The Bike of Doom

Ben Niven of Troy, Missouri passed along this story of his little bike experiment. The chainsaw is a nice touch.

I’d been away from bicycles for many years, since my BMX goofoff days as a pre-teen. I spotted a 16″ BMX bike at the recycle yard a couple years back and grabbed it out of a pile of discarded bikes, thinking of my son. I ended up feeling sorry for all the other bikes and went back for them (about 6-8 of them) and brought them home. I got thinking it might be fun to have a bike of my own to bomb around the farm on, and take short rides up to town for groceries and exercise. This bike happened after a week or two of experimenting and brushing up on bike repairs.

It’s a 24″ Magna mountain bike from the early 90s. It was a 10-speed model, but the clunky plastic-and-rust-shrouded chainring and seized front derailleur were a turnoff. I tossed them and the related cable and shifter, and put on a longer set of cranks (175mm, I think) and a 36-tooth single chainring from a girl’s-frame BMX bike. Early rides as a 5-speed were fun because it felt agile like a BMX bike and had a pretty decent ride on gravel roads. To make it fit me better I made a taller seatpost by inerting one post into another and welding it up, and swapped on the weird bars from another old BMX oddity. With the long cranks and sprung seat (from an old Murray 3-speed) the bike feels very comfortable to me.

Later I took the boingy forks and a truer set of wheels from a newer Roadmaster 24″ MTB, and a giant pie plate/freewheel from an old Nishiki road bike, which has a 34T low gear. Big improvement on soft or rough ground.

The Topeak rack on the rear and the battery-operated LED lights all together are probably worth more than what they’re bolted to, but I don’t care. I have to lube and adjust the bottom bracket bearings once in awhile but that’s easy. I’ve had to adjust the top gear limit on the rear derailleur once to smooth the high-gear shift, but that’s easy too. Eventually I’ll have to install the spare tires that are sitting around here, and I’ll need to replace cables. But I am pretty tickled with this odd combination of parts and how it turned out to be just the ticket for my needs. I’ve found it pretty pleasant for 10-mile pavement rides and this year I’m going to try going farther once or twice a week.

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Three weeks makes a big difference in the Spring.  The snow is gone.  The SC1800’s bonds literally melted away.  I brought it inside and gave it a little TLC.  Brakes and derailers needed a little work.  The BOD has been parked outside for over two full years, 50% of that time covered in snow, or frozen in ice.  It responded remarkably well to some lubrication and adjustment.  Both tires needed air.  Note that the odometer is still working.  That’s some kind of miracle.  Temperatures were in the minus 40 range for about a month this winter, and the last.  I can’t believe the tiny little battery in the odometer still has juice in it.

This year’s first ride was practical.  I mapped out a route to school.  23 Km round trip.  I’ll start doing that on Monday.  Felt good to be back on the bod.  Took a couple of pics.  This is Omand’s Creek, at the point I crossed every day on my old commute.  Spring flooding has left the bridge underwater.   The river walkway is completely submerged.  Don’t know when that will appear.  But I worked out a reasonably nice route along Wolesley, across the Assiniboine River, down Wellington Crescent, over the Maryland Bridge, through The Gates, along Westminster, across Osborne, down Assinniboine, through the Forks, down Riverside Drive, then into the Exchange District where the UW off-campus building is located.  Should take me about 30 minutes each way, without sweating too much.

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As recent posts may have led you to believe, I’m working through the urge to put the SC-1800 back on the road.  The big problem at this point is the icy tomb in which it is encased.   The hardened steel Master Lock with massive chain is just one of the barriers to beginning this cycling season.  The lock is frozen.  After three days of efforts to open it, I finally caved and squirted a generous dose of WD40 into the keyhole.  Half an hour later, with some strong language encouragement, it finally popped.

Unfortunately, the covering of snow you can see in the photos in the last post is only camouflage for the deeper, harder, apparently impenetrable layer of ice in which the bike’s wheels are currently embedded.

Enough for one day.  Tomorrow, the shovel comes out.

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Repairs complete, Bike of Doom road-worthy again

946 Km. - Just checking in

The Bike of Doom has been resting for some time now. Some might consider this an ignominious fate for such a worthy beast, others might relish the thought of a well deserved plague of rust. You know who you are. In any event, cycling season has not yet arrived in Winnipeg. These photos were taken this morning.

Interesting note: the odometer is working! The bike has been stored outside for two years, in all weather, including a reasonably long stretch of near -40 temperatures this winter, and the cheap $8 odometer is still working.

This could be a sign of the apocalypse.

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I received this recently from Shane Costantino, the proud owner and rider of a vintage 1989 SuperCycle. I wish I shared the “zero repairs” experience, but I followed a somewhat different path, particularly with the bottom bracket. The lubricating with 10w-30 motor oil isn’t as crazy as it sounds, at least for cycling through a long season in -40 conditions.

8<============

Steve,

Shane

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