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Pugsley Portage Custom Rack

April 8, 2013 by ravingbikefiend

Portage Custom Rack

 

One of the most common complaints I hear from other fat bike riders is that there is a lack of quality racks for their bicycles and when you ride a Pugsley you have to deal with a frame that has a 17mm offset at both ends to accommodate the wheels and wider bottom bracket.

Off the peg racks that do sorta fit utilize sliding mounts and lower arms that can be offset and to tell you the truth, I don’t like these because it introduces points of failure and most of them are not designed for serious off road expeditions.

To that end I decided to build a custom rear rack for my Pugsley and will say that building a rack is nearly as much work as building a frame, and there are a lot more joints to braze.

After working and reworking a few design ideas I now have what I have christened the “Portage” as it allows one to adjust the vertical height of their panniers by almost 4 inches. With the bags sitting low they do not interfere with anything that might get loaded up top and can be raised when you want some extra clearance on the trail or when you are crossing deeper water.

It has tie down points at the front of the top deck and could be customized further to include things like a u-lock holder, light mounts, pump mounts, or even be built to hold a battery pack for those who ride e-conversions.

Low mount…

Portage rack low mount.

 

High mount…

Portage high mount

 

Installation took all of three minutes as it is plug and play and specific to the Pugsley frame, a front rack with dual position low rider mounts will follow.

If you are interested in having one of these racks built for your Pugsley or need a custom rack for any other bicycle please contact me at keithhallgren@gmail.com so I can provide a detailed estimate.

 

 

 

 

 

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It’s Springtime in Alberta… Seriously ?

March 19, 2013 by ravingbikefiend

Without a woman another winter storm comes raging through and the mercury is falling… and I am left all alone. - Ian Tyson, Springtime in Alberta

Last year at this time it was a little crisp but recall we were out riding our summer bicycles and celebrated St. Patrick’s day by going on a little pub crawl where I got to take out the Raleigh Twenty with my friends, Adrian and Brett. Last night I just stayed home and consoled myself with a few fingers of Jameson’s after I fulfilled all my adult responsibilities.

This is my precipitation indicator, the wheels on the Pug have sunk to the hard pack below all the fresh snow which looks to be about 5 inches worth and more has fallen since, the snow depth is close to three feet here now.

 

Pugsley 2013

In addition to being an excellent measuring tool the Pugsley is a pretty handy vehicle for riding through weather like this and the only things it does not like are black ice (but who does) and deeper snow. So when cars and bicycles are wallowing about on the roads the Pug just keeps rolling on and it does get a lot of looks as there still aren’t many of these rolling about.

Parking is never a problem when there is this much snow either.

Pugsley 2013

Now as far as spring goes, this is when a young man’s fancy turns to love an old man realizes how lucky they are to be married to such a wonderful and amazing woman, I just sent off what I hope is the last of the paperwork that Immigration Canada needs to approve the permanent resident visa and then Donna will be moving here, forever.

Spring is also a wonderful time for those feathered kids… you could cut the hormones with a knife and Miss Amore has finally stopped grabbing the bars and stretching herself out while saying what is the Ringneck equivalent of “DO ME!” and of course, Lucce remains absolutely clueless.

Looks like the snow has finally stopped and we are going to be looking at skies of endless blue over a deep sea of white and although it might look cold, the sun is now blessing us with it’s warmth and a kid could get a sunburn if they were not careful. :)

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Coffee, Ride, Repeat.

February 16, 2013 by ravingbikefiend

There is nothing quite as good as a little freshly ground Black and Tan coffee from Earth’s General Store to wrap up what has already been a busy morning… and some busy weeks.

Got the kid off to work early and spent some time with the feathered babies, Noah is a baby Jardine or Red Fronted parrot that is a relative of the Senegal and Brown Headed Parrot and what a sweet baby he is. He is gentle and curious about everything and everyone, and is pretty much fearless. They are quieter parrot and have become more and more popular due to their gentle and playful disposition and are regarded as great talkers.

I decided that it was time to upgrade my phone this week and join the 21st century… I took advantage of Blackberry’s newest release of the Z10 by getting a really good deal on a BB Curve 9320. :) I use my BB Playbook a great deal and with the pairing of the devices my Playbook now has mobile internet via the Curve’s 3G and with the Balckberry Bridge it really unifies the devices so that they operate as one. I can manage all the phone’s text based messaging via my tablet and Bluetooth connection without wifi and will probably load the phone app for the Playbook.

I am looking forward to the BB10 upgrade as I believe it will expand the functionality of the Playbook even more and I already love this tablet, which has been a great travelling companion over the past year.

And there is bike stuff too !

A few weeks ago I decided to stop by the north side shop and what to my wondering eyes did appear… was one of the nicest Moulton bicycles I have ever seen… and it was for sale.

