Digging It

Get a good look at this image. Wonderfully white winter wackiness. Okay, so that's what it looks like now. My weekend was dominated by dealing with this stuff.

It all started on Thursday night when it started to snow again. (I'd also ridden on Tuesday last week in the snow). Friday I woke up and saw about 5-6 inches already on the ground with flakes still falling. Time to arm myself with a shovel and hit the street.

Yes- I said, "hit the street." I have to clear out the snow from around our cars out front. We do not have a snow emergency plan here. My alleyway never gets plowed out, so fah-gedda-boud parking in the garage. It's the street for us, and we need to shovel out about 10 yards from the curb.

Of course, our neighbors do not do a thing. Now- this is an optional thing I do, but in order to preserve a spot for our vehicles, I shovel the street in front of each neighbors house on either side of me. Yeah......lots of shoveling.

That ended up becoming 4 hours of shoveling which was very physically demanding work. But hey! I can park my car now, and I burned up a lot of calories.

Now, it would be nice to have my "Other Bike Project" here to ride now, (Salsa Mukluk), but it isn't here, and now I'm hearing that by the end of the week, it is supposed to get real messy and weird out there. Yeah.......and if it does, I bet the Mukluk shows up. Oh well! I knew it would go this way. Primo snow conditions and the Mukluk just were not meant to happen at the same time for me.

But that doesn't mean that I have not been messing around with what I do have. I mounted up a Larry tire on a Rolling Darryl with some red ribbon just for the fun of it.

Nice table center piece, eh? I was going to get more creative with the rim strip, but the red matches our Cinnamon scented candle better and well, truth be known, I got the ribbon for free! Works great too.

Mukluk's are blue, so the red accent deal should work okay and I have plenty of ribbon, so it looks as though this will work for now. I may even look at adding a few more red bits here and there.

And that fat Phil Wood hub? I have spun the free hub so many times I think it is well worn in by now!

Ah well. If and when I see the Mukluk I will be riding it come snow, wind, or rain, so what if this week end's weather wipes out our great snow cover? Right? I just hope it all doesn't turn into one gigantic sheet of ice and stays that way till March, that's all.

Digging It

Get a good look at this image. Wonderfully white winter wackiness. Okay, so that's what it looks like now. My weekend was dominated by dealing with this stuff.

It all started on Thursday night when it started to snow again. (I'd also ridden on Tuesday last week in the snow). Friday I woke up and saw about 5-6 inches already on the ground with flakes still falling. Time to arm myself with a shovel and hit the street.

Yes- I said, "hit the street." I have to clear out the snow from around our cars out front. We do not have a snow emergency plan here. My alleyway never gets plowed out, so fah-gedda-boud parking in the garage. It's the street for us, and we need to shovel out about 10 yards from the curb.

Of course, our neighbors do not do a thing. Now- this is an optional thing I do, but in order to preserve a spot for our vehicles, I shovel the street in front of each neighbors house on either side of me. Yeah......lots of shoveling.

That ended up becoming 4 hours of shoveling which was very physically demanding work. But hey! I can park my car now, and I burned up a lot of calories.

Now, it would be nice to have my "Other Bike Project" here to ride now, (Salsa Mukluk), but it isn't here, and now I'm hearing that by the end of the week, it is supposed to get real messy and weird out there. Yeah.......and if it does, I bet the Mukluk shows up. Oh well! I knew it would go this way. Primo snow conditions and the Mukluk just were not meant to happen at the same time for me.

But that doesn't mean that I have not been messing around with what I do have. I mounted up a Larry tire on a Rolling Darryl with some red ribbon just for the fun of it.

Nice table center piece, eh? I was going to get more creative with the rim strip, but the red matches our Cinnamon scented candle better and well, truth be known, I got the ribbon for free! Works great too.

Mukluk's are blue, so the red accent deal should work okay and I have plenty of ribbon, so it looks as though this will work for now. I may even look at adding a few more red bits here and there.

And that fat Phil Wood hub? I have spun the free hub so many times I think it is well worn in by now!

Ah well. If and when I see the Mukluk I will be riding it come snow, wind, or rain, so what if this week end's weather wipes out our great snow cover? Right? I just hope it all doesn't turn into one gigantic sheet of ice and stays that way till March, that's all.

