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| At least one thing went right... |
Ever hear of that old saying that "bad things come in threes"? Well, I have to wonder after this past week if the saying is true. I had a pretty unlucky string of road blocks which has stacked things up in the old Lab at Guitar Ted Headquarters.
The first check came while dealing with the State Bicycle Co. Monster Fork review. I had ridden it enough in one offset setting that it was time to go to the other choice. Well, the first thing I ran into was that the wheel did not want to come out of the fork without a bit of dead blow hammer influence. Not good. Then I figured out that the offset change was not accounted for by the designers of the fork with a corresponding change in brake position. No go.
So, that is in limbo now until I hear back from my contact at State Bicycle Co. to see what they want me to do from this point. Is it just my fork (doubtful) or is it a flaw in the basic design (I'm betting on this one)? We will see......hopefully. At this point I don't know why it is the way it is, I just know it is. UPDATE 10/22/24: After contacting my person at the marketing company they relayed from State that the brake mount must be flipped to make it work and that seems to have solved that issue. Look for my update on this review on Thursday, October 24th.
Next up I decided to try the Irwin Cycles Aeon 35 carbon wheels in the Raleigh again, since I figured out that it was the worn drive train which was the problem, not the wheels. Also, I had to swap wheels due to those Roval wheels having spoke issues. Should have been a "no big deal" swap, since I had those Irwin wheels in the bike at one time. However, since I thought it was the free hub body going bad at first, I removed the Irwin wheels. Then I had taken that rear wheel apart to inspect it. In the process I must have mislaid the drive side quick release end cap and now I cannot find it.
Email sent to Irwin on Friday. Until I hear back from them, that will be in limbo as well.....
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| A screw loose here.... |
Then on Saturday I was riding my new-to-me fixed gear bike and the screw holding on the brass bell to the handle bar fell out. Next thing you know I was making a fancy catch of the bell before it was jettisoned to the pavement.
This wasn't that big of a deal, but after the first two things it was something that pushed me to the end of my rope. I just took everything to the Lab, parked the bike, set the bell in the handlebar bag, and grabbed my Honeman Flyer for a mind-cleansing ride around the neighborhood.
Hey! I just put some new fuchsia bar tape on the HF. Looks great and feels good. At least something went right with bicycles recently!
Oh yeah, and Thursday was spent fixing my front porch steps until I ran six screws short of being able to finish and I had no time to go get more. That got finished up on Friday. So frustration was a bit of a theme of late here. I am hopeful this changes soon.
Stay tuned for updates.
7 comments:
Wow… That’s a bummer you had that sort of day. That’s a huge misstep on the part of State Bicycle though on that fork, if what you suspect turns out to be true. It blows my mind that nobody figured that out before…
@MG - Thanks Brother! Hope that all is well with you. Anyway, yeah, two bikes down and thankful I have others! I am blessed!
The fork issue was something I did not anticipate. It seemed so obvious that this would have to be accounted for, yet is wasn't? Consider my mind blown as well.
I just looked at the Lithic fork with "flip chip" and the brake mount is actually the same piece of aluminum that is moved when "flipping". Beautiful engineering from the Wolf Tooth folks. I'm thinking that State fork designed is "outsourced"...
@Stevenator - Yep. More than likely a "catalog product" and wasn't vetted out properly, but that is speculation on my part right now. I don't know anything for certain yet. Still waiting to hear from State....
I think if you turn the brake adaptor upside down to the 140mm position it could work for a 160mm rotor in the other offset position.
@Steve Stilwell - Good idea, but the wheel moves in a plane off axis to the plane of the fork leg, so that would not account for the forward movement of the rotor away from the plane of the fork/brake mount. You would only be accounting for the height differential.
@Steve Stilwell and All - Wouldn't you know it, but the moment after I responded to you, Steve, I received an email with State's instructions that I need to flip the brake mount.
I have my doubts this is the answer, but we will see soon. Stay tuned.....
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