This bicycle had belonged to my friend John and I have ogled it many times before and he had given it to one of our volunteers last fall… yes… given. He is the same person who gave me the Moulton Mk2 which is still in the works.

Quite sadly, that volunteer passed away recently and his family decided to donate the bicycle to the commuter’s society he was so devoted to working for… I could not pass on buying the bicycle and paid significantly more than the asking price as I am often the person who gets asked “how much is this bike worth ?”.

It really needed nothing mechanical (because John is a master builder) but as it had been set up for someone much smaller than me I am in the process of changing out the bars to drops, will run new brake cables, and switch the shifter for a bar end model. It will also get a vintage Brooks and a new Carradice Pendle bag and think I will have to take it to Portland at the end of April as it should serve me quite well for any kind of riding we might do.

Now it is time to refill that coffee…

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The Winter Blahs…

January 23, 2013 by ravingbikefiend

I have not been riding much since I returned from Portland but did get out today to run some errands on the Norco (Mountaineer) which is my dedicated winter bicycle in that, it does not see any summer use as I have many other bicycles for that. When spring comes I will make sure it is clean and lubed and then hang it up until the snow flies in the fall.

It was -13 C and the wind was negligible which makes for pretty much perfect winter riding conditions here as by this time of year, snow is a given and handling that just requires studded tyres to keep the shiny side up.

Despite having this reputation as a hard core winter cyclist I really don’t feel as if any of this is hard at all as once you have the right gear and more importantly, the right attitude and mind set, cycling in the winter really is not as hard as it first appears.

Have been suffering from some mid winter, post Christmas, damn I miss my wife blahs and really need to work on that mindset thing knowing that the best cure for this isn’t more cowbell, but more cycling.

We got some good news from Immigration Canada this week… we have to re-submit those FBI checks for my wife to show she has never sold drugs to children while dressed as a nun and some minor financial information and then I think we will be entering the home stretch and will soon be together here in the far frozen north.

Can’t think of anything that will cure the blahs more than this.

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Soup

January 16, 2013 by ravingbikefiend

Sitting here with a fresh cup of coffee (Earth’s General Store Black and Tan) and with the birds chirping and clicking happily away I am going to make some soup here, the ingredients will be varied and I’ll just be throwing them in as they come to me and hope you like it.

I did make soup yesterday, it was a nice tomato based bean soup that was loaded with garlic and oregano and given a healthy dose of cilantro for good measure and it was enjoyed by all, the butterflies had seconds and thirds, I dropped some off for a friend, and there is still 3 litres set back in the freezer for another day.

Real Soup

I spent the holiday season in Portland with my wife which is something I have been doing for many years as she is still there in Oregon while we wait on Immigration Canada to finalize her Visa application, everything on this side of things has been done and this cannot come soon enough.

The outbound trip was very nice and I opted to drive to Kamloops and come south through the Coquihalla highway because of the winter storms raging across central Washington and aside from heavy snow in the pass it was an event free trip save for the interrogation and car tossing by the good folks at U.S. Customs.

I often find their questions and commentary to border on ridiculous like their thought that I was not carrying nearly enough luggage for a month in Portland (I could barely pick up my suitcase) and they wanted to know everything about my wife and why she and I lived in different countries. I told them we were working on that and then they wondered how I could afford to spend so much time in the U.S. not understanding what “forcibly retired” means.

We had a wonderful time over Christmas and the weeks went by all too quickly, with Donna working days I was left to my own devices and did take advantage of this to catch up on my rest as driving and travelling really beats me up.

For Christmas I improved Donna’s Peugeot which I brought to Portland so she could have a lighter bicycle to ride as she continues to recover from whooping cough. New wheels with a generator hub and light, new tyres, and a custom made rack I built should make this a very utilitarian machine that is a good 20 pounds lighter than her Townie.

UE18 Supersport

My wife has a really nice rack… :)

Custom rack

While I was in Portland my friend Shawn and I took in an underground bike swap that was sponsered by Ruckus Cycles and by underground I mean that it was held in a parking garage which is a good idea in the Pacific Northwet. The Sentra is a bike hauling machine and we also brough a bunch of odds and ends and ending up selling almost nothing and spending more ourselves.

My $1.00 car has been serving me well since I got it registered and insured in June and has logged over 15,000 km and made three trips to Portland and back, has crossed nearly every pass in the Alberta Rockies, and has been as far as the Oregon coast on several occasions. I replaced the spark plugs and fuel filter when I got to Portland and this was long overdue, what was a good running car became a great running car and my mileage over the trip averaged out at 34mpg. Considering that I usually blaze through Washington at 75 miles an hour and have to climb mountains and I think this is decent.