The "Other Bike" Project

While I have been focused on the gravel grinder bike concept for some time now, I am going to leave that alone for a bit and today I want to talk about my "other bike" project which should start coming together here very soon.

<==(Image courtesy of Ben Witt) This project starts out around this gorgeous Phil Wood custom 170mm O.L.D. hub. Ben Witt turned me on to these. The 170mm dimension is a tip off to what kind of bike this hub works with, and if you've been paying attention, you know that bike is a Salsa Cycles Mukluk. It is really hard to get a feeling for the proportions of this hub without holding it in your hand. It is just plain silly. Typical Phil Wood machine work makes this hub even more fun to look at. Of course, the bearings and all are top notch inside.

Of course, one needs a matching Phil Wood hub for the front, and here is an image, (courtesy of Ben Witt again),  of a matched pair. These are the actual hubs Ben is going to use on his personal build Mukluk. The Mukluk takes a 135mm rear specific hub for the front end. Note that the Phil Wood custom hub, which is like a rear hub from the width and disc mounting standpoint, looks like any other front hub otherwise. Pretty trick. I believe the one I am getting actually has a thread on interface for a single speed cog though, which is cool from the stand point of versatility. Again, these are custom hubs and if you need more info, just hit up Milltown Cycles for more. That's where I am getting these hubs from.

<===(Image from Ben Witt....again!) Of course, you have to have something to lace the hubs to. The original plan was to go with the Vicious Cycles Graceful Fat Sheba rims. (A fair jaw-cracker of a product name there, eh?) Well, Ben calls me up the other day and says, "I can not let you use those rims!" Why? Because the "unobtanium" Surly Rolling Darryls suddenly were "obtanium".

Look at that weight. That's about what a highly Swiss cheesed GFS rim would weigh in at and far less than a stock GFS. Plus, it is a hair wider, and more importantly, a better rim. The spokes will be equally as nice, and the whole wheel set will really be quite an upgrade over the stock Salsa/GFS wheels.

Of course, this will all go on the otherwise stock Mukluk complete at some point. I'm hoping to pick up the rims and at least one of  the hubs this weekend with wheel building to commence shortly afterward. Stay tuned for the "Other Bike" project's wheels to be shown here soon.

The "Other Bike" Project

While I have been focused on the gravel grinder bike concept for some time now, I am going to leave that alone for a bit and today I want to talk about my "other bike" project which should start coming together here very soon.

<==(Image courtesy of Ben Witt) This project starts out around this gorgeous Phil Wood custom 170mm O.L.D. hub. Ben Witt turned me on to these. The 170mm dimension is a tip off to what kind of bike this hub works with, and if you've been paying attention, you know that bike is a Salsa Cycles Mukluk. It is really hard to get a feeling for the proportions of this hub without holding it in your hand. It is just plain silly. Typical Phil Wood machine work makes this hub even more fun to look at. Of course, the bearings and all are top notch inside.

Of course, one needs a matching Phil Wood hub for the front, and here is an image, (courtesy of Ben Witt again),  of a matched pair. These are the actual hubs Ben is going to use on his personal build Mukluk. The Mukluk takes a 135mm rear specific hub for the front end. Note that the Phil Wood custom hub, which is like a rear hub from the width and disc mounting standpoint, looks like any other front hub otherwise. Pretty trick. I believe the one I am getting actually has a thread on interface for a single speed cog though, which is cool from the stand point of versatility. Again, these are custom hubs and if you need more info, just hit up Milltown Cycles for more. That's where I am getting these hubs from.

<===(Image from Ben Witt....again!) Of course, you have to have something to lace the hubs to. The original plan was to go with the Vicious Cycles Graceful Fat Sheba rims. (A fair jaw-cracker of a product name there, eh?) Well, Ben calls me up the other day and says, "I can not let you use those rims!" Why? Because the "unobtanium" Surly Rolling Darryls suddenly were "obtanium".

Look at that weight. That's about what a highly Swiss cheesed GFS rim would weigh in at and far less than a stock GFS. Plus, it is a hair wider, and more importantly, a better rim. The spokes will be equally as nice, and the whole wheel set will really be quite an upgrade over the stock Salsa/GFS wheels.

Of course, this will all go on the otherwise stock Mukluk complete at some point. I'm hoping to pick up the rims and at least one of  the hubs this weekend with wheel building to commence shortly afterward. Stay tuned for the "Other Bike" project's wheels to be shown here soon.