Wheel Building... A Magical Art

For those who have followed this blog from its inception you will know that I have tried to become a little more proficient in bike maintenance, though  my skills are very limited and it takes me ages.  It certainly isn't cost effective!  However I do enjoy it and it keeps me occupied

The series consists of

http://thediaryofmybike.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/pedal-to-saddlesetting-height.html

http://thediaryofmybike.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/novice-bike-mechanic-part-1.html

http://thediaryofmybike.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/mechanical-interlude.html

http://thediaryofmybike.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-novice-bike-mechanic-part-2.html

http://thediaryofmybike.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/marginal-gains.html

http://thediaryofmybike.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/a-business-case-for-improved-data.html

http://thediaryofmybike.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/the-mobile-mechanic.html

http://thediaryofmybike.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-novice-bike-mechanic-and-wheel-rims.html

and as I succumbed to the realms of fantasy, ignoring the fact of my ageing body and general overall lack of fitness, I started to look at potential performance gains through the use of  improved wheels

http://thediaryofmybike.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/rolling-along.html

This post takes the whole process to a much higher domain....

The Magical  Arts of Wheel Building

I am quite good at planning and  reading instructions, it is just the following them that causes me difficulty. So the preparation part of my project was good fun;  researching the different sort of rims, the advantages and disadvantages of various spoke lacing patterns, the intricacy of  various hub materials and construction with particular emphasis on the bearing quality. Then there were decisions to be made about spoke thickness and colour to mention nothing of the finer points of material degradation between Brass and Aluminium for nipple construction. And of course I also had to consider the choice between rim tape or the much lighter velo plugs; after all, that saving of 20 grams could be all the difference on whether to have a cream cake or toasted tea cake on my next ride.

After much pondering I came down to purchasing

 23mm width H plus Son Archetype Rims drilled for a 20/24 spoke combination.
Novatech F482SB / A291-SB  Hub set
Alpina AC1 F1 Silver SSDB spokes with brass nipples
and, because Velo Plugs do not fit these rims I went with Velox Cloth Rim tape

All I needed now were some tools, and a helpful experienced advisor who could act as my mentor.  Fortunately just such a man lives close by, and in return for showing him some of the best local Cake Stops ( for which I am rapidly becoming an expert ) he offered to let me borrow his tools and help me with the build.

I chose a radial lacing pattern for the front wheel and a 2 cross pattern for the rear. The whole build process was extremely satisfying, though I expect that Rob found it tediously slow compared to his normal pace. By taking my time and tightening each spoke  in many small incremental steps, the spokes gradually developed that beautiful ' ping ' tone as they came into synchronous tension. ( Though this was helped by having a tensionometer to ensure things were going OK )

When finally finished I installed them on my Giant Advanced TCR SL3 and I do think they look grand

and they certainly ride well.

The only problem that I now have is that I seem to have only 4 bikes BUT I have 6 sets of wheels!
I must think of a constructive solution.

The Challenge which is Reivers

'Summer is for grazing, but autumn is for raiding, pillage and rape'

Let us get one thing clear from the outset. I am NOT a lithe, muscled 65kg climbing machine.

I AM a 74kg lump of fat and bone who lacks any noticeable muscle. Also, I am old.

Given the above you can instantly tell I am not a naturally born climber.

Indeed I dread hills - and the Coast to Coast route via the Reivers is jam packed full of them as I was about to discover.

A motley crew of 20 cyclists, with a wide range of youth, experience and fitness, set off from Whitehaven marina in dribs and drabs, riding along the coastal path and waving back to the children on the train as it trundled past.

Then came the first climb of the day, a short test for the legs with a kick at 10% gradient to give an early warning of what was to come, as the path turned eastwards towards Workington. A rolling route over the Caldbeck Fells then followed with some beautiful scenery to give a reward for the suffering my legs took from the repeated 20%+ gradients.

As I looked over to Bassenthwaite memories flooded back of the week I had spent there as part of an Outward Bound Training exercise whilst being groomed as a manager at Rolls-Royce plc so many years ago.

It was then onwards to Cockermouth for a lunch stop. Much of this village had been devastated by the floods a couple of years back and work was well underway to restore the village centre.

The whole ride was well supported by Dave and Mel and the sight of them each day with their chuck wagon was always welcome. A time to grab a banana, a slice of cake and drink as well as meeting up with some of the other cyclists to share experiences before the onward ride to Caldbeck for the first night's stop.

Day 1  Distance 60.5km with 850m of climbing.

Tuesday dawned bright and very hot, the temperature rising to 31degC and proved to be a very arduous day in the saddle.  The climbs kept on coming as we headed towards Carlisle where we stopped for lunch at the Cathedral. The roof in this place is majestic and well worth the detour.

