Tuesday's evening commute and new bike acquisition (third attempt to post)

[René]

Yesterday I rode for the first time with the gray Sackville panniers. They are nice and very well made, and my 14" Dell laptop fits well enough but not perfectly. I couldn't figure out how to use the balls to tighten them in place so I just came up with a configuration of the balls for the top and used zip ties on the bottom of each bag. They stay in place very well and are quite handy with their zippered flaps.

I'm not sure if I prefer them over the medium Sackville saddlesack, but since that bag doesn't fit well with the Nitto Big Rear Rack, the panniers become and excellent replacement.

Here are some photos of my evening commute tonight. 18 miles between San Jose near the airport and Palo Alto along the Guadalupe & SF Bay trails with just 3 miles of streets. Coming home there is a relentless headwind, tonight it was about 12 mph according to Weather.com and it took me almost 2 hours.  http://tinyurl.com/3l3mb36

Since I worked all day on the computer, my left shoulder was hurting when I started the ride but the magic of the Nitto Touring bars prevented the pain from becoming unbearable and instead it was just a nuisance. I was tired when I got home, but it was night and day compared to the last time I did this same route with the headwind in the evening. It's much nicer to do this route early in the morning when the wind is lighter and it's always a tail wind. The only nuisance are the clouds of tiny flies around the swamps or pools of water that you sometimes don't even see, but get all plastered on your arms, clothes, legs and you have to make sure you're riding with your mouth closed! When you're out of the cloud of flies, you just wipe them off, they don't even move. Tiny black spots!

Today in the morning I drove to RBW and after spending a couple of hours there testing several bikes, I drove back to work with a 58 Hunqapillar frame in my back seat. If you have to ask why, you probably don't belong in this forum... :-) Just kidding!

 

The story unfolded like this... 

Last year, shortly after I got my Atlantis to supplement my AHH, I decided to get a Betty Foy http://tinyurl.com/248qgyo that my daughters could ride with me and was hoping we'd do some camping trips like the S240 I did last summer to Angel Island with my oldest daughter and my son: http://tinyurl.com/42bee6z. Naturally, I wanted to use the bike as an around town bike so I got a 58 that would fit us all; for my daughters the saddle would go as low as the frame allowed, for me higher. I set it up with Albatross bars and the usual stuff. My daughters loved it, my oldest tested it and complained the Brooks saddle had its nose up up high and she felt the bars were a bit too far out, but that was it. None of them rode it or asked to go on a bike ride with me and since I also didn't find the Albatross bars comfortable, a few weeks ago I set it up with the Modolo Yuma trekking bars (not as nice as the Nitto) and started using it to go around Palo Alto. For me, it felt a bit on the smaller side but I liked its ride.

Then last week, as I was celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary and we were joking what to get for each other as presents (none of us had gotten anything for the other one), I half jokingly said I was getting another bike. The truth is that I was thinking that if my daughters weren't going to ride the Betty, I might as well sell it and replace it with a 62 Betty/Yves that would fit me better. To make the story shorter, I started talking to Keven, one thing led to the next, and for the first time I found myself seriously considering a Hunqapillar. He explained that they are having some issues with long lead times for Bombadils and for me, the Bombadil that I'd need would have been a 56 as the 60 I started with proved to be too long/tall. The 58 Hunqapillar, on the other side, is a 700c frame and I have several spare wheelsets and most of the other parts to just build it up.

To be honest, the gray color scheme of the Hunqapillar had never attracted me at first sight. Familiar story? The same thing had happened with the AHH blue and the Atlantis green. Now I love them. The pictures on the Riv site also don't make justice to the gray/wine color combo. So I started looking for photos on Flickr and found an amazing set of photos of a Hunqa taken by Devil.Bunny http://tinyurl.com/3v9pgsl that were so good and the colors so deep and bright that they changed my perception. I then showed the photo to my wife who was still grumbling that I couldn't get another bike if I didn't sell one. She liked the color combination and the bike, to my surprise.

So, this morning I test rode a 62 Betty, a 58 Hunqa (with drop bars so not a good position for me), a 60 Bombadil with Bullmoose bars (which I loved) and a 62 Hunqa with Albatross bars (which I still don't like that much). My biggest surprise were the Bullmoose bars; I had tried them when I got my Bombadil and Riv was just starting to carry them and at the time, I didn't like them. Whatever happened on these last two years, the fact that I've discovered I'm so comfortable with the Nitto Touring bars, I don't know; I just loved how they felt.

