Ahilavati

She's my current daily ride. She's the first bike I own since coming to study in Japan. We had some on-and-off relationship for a while: I'd been going with another bikes for times, and she'd been with other guys too. Well, no jealousy here. She was also in another city for a while I was involved in a rural revitalization project, which in the end I went home with another bicycle [in addition to her still in my possession] by the time the project concluded.

I use the bottle cage for a light rain jacket as I rarely do any ride which requires me to bring some water bottle. The pannier rack is for grocery and other weird things I transport on errands. Saddle isn't that high as I often ride her with pair of slippers/crocs rather than proper shoes. The stem is slammed to the bottom 'cause the clampable portion of the fork is already so short, even without spacers and stuff.
 
The fork she originally came with was broken, she once had a suspension fork, but now I settled with 700c fork with V-brake bosses. V-brake is nice that you can fit a wider tire. But with lever designed for dual pivot caliper brake, you need to true your rim really nice to avoid rubbing, or just ignore it as long as it isn't so serious. She sports 25c at the moment which is getting duller everyday, I am a broke student.

I am learning to bunny-hop with her. I can now lift my front wheel, I can lift my rear wheel, but linking the latter while the front wheel is still on the air is not in my curriculum vitae, yet. Neither is  proper manual.

 

Sorry for the chain, I am such a poser T_T

Sandwich finish

This year's Giro d Italia: stage 18 finish was exhilarating.


Here is the photo finish.

1-3 finish for Etixx Quick-Step (Matteo Trentin and Gianluca Brambilla) with Moreno Moser on the sandwich. Other than manly victory salute of Trentin, we can also highlight Brambilla's genuine and honest smile.

So here is how the final sprint unfolded:

• Brambilla and Moser were cooperatively pulling on damn 20% climb away from the break,
• Brambilla was pulling hard to the (second-to-last?) final bend with Moser trailing right behind, Trentin was like 5 seconds behind,
• Moser opened up his sprint, Brambilla followed. Moser took over to lead the sprint,
• Brambilla didn't really push on the sprint and pulled a bit, Moser was little bit confused as...
• Trentin simply surged to the finish line.

Moser was pretty much like, "Damn, they got me!"
Brambilla was like "Aha, yay!"

EQS played their (Italian) cards right, unlike Spain on 2013's UCI World Elite Men RR.

Braced against impact

Not much, just a broken fork. The wheel was also damaged (to lesser extent).






The steering tube is so thin, pretty much designed to break upon front impact to absorb the force.

PS: Always ride carefully (or at least responsibly), especially in the night.

Phone on Bike (2015 Letour Grand Depart)

From Letour Grand Departure this year. Several professional riders brought out the camera cellphone while riding to stage. They did this purposely more likely to cherish this special moment with fans and everyone--which is a good thing. But something is missing.

The act isn't really educational. You shouldn't use cellphone while your bike is moving, despite one-hand bike handling on low speed isn't that difficult (they are pros anyway); but it's just distracting--and disregard to such kind of problem may further precede ugly accidents (hope not).

Jeremy Roy is a nice guy, he had bike cam instead of cellphone.

Lastly, it'd be great if helm maker could make small camera mounted on helmet, which just fit in the the helmet rather than making obstructive appearance and giving wrong impression on speed and distance.

IBM 7094 Daisy Bell

It was dubbed "first computer to sing"; a bunch of guys hacked into IBM 7094 to make it sing (or make some mass-understandable beeps in this regards). It probably involved some degree of speech and music synth. The song was Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Built for Two) written in 1892 by Harry Dacre.



Daisy, Daisy,
Give me your answer do!
I'm half crazy,
All for the love of you!
It won't be a stylish marriage,
I can't afford a carriage
But you'll look sweet upon the seat
Of a bicycle made for two.
...
  Harry, Harry, here is my answer true
  You're half crazy if you think that that will do
  If you can't afford a carriage
  There won't be any marriage
  Cause I'll be switched if I'll get hitched
  On a bicycle built for two

I wish she's willing to be my stoker.

Oldie Beauty

I've been riding with this utility bike for quite some time. She is an old bike (from late 80s or early 90s, I suppose) which I already broke the fork she came initially with. The original paint is purple but already covered with black layer by the time I purchased her from local flea market.

About the group: the brake-shift levers are old Altus, the rear derailer is A050, front mech is Tourney. The wheel is Nova Rigida with local-made Delitire tire. The latest addition is messy bluish-black paintjob (which is a big mess done by me personally) and the invert-installed fork.

