I ended up getting a blister on the tip of my tailbone that hurt so bad I couldn’t ride any of my regular bikes for a week.

Our first ride together

My Boneshaker on the Alster in Hamburg

Over the next few days, I found out more and more about my new stead – the original builder’s son still runs the company that built it and really helped me out with info about the bike. She was built by Rideable Bicycle Replicas in the late 1970’s as a copy of an 1875 French Boneshaker and brought to Hamburg along with 20 or so other hiwheels for a bicycle show. My bike was one of 13 that were sold to a guy who rented them out for TV shows, movies, as decoration, and to museums. By 2008 he only had 4 left and mine was the most complete, as it had spent the last ten years in a puppet museum; sparing it a hard life. He sold my bike, two other complete, but ugly/bent ones, and the heavily damaged forth hiwheel to the bike shop owner who then put the best one in the window. The only notable damage to mine is where some jackass drilled strait through the headbadge, the head tube, and the fork to suspend the bike from the ceiling so an evil little puppet could sit astride it – sorry it sort of feels like thinking about my wife kissing some old boyfriend – makes me twitch a little.

Since the initial tailbone trauma, I have installed a new seat (two different ones actually), new bars, given her a good scrubbing, and ride her around town for errands on the any weekend afternoon that the sun is shinning. I even rode her to a local wilderness park to get on a few trails with my wife– not recommended. I didn’t go ass-over-tea-kettle, but it is not the greatest bike I have ever ridden on dirt. To be completely honest, I have had one accident thus far: the cobblestones on my street were wet a couple weekends ago and I slipped off while mounting in front of about fifteen neighbors. They think that I am ‘that crazy American that lives in the red building’ anyway, so it only hurt me pride a little.

At the Niendorfer Gehege Park in North Hamburg

Riding on the paths in the Gehege after a picnic lunch

My Rally-Blue, all-wheel drive lover

/ Matt Talley

Hijacked from one of my recent TRs

I spent most of August in the States on vacation with what was supposed to be both kids, but it turned out that only one decided to road-trip. After an uneventful series of flights I arrived in Little Rock, Arkansas from our home in northern Germany (the land of wurst, great beer, rain, and terrible music) and immediately went shopping for a new car. For the past couple of years every time I come in to see the kids I spend between one and two thousand dollars on the rental car alone. As we are planning to move back to the States in early 2009 and we will need a car, Laurel and I sat down and decided not to waste money on a rental car since the money would be better spent on something that was ours instead of increasing the monthly sales of an airport car rental outlet. Also, buying a vehicle in the summer would make it so there would be one less detail to deal with during the move. Shipping all our property one third around the world, starting new jobs, and finding a new home are quite enough for our first month back in the US.

I have been lusting over various Subaru models for years. They are just amazing cars as far as handling, reliability, and safety. I was a breath away from buying an Outback before I was transferred to Germany and have been lovin’ them from a distance ever since my first extended roadtrip in a friend’s. While in Germany I had various online relationships with assorted models: There was the 2006 pearl white WRX STI 4-door Impreza that showed me all her secrets on the Car&Driver website. A jet-black turbo Outback wagon was the next piece of eye candy that turned my head. I found her on the main Subaru site and Googled candid pictures of her interior and was taken right away with her in-dash GPS and sexy charcoal heated seats. I planned for us to spend some serious alone time together at the beach and in the mountains. Our relationship ended before it really started when one day while minding my own business, I happened on a picture of a 5-door Rally-Blue Impreza – The Sport Wagon. I researched her measurements, specifications, and found that her current lovers on the Rally Race Circuit spoke only kind and generous words about her. Oh! she was fast: 285 horses under the hood and her handling was made superb with anti-sway bars, strut stabilizer, 4-wheel disc brakes, and full-time all wheel drive. Just to push me into the abyss of lust and admiration, she had a 5-Star crash safety rating and gets 26+ MPG on the highway. It was like finding a devoted bride that was equal parts Gabriella Reese, Betty Page, Martha Stewart, Briana Banks, Carre Otis, and Marie Curie. I had to have her, possess her, and make her mine.