The first half of the drive home was uneventful save for a vibration that developed late in the day and when I pulled into Sandpoint Idaho for the night I knew I’d have to get things checked in the am, hoping I would not be delayed too much. Sure enough, one of my front tyres had developed a minor separation so I had to get that replaced before I could continue northward through Idaho and into B.C.and the guys at the Les Schwalbe at Bonner’s Ferry were awesome and had me in and out of the shop in 30 minutes.

Northern Idaho is a beautiful place and is quite desolate and peaceful and I would like to be able to spend more time here some day rather than drive through it. I did stop at at The Wild Horse Mercantile to top up the fuel before I crossed into Canada and when I walked in I was welcomed by the smell of a wood stove and this delightful pup who only wanted to play fetch with me. She brought me a cedar chip and set it on my lap while I was sitting and having a little lunch and think she could have played this all day.

The food was excellent and conversation with the owner (Beth) and a fellow from Texas (Monty) was really enjoyable and I will make sure top stop by on the next trip to have a little lunch and have a round of fetch as the dog belongs to the owners.

The final leg of the trip home can only be called brutal as after crossing the Crowsnest pass I found myself having to deal with high winds and blowing snow that caused near whiteout conditions and this kept up until I hit Calgary which was a absolute mess of black ice which seems to be a sign for Calgary drivers to go faster. I watched a pickup truck nearly flip in front of a semi which was ahead of me and to the left and narrowly missed putting the Sentra into the box of the truck. Cannot say how much I love those Nokian snow tyres and even with those, what was supposed to be a 7 hour trip took closer to 12.

I brought Donna’s Breezer home with me thinking it wasn’t fair that it gets to immigrate before she does, it really looked quite beautiful after being subjected to a few hours of the ice fog I ran into at Red Deer.

I have had a week to settle back in to life here in Edmonton and celebrated Christmas with my girls on Sunday (more on that later) and yesterday we were warmer than most of North America, today is going to be nearly as balmy

Looks like this coffee is done and some birds need some scritches… and then I have to get out to the shop to take care of a new patient this morning.

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Portland…

December 21, 2012 by ravingbikefiend

I left Edmonton on Monday afternoon and spent an evening in Wetaskiwin before setting out on Tuesday morning and made it as far as Revelstoke before I decided to call it a night. With our winter days being so short and the roads being what they are I thought it best to not be driving at night.

On Wednesday I drove nearly 1000 km and arrived here in Portland in the early evening after crossing snow covered mountain passes and then driving through what was non stop rain from the time I hit the B.C. delta and passed through Washington State and into Oregon.

The sun is shining now and we are enjoying some rather pleasant weather, this morning I changed the spark plugs and fuel filter in the car and saw a noticeable improvement in performance so I think I can also expect an improvement in the gas mileage which has not been bad on this trip.

Apparently… it is supposed to be the end of the world today and we missed it.

I guess we have been too busy cuddling up together and running all kinds of errands.

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Snow Day

December 6, 2012 by ravingbikefiend

I guess that sometimes you have to go and brush the snow off the bike too…

Yesterday’s little blizzard left another 9-17 cm of snow on top of what has already fallen and the city is considering a seasonal parking ban due to the unusually high levels of snow we have received. December is our snowiest month and think we have seen nearly 50cm, or 20 inches of snow so far.

I have been so busy of late with the shop renovations and overhauling the house that I have not had the time or energy to get out and ride and this may be one of the longest layoffs I have had in years… and I will need to address that.

I think the much increased pain levels are a result of what my beautiful wife would describe as “overdoing things” combined with a lack of therapeutic riding.

My friends dropped off some high tech thermal wrap yesterday so this afternoon I will insulate the battery case for the Extrabike and think that a little later on I will power my way over to the bike co-op to keep the guys company… the shop is pretty quiet in the winter although we stay open a few days a week at each location to service the needs of winter cyclists.

This will be a good test of the new AWD bike in what is some fairly significant snow.

Both the girls are at home today with colds… this is the first time I have ever seen Dani be sick with anything although she just got over Scarlet fever and was with her mom during this time.

Alex just got her first job and is supposed to start tomorow, she will be working at the pet store which is so much better than anything else she could get. The staff are great and think she will do very well and I won’t complain about her staff discounts either. :)

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Ch ch ch changes….

November 30, 2012 by ravingbikefiend

It has been a busy week in the bike spa as I have been re-tooling so that I can start doing brazing work here… it has been coming together nicely and I am so thankful for the good friends I have who have been such a great help.

Yesterday I picked up a new steel workbench and tool cabinet with the help of my good friend Al… I plan to use the steel table for layout and brazing work and it will be getting a 1/4 steel plate to improve what I think is already a nice design. The table top folds down and it has two hydraulic dampers to make this a smooth and safe operation that you can do with one hand.