I had to install the fork inverted because I messed welding the headtube (the original one simply tore away), putting it way too reclined. Given the stem is already too short, the handling is hard and nippy, thus to compensate this problem I had to invert the fork so the front axle is closer way back.


 
simple black beauty

Retirees

I've finally retired my faithful KMC Z9 and 3 sprockets (2300's 15T and 13T, Deore's 11T). All of them have gone through considerable abuse (by me personally). May peace be upon them.

The chain: KMC Z9, beaten up pretty good

The chain is elongated way too much. It makes squeaky noise under heavy pedal stroke. Not that I am a powerful pusher-sprinter, I just forgot to replace it sooner (it's been around for 2-3 years already if I remember correctly).

Let's get technical: 15.5 links are 20 cm long (the tile is 20 cm wide). The math is: 15.5 links x 1.57 cm (standard chain pitch) = 19.685 cm is the way a good chain should be. So how abused my chain has gone through? 20 cm / 15.5 links = 1.29... cm/link; 1.29 x 20 cm = 25.8... cm. Sheldon here said that it is way over the tolarable length (25.7 cm for 20 links--10 links if you count inside-outside links as a link).

I guess I am pretty stupid not to change it sooner.

top 3 sprockets

I rode all-odd 8-speed 25T-11T, and the top (smallest) three are my favorites. On commuting rides, I mostly went with 50/34 at front 13T at the rear, occasionally switching to 15T or 11T for extra acceleration or extra 'push' rescpectively. To make things worse: I'd like to do some climbing on 34T compact front and 15T in the rear. Yeah, you may call me pussy now.

The sprockets are probably heavily dammaged by the over-elongated chain. As I replaced the chain (with another KMC Z9 of course), it frequently 'skipped/jumped' if I am on 34 in the front. So I need to change these sprockets too. Now I am riding 26T-23T-21T-19T-17T-15T-13T-12T. Yeah, you may call me pussy again now.

The moral is: always inspect your chain regularly, 2 weeks or so will do.

---update
Forgot to include my loose bottom bracket's bearings too (Sora's Hollowtech II)

the left bearing is super-loose, the right is so-so

Zéfal Z Cross AL review

Zéfal Z Cross AL. I've been using this portable pump for a while, so it's time for some review.

Here's few points:
+ tough material from aluminium,
+ easy maintenance: you can unscrew the back valve cover and put some light oil regularly (a month or so),

# larger size for more air being pumped,
# unique locking mechanism using that o-ring,
# decent pressure: it takes me 60-70 strokes to inflate 700c tube to nice-usable pressure (I'm not particularly working out to do so),
# easy swappable Schrader-Presta valve,

- the valve cover strapped to the thumb lock is a stupid idea, the strap broke after just few days :(
- the thumb lock doesn't work as it's supposed to: it needs no be pulled (only) halfway-through to work properly on Schrader valves.


--figure out the points yourself

Worthy buy I guess. :)

Bicycle Helmet

I just lost my helmet about a month ago, and now I don't think I should buy another one soon. (But sometimes doing 60+ kph twisty downhill without helmet is kind of scary :hehe: )

To Encourage Bicycling, Lose Your Helmet

Romantic?

Speaking of Titanic, you can always remember the scene with the protagonist couple hugging in the ship's bow, feeling the wind blowing (at 6 knot?), I suppose that's what most people calls "romantic".

I've come up with slightly different view for what's the most romantic moment that could happen to myself:
with some (pretty hard) rain, on the summit of Cat1 climb where I led the whole ascend, we just stopped and had 3 mins hug and a simple kiss, she then led the descend afterwards.

To me sense of romance is about "exchanging things", thus the scene features some exchanges:
- saliva: (kiss: just make sure we both open our mouth widely),
- body heat (hug: due to the rain and different riding position, it'll **feel** more apparent),
- sweat (hug: you can barely tell which [dilluted with rain] sweat drop is whose at the points of body contact),
- lead (different leader on the ascend and descend).

 Blah! But exchanging helmets, gloves, or bike--I feel--won't make it more romantic. I suppose it just works on uncountable things. Anyway, making it HC climb or more expensive bike won't do much diffrence.

---------
Wait, if porn features kisses, hugs, exchanges of lead (the one who moves more frantically), why just because the actress is camera-aware for 2 secs, the whole 30 mins video is rather **unromantic**.
--------

Nah, let me correct myself: being romantic is showing your true colors
---Olivia Ong: True Colors just happenned to be on my playlist by the time I wrote this

Le Tour: Team Sky

Team Sky Pro Cycling has  it overkill this year on TdF. The squad is (un-)heralded to be the best super team (and likely the most expensive squad, in a way). They've got World champ, several national champs (and ex-national champs); and the yellow helmet is just funny :)




Yellow for Wiggins
Bradley Wiggins's always been top GC contender, hasn't thing gone wrong the final yellow jersey should go for him.