Before leaving Deutschland for vacation I had e-mailed various car dealers in Arkansas trying to find my all wheel drive mistress. Most of them just wanted to sell me what they had in stock or they didn’t return my e-mails at all. I showed up in Little Rock without a guaranteed deal and spent a couple of days stalking my soon to be Rally-Blue lover. I found her waiting for me at Adventure Subaru in the small college town of Fayetteville. It was love for both of us from the very first moment my hands caressed her soft leather-trimmed steering wheel, while I applied firm yet gentle pressure to her short-throw shifter. And then we were alone, just my Japanese lovely and me for the long drive back to Little Rock…

This is my Rally-Blue lovely on the first day she was mine.

Laurel and I have been car-free for almost two years and in so many ways it has been very liberating and at times a huge blessing: I get to drink as many beers as I want when out with friends since no one is driving home and there is a subway or train stop within 5 minutes of any pub that I would care to frequent. There has been no gas to buy, a reduced overall carbon footprint, no maintenance, no insurance, we both cycle and walk more, no car payment, etc… We have been able to do this because of the amazing transportation in Germany. Moving back to the US means that we will need a car for at least one of us most of the time. We had two vehicles before, but have decided to become a one car family and see how well it works out for us. With the better gas mileage of the Subaru, the subtraction of one vehicle from our lives, and a commitment to bike and walk as much as possible for errands and work; our over all fuel consumption should be less than half of what it was when we lived in California and our level of emotions should be even lower than that. Thatknowledge helps with the moral dilemma that we faced when deciding on owning or not owning a car again – the fact the my blue darling is just so sexy didn’t tip the scales in any way…

As my new lady wasn’t able to sit in my lap for the flight home, a great friend of mine agreed to keep the car under lock and key for me until we move back – taking her out once a month or so to charge the battery, keep everything lubed up, wipe her gently with a soft white cotton diaper, and whisper sweet nothings her delicately formed the side mirrors until we can be together again.

A badly cropped picture of her winking at me…

Bang for my buck

/ Matt Talley

As I grow older I have really come to embrace the idea of quality over quantity in most aspects of my life, especially concerning things I spend my money on – be it food, bikes, pots & pans, furniture, etc… I have also started to notice that I have entirely too much crap! I have been on a mission to simplify my life and free myself of all the junk the swirls around me and it has become easier by focusing on quality and workmanship. There was a day when I would go with the cheapest version available, but one truly does get what one pays for in almost all things. Buying the cheap version is a false economy as it will only have to be replaced, sometimes very often, and in the end I would have been better just forking out the money for the better model in the first place. Case in point – IKEA furniture: you can buy it cheap, but you are going to buy the same bookshelves over and over, especially if you move a lot, have a clumsy roommate, or stack too many books on the shelves again and again. Wouldn’t it make more sense to pay up to three or four times as much for a solid wood model that will stand up to any abuse that you or your demonic children can throw at it? I have recently applied this principle to the items that I carry every day as they get the most use and abuse: shoes, clothes, kitchen knives, sporting goods, tools, and so on. A couple of recent epiphanies in this department are:

Watches: There was a time when I owned 5-6 watches of varying quality and would wear a different one when the occasion or my mood changed. Before I realized it I had $600 worth of cheap watches, none of which kept time very well and I was constantly replacing batteries. What makes more sense is to buy something like an Omega Seamaster as it keeps amazing time, is tougher than a coffin nail, looks great with a suit, in shorts, at home in the mountains, the beach, or at work.

