tears for gears

A box-sectioned eulogy

2012-04-25T15:13:00.001-04:00

Not that long ago, the cobbled classics were an anomaly in the cycling calendar. While a team might employ the same frame, component and wheel choices for 95% of their race calendar, the month or so bounded by semi-classic Omloop Het (Volk, Nieuwsblad) and Paris-Roubaix was a special time. The ubiquitous, obvious choices went out the window, replaced by cobble specific setups. Custom frame geometries, cantilever brakes, doubled-up seat clamps, chain catchers, aluminum rims—a myriad of hardware rarely seen outside of the season. For the tech-junkies among us, it was an assault of unique, purpose driven bikes, and it was glorious.

By the early oughts, teams stopped with the total insanity the 90's had introduced in to these races—the Rock Shox and full suspension rigs replaced with frames like Specialized's Roubaix, or in some cases, teams employing cyclocross bikes. Sure, there'd was the occasional one-off custom, carefully hidden under paint, but they became the exception rather than the rule. The last bastion of unique was the rim.

Up until the last handful of years, box section aluminum rims were the only option for the cobbles. Rims like Mavic's Paris-Roubaix SSC dominated. As the supply of SSC's dwindled in the late 90's, the Ambrosio Nemesis became the rim of choice. A similar extrusion to the SSC, it was easily identified by its polished brass badge, supposedly placed to compensate for the imbalanced introduced by the drilling of the valve hole, but just as likely there to make sure no one would question what rim you were really looking at—for although everyone knew they were being ridden by a majority of the peloton, only a handful did so without some token attempt at rebadging them.

The last few years have been unkind to the box section. To butcher a quote often credited to Andy Hampsten, it would seem the only thing scarier than riding the cobbles on carbon rims is not riding the cobbles on carbon rims. The past three years have seen all of the cobbled classics won on carbon—the last win on an aluminum rim was Boonen's in the 2009 edition of Paris-Roubaix. The SSC, Nemesis or similar aluminum box section, once the rims of spring, have been largely replaced—and while 6 out of 9 of the last cobbled classics wins came on Zipp 303's, the other wheel vendors have also gotten in on the wins as well, including Mavic, Campagnolo and HED. Their reputation for fragility, whether ever warranted or not, has fallen by the wayside as they've demonstrated they're ready for the rough stuff.

2012 saw few aluminum box sections actually hit the cobbles, being mostly relegated to spare wheels or also-ran teams. Mavic tubulars, in particular, are few and far between, save a relic or two riding neutral support. While we'll probably a few of these aluminum shod wheels around next year, their day seems to be coming to a rapid—and unfortunate—end. So long old friends.

Campagnolo Doppler Tech Notice

2012-04-18T11:55:00.000-04:00

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Less spoken about is the value of a drawing.

Often the source of head scratching is the orientation of the dished spring washers for the Campagnolo Doppler retrofriction shifters. Do the two washers nest in to one another, or are they opposing? Do they face inward or outward?

The above information notice, dated April 30, 1987, should answer those questions once and for all - they nest in each other, with the convex side facing the frame boss.

1999 Mavic Mektronic Catalog

2012-04-11T18:19:00.002-04:00

So just the other day I found myself at dinner with former French pro Jacky Durand. The sole non-French speaker at the table, I spent a pretty ridiculous amount of time nodding and smiling when I really had no clue what was going on. In between stories I'm pretty sure were about Jacky's mom dropping her friends on rides on the farm and how the sound of a pig being slaughtered can carry for kilometers, I picked up an all-too-familiar story about Mavic Mektronic. Power lines in the distance, Jacky related, were a sure sign that he and anyone else in the peloton stuck riding Mektronic were about to be in for a sufferfest - the system, when encountering interference, would cause the derailleur to reset it self, dumping them in to the smallest cog in the back.

Apocryphal or not, hearing Durand (and watching him act out) the effects of this on his performance were very comical - the guy can tell a story. I never got to play with Mektronic when it was new, given what it cost. I've since acquired a couple of sets, but haven't been able to bring myself to use it - a combination of fragility, obsolescence, and stories involving my already poor climbing abilities suffering in the presence of overhead power lines have killed any curiosity I once had about what it was like to ride.

Should you find yourself in possession of a set, and feel motivated to give it a try, I hope these manual pages come in handy.