The pad under the compressor keeps it from dancing across the shop floor while the oxygen and propane are the weapons of choice for brazing steel. A lot of people use acetylene but when you combine the extra cost, shipping and storage concerns, and the fact it makes me sicker than a dog, propane is the way to go.

The most important upgrade might be in the new 80,000 btu space heater which replaces my 23,000 btu kerosene heater… in the space of an hour my shop went from -5C to 15C with the unit running at half it’s possible output.

If anyone needs a gently used and very nice kerosene heater that can be used indoors just drop me a note and we can haggle.

Time to get back to work here…

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extrabike with a capital E…

November 26, 2012 by ravingbikefiend

For some time I have been pondering what it would be like to convert my extrabike into an Extrabike and today my friend and I dropped a slightly used Crystalyte hub motor kit into “Stretch”. My friend Brian is a bit of a genius when it comes to these things and the system was pretty much plug and play… it only took us a few hours to do this.

All in all, we were very pleased with how clean an install it was.

When I rolled into the shop Stretch curbed out at 50 pounds and rolled out with another 50 pounds of motor and batteries, the controller is tucked under the rear deck where it will stay clean and dry.

It essentially turned my RWD pickup truck into an AWD and anyone who has ridden a pickup in the winter here knows what that can be like and how a FWD or AWD is the superior vehicle.

Evan at 100 pounds it is not a hard bike to pedal on the flats, (if you are blessed with two good legs) and it has a stump pulling low gear and with the rear wheel being un-weighted as it is, keeping that rear wheel spinning is much easier than with a standard bike.

But then there are hills and headwinds and at this time of year those hills are packed with snow which can make the going just a little harder and this is where the FWD really seems to shine… I was really slogging away on the ride down and on the way back doubled back to see how the twice as heavy and now powered bike would handle that snow covered 10 – 12% grade I have to climb every time I head south.

Lets just say… dayum.

The only weakness, besides that which I feel in my left leg, is that the gel lead acid batteries might not function as well in colder weather and to that end will be talking to a guy about re-cycing some used Prius battery cells to build a 36 V Nimh power supply. I might even build two so that I can switch back and forth and double the range.

Will be putting the Extrabike to the test this week to check the range… it’s performance on winter roads was rather outstanding today.

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It Isn’t Always About Bikes & Pretty Girls

November 14, 2012 by ravingbikefiend

My wife is an amazing woman… she does not discourage my pursuit of bicycles and we share a common love of things that were made in an age when so many of our every day consumer goods were not disposable and made to a much higher standard.

Like many people my age I remember the table glasses we had while I was growing up were made by Duralex of France, a company that has been producing extremely affordable glassware since 1927 under a number of owners. They are also responsible for the invention of tempered glass which is what makes their simple glasses and tableware stand out from the rest and makes car windshields safer.

I also have an affection for Pyrex and cast iron but that is a ramble for another day.

I have been hunting for these glasses for some time and was quite pleased to discover that Ikea carries glasses that are made by Duralex, these are the “Provence” design with the IKEA brand on the bottom of the glass and they call them Pokal.

Even better than buying them new is finding 16 more of them at a thrift shop that all say “Duralex” and finding examples that are no longer made.

This is the Picardie, the glass that started it all for Duralex, and has been described as the perfect drinking vessel… and it would be hard to disagree once you have held one of these in your hand.

I found four of these 10 oz Picardie glasses that I believe are of more recent manufacture…

I have a set of the 6 oz Provence that was made when Duralex was run by Bormioli of Italy (1997 to 2003) and under their ownership, Duralex almost ceased to exist… this is the 4 oz version made by Duralex that I found today.

These are all glasses one can buy today as Duralex was saved and is now doing very well due to a resurgence in the popularity of these iconic glasses that most people of my generation remember.

This Duralex glass was THE one I was seeking and was the kind my parents had, for as much as I could find it would appear that Duralex no longer makes this design and references are scant. I call it a diamond pattern because I do not know the proper designation for them and will say it makes Celtic Crosses taste that much better.

It was a good day as besides filling my cupboard with my favourite glasses I also found a good number of picture frames and what appears to be a virtually new Rival crock pot that came with it’s instruction manual and recipe book. When you flip it over you can see that it says “Made IN THE U.S.A.” and my beautiful wife would tell you that the Chinese made crock pots are not worth the money you spend on them so for $12.99, this was a great find.

Those glasses are all washed up and one of their other virtues is their stackable design which can make the most of limited space which make them appeal to students and people in smaller apartments.

Patrick Taylor writes more eloquently than I do about the history and virtues of Duralex glasses on what appears to be a rather excellent blog…

Patrick Taylor – The Duralex Picardie Glass

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