Pens: Every aspiring manager/megalomaniac wants a gold tipped Mont Blanc Meiterstuck fountain pen with a bold nib – loaded with antique Burgandy ink. While I do believe that a good pen is necessary to complete any man’s accoutrements, I am of a mind that Mont Blanc is overkill. For most things, especially at work, I am a pencil man, but I do have a nice MF-nib steel LAMY fountain pen, loaded with cobalt blue Noodler’s pigmented ink. It is nice to use for signatures on legal documents, lists, writing letters, Christmas cards, love notes, etc… I am also a HUGE fan of the Fisher Bullet Space Pen in steel with the detachable clip with a fine point blue cartridge loaded in it. Just like it says in the marketing – the thing writes on anything and upside down. My LAMY is always in my pack or pocket or you will find me scribbling in a Moleskine with it

Pocket Knife: No man should ever leave the house (unless headed to the airport) without a pocket knife. There are 20 tasks a day that are made possible, better, or easier with a blade: opening mail, cutting a trace on a circuit board, trimming the odd stray thread, voiding a host of warrantees, eating fruit, cutting an article out of the paper, trimming nails, removing stickers, and on and on… A Victorinox Officers Model or Tinkerer are perfectly acceptable, though my current obsession is a William Henry Westcliff Folder with a carbon fiber frame and damask blade. It makes me feel light headed and funny in the lower abdominal region…

Glasses: I am as blind as a garden mole at night and I can’t read signs that are further than ten feet away in bright sunshine without some sort of corrective lens, so I have worn glasses of varying degrees of stylishness since I was fifteen (I won’t discuss the 1980’s YSL red leather covered specs that were my first pair. Those frames coupled with my ultra-cool hair-helmet, spike bracelet, and teal blue Miami Vice outfit – God, I was sexy!). As my glasses are one of the first things people notice about me when I first meet them & I am now a bona fide adult, cheap clunky frames are no longer an option. I don’t mind paying a good bit for a classic frame that is both light and stylish as I generally keep them for three to four years. In the same vain, my sunglasses have prescription lenses in them as well. I chose finally to go with Oakley’s after years of cheap ones and a couple pairs of not so cheap shades that were ultimately crap. I have had this relationship with Oakley for the last eleven years (three different styles) because they weigh almost nothing, look great on my funny shaped head, and they have a great guarantee – forever! I have tested it by cracking a couple sets of frames – ugly bike crash and I sat on one pair once too often – and Oakley replaced them right away with no questions at all. Great customer service!

As an additional note, I don’t buy a thing anymore without a lifetime warrantee or one for some ridiculous amount of years. All my packs, tents, appliances, bike locks, glasses, electronics, everything… is warranted until I either leave this world or am a very old man.

Single-Speed love

/ Matt Talley

Gabby, my new two-wheeled mistress. Hold your curser on the pic to see what she looked like on our first date…
My Singlespeed/fixie:

I fell in love with singlespeed/fixed gear bikes a long while ago. What’s not to love? They are quick, light, there is nothing on them to steal or screw-up, and they have a certain cool factor that is generally limited to things like Triumph bobber motorcycles and Hellbilly music. After my admiration started to border on obsession, I thought about picking a new pre-built and ready to ride Raleigh, Alta, or Giant up from a local shop. When I casually mentioned this “plan” to my loving wife, she MAY have exploded… She may have also pointed out that I have 3.5 (the .5 part is my unicycle – see “Nerdy” post below…) other bikes taking up space, time, and money in our lives and that there was NO WAY that I was going into a store and drop 500-800€ for a new “toy.” After some time had passed we reached an agreement of sorts: I could built a “new” bike if I spent less than 150€, slowly over time, and invested some sweat-equity in the project. Seeing an eventual path to my goal and not wanting to start Armageddon over a steel-framed bicycle, I agreed to her proposition.

