BEERCYCLE.

Getting ready for a Sunday evening ride to Zeb's barbeque with Scully and Simpler Times!  The beer got a little shook up on the way, but you gotta expect a little bit of head with a rack like this!

ALWAYS RIDE WITH A REAR LIGHT

Ok, so I lied. How could my bike be finished without the addition of a skull to the rack? The best part is that with a strategically placed rear Frog light, the whole thing glows red at night, putting me in compliance with city mandated bicycle light requirements. I completely forgot that I had this skull until the other day when I found it in the geraniums (why was it there?). It used to be mounted on the fabled Pirate Bike (RIP), and it joins the Shimano 333 shift levers (also left over from that bike) for another shot at glory here! I rode the bike around town last night and got some strange looks from a cop and an enthusiastic "oh sweet" from some little kid with an ice cream cone. YARRRRR!!!!

IT IS FINISHED (AND IT ALMOST KILLED ME)

The touring bike is finally finished, I think. Here are before and after pics. Today I finished mounting the ammo box panniers and cages. The only thing really left to do is re-adjust the rear hub that seems a little tight after my wheel randomly fell off while riding with the rest of the band to our gig last night. Fortunately I had a wrench in the backpack so I could at least get the wheel back on, but it was a scary experience none the less, especially on the way home, which involved an inebriated midnight sprint down a pitch-black Foothill Ave with Ta Tas in the lead with his banjo and a cigarette and Rog weaving around the tiny bike lane pulling a trailer loaded down with my guitar and the upright bass. At times like that you don't want a sketchy rear hub! I'll fix it soon, though, and then I'm gonna do some short 20-30 mile rides in the next couple of weeks to try to get in shape to ride Hwy 1 from Monterey to SLO. 

AMMO BOX PANNIERS

Despite the fact that everyone thinks I am crazy for wanting to use ammunition boxes as panniers on my newly rebuilt Schwinn touring bike, I have gone ahead with my insanity. I had to spend a few hours of trial and error in order to perfect the design, but I think what I came up with is pretty cool. Here's a step by step-ish breakdown of what I did.

1. I bought a Bontrager rear rack (50 lb max load) and installed it. About then I realized that in order to install the boxes, there needed to be some sort of shim to hold the box out from the rack at least 1/4" or so (this is because when the box lid is closed it overlaps the outside of the box.) I solved the problem by cutting up an old inner-tube, wrapping it tight around the stays of the rack in 3 places and securing it with electrical tape.

Next, I went down to the hardware store and bought some cable clamp U-bolts. These mounted easily to the rack stays; once they were secure I held the box where I wanted it to go, marked the position of the bolts, and drilled my holes. I used 2 U-bolts to secure the upper portion of the box- this turned out to be really strong, so I just drilled a couple of smaller holes toward the bottom and attached that section to the rack using heavy-duty zip ties.
I ran out of time to finish the other side, but I should be able to get it done today. The boxes are a bit smaller than I had envisioned (since I was originally going to use the more rectangular .50 cal boxes) but I really like how flat they lie to the bike. Plus I got them for $2.50 each at the army surplus store- saving myself a whole lot of money any way you look at it.
I will probably still buy a nice Trek bag to sit on the top of the rack, and I will need to somehow strap on my sleeping bag and bivvy sack, but if I need to I can always install a front rack too. For short trips, however, this is fast becoming a beautiful machine.

BLACK WATER UNION

Last week we played the Templeton Chamber of Commerce mixer. The venue was a huge art studio/barn that Ta-Ta's (our banjo man) built a couple of years ago in the middle of a vineyard. There was a photographer taking pictures, so he sent a few our way; they came out real nice, and you can see them here. No mics, no PA, just old time acoustic instruments and a heavy case of throat jaw- the way it should be! Honey played her first show that night, and she was sweet as can be. Come out and see us at the Clubhouse in SLO on Thursday, July 23.

ALMOST THERE

I spent the portion of the week that I didn't have food poisoning working on the touring bike. It's coming along nicely, and today I am planning on getting the gears and brakes set up. This bike has been really fun to build.  I'm proud of the paint job, which came out pretty nice considering that it's impossible to find an outdoor painting location in SLO that is free of wind at any time of day or night. Another highlight is the complete mishmash of components that have been commandeered to get this baby running.  So far the list includes:

-Schwinn (?) frame circa 1975

-Araya 27 x 1 1/4 wheelset (steel, of course)

-Original Dia-Comp centerpull brake calipers

-New Tektro levers

-New Campy Mirage crank set

-Soma Bullhorns set up with a combo of Oury grips and Fizik suede tape

-New Vittoria tires

I'm taking her to Big Sur on our annual camping trip this week to put on some test miles. Next week- Ammo Box Panniers.

MEET MY NEW HONEY

Last week I decided that I wanted a tenor guitar. I enjoy playing the mandolin in our band, but when it comes down to it, I'm no Bill Monroe. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths like a fiddle in either C or G (the same as a mandolin). It has a nice tone that fits right between the guitar and the banjo, and it was quite a popular instrument during the middle of the 20th century, especially in country/americana bands. I put a 'wanted' add up on Craigslist one night, and the next morning I had an email from an old-timer in Cambria who
just happened to have one up in his attic.  Turns out it was a 1961 Epiphone with a solid mahogany top and neck. I bought it for $100. I named her Honey, and she lives up to the name, although adapting my mandolin leads to a new instrument with frets four times bigger is a bit of a challenge. After some jamming with the band, I strung her gDAE.  The higher G string where the low note should be takes some getting used to, but the inverted up-down rhythm that it provides is pretty cool sounding, as is the high drone note on open chords.  See Honey in action on Saturday, July 11th in Santa Maria when we open for Monte Mills.

INSPIRATION

Well, it's been a while since I posted.  Things have been busy with Hank, school, and some much needed early summer vacation trips. We spent this last weekend in Ventura with my wife's sister and her fiance, Uncle Dirty.  After a few rounds of Red Stripe Dirty poured us some whiskey and turned on the Tour de France.  Suddenly, we realized that our calling, as brothers in law, must certainly be long distance cycling. The problem is, neither of us have a touring bike. He rides a beach cruiser, and I alternate between my hardtail mountain bike and my fix'd. Oh what a glorious problem to have! Today Dirty bought an nice older Trek set up for touring, and I dug around in the shed and found an old steel Schwinn frame that I bought for about $20 a while back. I hooked up a free Araya wheelset on Craigslist, and bought a Campy 34/50 nine-speed crank set on ebay.  I have a nice wide set of Soma pursuits and a rear rack laying around somewhere too, as well as a bunch of random derraileurs, brakes, levers, etc.  That leaves a pretty small amount of stuff left to purchase, so I'm hoping to do the whole thing for right around $150. 

The frame needs a new paint job, obviously, so I think I'm going to recreate the legendary 'Kalishnakov'- one of my favorite bike projects whose life was ended prematurely by a stop-sign running BMW a couple of years ago.  More to come on this as the design progresses, but suffice it to say that .50 cal ammo box panniers are in the works.

Our first ride will be Santa Barbara to Ventura in a few weeks to test our bikes (and our strength), and then we're going to try SLO to Ventura sometime in September.