It's not all new-tech at Paris-Roubaix

2012-04-08T16:02:00.001-04:00

Mavic 571/2 HG hubs laced to Paris-Roubaix SSC rims. These were loaded on to one of the Mavic neutral support vehicles following the peloton in today's (2012) Paris-Roubaix.

I wasn't able to check the date codes on the dust shields, but these wheels are probably 15+ years old. Not too shabby.

The Different Mavic CXP Rims

2012-01-03T00:44:00.000-05:00

Do you know the differences between all the Mavic CXP rims? For me, its always felt like a bunch of quasi-aero rims with different characteristics were opaquely lumped together under the CXP designation. Very confusing. If you can keep them all straight, I'm impressed.

Hopefully, my confusion (and yours, should you have any) will end along with 2011. From Mavic's 1999 catalog, here are the CXP catalog pages for the family members that existed at the time, along with profile and extrusion shots for each of them. Let's start with the highest number and work our way down.

The CXP33. 19.4mm wide, 23.6mm high. Welded + machined. "Profiled" eyelets.

The CXP30. 19.4mm wide, 30.5mm high. Welded + machined. "Profiled" eyelets. This rim was available in a tubular AND clincher version.

The CXP23. 19.3mm wide, 23.6mm high. Welded + machined.

The CXP21. 20mm wide, 20mm high. Machined.

The CXP11. 20mm wide, 20mm high.
There are obviously CXP rims that came out after my catalog (and extrusion collection). I don't have extrusions for those, so for the time being, we'll all just have to consult the information available from the Mavic site. Good luck!

'90's Pro Mavic parts you've never seen - or at least never noticed

2011-11-17T13:30:00.000-05:00

Photo by velo_denz on Flickr

The picture above comes from the 1992 Tour de France, which saw RMO's Pascal Lino spend 10 days in the Yellow Jersey before yielding to Miguel Indurain, who would go on to win his second Tour de France. Notice anything odd in a Mavic-y way?

The oddity on this bike are the front and rear derailleurs. While they look largely like the "normal" 840 rear and 860 front derailleurs, they exhibit a number of details that aren't normal. Most obvious is the lack of black anodization. The derailleurs on the RMO bike are silver - probably clear anodized. The rear derailleur also features a number of cutouts on both the front AND back of the pulley cages, likely to reduce the weight of a derailleur that was heavier than the comparable offerings from Shimano and Campagnolo at that time.

I mentioned the backside is cutout, right?

And before you go thinking the front is just a standard 810 derailleur, it's not - beside the fact they were no longer available by the late 80's, they also didn't have the Mavic logo etched in them.

These derailleurs came to me via Spain. I believe they were from an Once team bike belonging to pro Anselmo Fuerte. In the early 90's Once was sponsored by, and rode full groups from, Mavic. As far as I know, these derailleurs were never made available to the public. In 1992, Mavic was debuting the Zap system with select pro teams, and I suspect largely considered the 840/841 a product they would be able to phase out when the entire world went to their electric shifting system. That didn't happen, and the mechanical rear derailleurs continued to be available for several years, albeit in their original black anodized/cutout free form. These silver ones disappeared almost immediately from the pro ranks, as teams either switched to Zap, or switched to cobbled together drivetrains - witness Gan's Mavic/Campagnolo drivetrain from 1994.

I've known about these silver derailleurs for a few years now, but this is the first set I've seen. Anyone hiding additional sets in their spares box should feel free to contact me! :)

From the land of misfit Mavic toys...

2011-10-24T17:32:00.003-04:00

As far as I know this doesn't really exist.

4 pawl 571 cassette rear hub. It's labeled as a 571, not 571/2. Someone's aftermarket modification? The machining quality is very high, so that seems unlikely. An experiment by Mavic at increasing the number of pawls? Beats me. Anyone seen one before?

More oddball Mavic stuff that doesn't exist coming shortly...

Mavic Technical Manual Update!

2011-10-19T13:16:00.000-04:00

Came across a later version of the Mavic technical manual recently, so I figured I owed it to whatever readers I still have to publish the differences. This manual was from 1991 or later, and added 451 brakes, 501/531 hubs, and the 571/577 cassette hubs. You can find scans here. Enjoy!

Mid 90's Mavic Rim Finishes

2011-06-16T15:11:00.000-04:00

These days, rims come in every color under the sun. That hasn't always been the case - at least, not in a non-bmx rim. In the mid 90's, Mavic started offering their rims in a pretty wide range of colors.

