In New York and other cities where congestion pricing policies, bike infrastructure projects, and car bans have been put in place, cyclists are finding the streets more welcoming.

Not a local but sharing the word since this is highly needed.

Today I revived My Summer Bike!

This one's a bit of a beast — a fixed gear touring gravel bike (?)
Cinelli Tutto frame, bought online in size M (I'm 5'8/172cm), and it needed a seat post with setback, a saddle with long rails scooted all the way back, and all the spacers to make it fit.
I guess I'm tall for Italian standards.

Mounted the widest tires it would take, the lightest rack I could find, and the bare minimum in accessories to make it kinda street legal.
It's the silliest bike I ever built, and it makes me smile every single time I ride it.

Ibis used to put this brake housing stop on some of their frames.

They also had a foot for a frame pump peg:

I wish more bike companies still had a sense of humor.

(Neither picture is mine.)

This Raleigh Raveino 4.0 is the first road bike my partner ever bought. She used this for everything: touring, triathlons, commuting, grocery getter, and joy rides. It was in desperate need of love and had been sitting neglected in favor of her mountain and gravel bikes. She was making some comments about just giving it away since we don't have space for things we don't use. We recently reached a place in our lives where road biking is back on the table. She wanted a new road bike, but nothing she test rode really spoke to her, regardless of budget. This bike has a lot of sentimental value for her, so I low-key encouraged her to hang onto it. I stealth-asked a bunch of questions about her component preferences with the intent of surprising her with a whole new modern group, but she still holds this bike as her platonic ideal of a general road bike for flogging. No major component changes, got it.

Sorry, I don't have a good pic of before the overhaul.

What was wrong:

• Front brake track was worn way beyond the safe limit; I've never seen a rim that worn without blowing out
• Chain was past 125% wear; fortunately the jockey wheels and chainrings were still okay
• Seatpost was single bolt design and we couldn't dial the angle for all-day comfort
• Cable sheaths were cracked and worn-through
• Bar tape was worn through in places
• Saddle was packed out, torn, and no longer comfortable
• Bent derailleur hanger

What got changed:

• Deep clean everything, ultrasonic parts wash for the brakes, derailleurs, and crankset
• NOS cassette (holy hell, finding the exact match cassette involved some bike part archaeology)
• New cables and housing
• New Raceface zero setback seatpost
• New Terry saddle
• NOS Bontrager Aeolus Comp 5 bladed spoke rims
• New cartridge pads
• New Rubino Pro tires
• New chain
• Aluminum lock bar end plugs

Yeah, the pedals are gnarly, but she wanted the old pedals. And I'm waiting for a pack of Fastenal stainless M5 bolts to backfill the braze-ons on the stays.

Her first test ride was a climb up the biggest hill in town and was a resounding success. She's overjoyed!

The world’s best-selling vehicle model is a Chinese bike

@shifter created a nice video where it tells how the story of that bike model crosses the history of the country, while looking for an exemplar to try personally.

Even China, after moving away from the bike, is getting closer, even if the vehicle has changed a lot, and between bikes and mopeds, there is a whole spectrum of undefined vehicles.

crosspostated from da: https://mastodon.uno/users/rivoluzioneurbanamobilita/statuses/114057475253743972

Some bicycles get rode into or through lots of deep water, other bicycles often get left out in the rain and foggy weather.

Any which way, bicycles can most definitely rust from the inside out, so are there any recommended ways to protect against the elements?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20804245

Bikepacking on the Buffalo Bicycle

Nice read about a trip on the buffalo bicycle (which was posted about here some time ago), with an interesting view on the "world bicycle relief".

I love commute by bike for grocery and stuff, but riding in rain is my least favorite stuff ever. Even though i have poncho, it makes me looks like a Ring Wraith on bicycle, and it's quite fussy trying to put it on. And even i get to keep everything dry somehow, the rain drop might sometime score a direct hit on my eyeball like the car salesman slapping the car. It's annoying, irritating, and frankly quite dangerous. My vision is blurred, so is my glasses, and it almost got me into trouble a few times.

So how do you guys protect your eye and keep your vision clear? I live in tropical area so the rain can be quite heavy at time, and i can't wait until it stop because sometime it will go on for hours, even if it get lighter.

How can anyone fuck up an eBike worse than a Cybertruck? Watch and find out...

So I let the chain wear down too much in the past two years and the rear sprockets appear to be worn out and will need to be replaced. The stock 50T chain ring is also showing signs of wear but appears to still be good for a few years.

