Monocog to Light Rail to work

Testing out my new smartphone doesn't make me feel very smart, but I'm slowly learning. I wonder if this post will turn out looking OK?

I had to hurry to catch the train and quickly maxed out the Monocog's low gearing. Even still, I made it with time to spare. It continues to be a fast, fun bike.

Sprucing up the Big Dummy

The before photo; rear rack, deck and bags removed.

After 5 1/2 years of mostly trouble free riding, a few things on the Dummy have been hanging out on the pending maintenance list, perhaps a bit too long. Last weekend, I finally got to some of them, but not before taking a ride with the girls to enjoy the great weather with a picnic.

Current primary Big Dummy co-pilot and little sister.

Former primary Big Dummy co-pilot, occasional Big Dummy caboose rider, and big sister. Lael's old glasses undoubtedly make her faster.

After the ride, first up was to swap out some cable housing. The housing has suffered more than any other part from the weather and inattention to which the bike has been exposed as a kid hauler/utility beast over the years. Because it still shifted fine, I had been comfortable in my neglect, but the time for action had arrived. A Big Dummy is a big bike with what seems like miles of cables and housing. With a swept back handlebar that makes the housing jut forward before eventually arching rearward, not to mention the fact that it is a lanky 22" frame, the noodle-y effect seems even more exaggerated.

A crack in the housing near the junction with the head tube had been there long enough for the exposed compression cables to rust.

Another crack just past where the housing exits from the front shifter. 

Refurbishing the housing sucked up much of a roll of the derailleur housing I had on hand, which happened to be blue.

Just prior to my decision to tackle some much needed maintenance, I decided to see how a Surly Open Bar felt on the Dummy, in comparison to the Nitto Albatross bar that had lived on the bike since I first put it together in 2008. As I happened to have one around, I quickly swapped the bars just before taking the earlier ride with the girls. By the time we arrived back at home, I knew the Surly Open Bar was on the bike to stay.

A Surly Open Bar, this one with the 40 mm rise, is wider than a Nitto Albatross.

The Nitto Albatross has perhaps a bit more rise than the +40 mm Surly Open Bar.

The Nitto Albatross and Surly Open Bar are both great handlebars for enabling a comfortable upright riding position, which is especially useful for seeing and being seen in traffic around town. Both are made of high quality chromoly steel, have minimal but pleasant flex, and a nice swept back profile.

As much as I've enjoyed the position and shape of the Nitto Albatross on the Dummy, at a mere 560 mm wide, it feels far too narrow as compared to the much wider bars that I now have on some of my other bikes. The Surly Open Bar is 666 mm wide, which is a bit better, but what I'd really like is a bar of similar shape in the range of 750 mm or so wide. I've become a huge fan of the Salsa Rustler 2 bar on my Monocog, but would prefer something with much more sweep and a bit more rise if installed on the Dummy. To my knowledge, a truly wide, highly swept, good quality, modern riser bar does not exist.

Both Maxxis Larsen TT tires had developed goathead induced slow leaks that I'd been nursing for a few weeks. 

Next up were the tires. The Dummy has been shod in a pair of Maxxis Larsen TT 2.0" tires for about the past three years. The Larsens have been terrific tires, with low rolling resistance and just the right amount of traction whether on or off pavement. They don't excel in mud, but that's not a common surface around here. They have held up exceedingly well, and I couldn't say enough positive about them, though I'd probably prefer the 2.35" to the 2.0" version. However, time and miles had taken their toll, with the tread wearing thin and the sidewalls beginning to separate near the bead.

As I have perhaps too much tire stock on hand, instead of buying another pair of Larsens, I chose a pair of mildly used Specialized Roll-X 2.0" tires that have been in my bike barn for some time. They have more aggressive knobs than the Larsens, but are no-frills and have a less fancy casing with standard steel beads. The rims on the Dummy are Mavic X 823 UST-compatible tubeless, which I've had for several years but always run with tubes. Until now, that is.