In order from top, left to right, Mavic called the colors Silver, Flash Brilliant, Titanium (or Titane), Red, Orange, Citron, Cosmic Blue, Steel Grey, Couche Dure (hard anodized) and Black.

OG indeed.

Who wants to see some rim extrusions?

Connie Paraskevin Young Merckx Pista

2011-01-04T22:44:00.001-05:00

Someone presumably doing a little serial number research sent me these pics the other day, and I thought I'd share them with all of you. It's owner, Marc St. Martin, wrote me the following about it:

I recently purchased an Eddy Merckx pista and have confirmed with Eddy Merckx cycles (through Gitabike) that it was built in 1987 for Connie Paraskevin Young. I suspect it was used by her in the 1987 UCI Track Worlds in Austria. It was all white and equipped tout Mavic at that time. In 1988, Connie enlisted Keith Anderson (confirmed by Keith) to livery the bike as a Murray. It was then put into service late in 1988 for the Sundance Juice Sparkler series. It is serial #A 4694 A, Columbus SLX, 47cm.

Very cool! Enjoy the pics.

Thanks for sharing, Marc!

Ugh I'm still here....

2010-12-02T16:58:00.001-05:00

So I can't PROVE it, but shortly after I started going through all of my old magazines, I came down with a SERIOUSLY brutal cold/eye infection/general disgustingness. Did I, sorta like Howard Carter opening Tutankhamen's Tomb, receive the curse of every mother whose son never threw out a magazine? Perhaps some long dormant mold spore poisoning? Don't know! But I'm just about healthy, and I'll get back to my magazine project. Thanks for being patient!

Winning - June 1991 - Issue 91

2010-11-17T18:09:00.001-05:00

Today's reading...

Winning, June 1991. Issue 91.

Summary: Greg Lemond on climbing + descending. Davis Phinney on rites of passage. Chiapucci's Milan-San Remo Victory. 1991 Tour of Flanders/Hooydonck win. Ghent-Wevelgem sans Kemmelberg - Abdujaparov wins. Marc Madiot wins 1991 Paris-Roubaix. 1991 Fléche Wallonne - Moreno Argentin wins. 1991 Liége-Bastogne-Liége - Argentin wins. Colombia RCN Classic. Rishi Grewal Interview. What's in Store: Airwave by Profile (aero bars), Cook Bros. Cranks, Shimano PD-6402 Pedal, Cytomax Drink, Nike Cross-Terrain II shoe, Breezer Lightning MTB, Automaxi Click-On rack, Bell Scotchlite Helmet Covers

My new project - Winning, July 1991 - Issue 92

2010-11-16T16:49:00.001-05:00

You may be shocked to learn that I have a pretty serious collection of magazines from the late 80's and early 90's. Its true. My name is Jeremy, and I'm a packrat.

The biggest problem with having a ton of magazines is knowing whats in them. There aren't really any online sources that'll tell you what's in the July 1991 issue of Winning, for instance. So to that end, I'm going to read a magazine a day (or at least, try to) on my travel to and from work, take a picture of the cover, and then post a quicky synopsis here. Then I'll know where to look to find pictures of a 17 year old George Hincapie if I ever need them, and you'll know what issue to bug me about if you want info on the Tour du Pont 1991.

Winning, July 1991. Issue 92

Summary: Greg Lemond on going for Number 4 TdF win. Davis Phinney on sprinting techniques. 1991 Tour of Spain/Vuelta a España. 1991 Tour du Pont. 1991 TdF Contenders. Johan Bruyneel profile. Frans Maassen wins Amstel Gold. ONCE profile. Jim Gentes on the Giro helmet and rider helmet strike. George Hincapie as a Junior profile. US to MTB World Cup. What's In Store: Ciclomaster CM 37, Titan Titanium Gel Saddle, Time Apres-Velo Socks, Blackburn MTN P90+ saddle bag, Trek 8700 Composite ATB, Scott Unishocks, Zefal Double Shot 100 Pump.

I pay attention to modern stuff too!

2010-08-31T15:21:00.001-04:00

It's true! I like bikes and cycling of all ilk - even the racing going on in 2010. I've been contributing here and there to Pavé blog, where Whit Yost has been nice enough to let me play armchair directeur sportif on more modern topics than I normally cover here. My most recent post is on Garmin's Transitions, and what a merger with Cervélo might mean to them. Check it out!

