Statrix Redux

I’ve mentioned my hip before and sadly it hasn’t gotten any better. Now I know why. I had an MRI the other day and there is definitely some necrosis in my left hip. Luckily it’s not bad enough for a hip replacement (yet) and everyone seems hopeful that physical therapy will let me strengthen everything up enough to get by.
I’ve had bad knees for years, starting some 25 years ago at age 30. I haven’t had my knees replaced so it is possible to get by. Bicycling helped my knees a lot and it doesn’t seem to be hurting my hip, so I get to continue! Yes.
Of course cycling is great for some things, like the muscles you use while cycling, and not much else. So the exercises I’ve got to do will do a bit to strengthen the muscles cycling isn’t getting (and believe me, there are a lot).
Here’s what I get to do…
[gview file=”https://statrix-redux.netlify.app/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/PT_hip.pdf”]

Absolutely a great idea…

I called Rivendell Bicycle Works today to check on the status of my Hunqapillar build. I ordered it back in early May and, at the time, was given a July ship date.
Well here it is near the end of July and I figured as I don’t have the bike yet, I might check. Sure enough there’s a bit of a hold up. The forks, made in Taiwan, which should be in, aren’t. Hopefully, I’m told, they’ll show up next week. Then it’ll be a week or two for painting and a build. So…
My bike will probably arrive sometime in August, I’m thinking it’ll be while I’m in Hilo because…well because that’s the way things work.
Now don’t get me wrong about all this, I’m not at all concerned. I wasn’t promised a July date and when I was in Walnut Creek I pretty much expected that it would be at least a couple of extra weeks no matter what I was told.
If I have any goal for delivery at all, it would be to have the bike in time for the Honolulu Century Ride which, in all honesty, I probably won’t ride. I do, however, plan on riding out to a Bellows camping trip in October, so that date is far more important to me. Besides, if I really want to ride the Century, I can do it on my Quickbeam again.
But just to remind myself of what I’m getting, here’s what I’m getting…more or less…

My next bike simply has to be one of these…okay, maybe the one after the next bike. 🙂

Today I took my Fujiyama, now a “Resurrectio” off to Sand Island to see how to would do off-road.
I had no trouble on the dirt roads once there nor any on the hard-packed beach edge. However, even at 26×2.35″ the Schwalbe Big Apples weren’t having anything to do with soft sand. Looks like I still need a Surly Moonlander.
I did grab a few pictures of my now completed Fujiyama.

I’ve been trying to get a shot of this bike for a while. Usually by the time I see it and get out my camera it’s moved on down the road.
Finally, in all it’s glory, here it is…

Every time I see it there’s more stuff…ask I can say is…wow.

I just came across this PSA from Farmer’s Insurance, Jake Shimabukuro, and the Hawaii Bicycling League.

Yes!
Of course anyone reading this here already knows this information…right?
Check “ride in the middle” on the image below. All our bicycling related laws can be found here.