I installed a couple of Mavic tubeless valve stems, mounted the tires, squirted in 2 ounces of Stan's and pumped 'em up with a compressor. One bead on each tire needed a little encouragement to pop into place, but after that, they were good to go. I didn't have to do any Gorilla Tape chicanery with the tubeless specific rims. Three bikes in my fleet are now tubeless, each by a slightly different method, but I can't see going back to using tubes unless absolutely necessary.

The after photo. There are still a few tasks left to do, but the Big Dummy is revitalized.

I ran out of available time before completing a few other maintenance tasks, but the Dummy already feels a lot happier. It's about due for some somewhat more intensive bearing work, and the Freeloader saddle bags need some repair work, but I have no doubt that the bike is up for just about anything. This is easily the most useful bike I've ever owned, and I look forward to many more years of harnessing its utility.

Wherein I venture into the world of big wheels

Black and yellow 2008 Redline Monocog 29er.

For more than a year I've conceptually evaluated the idea of myself on 29-inch wheels. I've had intermittent rides on several big-wheeled bikes, interplayed with a continuous internal discussion weighing the tradeoffs of wheel size, proportions, etc., and underlaid with convoluted self-justification for bike acquisition. All the while, I've been selling off underutilized bikes and equipment with a goal of more easily managed rolling stock. When a used 2008 Redline Monocog 29er frameset showed up on Craigslist priced entirely too reasonably, my last excuse was vanquished.

New-to-me 2008 Redline Monocog 29er, size XL (21").

As long as it has wheels and she gets to run along with it, Scout approves.

I really like the Monocog's Atari-esque '80s style graphics. 

The plunge was made easier by the fact that since I'd been clearing out the stable a bit, I'd built up a decent bundle of bike spendable loot from the proceeds. At the same time, many of the parts to build out the frame had either been in my stash for years, or had recently shown up, meaning that it wasn't much of a stretch to finish out the build. However, instead of just using only whatever parts I had on hand, I decided to splurge a little. The Monocog would be more than a personal testbed for 29" wheels, but also for a few key pieces of equipment that I've been wanting to try for some time. After cleaning and waxing the frame, I got down to the fun of putting it all together.

Nothing groundbreaking here, just dependable Avid BB7 disc brakes; 160mm rear, 180mm front. The Redline chain tensioners make for rock solid wheel placement. A 20-tooth Surly cog is obscured from view. 

Even though the frame came with a square taper bottom bracket, I opted for the 175mm TruVativ Firex crankset Gypsy Nick left with me during his last visit. I installed a new Surly 32-tooth ring and a bash ring.

VP Components VP-001 pedals are much flashier than their name implies. Gold, of course, to complement the Monocog's Pac-Man graphics.

Nicely wide Salsa Rustler Bar 2, Ergon GP1 BioKork grips, and Avid levers finish off the controls.

As I was making plans for what I wanted to do with the Monocog, a non-negotiable element was to be a wide handlebar. I'd initially wanted to find a 780mm wide Salsa Whammy bar that I so enjoyed on the Surly Krampus, but they seem not to exist outside of the stock Krampus parts kit. Instead, I discovered the 750mm wide Salsa Rustler 2, as newly spec'd on the stunningly cool Salsa Horsethief. The Rustler features the same 11 degree backsweep as the Whammy, but with a preferable (to me) 15mm rise and 6 degree upsweep compared to the flatter Whammy.

The Salsa Rustler bar does not disappoint. The frameset came with a no-frills Redline 100mm stem with a 31.8mm clamp area that, when mated with the Rustler, makes for a super stable and confidence inspiring tiller. I can't believe I rode with much narrower bars for so many years, as was the style beginning in the late '80s and continuing for a couple of decades. I remember having bikes back in the old days with bars in the 540mm neighborhood, some of which I cut down even further for some long forgotten reason.