Mavic Technical Diagrams Circa 1994/95 - ZMS 800 Era

2010-08-26T16:02:00.000-04:00

As promised, and only a day late, the 1994/1995 ish Mavic technical diagrams 4-pager.. Covering the ZMS 800 rear derailleur, 501 and 571/2 hubsets, 610 bottom bracket, 305, 315, 316 and 317 bottom brackets, 860, 862, 870 and 872 front derailleurs, 840 and 841 rear derailleurs, 451 brakeset, 631/2 crankset, 821 shifters and the 357 aero bar extension kit. Enjoy!

Mavic Tech Manuals

2010-08-24T09:40:00.001-04:00

I recently came upon a couple of different caches of Mavic literature. Original marketing or technical materials are invaluable resources. Unfortunately, a lot of people agree, and pay absolutely ridiculous prices for them on eBay. That's fine for the collector, but what about the guy who just wants to know how to work on their 851 derailleur?

Or 840/841 derailleur?

Or convert their 631 double crank in to a single? What about that guy?

Don't worry, 305, 315, 316, 317 headsets, 500, 510 and 550 RD hubs, 610 and 616 bottom brackets, 637 crank, 646 pedals, 820 and 821 shifters, 845 and 801 derailleurs, we remember you too.

Here's the 89/90ish technical manual. I'll post the later 1995ish technical diagram update tomorrow - that'll get the 571/2 hubs, 631/2 cranks, and a scad of other items in to the mix as well.

Now go forth and fix your Mavic stuff! If you promise to stop making up random numbers for Mavic components, I might even post more! And if you're sitting on resources that aren't already scanned, scan 'em. If you need help, let me know.

Birth of a rim

2010-07-22T12:07:00.000-04:00

Ever wondered how aluminum rims are made? No? Too bad! Here's how it happens, with diagrams from the 1996 Mavic Rim catalog.

Step 1! Procure aluminum extrusion based on your rim profile. These come as straight sections, extruded via a die in to the desired shape.

Step 2! Coil the extrusions in to a continuous, spring-shaped loop of the right size. A straight line is then cut across the coil.

Step 3! Join the two ends together, forming a hoop. Some rims have an aluminum or plastic insert here to hold the shape. At this point, some rims are also welded.

Step 4! Drilling the rim. This is done using a re-targetable, computer controlled drilling system.

Here's the drilling system Mavic was employing in the 1996 time frame. I doubt much, if anything, has changed.

Step 5! Anodize. At least, this is where you anodize if the rim is. This is where another manufacturer's rim is painting or powdercoated. Machining of a brake track is probably also done here.

Step 6! Eyeletting! Again, if your rim has eyelets. No eyelets, no eyletting. At this point, any finishing touches are applied, like decals, inspection is performed (hopefully) and the rim is wrapped and ready to head out.

Carbon rims are obviously an entirely different process. I have some memory of a video that documented how they were made. Anyone have a link?

Practice makes perfe...pass the Doritos

2010-07-21T09:06:00.000-04:00

Back in 2002, back in the dark ages before the waiting lists and hundreds of people clamoring to get in, I went to UBI to try my hand at frame building. Schedule-wise, the class that worked best for me was the steel TIG class. It was a ton of fun, and I learned a lot, but the learning curve on TIG was pretty steep for me - I've often described it as 2 weeks of self-administered shock therapy. It's not easy!

As you might guess, training people to do production welding takes some time, and teaching them to do it in titanium takes even more! Steel is pretty forgiving, but titanium is far, far less tolerant. So naturally, a largish titanium frame production line is going to have their people practice. Apparently, someone at a large Ti frame producer thought this..."air filter" made a perfect project.

As a practice project, it's got it all - mitered joints, tight radius welds, and milled-down tubing. It's owner tells me it has one fatal flaw as an "air filter" - you can't put it down without it tipping over, due to where the holding ring is welded. Bike frame design has been thoroughly refined over the last 100+ years, but every once in a while, someone tries something new that ends up not working as well as the classic triangle frame. Guess the same thing applies to the "air filter".

Any guesses as to what frame manufacturer this came from?

Revolution? If you say so...

2010-06-18T14:58:00.004-04:00

Harry just gave me a few more old magazines and catalogs - I guess after 15 years they stopped being interesting bathroom reading for him. Anyhow, this little pamphlet caught my eye. Early 90's, probably around 1991 or 1992 based on the materials it came with.

A new, totally Italian patent derailleur!