Green for Cavendish
Sagan, Goss, Griepel, Petachi: yet we can't deny that Cav is amazingly fast in the last 100m.

Polka-dot for Froome
This one doesn't sound quite right, there's still Movistar, Euskaltel, FDJ, Schleck and Sanchez.
 
White for Boasson Hagen
 Why not?
 

Too bad they lost Siutsov.

Shakariki

I've always a huge fan of cycling movies, but Shakariki has it too much.

It's a good movie overall: a lot of bicycles, spirit, and of course--cute female supporting character. But to some extend, some scene over-exaggerates the cycling aspects: making the characters look like some super athlete like Contador or Schlecks.

See:
The main protagonist was forcing himself to run the way after his teammate (captain) suffered from puncture. Running on climb with cleat-equipped pedal is just reckless: it's just easy to lose the grip and balance. Moreover, the steep climb was just 'too-much', if you tilt your display correctly according to how trees grow--you'll find the gradient was much easier.

D'oh!

Fira: Her First Pictures

Yesterday I went to Coban Rondo with my not-so-new 2011 Helios 100. The ride takes about one hour and half--who really cares--it was recreational, no? (at least no one overtaked me during the whole ride)

She arrived at August 18th, then I started riding with her by late of September. I hadn't taken any pictures of her--not just until yesterday :)



Anyway, by the (long) descent in Payung I had puncture in rear wheel. I'm just grateful that I didn't crash from it.
____
Sorry for the bad pictures, I took the photos with (cheap) cellphone's camera.

Broken RDs

I broke a friend of mine's rear derailer--it's Acera--quite some time ago, and recently 2300 of my own.

The story is simple, they have different 'break point' so I just assemble them at different hinges. So:
+ =

But, uhmm... the inside hinge (the one closer to the frame) is tilted too much, and likely renders the derailer unusable.

New (Clipless) Pedal

It's been a long time since last time I posted, and I've missed a lot of things. Recently I've been playing with new stuff: bike, AVR projects, computer stuffs and such.

For now, just an update on my pedal system. I recently bought VP-R80 road clipless pedal (which I have to borrow some money from my mom). It's Shimano compatible with no special features, at least now I have road clipless pedal, no?


I still use the old shoes (I don't remember the last time I washed it, hehe). Again, installing the cleat was a mess, but at least (again) it works fine.


And eh, the bike is also new--but I haven't taken any picture of it.

Ayuro[0]

After I lost Cathy several months ago (which reminds me: Armstrong lost his TT-bike around 2009), I've decided to revamp Cherry into yet-another life.

The concept is 'personal-flat bed-pursuit-suicide as ever'. It employs some uncommon designs which you can notice yourself: headtube, downtube, steep seattube's with dual triangle junction in the middle, etc. It's kinda reckless I suppose--but it's what it takes to make a suicide bike, no? :)







The name is 'Ayuro[0]'; spelled close between 'aura' and 'aero', the '[0]' obviously points to the first element in the array.
at least it's much illegible rather than *Ayuro and *(Ayuro+sizeof(Ayruro)) for the second model, and so on :).

_________
Thanks to Lila for her HTC Desire--the pictures are much better

Clipless Pedal

I've recently attached pair of clipless pedal to Cathy. They are FPD-C13BA.

Sorry for the blurry images:



About the cycling shoes, I adapt an football shoes, fixing cleats into them. Don't ask me how to do is--it was a big mess. :D

It's Joma shoes which I sacrificed:


How it's done, the cleat is properly installed:


Finally, mounted :D

New Casette for Cherry

After I put the old casette off after 5 years of faithful service, I installed 7 sprockets casestte into Cherry.

Just wanna show it:


The smallest sprocket still "cling-cling" as the frame (and rear hub) was originally designed for 6-sprockets casette. Frame and hub works awaiting! :)

Cheap Brake-pads

I should've posted this days ago.

I (recently) bought cheap brake pads (a pair cost Rp 5k), I bought 6 pairs of them. They are soft and lock the wheel in split a second, suitable for my riding style.

Here they are:


And this is how they are installed on Cherry:


Not suprisingly, they are made in China.

Integrated Break Shifter, really?

If you look closer to my handlebar, you will notice such misplaced ugly break-shifter which designed for normal hybrid (closer to mountain) bike. So why did I put it that way?


Left one.


Right one.

There's some advantages over regular STI/ergo brifters:
- much cheaper (IDR 200k)
- you could shift while braking (rather hard to do on STI)
- easier to adjust (has more joint) between bar and brifters

Disadvantages:
- hard to shift when on drop (especially pull-shift)
- look cheap :(

So how I made it:
Just put metal bar ends which you cut to appropriate length. Install it there! (you will notice such small bar of metal ascending there, won't you?)