It was not that long ago that strangers here would have been treated with suspicion. It was the nerve centre for bitter feuds and bloody battles created by the long-running dispute  over the border between England and Scotland. During a period of Scottish occupation the ruler of this stronghold was one Macbeth, no wonder they built a castle here.

Escaping from Carlisle proved a challenge but eventually the city sprawl was left behind and the rugged moorlands came into view, something that I could glimpse between the sweat that was running down my face from both the heat and the unforbiding terrain...there MUST have been some downward bits! The steep switchback trails took us down to Bewcastle with its famous cross which has survived 1300 years of relentless borders weather in St Cuthbert's churchyard. Any hope of using the downward momentum to tackle the long gradient with 25% inclines which were then ahead were thwarted by two tractors  filling the road. So it was a lung busting, knee wrenching standing start to get up the climb. 

Day 2 Distance 87.5km with 1035m of climbing

Day 3 commenced with the invasion of Scotland where its defences lay in it being again situated at the top of a very long hill.

Newcastleton proved to be very welcoming and the local tea shop is to be highly recommended.  The countryside is beautiful with many clear rivers and mountains as we rolled along the border before turning towards the Keilder Forest and England.

The tracks around Keilder Water give you many good sightings of what is the largest man made reservoir in Europe and at Leaplish stopped for lunch. It was then just a short ride to the night stop at Bellingham but this proved to be the most hazardous bit of the trip so far.  As I turned out of Falstone, 80% of which had been consumed by Keilder Water, the road rose like a wall in front of me. Two mad dogs lay in wait at the corner deterring any attempt  to gain.momentum. Having climbed the first long steep hill the surface deteriorated as the next challenge lay ahead. Across yet another cattle grid to be confronted by a huge beast of a bull, and very bully he was!  Bellowing loudly and waving his head, his harem of cows also joined in. I had read somewhere that cows don't like to be separated from their calves..and this lot were, with me being the separating barrier. The path was steep, pot holey and gravelly. So far I had managed to complete the ride without ever resorting to getting off the bike and pushing. But I gave in and got off. I was not sure on which side of the bike to walk up the hill, that bellowing monster looked as though it would make mincemeat of my Mercian. So I decided to let my companion face the herd whilst I sheltered on his other side....Mercians are after all very valuable pieces of precision engineering. Once just past the monster I got back on my bike and did a very impressive hill sprint up the remaining 200m to the cattle grid.

Day 3 Distance 75km with 908m of climbing

The next day began disastrously. I had been using my Garmin 800 to keep track of my journey and map the route with the aim that other intrepid adventurers could follow in my cycle tracks. But this morning I woke to find the garmin had failed; completely dead. In this part of the world mobile phone reception is a thing of dreams so even Strava on my phone was useless. So I had to rely on my friends stats for the day and he is not a numbers nerd like me.

The day's ride began by going up hill, again, and it was a very steep uphill but at least it was tarmac. With the temperature continuing to rise we turned right to continue a mountain ascent along sheep paths with the occasional llama eyeing us suspiciously. Mountain goats and sheep were well suited to this terrain of the Buteland Fells. Progress was slow, not helped by a farmer driving a flock of sheep along a narrow path. But at least this gave me time too stay upright recover my strength though I had noticed that after three solid days of climbing, many of them up tracks more suited to Mountain bikes, with the gearing to go with such machines, I was using one gear lower than my normal cycling on a road bike. The scenery around here was bleak and raw and buzzards, or were they vultures, could be seen circling in the sky.

Lunch was taken at a truly beautiful little village at Matfen. With its village green and young boys playing in the stream this was truly idyllic. The journey was now nearly over and the run down into Ponteland was quick with the sun on my back and the speed bringing a refreshing draft of wind.

The route from Ponteland into Teignmouth is best glossed over. The cycle trails were awful and it took all my mental strength just to stay upright. The Mercian was more than capable of handling such rugged ground but I am afraid I wasn't. And then it was down the hill and back to sea level on Teignmouth Quay and time for a celebratory ice cream

The end of the route is just beyond the promentary, looked over by the statue of Admiral Collingwood, and just after that is the beautiful ruin of Teignmouth Abbey.

A total journey of 300.5km with 3336 m of climbing.

It was a great experience and my first taste of cycle touring, though admittedly it was done the easy way with excellent support throughout.

If any of my fellow riders see this and feel drawn to comment, then please do.

For me it is now to consider what next year's cycling challenge will be.

The Reivers - A tale of Blood and Guts

Every year I am trying to do a cycling challenge and this year's challenge is to ride the Coast to Coast route across Britain, following the Reivers Route, starting at Whitehaven and eventually ending up at Teignmouth.