I can only assume this was one Italian bike shop's response to the adoption of the formerly Suntour patented slant parallelogram by Campagnolo. That the revolution came in something that clearly owes much to the Vittoria, Oscar Egg and Simplex derailleurs of the 1930's and 1940's, I can't explain. I've never heard of this derailleur before, never seen one, and would be more than a little surprised if they were ever really available. Does anyone know anything beyond whats in the booklet?

Mavic Paris-Roubaix SSC rims - not IMPOSSIBLE to find...

2010-05-24T14:06:00.004-04:00

Just really hard to find, and doubly so at a reasonable price. A pair of new-old-stock rims seems to sell for approximately $500US - excessive to say the least.

Paris-Roubaix's are tough-as-nails rims, made to get down and dirty in the spring classics. They're made to be ridden, not hung on a wall and admired, so I was quite happy to find this gently used set, formerly the property of a Dutch rider from the Agu-Abus-Koga-Cordo team. Patience and careful watching let me pick up them for a fraction of the price of NOS - laced to a really nice set of Shimano Dura Ace 7403 hubs. They'll be relaced to a set of Mavic 571/2 hubs sometime between now and April, 2011 - at which point they'll revisit their cobbled past.

Mavic 631 v. 631/2

2010-05-20T18:01:00.002-04:00

Not entirely sure what the difference between a Mavic 631 and a 631/2 is? Here are some pics that'll make the difference abundantly clear.

On the left, a 631. On the right, a 631/2. Most of the differences are pretty plain to see. The spider of the 631 narrows gracefully as it reaches its ends. The 631/2's spider largely stays consistent in width. The spider is a little shorter and stockier than the 631, which allows it to run a smaller chainring in the outermost position - down to a 42 I believe.

The crank arm itself is less rounded on the 631/2 as well. It's middle flat section is slightly wider.

The backside. The spider has much less material on the 631/2, with relief work evident on the backside. At the very top of the picture, you may also notice that the 631 has some material taken off the edges of the crank arm, while the 631/2 does not. There's also some material removed on the 631 around the spindle interface, while the 631/2 has none removed.

The 631/2 is quite a bit lighter than the 631 - though it's hardly a lightweight. This can probably be attributed to the shortening and relief work done to the spider.

Brooklyn Bike Jumble This Sunday!@#

2010-05-14T15:04:00.000-04:00

The 2nd Annual Brooklyn Bike Jumble is going down this Sunday, 5/16/2010 at JJ Byrne Park at 4th St. + 5th Avenue in - you guessed it, Brooklyn, NY. I'll be there selling some cool items, including all sorts of vintage jerseys, NOS Campy bits + pieces, and a smattering of other cool items. Blog readers who say "hey" may even get better prices!

While you're there, check out Harry's Coney Island Velodrome exhibit as well!

A little Lemond Catalog reading for the weekend

2010-05-07T16:16:00.002-04:00

Greg LeMond recently re-launched his personal website. To a lot of us, Greg represents everything good about pro cycling. He was an incredible talent, making winning seem easy in his earliest years. Following his unfortunate hunting accident, he used a combination of smarts, incredible bike handing skills, and sheer will to win an additional 2 Tour de France overalls and a Worlds title, to go with his pre-accidents wins.

Greg was an unfortunate victim of the pharmacological revolution in the pro peloton in the early 90's. Where natural talent and intelligence could compete with the cortisone and amphetamine jacked pro's of the '80's, contending in the face of EPO just wasn't going to happen. Greg's been pretty vocal about it, and has gotten a lot of shit from people for speaking his mind. I've seen the guy speak. He's not some ultra-polished PR-trained robot, but a normal guy, who speaks humbly and honestly about what he saw and sees as the undoing of cycling - and does so without an ounce of bitterness. 3 time tour champ. 2 time world champ. He has nothing in the world to be bitter about.

Anyhow, go check out his site, follow him on Twitter, be his friend on Facebook. Encourage and support the guy - he's awesome.

I'm disabling comments on this post - my blog, my soapbox. But in exchange for your forced silence on this topic, here are scans of the 1992 LeMond Bicycles catalog.

The Team Z version of the carbon frames were Calfee built. Where the consumer ones?

Carbon. Calfee or not? It has the webbing we associate with them, but I don't know...

Geometry. Long top tubes was (is?) the Lemond geom

TSX and SL. The rainbow TSX frame, along with the inverted version (black top tube) is the one I always associate with Lemond.

