Commuter babe

Tricia moved from Dallas Ranch to Antioch Middle School, but she's still bike commuting. New this school year is her rack and trunk. It's a Topeak. The sides fold down to make room for more eighth-grade English papers than you'd ever want to haul home, much less read. Tricia rocks!

Me vs Motobecane, ISIS, FSA and stupidity

I was getting a clicking sound from the Motobecane Le Champion SL. It was annoying, and getting worse. It sounded like it was coming from my FSA SL-K crankset/bottom bracket.

I did some research on Bikeforums.net and discover an "FSA click" thread. I also discovered ISIS style bottom brackets have a bad rep.

I took the bike to my local bike store and they said "Yep, it's the bottom bracket".

Rather than replace suspect bottom bracket with another ISIS, I ordered a Shimano R700 compact crank and Ultegra bottom bracket. I had the local store install both.

SIDENOTE. Bikesdirect speced "TruVativ or FSA" bottom bracket. This is what was found inside. It's marked "Chin Haur," whatever that means. The bike store says it wasn't installed very well.

ARRRGGGGG. It's was still clicking! But bikeforums.net "Substructure" said in a thread he tightened his QR and solved his problem

I really tightened my rear QR and zoom. All better. I am an idiot. But then my LBS didn't exactly save the day either. On the other hand, LBS had no problem with me finding a great deal on the cranks and BB elsewhere and having them install it all.

Did I waste money? Maybe, but the Ultegra shifts a bit better, and I'm pleased to not have that other BB any longer.

Such is life.

Tour of East Contra Costa

Tricia and I did a 50 mile loop through East Contra Costa, notable mainly because it wasn't windy and no one tried to run over us. That and it gives me the chance to try and jam a Google map into this blog, which may or may not work. A good time was had by all.
If you know how to keep one line going in Google Maps when you need to scroll over, let me know!
View Larger Map

Three feet

The Cascade Bicycle Club in Seattle (the swell folks who put on theSeattle-to-Portland ride) are sponsoring a campaign to encourage drivers to leave cyclists three fett of space. I really like their ads.

Waves to Wine

I signed us up. Not only me, but Tricia too. If we can ride 200 miles in two days, we can ride 150 in two days for a good cause, and that cause is the fight to cure MS. On September 29 we take off from Pac Bell Park in SF, ride across the Golden Gate Bridge and end up somewhere in Rohnert Park. Day two takes us to Healdsburg. That's pretty much all I know, except we need to raise a bunch of cash for them.
I'm hoping if you stumbled across this blog you 'll be willing to help out. Please oh please visit my donation page on the MS site and donate.