Dairy Roubaix 2015—Let's do this!

Woo, this looks like fun! (Image source: Ride With GPS)

I had heard about Dairy Roubaix (DR) for the first time in an article about the boom in gravel riding in Wisconsin. The ride was advertised as one of the best in the region. The start of the ride is about 100 miles from Madison, though. I generally dislike rides I have to drive to, and so I wasn't really planning on doing the DR. Having met the awesome folks of Madison Bike Winter, though, I was convinced that the ride was totally worth it—beautiful scenery, the possibility to stay in bunk beds at the start of the ride, and a great atmosphere/party. So when registration opened a couple days ago, I just signed up for the 107 mile (172 km) route. It's not quite clear yet how I'm going to get to Wyalusing and back, but I'm sure I'll make it work somehow.



Located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Wisconsin River, the ride is quite hilly, has a bunch of gravel riding, and there are almost no services along the route. This raises the question of which bike to use. Partly this is probably going to depend on the weather conditions. In mid-April there could be pretty much anything between snow and blazing sun. In the best of cases, I'd love to have finished my Gunnar 650B conversion. I have watched some videos of the course, and the gravel roads don't seem to be too rough. So while it would be possible to ride the Gunnar in its current configuration with 25-millimeter-wide tires, having 32 or 38 mm tires would be even better. If this doesn't work out, I'll have to put the gears back on Wolfgang the Cross-Check, which currently is in fixed winter mode. The ride certainly would be harder that way, but it's not like I haven't done similar things on Wolfgang. So either way I should have a good time!

All relevant info can be found on the official event homepage.

Converting my Gunnar Roadie to low-trail 650B, part 1

My 2002 Gunnar Roadie is the best bike I've ever ridden. It's fast (it's painted orange; so what did you expect...), looks good, is reliable. Since I first built it up in 2010, I've made some changes, but they were mostly minor -- Grand Bois handlebars replaced the modern bars, as did a 1" steel stem the 1 1/8" aluminum stem, and I upgraded to a generator hub. But now it's time for something more drastic: Converting to 584mm/650B wheels and a fork that will make the bike low trail.

Gunnar with 25-622 wheels/tires

Why change an already great bike?

There are two main reasons for this project. The first one is that there is one shortcoming of the frame. It was built to accommodate tires up to 25mm wide, without fenders.  I can actually make 28mm tires work, but the clearances at the chain stay then get a little sketchy. Relatively narrow tires have served me pretty well so far. A good tire in combination with the compliant carbon fork make for a comfortable ride, and I've even ridden pretty rough gravel roads on Gunnar. The lack of fenders, on the other hand, is limiting, turning Gunnar basically into a fair-weather bike. I have little patience for getting road spray all over myself, and when the forecast predicts rain, I therefore switch to my fully-fendered Cross-Check. The reason for going to low-trail at the same as changing wheel size is curiosity. Bicycle Quarterly, my favorite bike magazine, has long praised the advantages in handling that low-trail geometry and front loading can bring. Now I don't nearly perceive high trail and rear loads as pernicious as some people make it to be. I regularly ride my Cross-Check with two Ortlieb Back-Rollers full of heavy groceries and yet I'm still alive. But then of course I lack a point of comparison.

Converting Gunnar is thus the answer to these two points, unlike converting my Cross-Check with ample clearance for wide tires and fenders. I'm on a tight budget and so I spent several months accumulating the parts required for the conversion: A 1" threadless Rawland Stag fork, Shimano Ultegra 6600 rear hub, Shutter Precision PV-8 generator hub for the front, Pacenti SL-23 rims, Sapim double-butted spokes.

Brakes

Currently I'm running Dura-Ace caliper brakes with a reach of 44mm. Switching to 584mm rims necessitates another 19mm of reach for a total of 63mm. At the local community bike shop I found a pair of Mafac Racer centerpull brakes that at least should work for the rear. The Stag fork is intended to be used with cantilever brakes; so I might do centerpull in the rear and canti in the front.