I started right away looking on eBay for a suitable candidate bike, but the sellers there were all pretty savvy and I would have blown my budget on the frame alone. I checked most of the used bike shops in town – I stopped counting after sixteen – and while some had just what I needed, their frames didn’t match my budget. I pined away for a few weeks and finally decided to stop looking for the ‘perfect’ frame and to maybe start checking at junk shops for something that I could make do with. The very afternoon I made that decision, Laurel and I were out walking and found a wrecked bike in the trash. It was in BAD shape: Missing the front wheel & misc. parts, a shattered rear wheel, rust and dings everywhere, but the frame was straight, the forks were still there, the chainring was OK, and other than being filthy and banged up, the cranks were just what I needed. It was like Manna from Heaven. I took it home, cleaned it up, and stripped it down to the bare frame that same night.

For the last couple of years I have been a daily visitor to fixedgeargalley.com for my morning dose of bike-porn. Many of the bikes there started their lives as crappy or moderate road bikes that were switched to single speeds. Some of these bikes are God-awful ugly: pink and lime green or with strange attachments bolted willy-nilly to the frame and bars, but the majority are sleek, well built, and very functional. The site served as my daily inspiration to complete my own bike. After looking at the entire 6000+ bike image library, I had a pretty good idea about what I wanted for my own bike in terms of look and function.

It turned out that the found-frame was two sizes too big for me and that the steel forks were an inch and a half out of true, but the frame was solid with no serious imperfections and no rust bad enough to cause structural problems. The drop bars were in good shape too, so I flipped them over and chopped them off to make narrow bullhorn bars. Work got hectic at that point and the frame hung on the wall in my basement for a couple of months, as I told anyone who would listen about my new project. For my birthday, my most dependable riding buddy bought me a bike jersey at the local messenger/track bike shop. Somehow this speciality shop had evaded my attention until that point. There I found what amounted to singlespeed Heaven. For that same birthday, my wife gave me 50€ to buy whatever bike parts I desired. Off we went on the afternoon of the 34th anniversary of my birth and I picked up a flip-flop hub, a 16-tooth freewheel for one side, and a 16-tooth fixed track gear for the other. I may have fondled it, wearing a perverse smile, all the way home.

I spent a couple of hours the next week building the rear wheel from a rim that I have had for a while. I had some trouble with calculating the correct spoke length and used the late Sheldon Brown’s online calculator to set me straight (Sheldon forgot more about bikes than I will ever know and his site was a crutch I used during the whole build process.). I went to a local BMX shop for new spokes and when I found out that they wanted 50€ for them, I laughed at them and left. The wheel and bike frame continued to collect dust until after Christmas with me picking up a few parts here and there: used brakes, a new seat, used seat post, and a used chrome track fork. I found that the original stem/neck on the bike suffered the same fate as the original forks, so I picked up a cheap lightly used one. The track bike shop, Suicycle, ended up building the rear wheel and supplying the new spokes for the same price quoted by the other shop for just the spokes. I was more than happy to let them do it as it saved me time and aggravation.

Shortly after the holidays, we sold my wife’s super-cool Moulton travel bike for a profit and went to buy her another bike that better suited her sense of aesthetics (long story…). While at the shop she spotted some pedals that I had been looking for. They were 75€ new and we got a lightly used pair and a used MTB handle bar for 30€ total. Oh, it was a happy day! She found a great bike for a lot less than she sold the other for and with some of the leftover funds I got some parts for my project. As I built the bike up I realized that we had been sold two LEFT side pedals… Laurel had business near the shop and was sweet enough to go there twice; the first time they didn’t have a RIGHT side pedal and the second to argue about a refund. I ended up buying a new set of similar ones at a local roadbike shop.

I had changed my mind about the cow horns. I wanted something sleeker and bars better able to fit between cars as I made my way through traffic to work in the mornings. There is a current fad among messengers and messenger wannnabes to chop the bar down to ten inches and your thumbs rubbing the underside of the stem. That is somewhat squirrelly for my taste and doesn’t afford me the space to mount brakes. As I have two kids to put through college, I need breaks on my bike. I cut the MTB bars down to fifteen inches, chose 2-fingered MTB break levers, and installed rubber grips to make for both a functional and nice looking setup. I did end up using the cow horns on my folding train-commuter bike. They turned out VERY nice.

