So I made it halfway...
Its been flurries and 37 degrees in Cleveland today, so I figure that's nice enough to warrant leaving the car at home! After lunch I put on some warm pants (snowpants), my winter coat, some warm (snowboarding) gloves, and my dress shoes (because there's no use looking silly)...
And I rode the scooter back to work.
It was great fun! With the full-face helmet I didn't have to worry about my head getting cold, and really, all that got chilly was my ankles and my chin. (THIS is why I have the goatee!)
...now there's just the return trip once it gets a little cooler. I can't wait.
I've also begun the progress on another bicycle conversion.
The above image is what the Schwinn Voyageur 11.8 originally looked like - not mine, you understand, but out-of-the-box "New". "New" back in 1981, the same year I was born.
My friend in Wyoming has blessed me with another piece of Chicago Schwinn metal to have some fun with. (This because he has blessed himself with an amazing road bike that I cannot even dream of without realizing how out of shape my legs are.) This particular bike came pre-equipped (through the workings of a previous owner) with knobby cyclocross tires, a rear rack, some other interesting odds and ends, and a Shimano Biopace crankset.
A Shimano what?
Here's what a biopace crank looks like:
Here's what a biopace crank looks like:
You may notice something that looks like distortion in the usual circle of a crank...
...that's how its supposed to be on a Biopace crankset!
Biopace cranks aren't all that terrible, I suppose - I just don't want to go back to them now. They're intentionally made to be oblong in conjunction with your pedal stroke's strongest part - the downstroke. So you get a larger part of the gear pulling the chain while you're at your strongest... not a bad concept. However, at slow speeds and full-on cadence work the rythmn of your 'circle' (how you're supposed to pedal) is disrupted.
...plus they look funny.
So its nashbar.com to the rescue and I've got some kickin' parts on order to make me an all-chrome, knobbly, bullhorn bar, downtube-shifter, winter/summer/bring-it-on bike!
I'll share more as appropriate.
...
1 comment:
I'm glad to know that the Voyager brings you so much happiness. It's good that it's in the hands of someone who can truly appreciate it and give it the TLC it needs, as opposed to it's previous owner who referred to it as "the death trap". But you're right, he now has a carbon fiber fighter jet to call his own.
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