I wanted to use this opportunity to see whether I could switch the gearing up a little.

The 13-16 gearing has been surprisingly capable but I need just a little more hill climbing ability; the lowest gear (2.64m) is just barely enough sometimes. I'd like it a tad lower I think.

On the high end, I usually ride in the upper two gears on flat ground. The highest gear (7.98m) feels just a tad too much sometimes though and I then fall back to one lower (6.49m) but that feels a good bit too low. That doesn't bother me a lot but it'd still be nicer to have a gear that's just right.

On a downhill, the highest gear is always sufficient for me; feels pretty much exactly right. I wouldn't mind slightly more metres of development but, honestly, I don't care very much when I'm already going way past 30km/h and I don't ride downhill for very long usually. I'm unsure whether reducing the highest gear slightly would make me pedal uncomfortably quickly down hill though.

Stock and current config:

I'm currently thinking about a 44T chain ring with 12-17:

or 12-16:

The lower gears being lower and closer together sounds very nice.

In the higher gears, my hope is that the slightly lower highest gear would allow me to use it the majority of the time on flat ground because I suspect the second highest gear would feel quite a bit too low as a fall-back.

I could see 12-15 being an option perhaps but that also gets the lowest gear much closer to 13-16 again:

But obviously the lowest gear gets very close to the previous config again.

Where I have a hard time is imagining how significant the difference between 2.64m, 2.19m, 2.33m and 2.48m are in an uphill scenario. The jump between the lower gears in 13-16 (3.25m to 2.64m) in practice feels significant but not that large either and we're talking about a much lower absolute drop being gained in the low end by switching gearing. I don't know whether the practical effect of this is linear though and I suspect it might not be.

I'd really appreciate practical experience here. Have you changed gearing on your Brompton? From what to what and how significant were the differences?

In 2023, my goal was 4,000 miles, and I made it, so I started with the same this year.

In late September, 2024, my local club did a ride across our state, about 350 miles over 4 days. After that, I was about 20 miles shy of the 4,000 goal, and hit it within the following week. I normally ride 80-120 miles per week, so 350 was a huge jump.

Then, I upped the goal to 5,000 miles, then finished that in late November or early December. A friend congratulated me and noted that 5,000 miles was almost 100 miles per week, so I made the new goal 5,200 miles.

Of those 5,348 miles, 2,111 miles (~39%) were on Zwift. I did three imperial centuries on Zwift this year, and several more metric centuries on Zwift. The rest were all outdoor, ranging from 25 miles to 120 miles.

I haven't decided on a goal for next year yet. Right now it's at 5,200 miles (it automatically resets to the same). But, for various reasons, I'm not sure whether I'll ride that much this year.

Had a 2000km goal. Have a 3000km goal for this year.

Just bought my first road bike and put it on a trainer for the winter. Still tweaking the saddle and such for a more comfortable ride but I'm not there yet.

Have anyone tried these on a non folded bike?

https://liteprobicycle.com/products/litepro-elite-folding-bicycle-k3-plus-pig-nose-front-bag-adapter-mount-alloy-modified-front-shelf-racks-bike-for-fnhon-dahon?_pos=2&_sid=0f57a7976&_ss=r

#biketooter #bikewrench

I'm pretty excited about this. Riding downtown was always a bit hell. It still is in most parts.

The Balloon Cycle

There floated over the hamlet of Ville neuvye-la-Garenne, the other afternoon, in mid-air, a balloon. Suddenly it appeared to burst and fell rapidly toward the earth. Fearing that a disaster had occurred the terrified folk ran to the spot at which they expected the aerostat would reach the ground, when to their amazement they saw a parachute detach itself from the car and descend gently. Immediately the earth was touched one of the passengers jumped upon a small bicycle which he had brought with him from the aerial regions, and he disappeared in the direction of Levallois, in the neighborhood of Paris, as rapidly as the machine could carry him. The explanation of this singular occurrence is simple. The balloon was the Caliban, and the ascent was made from Levallios by Captain Capazza and M. Hervien, the latter being the cyclist. Their object was to test the possibility of a balloon being used for carrying war dispatches, and they assumed that an enemy succeeded in destroying it. Yet they proved that by means of the parachute they would be able to make good their escape and to outdistance their pursuers with the aid of a portable bicycle.—London Telegraph

https://archive.org/details/BRM_1894101801/page/n5/mode/1up?view=theater&q=Balloon