A couple of weeks later, I spent a Saturday sanding, priming, and re-sanding and re-priming the frame. Over the next couple of days I put two nice, even rattle-can coats of matte black automotive paint on it and hung it up in my attic to dry. When the painting was done, I made one touch up, and then hung it in our shower with a wallpaper dryer on it all night to help cure the paint. The next day I cut the fork threads to length, installed the bearings, enlarged the brake calliper mounting holes, greased everything (including inside the seat tube) and put it all together in our living room, making sure to fit it as closely as possible to the geometry and measurements of my race bike. Everything did not go exactly as planned: My special ordered chain didn’t fit and my rear break calliper was too short. Those two things took a couple of days to sort out while my bike patiently waited for me in our living room. Did I mention that I have the most understanding wife ever?! Not only did she give me cash for my obsession and go to shops for/with me, bought me bike tools for Christmas, and in addition to not flipping out to bike parts all over her dining room table for a week, she was supportive of my little obsession the whole time.

On the first semi-sunny day (not a frequent occurrence in the cold north of Deutschland) that we had after I finished the build, I took the bike out for a ten mile shakedown ride on Hamburg’s streets, sidewalks, bike lanes. HOLY SHIT!! My new single speed/fixie is all that I could have wished for. It made me want to be bad… I found myself weaving through cars at red lights, passing perhaps too closely to pedestrians, shooting through spaces not ordinarily thought of as bike-friendly. I am old enough to realize that this behavior was something that would get me in trouble at home, but it was just so much damn fun!! The steel frame was smooth on the cobblestones, it was really responsive, and it tracked great when riding with no hands. The bike is light enough that hopping a tall curb took very little effort, the small bars were really comfortable to ride with, and I got a bunch of compliments while in a bike shop and while waiting for lights to turn. The only slightly negative comment that I have is that it doesn’t exactly stop on a dime, but that has to do with the brake lever that I used and can be fixed with an upgrade to BMX levers and stiffer brake pads.

In the interest of full disclosure, I spent about 100€ more than we agreed upon, but in my defence the forks were half of that and the bike still cost about a third of what a new bike would have cost. In addition to learning an absolute ton about gear ratios, inside bike builder tricks, wheel building, and rider fitting – I also had a hobby to occupy my time for almost a year, time that could have been spent bugging my wife and getting on her nerves. One COULD almost reason that a year free of certain aggravation might be priceless… If you see my wife and she is still ticked about the cost overrun, you could remind her of this, you know – if you want…

Like all my other bikes, this one has a woman’s name: Gabby – after Gabrielle Reese the pro volleyball player and model. She is named so because like her namesake, she is too tall for me, is quick, responsive, beautiful, agile, sleek, and if you don’t pay her the proper amount of attention while riding her you will likely end up on the pavement broken and bleeding.

I took pictures of the build process, and have put them here, if you want to take a look and the specifications for my home-brewed bike are below:

Frame: 80’s model 12 speed Raleigh roadbike, originally white.
Forks: Chrome Heson track forks from Holland.
Stem/Neck: Aluminium one piece from Italy.
Chain: Shimano BMX.
Pedals: Wellgo Commuter/SPD Shimano knock-offs
Crank: Solide 170mm aluminium from France.
Front Wheel and hub: 700cm Mavic Reflex by Wheelsmith and Dura-Ace hub.
Anti-theft front wheel skewer.
Rear wheel and hub: Mavic Wheel & flip-flop Phil Wood hub.
Handlebars: Bontrager MTB flat bar cut to 15 inches.
Brakes: Shimano 105 front and a 1970’s German Weinland for the rear.
Levers: One for each child. No-name 2-finger trigger.
Cables: Shimano
Chainring: 42 tooth aluminium that was found on the bike, flipped.
Sprocket: 16t freewheel and 16 tooth fixed
Saddle: Selle Italia Filante.
Seat Post: No-name fluted aluminium with shim.