Wow…what fun!
I’ve been riding on my new wheel for a couple of days now and trying to get the hang of my Sturmey Archer S2 Duomatic hub. Basically this is a simple rear hub that gives you 100% and 138% gear ratios. It’s completely self-contained and requires no cabling or shifting mechanism. You just rotate your pedals back a little and voila, the wrong gear.
Okay, not always the wrong gear, after all, there are only two. I just seem to get the wrong one when I try to take off from stop. I’m pretty sure I’ll improve with time. Even now, after just a couple of rides I’m pretty good at shifting while in motion. It’s just the stopping thing that’s got me beat. I think it has to do with the fact that I’ve been shifting down to the straight 100% ratio as I approach a stop. Generally I end up moving the pedals a bit while stopped to get prepared for moving again. That’s where it happens. Perhaps if I just stay in 138% when I stop the small movements will move me down to 100%. Practice, practice, practice.
Why the heck do I need a two speed anyway? I’ll admit I wanted mostly so I had a really good reason to build a wheel. But in fact, it turns out to be a good thing.
I ride single speed bikes around town a lot. I’ve got two; a lovely Rivendell Quickbeam, and my pumpkin orange Fujiyama. The Quickbeam can actually be switched between a variety of chainring and freewheel combinations, though you do have to stop to do it. The Fujiyama however was a pure single speed.
It was okay till I ended up with bursitis in my left hip. At that point I realized it was geared just a touch too high for me. It was fine as long as I was already moving but not so good if I had to take off from stop. Normally I’d just go slow and build up speed, but it was hurting my hip a bit to mash. The solution, gear down a bit. I did. This made it easier to take off but also made it impossible to build up any speed.
My setup had been 26″x2.35″ tires, 175mm cranks, an 18t freewheel, and a 42t chainwheel. That’s about 61.6 gear inches. Not a big problem if your hip is working well. And it’s fine at speed around town. But with a bad hip…not so much.
I switched to a 22t freewheel which was much better for starts and stops at 50.4 inches. Of course there’s not much you can do about speed, but it was better. Still that would be a bit high at 138% higher. So I went with 38t up front and 22t in the back: 45.6. Easy to start and stop but nothing else. Sigh.
Ultimately with my S2 I end up with gear inches of 45.6 in low and 63.0 in high. That’s nice and low for starts and stops and high enough for pedaling around. Yes a bit higher would be good too, but right now, with the hip, low is better. I can easily change the ratio later.
So far so good.
When all is said and done, and my hip feels better, I’ll probably swap the gearing again to get to 52.8 and 72.9 (40/20 front/rear). But until then, my hip thanks me for the lower gearing.
Here’s a little better image:

I laced up my first wheel yesterday. It’s a rear wheel for my ever improving Fujiyama. It turns out that building a wheel is pretty darn simple – mechanically at least.
I should mention that I didn’t do completely on my own though. Cyrus, of the Kickstand, was my more than able trainer. He’d ordered the parts for me and calculated the spoke lengths, something I didn’t learn to do. I showed up at the Kickstand, after picking up the spokes from McCully on my way up to Kaimuki. Cyrus cheerfully looked at the spokes, showed me where to get to work (he’d cleared a small space), then showed me how to start lacing a three cross pattern.

I actually managed to get the spokes and nipples onto the wheel without losing anything or crossing a spoke the wrong way. Even so no one is going to hire me to build wheels anytime soon. I wasn’t exactly fast.
Cyrus had some great tools to make the job easier, including a little spoke nipple tool that would hold and screw the nipple on the spoke…apparently it was a custom job from a tool builder in Oregon. He also showed me one I could make from a spare spoke and nipple combination…guess which is which…

Once the wheel was together, it was time to tension the spokes, true things up, and finally, give it all a go.
This took more time. I definitely wouldn’t hire me. Still with careful coaching I got the wheel 98% trued. Cyrus was nice enough to finish it off, explaining what he was doing and why. I’d definitely hire him. I could probably finish off another wheel at this point, but it would take some time and probably involve some starts and stops.
In any case, by mid-afternoon (and I’d started around noon), I had a wheel. We mounted it up and I got give my new Sturmey-Archer S2 Duomatic. I’ll have more on that later, but suffice to say I’m pleased with my new wheel building skills. I may not build a lot of wheels in the future, but I no longer think it’s some dark magic.
I don’t have a good picture yet, but I took one in the dark of the hub itself…

The bad news is that people continue to die on our roads, both in cars and, for folks like us who ride a bicycle pretty much everywhere, on bikes. The good news, in so much as it can be considered good news, is that fewer of us are dying.
Here are the 2010 bicycle fatality stats released by NHTSA.
Let’s hope the trend continues to go down till it reaches zero, especially here in Hawaii (where we are a bit above the national average for 2010).
[gview file=”http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811624.pdf”]