-holiday76

Hi.
@nlerner , @ColonelJLloyd and I road some bikes this past week.

First , those guys sent their bikes to me from Boston and Kentucky respectively.



i dragged them up to the loft and even put some parts of them for these guys before they flew in for the tour.



Colonel's Fitz



Nlerner's Black Mountain



My Fargo



The plan was the ride canal paths and roads. here's a rough route map

https://www.bikemap.net/en/c/275028/

We camped along the way. I've successfully converted both @nlerner and @ColonelJLloyd to hammock camping, i believe.



I'll post more in a bit.

-holiday76

Day 1:
i picked both of them up at EWR , we drove back to my place , put the bikes together and started to ride up the Delaware Canal Path



I saw this Willy's at the campsite we stayed at.



Here's the river.



We had lunch in Lambertville, NJ.


I apparently didn't really take any other pictures tat day, accept for this one, through my pocket.

-holiday76

@ColonelJLloyd decided it'd be a good idea to keep breaking his chain.

It was funny the first time, but after the 2nd or 3rd it was still funny, but also annoying.



Here's @nlerner giving advice on why skip tooth chains are better than "all the modern crap" while Justin fixes his chain again.



While they did that a took a stroll, and snapped this cool pick of a pile of rocks on a tarp. I never saw a MLB bucket before that time.

-holiday76

Flashback to that time I crushed a beer can in a vise;

-holiday76

one of the days we stopped for dinner at a tavern on the river. It came as a recommendation by a local. I didnt even know that you could still smoke indoors in Pennsylvania, but now I know, and my wind shell still stinks after two washes.

We ate a bunch of fried food at the bar and contemplated when the next best time for @ColonelJLloyd to break his chain might be.

-holiday76

we saw this turtle, which reminded us we better find a bathroom after all that fried food.

-holiday76

here's a cool pic that shows @ColonelJLloyd smiling, thinking about when would be the worst time to stop and fix a broken chain.

nlerner

Nice vice.

-holiday76

here's @nlerner 's dominant camera arm.

-holiday76

I'll have to finish this later. Until then here's a pizza and a beer.

ColonelJLloyd 

I see what you did there.



He rode a wheelie halfway through this but dismounted right before I snapped a pic.


Max speed of the trip just achieved.


Coffee is the first step no matter where you are.



Always booty gazing on these two.

nlerner

I think the most vintage component of this tour was me.

It was lots of fun. Kudos to @-holiday76 for the extensive planning and the guidance on how to sleep in a hammock (or at least not fall out).

A couple more photos:

After 30-miles on a muddy rail trail, I was envious of my companions' fendered bikes:



We did a lot of walking our bikes across the Delaware from PA to NJ and back.



@ColonelJLloyd and @-holiday76 on the last push before the beer garden:

seedsbelize 

I expected to see -holiday76 and ColonelJLloyd on a tandem. Still awaiting that trip report

unterhausen

New Jersey pays people to sit at the end of the bridges to keep cyclists from riding across. And nominally to keep horses off, but who is going to try that?

Is it bad I recognize that bridge? Never walked it from Easton into NJ though, always the other way.

TenGrainBread 

Great bikes. Looks like a lot of fun.

That Fitz is pretty dang cool. Most modern-looking Fitz I've seen. Love the SRAM mountain drivetrain as well.

gugie 

Most excellent bikes, route, riding, and veloship.

Lascauxcaveman 

The suspense is killing me! Spill it already, man... did the Colonel break his chain!?

@nlerner wins the Interesting Bike award. C&V fork and tire sidewalls; ultramodern everything else.

Looks like a lot of fun, boys!

ryansu

Cool tour thanks for sharing, my dad had this exact vice and when I have garage again someday it will be in mine, my Grandpa also had a Willy's Jeep like the one in this thread, with the same enclosed cab. He used it get around the ranch when I was a kid, I thought it was the coolest. They also had a WWII surplus dodge ambulance they referred to as the meat wagon. Must be where I get my odd sense of humor

nlerner

Oh, that chain! The Colonel has learned about reliability of SRAM chains vs. Shimano.

