The Ol' Crank

My mate Nige left a message on the home phone the other day. That’s a bit unusual in itself – I mean, who leaves messages on answering machines in 2012? “Orright, mate? You, me, Canberra this weekend. Wot ya reckon?” his Cockney twang boomed out of the earpiece. He’s a newly converted roadie who’ll give anything a go once, even if it involves landing upside down in a row of shrubs (a story for another day).

Now you’d reckon the choice should be an easy one. A quick road trip down to the ACT in good company, a few turns around Kowen Forest’s oh-so twisty goodness, a slap-up feed at Kingsleys and home again in time for the workaday grind. But my first thought wasn’t ‘yes’. It was ‘no’. And that’s a worry.

Since my most recent misadventures in Tathra, I can sum up my riding experience in two words; I haven’t. The roadie has sat silently in the shed for more than a month (closer to two, actually), after I blew the left shifter’s internals into sub-atomic matter (pictured below) – apparently you need a 6700-spec front derailleur to go with your new fancy-pants gear-swapper – while the only mountain bikes I’ve ridden have been for another freelance gig I’ve picked up.

To put it simply, I’m in the midst of Winter Malaise.

I’m eating for three, I’m avoiding the gym like I owe it drug money and cracking the code to lycra up again is proving elusive. And I’m starting to wonder whether I shouldn’t just surrender and willingly give over to it every July.

Think about it for a sec. There’s nothing wrong with taking a break – in fact, beating oneself up constantly about not doing intervals/not climbing Mt Kiera twice a day/not eating low-fat, low-GI soybean cakes just makes things tougher for yourself mentally, and really, that’s the only battle you need to win. So set it as a goal in the yearly calendar. July is hot chocolate and waffle month! July is dirty bike month! July is lazy Sunday lunch month! July is backyard renovation month!

Bit of a pity I’m down to do the Three Ring Circus, then…

That’ll be $200, please!

Been a bit busy and neglectful of the poor lil’ blog.

To quickly update – had the most unusual experience last weekend of wanting to do a 50km race and not being able to, as opposed to my usual status of having entered a 50km race and not being in any shape to want to do it.

The event was the Tathra Enduro on the deep south coast of NSW, and the problem was my guts. More succinctly, it what wasn’t in my guts, because I’d spent the previous 36 hours to race start uncontrollably emptying them any way they saw fit.

It wasn’t like I was doing anything – just five articles for three separate publications. And some video for an iPad add-on. Nothing much, then. Thank the relevant deity for the go-get-em attitude of my photographer mate Mark Watson (check his rather average works out here), who busted out the Nikon point-n-shoot, found a couple of riders and hit the bush. Look out for our work in AMB, the Open Road and something called South Coast Style, an arty boutique mag that really should be looking for better writers if they’re coming down to my level…

But yeah, the race. I was actually really disappointed, verging on upset, that I couldn’t do it. The road stuff is helping no end, my cake-free diet is paying dividends and the Blur had copped a dose of Fox RLC 15mm lovin’ in the week leading up to the race. The weekend, though, was cursed from the get-go. Max had been blowing chunks on the Wednesday, Mel was chucking her guts up as I was driving away, and I knew. I just knew, I was next…

A bunch of other weird crap happened, too – no phone reception, my trusty Canon G12 shat itself, as did the rear XT brake on the Blur – working perfectly well at the Mont two weeks prior – and then the driving lessons in the porcelain bus. The best thing I did was this photo on the way home, and even that isn’t that good…

Transition Bikes, eh? Never really paid the brand much mind until I saw this sweet little time-lapse vid of its TR250 slopestyle full-susser going together… have I just found Max’s next bike?

… and the white Bianchi is still under a sheet. Tweaking the green Bianchi, though, recently installing a set of second-hand Ultegra 7900 levers/shifters. And while you *can* use the old-model brakes, you’ll soon realise the folly of your ways at the bottom of a long, fast descent. They stop fine around town, but the cable leverage ratio thing is all wrong for big power stops.

Front one went on fine, but the rear is, of course, another story… I trimmed off about 20mm of rear brake outer to make the new levers work correctly, but because of the alignment of Saturn with Jupiter, the waning of the crescent moon and me throwing a black cat through a mirror, that 20mm became oh-so important when installing the rear.

Now, given the c2c has internal cable routing, I’m going to have to run the gauntlet and run new housing through the top tube, a job that is fraught with unknowns. But I have a cunning plan…

Oh, and Writers Cramp nailed 40th possie in Open Men Sixes at the recent Mont 24 in Canberra. A good, cold, hot, sleepless, crashy, fun time was had by all.

From left; Deeley, Day, Robson, Watson, Smith, Davis, a Winnebago.