The word Reiver means plunderer and the route is named after the murdering bandits who ran a medieval equivalent of the Costa Nostra. This area of Britain was the Chicago or Sicily of its time, when marauding clans terrorized both the English and Scottish sides of the Border for 350 years. They lived by castle rustling, kidnapping, extortion, arson and murder. The route passes many castles like Bew Castle as well as a number of fortified farmhouses like Askerton Castle, all of which reveal the defensive needs of the area as well as its rich heritage. The word 'blackmail ' comes from the Reivers:  a farmer paid 'blackmail'  - rent in the form of cattle instead of the legal 'whitemail' , which was paid in silver, to a powerful Reiver who would give him protection in return.

I am hoping my journey will be somewhat less fraught!

This will be my first venture into Cycling Touring and so the next few days will be devoted to getting the Mercian ready for the trip.

Unlike last year when my Challenge was to complete the London 100 inside the cut -off time, this year is planned to be much more leisurely and so I hope to be able to document my journey.

Nutritional Needs of a Tea Shop Tourist

Cycling nutrition is a complex subject, and many large organizations spend a fortune on research and development before making available to the general cycling fraternity a range of tablets, gels, powders and bars. Maintaining the correct level of salts, fats, energy and other stuff is vitally important and even the dedicated amateur cyclist goes to great lengths to find the right balance.
There is however another breed of cyclist, the tea shop tourist, who would view the idea of entering a 25 mile Time Trial or a city centre Criterium with horror. This article is aimed at cyclists such as these.

I am on a diet!!

I know this because my wife told me .

Hence getting the right balance between input and output is I am told vital.
I also love numbers and among the stream of data that my Garmin Edge 800 feeds to me as I pedal along is one that shows how many calories I have burnt off. Now obviously as cyclists we do not want to suffer the dreaded bonk ( see Nutritional Breakdown ) where all our energy resources become totally depleted; and so, eating cake should be regarded as a necessity and NOT as a luxury or reward. So, in order to give you some guidance on the stuff you should be eating in order to maintain your nutritional balance, I have pulled together the following table from which you can pick and mix.

Toasted Tea Cake with butter   370 cals

Plain Scone                               140 cals

Fruit Scone                                150 cals

Jam and Cream with scone         LOTS

Mince Pie                                  320 cals

Flap jack                                   335 cals

Slice of Lemon drizzle                 399 cals

Choc raspberry brownie             390 cals

Victoria sponge                          599 cals

Rich fruit cake                            780 cals

Tara Carrot Cake with Cream     986 cals

Now obviously, one needs sufficient energy resources to get home from the tea shop, so you need to make due allowance for that in the amount of cake you consume. 

I hope that these guidelines will stop you from fading away when you next go out on a general meander on your bike.

A Life with a Brooks B17

One of the most popular posts that I have written for this Blog was all about the breaking in of a Brooks B17 saddle . That particular post was written about a black B17 that I had had fitted to my new Mercian Vincitore Special and was the second in my series of Brooks B17 saddles.  In the event the life ( with me ) of that particular saddle was short as I discovered that the riding position on a road bike was significantly different from the Specialized Sirrus Comp Hybrid, my original bike and the place where I fell in love with Brooks saddles.

The original saddle was a Honey Brown with Copper Rivets and both looked and smelt like the piece of handcrafted excellence it was.

The image above  was taken when the saddle was still relatively new and at this stage the score was

Brooks B17  6   -   My Butt    0

I bought this saddle in the spring of 2008 and sat on it constantly for the next 10000km of cycling by which time the saddle and I were coming to an understanding. I fed it with Neat Oil, wiped it down when it was soaked from the rain or covered in snow, polished the copper rivets and generally treated it with respect. In return it began to change its character, moulding itself to my butt ( or did my butt mould itself to saddle shape ?)

As I started cycling more, my friends introduced me to the algorithm of how many bikes even an OAP cyclist actually needs and so I started to acquire just a few more; all essential purposes of course, no luxury here. With these new bikes came a range of saddles including Fizik Arione and Selle Italia and so the Hybrid, and hence the Brooks B17, got less use.

Recently however I have been going through a period of forced maintanence on the road bikes ( I did  tentatively suggest to my wife that this probably indicated that I  might be in desperate need of another purchase, but the look of astonishment on her face and cries of wonder made me think that I might be better putting that idea on hold ) and so I have returned to the Hybrid and hence to Brooks.

I had forgotten just how comfortable my long lost love had become as she had matured into a grand old lady

I wonder if I made a mistake in exchanging the black B17 on the Mercian, perhaps there was a more fitting model in the Brooks range I should have chosen.