I finished off equipping the frameset with a few odds and ends from my parts bin, including a Thomson Elite non-offset 26.8mm seatpost, a Specialized saddle, the single-speed WTB rear wheel from Julie's Raleigh XXIX, an off-the-shelf WTB/Deore front wheel, and a pair of barely used WTB Exiwolf 2.3" steel-bead tires. Decent, pragmatic, journeyman-type parts to mix in with the sparkly, splurgy new bits.

However, I wanted to enter the 29er world fully, and felt the transition demanded something more. In this new world, tubes would be a thing of the past. I explored the options and decided to go with what some term 'ghetto' tubeless, but what I will call, for a more enlightened audience, 'handyman' tubeless. I pieced together the process from a number of online resources, of which vast numbers can be found with a quick search. It seems to me that the 'handyman' method has many more than one correct answer, much like any handyman endeavor.

At this point I'm certainly no expert, but I'll outline what worked for me in the following photos.

Start with the bare rim. I inserted the wheel in a truing stand for convenient access, then cleaned the rim with rubbing alcohol and let it dry.

One inch (25.4mm) wide Gorilla tape is inexpensive and comes in a roll long enough for about four 29er rims.

The Gorilla tape fit just inside the bottom of the channel of my WTB Speed Disc rims (labeled 26mm) just right, without going up the sides where the tire bead will be seated in a subsequent step. I overlapped it about 6 inches at the valve hole.

I cut an x-slit in the tape over the valve hole. I then cut the Presta valve assembly out of a damaged tube, and inserted the valve through the slit in the tape. Next, I  tightened the valve stem retainer nut down to force the rubber around the internal valve opening into the rim channel, making a seal. 

The next step is to install the tire (sans tube) on the rim, and thread on a Presta to Schrader adapter, if, like me, your air compressor is Schrader only.  

These items come in handy.

At this point, a test inflation helps to determine if your tire/rim combo will work tubeless, or if it will need some adjustment. I used the compressor to air up the tire, quickly at first, then somewhat more cautiously until I heard a couple of popping sounds signifying the air pressure seating the tire beads on the rim. Most resources agree not to inflate to more than 40 psi, lest risking the bead blowing off the rim. Sometimes a little soapy water on the tire bead can help it seat. With the tire/rim combo holding air, the test is a success. On to adding some sealant to make sure that the air stays put, regardless of what the tire may encounter. The next step is to pop part of the bead on one side of the tire to the outside of the rim, in order to make a gap to inject some sealant.

I used a little more than 2 ounces of Stan's sealant per tire, assisted by a syringe. Once the sealant is in, pop the bead back into the rim and air it up again. Remember, 40 psi max.

Once the sealant is in and the tire full of air, spin the wheel around, twisting and turning it to ensure sealant is spread all over the inside. The sealant quickly found and patched a hole in the tire, as evidenced by the gooey spot on the tread in the photo above. Hooray! 

I've now been riding the Monocog for a couple of weeks, and have really been having a lot of fun. With a single gear, I know that the bike's performance anywhere vertical would suffer, mostly due to the limitations of its human engine. However, it's fast on the rolling suburban dirt trails around where I live, and the simplicity of the whole setup makes me feel a bit like a kid on a BMX. The handyman tubeless setup has been working flawlessly, and I've since found some home brew sealant recipes that I may try sometime down the line.

I will say that even at this early stage, I have to deem this experimental testbed a success. Unsurprisingly, I've confirmed that the big 29" wheels feel more proportional to my body size than standard 26" wheels ever have. The bike also has an instant familiarity to me similar to that of my Pugsley, with its similar rolling diameter on 26" x 3.8" fatties. Added to that, it is astonishing how a wide handlebar creates a nearly perfect symbiosis between rider and bike. If you've never tried wide bars and are an XL-sized dirt bike nerd like me, going wide may change your off-road life forever. Any dirt bike with a bar much narrower now gives the impression that I'm on a tiny circus bike.