On my C&V sidewalls, those are 700 x 38mm Panaracer Gravel Kings that I'm running tubeless, so it's all a C&V illusion.

mkeller234

Looks like a lot of fun. That brake with all the mud looks pretty gnarly. I like the Seatpost on the fitz, I’ve never seen that before. Seeing the bike travel cases has me curious. Are these bikes designed to come apart easily?

ryansu

Pin chains suck! Love quick link chains especially SRAM 8 speed and I will never ever go back.

ColonelJLloyd 

Yeah, many thanks to @-holiday76 for hosting and planning. This was a lot of fun.

Never again. Sad thing is I swore them off but continued to use this one even though I'd broken it once before (it had very few miles). I played the odds and was a fool 3 times over. The first time I snapped it I figured it was the KMC quick link. Nope. The second time I assumed that two. Nope. By the third time I had a new $80 SRAM chain in the handlebar bag. I kept the old chain so I could harvest the two KMC quick links. I vouch for them.

Apparently Shimano has now moved to quick link instead of the dumbass pins. Too little too late for this guy.

This frame featured a few firsts for John. Thru axles and using a piece of copper brake line in the DS fork leg for the dynamo wiring, that I remember. He originally intended to make the fork for flat mount calipers, but it's either not possible or way too difficult with a curved (at least as much as this fork) leg. I wanted a 44mm head tube, but he didn't have the tools for that and wasn't really interested in purchasing them. That's less disappointing now as Ritchey makes a full carbon fork that will work perfectly with this frame if I want to try that later on.

I recently spoke to a CS rep at SRAM to see if they'd send me pulleys for the XX rear derailleur that I found were cracked. She asked what model and when I told her she was quiet for a few seconds and then said, "Oh, wow, I see that was a group. How old is that?" It's been a great drivetrain, but lately I'm wishing I had larger rings. This is 42/28. I'm pretty sure they made a 45/30 version, so I'd like to find those rings.

It's one of the early Specialized Zertz posts, Matt. It has the right setback for this saddle. It's stupid light, but apparently pretty durable as I don't treat anything with kid gloves. In the void there in the middle used to be that Zertz insert. Not really sure what it is, but it had yellowed, looked ugly and had shrunk so fit loosely in there. I just threw it out.

It was pretty funny that both Neal and I had purchased used shipping cases independently and were using them for the first time. I ship my bike once or twice a year and got tired of hunting for bike boxes and was happy to pay what I did for this on CL. Neither of our bikes have any mods for packing or breaking down. On mine I removed the fenders and pulled the fork and seatpost. I made some "axle sleeves" for the thru axles to fit through from 1/2" PVC and secure the rear triangle and fork legs and that was about it. One of the fenders got a severe dent in shipping, but it pulled out okay.

gugie 

I rinkoed the rear fender on one of my bikes, pressed in a sealed bearing headset and use all slotted cable guides so the handlebars can be removed easily. Fender installation is a b****, and having good fenderlines is a PNW must have (we're very particular about them).

Removing the front fork is a lot easier when it's not all greasy, ergo the sealed bearings. The slotted split rear fender is easy to replace and adjust. The one thing I wish I'd done before powder coating is adding a chain hanger high up on the stays. Someone showed a picture with two of them, one down low for a wheel change, the other up high for shipment - keeps the chain nice and taut. I'll add that to the list of Gugificazione options.

I add some bubble wrap in appropriate places,but this picure shows my setup. 60cm CTC frame in a Trico Iron Case.

gugie 

I think a shoutout to @CliffordK is in order. @nlerner was looking for a case, one was found for cheap on Eugene Oregon CL, some emails went back and forth, and some facilitation went down.



Half man, half bike - Cliff!

jlaw

Looks to be wood-fired....my favorite.