Tips for being bike OCD like me

2010-04-19T15:03:00.002-04:00

So I've just finally recovered from all the sweat and tears that went in to my Lemond Paris-Roubaix build. Totally knocked the bike geek out of me for a few days. I'm back now, though, and raring to go on new projects!

First, though, some things I learned/relearned when working on this latest project.

Researching Bikes

I've mentioned them before, but there are some incredibly valuable websites out there for anyone research about team bikes. I leaned on them while documenting Merckx team bikes, and I continued that trend while working on the Lemond. My usual tactic is to look up a team, load up the picture pages for each of the riders on that team, and see what turns up for pictures. Here's the list:

cyclingarchives.com is particularly awesome - its got an english interface, and their search facilities are really excellent.

Google searches won't help find a picture of a specific bike unless its captioned. So get creative. If you're looking for pictures of a bike from a specific year, search for events that bike would have been used in - in this case, "Paris-Roubaix 1994" and the like.

Period magazines are key! I had a whole slew of 1993/1994 magazines already, but eBay is a great place to keep an eye on as well. There's bound to be pictures of the bike you're looking for if you look hard enough.

Here's a trick I recently started employing. When you DO find pictures of the bike you're looking for, or even pictures of events you think will have pics of your bike, Google the photographers name. This will usually show up on the side or bottom of any picture - both the photog's name, and the agency they were working for. I found a picture in a magazine by Stefano Serotti. Googling him turned up his website, and a ton of pictures of riders on the frame in question at the Ronde van Vlaanderen.

Building Wheels

About 10 years ago, I used to build wheels regularly, but hadn't built any since maybe 2004. This build called for a somewhat special wheel set, and I decided I'd do it myself.

First - tensiometers are awesome. I had never built with one before, but I'm older and wiser these days. I highly recommend using one. It took a lot of guesswork out of building my wheels. Recommended tensions are available from most vendors. Keep all of your spokes in the same ballpark, and you'll end up with strong, straight wheels that can stand up to anything - including the horrible cobbles of Brooklyn. My 571/2 wheelset stayed straight and properly tensioned. They may even be straighter now than before they were ridden!

While I'm older and wiser, I still like to save some money when I get a chance. I've used Wheelsmith Spoke Prep in the past to good results. This go around, though, I really didn't want to buy a $20 jar that'd end up going dry before I used it again. So I did a little research, and made a little bet with myself that PTFE plumber's pipe thread compound isn't radically different than the Wheelsmith stuff. Same general design goals - lubricate the threads, act as a quasi-thread locker, without hardening. The PTFE versions contain teflon, just like the Wheelsmith stuff. Regardless of whether its EXACTLY the same, it works great, can be obtained at a decent hardware store, and is dirt cheap - I paid $3 for a tube that'll last me through at least a dozen pairs of wheels. Don't use too much though, it can be a little messy.

Finally, the Wheel Fanatyk blog is awesome, and this tip of theirs is brilliant. In a nutshell, you build and partially tension the drive side of the rear wheel first, adjust for roundness, and then tension the non-drive side to bring the wheel in to dish and trueness. Done correctly, the spoke tension will be perfect on the drive side just as the wheel becomes properly dished. Touch up trueness, make sure its still round, and you're done - in less time that it takes to build a front wheel. I found myself needing to lower the tension on the drive side as I was pulling the rim to the center, and would probably initially tension the drive side to 60% when building an 8 speed whel in the future (at least, that same hub + rim combo). Even still, it was a far, far easier method for building a rear wheel than I had ever employed before.

None of my pictures show them off, but I made custom Mavic team-style decals for my rims, like you'd see on a set of Paris-Roubaix tubulars. You know, the individual letter decals M A V I C that show up just over to the right of the valve stem. There are tons of custom vinyl decal cutters on the Internet. I used this guy, and they came out great. I think it was a nice little touch on my part, that I entirely managed to not photograph. Oops!

Tomorrow: Paris-Roubaix! Brooklyn Pavé reminder

2010-04-10T13:59:00.000-04:00

I don't know about you, but in order to get a whole Sunday for watching a race and going for a ride, I have to put in some family time the day before. So just a quick reminder for you New Yorkers about tomorrow's ride:

1pm: Meet up at Old Stone House
2pm: roll out
5ish: return

Beers/foods in the general area. Either The Gate, Park Slope Ale House, or location TBD.

Same caveats as before - this is a friendly little ride not affiliated with any responsible entity. If the rider has a flat or breaks a fork or gets socked by Bernard Hinault, we'll help out but we're not culpable.