Nice pair of Mafac Racer centerpull brakes

Clearances

There are two, interconnected challenges with the conversion, tire clearance and ground clearance. As I said, currently the largest 622mm tires that fit are 28mm wide. A 584mm wheel moves the tire further towards the hub and therefore increases clearance at the chain stays—but not by much. The way to figure this out in advance is to measure the distance between the chain stays at 320mm distance from the rear axle. I got about 40mm, but the measurement is a little finicky. So in the best case, I could fit a 38-584 tire without fenders—which of course somewhat defeats one of the main reasons for this conversion—or a 32mm tire with fenders. With the latter option then comes the question whether my pedal-to-ground clearance is still going to be sufficient. When using a typical wide 584mm/650B tire like the Hetre with its 42mm diameter, the outer diameter of a wheel is actually about the same as that of a 622/700C wheel with 28mm tires. Using a narrower tire will lower the bottom bracket and consequently lead to potential pedal strike in corners. The Roadie probably has a bottom bracket of 70mm (though I have to confirm this by measurement), which is on the high end for a 650B conversion, especially when running 175mm cranks.

Headset

Low-trail bikes can have problems with shimmy more frequently than high-trail bikes. One possible remedy is the use of a rollerbearing headset to slightly increase friction. For now I will stick with the headset I already have and see how it goes. 

What's next?

I'm still waiting for some wheel parts to arrive before I can build them up. I also haven't decided what to do about tires yet. I'm hesitant to spend a lot of money on tires that then potentially are to wide to fit the bike. I could also potentially go for narrow-ish tires in the rear and 42mm tires in the front—but that doesn't make that much sense given the load distribution of a bike. I will report back once I'm getting closer to completion of this project.

Happy 2015!

This was the view on the last morning of 2014. I biked along Lake Monona to the bakery to get some baguettes for tonight's cheese fondue. It was bitterly cold and windy, creating banks of steam blowing swiftly over the water. Not a bad way to say goodbye to 2014 and welcome the new year. Happy New Year to all my readers!

Overhauling the Blog Roll

Blog rolls or link lists on blogs often don't age well, and this blog is no exception. So here are my current regular reads:

• MadisonBikeThings: A Tumblr for all things bike in Madison, my home town. Full disclosure: MadisonBikeThings is a 100% subsidiary of the Ride or Pie?! Global Publishing Co.
• iBOB Google Group: The Bicycle Owners Bunch is a great resource for all things practical cycling
• BikeSnob NYC: The Bike Snob never ceases to amuse me, even after however many years I've been reading his blog
• The Wisconsin Bike Fed's blog has a great mix of posts on all things Wisconsin cycling, and their main author, Dave Schlabowske, is an excellent photographer and writer.
• A View from the Cycle Path: David Hembrow is an excellent source for teaching the anglophone world how create a great cycling environment. The complementary blog to this is 
• Bicycle Dutch: More video content than  Hembrow and a less negative undertone.
• Revolution Cycles: Great local bike shop in Madison
• Off the Beaten Path: Jan Heine, editor of Bicycle Quarterly, the only bike magazine worth reading, has a great blog, featuring epic (yes, that's the appropriate term here) ride reports and interesting tech stuff
• Bike Tinker: Philip is a fellow iBOB, and his blog is a great resource for all kinds of bike-related projects, often appropriate for DIY imitation
• Urban Adonia: An anthropologist-activist-academic writing about advocacy, equity, and race in bike culture and infrastructure
• Cycling Spokane: Kinda like my own blog, but from the West
• Andy's Cycling Blog: RL friend and randonneur
• Soma Fab blog: SOMA makes lots of cool bike stuff, as does
• Velo Orange
• BikePortland: I don't live in Portland, but one doesn't have to to appreciate the best local bike journalism there is.

Recommendations for blogs to read are always welcome!

Awesome deal on Pacenti SL23 650B rims!

Perfect timing: Kirk Pacenti is having a sale on his great SL23 rims. I had been on the lookout for rims to build up a 650B wheelset for quite some time, and so I jumped on this one without hesitation! I'm linking to the silver version with 32 holes that I bought myself, but they're also available in black and with 28 holes.
Edit 4:15pm: Looks like the shipping has been increased. But still a great deal!



Usual disclaimer: If you buy them through this link, I'll get a small referral from Amazon. And now go buy these great rims!

Tried and liked, 2014 edition

The Internet-BOB (short for Bridgestone Owners Bunch) listserv has the annual end-of-year tradition of people posting what bike-related things they liked—and didn't like. This is always a fun read and a good opportunity to reflect back on one's own purchases and innovations. Finding previous editions on Google Groups can be a bit of a pain, and so I'm cross-posting my list here on the blog.