A Park Tools Campag puller, yesterday

Seriously… this whole Campag crank thing is doing my head in. It’s almost the end of February, and STILL I can’t get the damn things off my new Bianchi frame. I actually found myself looking for the carbon saw the other day. It still may come to that…

To recap, I’m having some dramas with a new road bike build, but I could have sworn that there was light at the end of bottom bracket shell. My small, bespoke, expensive Campag tool arrived from the UK a couple of weeks ago, supplemented by a hack-handed car-spec bearing puller. Which didn’t fit. Back to shop, swap it, back to my workshop. Two minutes, I think to myself, mentally working out a ride route for the afternoon, two minutes and these damn cranks’ll be in the eBay box.

Not even close.

Despite milling up a protectve plastic sleeve and taking the utmost care, I still managed to carve off a sliver of carbon fibre from the back of the arm. It won’t hurt the crank’s functionality, but by the living Lord Harry did it piss me off.

If there’s a worse piece of design in the bike world, I’m yet to see it. Not only do you need a bulky, blunt, dim-witted car tool to take off the left-side crank, but you need a very particular bulky, blunt, dim-witted car tool to affect the removal. There is, of course, an elegant solution from Park Tools (above) but, somewhat inexplicably, another bespoke Park Tool is required to make it all work. What. The. Hell.

So, what to do? I’ve ordered another bearing puller and will hope beyond hope I can make it work. I simply can’t justify another $200 (at least) to buy a set of single-use tools to service a brand that I now detest.

What’s that? Why don’t I just use the cranks? I like my compact gearing, unfortunately. I may give them a spin just to get this gorgeous project moving, but at this rate, I’d rather douse them in accelerant and cackle manically as they dissolve in little clouds of carbon.

Won’t stay long… I’ve disposed of the chores, the world has dried out after 342 consecutive rainy days – I’m not making that up – and I’m keen to get out on the road again.

Quick updates; I’m still not training properly. The new job has finally settled down, though, so I’m up to the gym this week. I am. My last ride was 50km two weeks ago, and that’s just not going to be enough, especially seeing as how I’ve entered the Tathra MTB Enduro in April…

I’ve finally received the tool to get Project Bianchi II under way (a small alloy plug no bigger in diameter than a 10c piece? That’ll be $50 including postage, sir), but of course, I’ve picked up the wrong kind of bearing puller to complement it. Back to the Supercheap Auto I go…

And Max is back into the swing of the BMX season, with his first State Open at Liverpool tomorrow. Longer cranks, lighter wheels, harder gearing – might push him towards the front of the Ten Boys…

Finally, my vid of the week…

So I’ve got a new project build on the stand – this most lovely Bianchi Mono-Q Reparto Corse, made in Italy in 2009 and procured from the Bay of E just before Christmas. It’s the same dimensions as my beloved 57cm C2C, just a nick tighter in the front end and a mite lighter. And it looks hot. Hot.

Early in the ‘what bits does it get deserve?’ self-argument, I’d ruled out the need for Dura Ace – let’s face it, it’s pure self-indulgence for someone barely covering 5000km a year – and I wasn’t sufficiently enamored by my time with Ultegra Di2 that I’d pay Dura Ace money for it. It’s shifting, Jim, but it’s not as intuitive as we know it. And it’s really monkey’s-arse ugly when it’s bolted on the bike, too, especially the rear mech. Ask me about it and I’ll tell you more…

SRAM? No experience with it, and I’ve recently de-SRAM’d the mountain bike fleet. Horror stories about goofy front shifting, plus a rumour that the whole shooting match will be updated soon, sealed its fate.

Which leaves two options, and one is Campagnolo.

I’ve never had cause to run Campag on anything, ever. I’ve just never been a big enough road fiend to tap into the legend (though I’d love to get a genuine peanut butter wrench some day, to go with my Chris King coffee tamper and Park Tools pizza cutter in my imaginary bike kitchen). I did search through a few groups to get a handle on cost… but I’d then be forced to adopt yet another set of fitment standards at a time when I’m doing my damndest to shed myself of them. Shimano may well follow Campag’s long lead and go 11-speed this year, but I won’t be.

The less disinterested among you may have noticed a set of Centaur Carbon cranks on my new toy – they would be on eBay now, but for the singular lack of sense of behalf of the Italians, who decided that adding a self-extracting bolt to their BB axle set-up was far too complicated. Hell, they’ve only been around for at least 25 years.

As a result, their removal requires the purchase of a $50 tiny plug tool that magically appears in this video for precisely three seconds before disappearing, a 12mm Allen key and an automotive bearing press tool. That I’ll need to modify. And hope it doesn’t ruin the cranks. Arrivederci, Campagnolo…

So, what’s left in the world of groupsets? Stay tuned to find out…

And she knows what a chocolate foot is…