Anyway, off now to give her a polish and take her out for a trip to the local tea shop.

Real Steel.... Mercian of Derby

My last post featured some steel bikes that I had seen and started a bit of a reminiscence. About 45 years ago, just after I had left University, I started work at a Rolls-Royce plc plant in Raynesway and at lunch times, to get out of the office, I often used to walk down the road to Alvaston, buy some fish and chips and then wander back. There was, and still is, a bike shop in Avaston though I never paid it much attention, it was called Mercian Cycles . Little did I know then how much I would come to admire and revere their products. Time passed, my career progressed, I was moved to RR CHQ and I never thought about Mercians again; if I ever did before. I was too busy travelling the world, thinking about business opportunites and trying to do deals.

And then I retired.

Suddenly I would be home for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 52 weeks in a year. My wife was delighted and after about 2 days suggested that I bought a bike, she was obviously concerned about my health and thought I needed to get out more.
My first purchase was a very heavy, very old, very cheap  MTB and it lasted about 4 weeks before the rear wheel imploded with spokes shooting off like guided missiles.  It was then that I discovered Mercians.
A retired friend, who had been riding all his life and was a strict adherent to the N+1  principle regarding bike ownership showed me his collection and invited me to try them. One of these was a 1961 Mercian Audax

My love affair with Mercian had begun and Alan, seeing how smitten I was, offered to sell it to me. How could I resist?
The history of Mercians is well documented on their website but pure words cannot do justice to the feel and pleasure in owning and riding a hand built machine, using the tools, skills and crafstmanship which has been developed over decades and is still in use today.

The lug work on these bikes is exquisite, and as I heard more about about the beauty of hand built machines, made to fit perfectly the owner, a desire began to grow to have one made specifically for me.  I had learnt at work that projects needed an end date and so for me, the idea was to have a bike tailored just foe me in time for my 65th birthday, a Mercian Vincitore Special. The bike took 6 months to produce and a week before my birthday I received a call that it was ready.

I am told that the large manufacturers like Giant et al, have 6000+ bikes a year rolling off their production lines. I dont know how many Mercian produce but what I do know is that each one is invested with love and care that the big players could only dream of.

I now have 2 grandsons and I am giving their mothers strict nutritional guidelines to ensure that both grow to the exact dimensions needed so that they fit my bikes perfectly.

Mercians are forever

Do you have a Mercian story to tell?  If so, add it to the comments box and share it with others.

Steel is Forever

It was the first real day of summer in Derbyshire today and so off I went for a tootle around the local lanes.  There are many beautiful lanes in the countryside of Derbyshire but today's route is one of my favourites.
About halfway round the loop one comes to the bridge over the river Hilton in the  picturesque village of Longford. Next door to the bridge is the old cheese factory.This was the first cheese factory ever to be built in England and was opened on May 4, 1870 under the management of Cornelius Schemanhorn, an American cheesemaker. and the bridge itself is a favourite stopping place for cyclists.
As I pulled in there was an old lady , an OAP like myself, already present and soon we got talking. She had been a cyclist for decades and in her youth had, with her husband, climbed many of the Cols made famous by the Tour de France. In her case, loaded with panniers, and intent on enjoying the view, the ascent of these legendary peaks had taken her a day in stark contrast to the elite riders of the peleton.
As we chatted, a variety of bikes whizzed past, their pilots intent on getting the last ounce of speed from their carbon steeds. These bikes were in stark contrast to her bike

This Hetchins had been with her since the beginning, constructed from Reynolds 531 though modified now to have straight bars and a little mirror fitted as turning her neck was now problematical. With a double chain ring and just 5 cogs on the cassette it still did her proud and the friction change gears still sufficed.  No cleats for this lady as she still relied upon toe straps. The pump itself was also still original and the wheels with their 36 spokes were built to stand the ardours of touring.

As we went our separate ways I thought about her real steel as the young racers of today sailed past me on their lightweight frames with just enough spokes to stop the wheels collapsing.  Being warm I obviously needed to find a place for tea and as I cycled down a shady lane to the local tea shop I espied another vintage machine whose owner was also in need of a rest. What caught my eye was that it was a Mercian

Again constructed from Reynolds 531 and again with just a double chain ring. This bike had also been modified to have straight bars with the shifters on the bars though you could still see where the bosses had been on the down tube.

I did not find the owner so do not know the bike's history but it made me think that these old bikes both had a history, a story to tell and I wondered if the modern machines constructed from Aluminium, Titanium or Carbon would ever be loved in the same way.

And, still wondering, I mounted my Mercian and pedalled off home.