So far, I'm really impressed with the Monocog. Though its straight-gauge 4130 chromo steel tubing makes it ipso facto not a light weight, the bike feels well balanced and spritely, which is what matters to me. I don't know what it weighs and don't particularly care.

Time will tell what the future holds for this bike. Perhaps some gears at some point, possibly via internal hub. Maybe a 100mm -ish suspension fork. Hopefully some camping. In the mean time, I can say with confidence that the Monocog is vying for top ranking with the Pugsley as the best dog bike in the household, and will likely rack up more than its share of outings over the coming months.

Test fit: a Revelate frame pack built for a 20-inch Pugsley on the XL Monocog.

1984 Miyata Ridge Runner revamp

The Ridge Runner in its revamped form.

There has been a dearth of posts around here, which is usually accompanied by a surfeit of goings-on, as has been the case recently. Fortunately, my readership likely numbers in the single digits, so few, if any, have probably noticed. In any case, this latest installment outlines the recent rebuild of my 1984 Miyata Ridge Runner.

For years, I pined for my first Miyata; my original mountain bike that I had stupidly sold long ago. When I found a Ridge Runner as a replacement earlier this year, it was mostly stock, and had been seemingly unused for much of its life. As it turns out, lack of use is both a good and bad situation when it comes to the longevity condition of a bike. It took me some time to take the Ridge Runner apart, inspect it, and put it back together. Along the way, I rebuilt everything that could be rebuilt, and even so, had to substitute several items for those that were no longer up to par.

Join me now, on a whimsical adventure as I strip the frame and reassemble it, as only an old bike nut can.

First sign of trouble. The bottom bracket exhibited considerably less than free rotational action. At about this point, I began to wonder if only old timers like myself still possess semi-obsolete bottom bracket tools such as this. 

That is 29 years worth of old, waxy grease that no longer has any lubricating value. Difficult to spot in this photo are the tiny fragments of metal embedded throughout. You got it, a shattered bearing.

On the positive, inside the frame was clean and without any sign of rust.

My suspicions were borne out after cleaning the spindle, when the drive side race was clearly pitted. One of the ball bearings had mostly disintegrated at some point in the distant past, and its fragments subsequently chiseled away at the race.

Next up was the rear derailleur. The upper pulley of the SunTour MounTech derailleur had a thick wad of waxy grease and an impressive quantity of embedded hair wrapped around it. I don't know why, but hair often ends up in pulley wheels. 

Having things apart allowed me to confirm, as suspected, the frame features SunTour dropouts.

I cleaned the derailleur thoroughly. I have some experience with this era of SunTour derailleurs, which have an extra spring-loaded pivot housed in the center of the upper pulley which is incredibly difficult to service. The pivot is more than likely to explode if an attempt is made to open it. 

I cleaned the derailleur, but could not get the upper pulley to spin freely without an obvious feeling of gritty, impeded movement.  In the end, rather than destroy the MounTech derailleur in an attempt to make it serviceable, I decided to use a different derailleur. In the old days, most of the SunTour Mountech derailleurs from 1983 and 1984 were replaced under warranty anyway, so a replacement is in keeping with the practice of of this era. Apparently, the MounTech design worked well under perfect conditions, but was finicky and fragile. If you're interested in learning more, there's a good article about it here, and frankly if you've read this far, why not?

I have few spare SunTour derailleurs, so the first I considered was the Cyclone M-II.

The first SunTour rear derailleur that I considered for using on the Ridge Runner was a Cyclone M-II; a design that was produced between about 1982 and 1985. The one I have is in pristine shape, and has a sculptural smoothness and feeling of quality that no longer exists in mass-produced mechanical devices. It really is a beautiful piece of machinery, almost jewelry-like in its detail and sophistication. The Cyclone M-II is more finely engineered and crafted than most high-zoot watches I've ever seen.

