Tom's Place

Last updated Sunday, September 26, 2004

I've been a cyclist for as long as I can remember, just sometimes more so than others.

I enjoy touring on occasion - I've ridden the Oregon and California coasts and riding in the SLOBC Lighthouse and Wildflower rides has become an annual tradition for me. Here are a couple of stories of the longer rides.

I also commute to work by bicycle quite regularly. It seems I do it less so in the winter these days, and my waistline shows it. Ah well, I guess that is part of settling into middle age.

My favorite bike is an Eisentraut thatt I ordered from Albert back in 1974. I rode that bike for 25 years before I hung it up. Just before I retired it I sent it back to Albert for a fresh paint job. Black with yellow decals, it's pretty sharp. I ride it on special occasions.

I replaced the Eisentraut with a Cannondale R500T, which I'm very pleased with. The ride is not unlike the 'Traut, stiff and quick.

Update - I acquired the R500T in 1998 and rode it a fair bit. It served me well in its stock configuration, though I did finally go with my old Campy seat post and Brooks Pro.

This year (2003) found me needing to build up a new commuter bike. I've had a Centurian Iron Man frame hanging in the garage for quite a time and it seemed like a likely candidate for build up into a commuter.

My past commuters have been a bit esoteric, having been built variously with Sturmey Archer hubs in three and five speed, wide ratio derailleur systems, drum brakes, and so on. For this one I wanted a modern drive train - Shimano STI with integrated brake/shift levers (the second worst innovation in cycling has been calling these things "brifters" - the worst is preciously calling them "brifteurs"like some cheese-eating-wine-drinking Frenchman) and a triple crank set.

It seemed to me that the best course of action would be to strip the Cannondale of all the necessary bits and upgrade its group.

Looking the Cannondale over I noted that Cannondale had been so kind as to set the rear triangle to 130 mm - so it would accept the current Shimano 9 speed equipment. Perfect. I picked up an Ultegra 9 speed group and installed it. the RSX 7 speed group was set aside for the commuter. More on that later, for thereby hangs a tale.

The 9 speed group required either a new set of wheels or a re dishing of the old wheels and the installation of the correct free hub. I chose to go with new wheels as the old wheels were needed for the commuter, opting for the Shimano WH-540 wheel set. More on the reasons for that choice later.

I had become increasingly less comfortable with the bend of the handlebars. They were very similar to my 3T bars on the Eisentraut. Very wide with nice sweeping bends. I think it is the physiology of age that made them uncomfortable.

Looking about for a new set of bars, and I looked at them all, I found that I liked the bend of the Easton EC90 bars. I had a chance to take a spin on a bike so equipped and the deal was done. These bars have a very sharp bend at the brake lever - so sharp that anything other than a front clamp stem is going to be problematic, so I went with the Easton EM90 stem as well.

Now, having the EM90 stem clamped to a quill adapter worked fine, but was a bit on the clunky side. Eventually I opted for an Easton EC30 fork and Campy headset to replace the quill adapter.

This was all done over several months as bargains became available, but the end result is that there's nothing left of the R500T except the original frame, which I'm thankful was worth upgrading.

And, I've got a new commuter bike for FREE! Sort of. Now, what was that tale? Ah, yes. The Shrek bike.