These were my items from last year (in abbreviated form):

Liked 2013

• GB Randonneur bars
• Converting my all-purpose bike to disc brakes in the front, V-brakes in the rear
• long distance solo rides
• converting from STI's to DT shifters on the go-fast bike

Disliked 2013

• Flat pedals on the Cross-Check
• MEC rain jacket

Undecided 2013:

• metal fenders
• shellacked cotton bar tape

Lovely shellacked orange cotton tape

I'd say those things pretty much still hold true, except that cotton bar tape has moved from “undecided” to “liked,” with the qualification that I wouldn't want to have it on an everyday bike that I don't ride with gloves. GB Randonneur bars plus cotton tape plus padded cyling gloves, however, is a great combination!

So what about 2014? It was a weird cycling year for me. Because of immigration issues I lived without access to my regular stable of bikes for much of the year. But nonetheless there are a couple of things for the list.

Liked 2014

• S24O: Ridiculous as it may be, I so far had failed to successfully go on a sub-24 hour overnight ride, despite several attempts. This September it finally happened, and it was terrific!
• Riding fixed: In another case of coming late to the trend, it was only this year that I rode a fixed gear bike. While I was stranded in Montreal before my visa interview, I borrowed a friend's fixie and actually took it on a 100 kilometer group ride on the first attempt. While there were no Zen revelations of being one with the road, I did like enough to just yesterday having bought a fixed wheelset for winter riding. Not totally convinced that that's a great use case, but I'll give it a try.

  

  Miyata Fixie

• Riding in the Stuttgart region: Again because of the visa saga, I spent several weeks at my parents' near Stuttgart in southwest Germany this summer. The riding there is just great. You can choose between hills or river valleys; between quiet back roads, gravel forest trails, real single track, or paved bike paths. And a great bakery, a beer garden, or a restaurant is never further than half an hour away. 
• A dedicated winter bike: After riding the SO's city bike with 2.25" Schwalbe Ice Spiker tires through the fresh snow, I knew that I had to get my own winter bike! I bought a cheap early-2000s MTB on Craigslist, equipped it with Ice Spikers, north road bars, and moose mitts (more on that below). This was money very well spent, as it significantly helped to make a very cold winter much less depressing. Unfortunately, because of my move to Madison I sold the bike and so far have been unable to find an appropriate replacement.

  

  Winter bike in its element

• Pogies/Bar Mitts: Again, the SO tried these first and liked them a lot. She has the version from Handlebar Booties, and I got the Moose Mitts. Only downside: There are pogies for drop bars but not for ones with bar-end shifters, i.e. what I have on my everyday bike. I guess converting it to fixed would solve this.
• Ski goggles for winter riding: This is one of the things where for years I thought that I didn't need them. But then once I tried them for the first time, I immediately cursed myself for not having done this earlier. The pair was a rather scratched up pair of goggles that I bought for 3 dollars from the thrift store. They work great during day, but because they're tinted, I'll have to get another pair for riding in the dark.
• Defeet DuraGlove Wool: Another great product from Defeet! Think, warm, comfortable, durable. Mine lack the ET feature of the current generation that allows using touch screens.

Disliked 2014

Nothing to report here.

Undecided 2014

• I'm still on the fence about metal fenders. I had the metal front fender tear at the front stay. This was probably the result of me not installing the fender without any tension after having shipped it by plane. And of course one should keep in mind that these fenders were pieced together from stuff I collected at the bike co-op. I'm still somewhat concerned about the risk of sticks jamming the fenders and will buy the PDW Safety Tabs as soon as possible. I still love the extended coverage, stiffness, and looks of the fenders.

Southern Splendor on a not horribly cold day

Winter has come early and with force this year in Madison. Consequently, when the forecast predicted a day of temperatures slightly above freezing, I took up the rare opportunity for a longer ride. The route mostly followed the Southern Splendor ride by the Bombay Bicycle Club and proved to be an excellent choice. Lots of quiet back roads and a pretty, mostly snow-covered scenery.

For riding on the sections of bike trail I was glad to have my studded tires, as there will plenty of icy patches—on the Badger State Trail I rode past a guy who just had had a (harmless) fall. The roads mostly clear of ice and snow and merely wet and salty. I was wearing multiple layers of wool on my upper body, which turned out just right for the given temperature. I'm looking forward to doing this route again next spring or summer. Strava link.

Ice fishing in November? Where did I move to!?

The sun was low but still provided some warmth

“Ice ordinance” A little too early to ride out onto the lake

Lake Kegonsa

Crossing the Yahara in Stoughton

Badfish Creek