However, the Cyclone M-II not quite right for my Ridge Runner. I don't intend for this bike to be a museum item, and it would be a shame to beat up the Cyclone off road. Moreover, it doesn't have quite the chain capacity that I need, so I dug a little more in my parts bin. I located a set of circa 1985 SunTour XC Sport 7000 derailleurs. The rear would likely have been of the sort used for warranty replacement of a faulty MounTech derailleur. Perfect. Incidentally, it was somewhere around this time that SunTour transitioned to being spelled Suntour, with the lower case T.

SunTour (Suntour?) XC Sport derailleurs.

Presto! The same derailleur, suddenly clean, through the magic of the internet.

While cleaning the frame and parts, I found some cryptic indicators denoting era of manufacture, further underscoring 1984 as the year of production of the majority of the parts on the bike. I couldn't help but think of the dates I found in relation to the events of my life at the time. Ninth grade. Not an entirely happy time for me. I suppose any year in which Ghostbusters and Star Trek III came out wasn't all bad, though.

The super clean Dia-Compe brake levers are inscribed "0184", likely month and year of manufacture

The end of the Nitto bullmoose bar is stamped "Cr-Mo" and "R-R", possibly meaning the bar design was specific to the Ridge Runner. Who knows? 

The "M" in the serial number signifies 1984, but I have no idea how to interpret the rest of the number. Yep, no chain marring here, baby.

Clean and temporarily devoid of parts.

Once I'd finished cleaning and inspecting the frame, fork and parts, and deciding what to reuse or replace, I began the task of putting it all back together. I like to assemble bikes, and took my time doing it just the way I wanted. That said, my goal was to keep with the spirit of the bike, if not always the precise year of parts for those items that couldn't tenably be used for anything amounting to actual off-road riding. Of course, I filed away all the original parts in my shop, just in case.

I've been wrapping the drive-side chainstays of my bikes with tube strips since 1988, and I'm sure others were doing it well before me. It's how I generally begin a build.

That's a Park Third Hand tool, a Park Fourth Hand tool, and a 10 mm wrench simultaneously used to adjust the front brake. As much as I like old bike stuff, I'll take the much simpler adjustment of Avid BB7 disc brakes over this any day.

The original bottom bracket was pitted and unusable. However, as it was an astounding 135 mm wide, I didn't have any replacements wide enough to enable the original Sugino AT cranks to clear  the chainstays. Therefore, I sourced the logic-al successor to the Sugino AT, a 1990 Ritchey Logic crankset made by Sugino. A Shimano UN-71 cartridge bottom bracket spins it all nicely.

Standing in for gear-changing duty, the Suntour XC Sport rear derailleur looks quite squared-away on the bike.  Minimal use or not, after 29 years, a new chain was in order. The chainstays are so long and the largest cogs so big that I didn't need to remove any links to achieve a proper fit. 

The Ridge Runner was originally spec'd with some sort of ergonomic grips, which are long gone. Ergon GP-1 grips are my current favorites, and blend in well. SunTour Power ratchet shifters are a joy to service and rebuild. Modern shifters don't come anywhere close. New cables and housing all around, of course.

Another stand-in are the wheels; Mavic M6CD rims on Deore XT M730 hubs that I had built in 1989. These wheels have been used very little in the past 24 years and the rims are nicely wide. The original Araya rims on SunTour hubs have bone-dry bearings and await me to repack them when I get a little more time. In the mean time, you gotta love the '80s Mavic graphics.

For rubber, I went with a pair of new, fat WTB Weirwolf 2.55 LT tires. I know, I know. For historical accuracy I should've used something with a skinwall. However, good skinwalls are hard to come by, and I want to actually ride this bike. The Weirwolf has a nice rounded profile with shortish knobs, similar to early mountain bike tires, and is about the fattest tire that will fit this bike. I've always used the fattest tires I've been able to find, and I'm sure the same would've been the case in 1984.

The present iteration of the Ridge Runner is finished, and I'm eager to get it out in the dirt. In the couple of short rides I've taken so far, the refurbishment has felt great. The bike feels like it is new, and I can tell it's got a lot of adventure left in it.