Jay prepped my frame with love and care and withstood my sporadic comments about not forgetting to do something or other, and installed the headset (Tange), the BB (Phil 111mm), the front derailer (Microshift) and the Sugino triple crankset (24-34-46). Along with the frame came the Nitto mini front rack, the 26.8 Nitto S-83 seatpost, a sliver double legged Pletscher kickstand, the 20cm Bullmoose bars, several rolls of maroon Newbaum's tape just in case I decide to use it and a Hunqapillar poster.

 

I decided to go with a Tange headset since I'm getting so much shimmy on my Atlantis when riding no hand at speed (on dowhnill sections). The Atlantis has a Chris King headset which I heard were prone to shimmy. Let's see how the Hunqapillar behaves in this matter.

My plan is to set it more like a dirt-mountain bike for now and also use it around town. I may put fenders on it right away or wait a while longer. Eventually, I'll decide which one is the better tourer/commuter for me as well between the Hunqa and the Atlantis, and vary their use or even sell one. The Betty will probably have to go soon to appease my wife, but then again, I may manage to make it stay and try to talk my daughters into coming on rides with me. In the fall they'll both be in Berkeley, so I'll have to drive up there with the bikes to go riden on Tilden park with them and my son, and hope for more. It would be a shame to sell it as it is pretty much in brand new condition, having been ridden around 20 miles total. Maybe my wife will forget about her if I give her a very nice present!

We'll see how it all unfolds, but in the meantime, I'll start building the Hunqapillar up and sometime this weekend it should be ready. I'll be taking photos and sharing them.

 

And thanks for enduring the long ramble... :-)

René

[Leslie]

All three have now gone through, and I've read each of them   (well, read this one, and skimmed the other two).

Congrats!

-L


PS:  Yes, it's been a wait on the Bomba's, and it's not done yet...   they say, patience is a virtue, so, I'm practicing....   :)

[PATRICK MOORE]

Rene: Nice ramble, I mean the bicycle one and the verbal one. I've got
my '03 Curt set up much like your Atlantis (tho' the bicycles
themselves are very different) with ss rear and front racks (rear
Chauncey Matthews Custom, front VO blowout), the front holding a
bracket that in turn holds up an Edeluxe. I need to get some small
panniers for the Curt to replace the old Lafamus which, with the
matching front bag are going to the Herse. The Sackvilles look nice
but they are too big for my needs.

12 mph is a headwind? Come to New Mexico and enjoy 340/365 days of
headwinds when 12 mph is a light wind. I love my new Maes Parallel
drop bars: the hooks are like a comfortable chair: drop in any time.

In other news: my brother just fixed the ignition switch issue on the
Acadiane with two, superbly industrial-looking manual switches
(ignition and starter motor) and took it out and **got it up to 105
kph down a long stretch of Northern Blvd!!! (I still need to learn how
to manually crank it, just for show.)

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--
Patrick Moore
Albuquerque, NM
For professional resumes, contact
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A billion stars go spinning through the night
Blazing high above your head;
But in you is the Presence that will be
When all the stars are dead.
(Rilke, Buddha in Glory)

[PATRICK MOORE]

Fergot to add, of course: congratulations on the Hunquapillar: let us
see photos when it's built. I am still considering one to build up as
a ss 29er; we'll see.

[René]

Leslie,

 

I basically inferred that the Bombadil is now so difficult and costly to make, that Waterford won't make single ones and they are waiting to get a production run going. It's almost as if you were getting a non-unique custom bike at this point. And, as expected, the cost of those frames is too high and the selling price not high enough. I don't know the details or the actual numbers, but I didn't need to hear anymore before focusing on the Hunqapillar.

 

I hope yours come through quickly! What colors did you choose?

 

René

[René]

Thanks Patrick.

 

That is a cool vehicle you have there. You'll have to post a video of you cranking it up and then loading all four bikes!

 

I know that I'm a wimp when it comes to head winds. You see, until I came to California from Venezuela, I never knew what riding in a head wind meant. In Venezuela all you had (if you were lucky) was a breeze to slightly refresh you from the tropical sun. Sure, there are times when there are strong winds but it's usually in the middle of a rare storm with strong rain and doesn't last long.

 

I don't know what I'd do if I lived in New Mexico!!! Probably ride one way and then call someone to pick me up! LOL!!!

 

René