Ok one more about the Bike addiction

This is a Georgena Terry Gambit. 
No your eyes do not deceive, that bike has a 27 inch rear wheel and a 24 inch front. It is a very intentional design. My wonderful wife is 5ft tall. I'm 6ft. We look like Herman and Lilly Munster stand together. Finding small road bikes is a problem. Yes there is Lady's bikes but they have more flexible frames.
The founder of Terry is Georgena and she is Small lady. The story goes she could not find a proper geometry road bike so she built one. Well then her friends wanted one and it grew into a business. www.terrybicycles.com/ This is the same company as the widely popular Terry saddles that most people know about . They just don't know about the women's specific bicycles business. The majority of bikes are built for people over 5'6". Everything about a bicycle is built around that size. The Size of the wheels. The gearing to turn the wheels, Crank size etc. The problem with this is when you down size you get into problems like toe over lap where your feet and the front wheel can come in contact and cause a crash. So things would be done like changing seat and head tube angles to allow the front wheel to be moved forward. The problem is that messes with the handling. You can down sie to 24 inch wheels but then you start having problems with the gearing that is designed around 26-29 inch diameter. Georgena solved this by keeping the 27 inch rear wheel for proper gearing but going to a 24 inch wheel in front to keep better head and seat tube angles without the toe over lap problems. This is a very early bike in the Terry company history and as I found this bike it has maybe 50 miles on it. That is about to change this week. It is getting a set of RSX Brifters, 7 speed ramped freewheel to bring it up to modern standards. In a Older post I mentioned my 1995 Cannondale T700 that I picked up last fall. The 95 is a 58CM frame. Normally bikes come in 2cm increments. My Optimum bike size is 60-61cm. Cannondale made a jump form 58-63cm on the touring frames. You adjusted for the lack of a 60cm frame with long seat post and long stems. The Touring bike has a long wheel base so not really a problem but I always felt the 58cm was small especially since I am all legs I like my handle bars up as high as the seat. This 98 showed up on CL set up with straight bars but included the Drops it originally had and a set of RSX 8 speed Brifters. I decided to pick it up. I can flat foot the 35 inch stand over so it is within my riding range. I swapped the 9 speed drivetrain, fenders and stuff off the 95 and moved this up to main commuter.
You can see the Size difference and how much stem and seat post I had out to make the 58 work. Now I didn't get rid of the 95. I got rid of the 89 R600 and set the 95 up more like a Cyclocross bike. No fenders but it does have racks. I have the bars set low but not nearly as low as the R600 had. I use it as my "Sport Utility bike".

I love how the 98 looks with the racks off it. I may just get a handle bar bag like a "randonneur" and ride it this way more.

That is a 84 Corsaro Mixtee. This was the first small road bike I found for Janice. Neat bike with Suntour ARX and Diacompe 500 bits. Rode nice but Janice crashed this bike the first time she rode it and never had any love for it after that. She got hurt pretty bad and scraped up her face. This bike got the name "Gomme de Visage" (french for The face eraser). We ended up selling it.

This is my "Rat rod hipster wannabe" bike. It started out life as a 1988 Schwinn Worldsport. Pretty decent bike with a 4130 frame and Shimano SIS components. It was REALLY rough when I bough it for $10. I ended up parting it out to fix flipers. Held onto the 25 inch frame for some reason. Got looking at the pile of bike parts I had laying around and a can of satin black paint and this is what I ended up with. Skinny red label black anodize Araya rims wearing 700x23 Continental Ultra sports. The drivetrain, seat and bars are off a Trek 95 mountain bike. Crawls hills but has decent top end with the 48 tooth big ring.

I so wish this bike had been my size. It is a 1984 Fuji DelRey. Good midline bike. It rode wonderful. This was another garage queen like the Terry. This bike had maybe 50 miles on it. Cleaned it up and resold.

My $8 garage sale 1984 Fuji Touring III. Fuji builds awesome bikes. Very neat bike the was built for a tall person. It has a factory installed 48spoke tandem rear wheel. I almost cant flat foot this monster. The wheels are so strong that they are nearly perfectly true. better then some new bikes. The frame is scratched up badly and it will get repainted soon.

Before

After. This is a 25 inch 1977 Schwinn Super LeTour 12.2. Dorel is the current owner of Schwinn and they are largely responsible for disgracing the brand by putting the name on cheap chines bikes sold in box stores. It use to be you went to a "Authorized Schwinn dealer" to buy a Schwinn. Yes the built some bricks but they also built some very nice bikes on par with a lot of the better brands coming out of Japan and Europe. This was actually manufactured in Japan with a 4130 Cro Mo frame. It has a nice set of Araya rims, Shimano 600 derailleurs. Weighs in at 26lb. That was pretty light for a bike in the 70's. A 77 Varsity would be pushing 40lb.

I'll hold onto this one for a while. I have a 7speed modern freehub and aero brake handles on order for it.

That's my keepers and some of the nicer bikes I have had pass through my hands in the last year. There is about 20 flippers but not worth typing about.

Now I won't let this updating thing get to be a habit

The Hospitality Highway Century. www.400century.com How cool is that picture!!!!!!! I am in that picture. I am in the orange Jersey next to a guy in a Blue Jersey and yellow helmet right near the middle. That is GA 400 one of the most heavily traveled Highways in GA. Rush hour that road is bumper to bumper from Atlanta all the way up to Roswell GA.

This was a benefit ride for the Georgia Transplant Foundation. Again this was lead by Mayor Wood of Roswell. A video on his site of the event is available here. http://www.mayorwood.com/videogallery.cfm Something like 1500 people got to ride on GA 400.

I did the 34 mile ride and about half way through the ride I caught up the Jay from the GBR and we rode the rest of the ride together. At the End Jay got a shot of me at the finish line.

Filling in more blanks.

I got hooked up with a local bike advocacy named Bike Cobb. http://www.bikecobb.org/

Cobb county GA had no formal group that did any political advocacy and a gentleman by the name of Joe Seconder set up this group. Cobb is part of "Complete Streets" program and has has a SPLOST tax going for the past 5 years to fund this. It promotes alternate transportation like Bicycling and pedestrian. Any new or upgrade road work is supposed to include completing sidewalks (Ga is really bad about not having side walks or only having them on one side of the road if they do exist) and analyzed if there is need for bicycle lanes on the road.

One of the things the group took part in was the GA Ride to the capital event. http://www.georgiaridestothecapitol.org/ This event gets about 1000 bicyclist to show up on the GA capital steps to show support for Bicycle related issues such as the 3ft passing law that is about to be passed, complete streets and MUP (Multi User paths) for non motorized transportation alternatives. Bike Cobb decided to meet at the lower Roswell county Annex and ride 6 miles to meet up with Roswell Mayor Jere Wood leading the Bike Roswell group. http://www.mayorwood.com/

Mayor Wood is a big time bike rider and really a fun person. He has made Roswell the "Most bike Friendly city in GA" Considering GA as a state is considered one of the worst bike friendly states that is a pretty good accomplishment.

Now the Downer was it was a nice balmy 17f when we took off for the ride! MAN was it cold!

I am on the left in the blue helmet and Khaki's in the picture. We had a police escort to Fulton County. We ended up riding 52 miles that day. Fun ride despite the cold. Ended up catching up with Paul from the GBR and riding the last couple of miles in with him.

This blog thing is easy!

If you only do one a year! So here ins another big one to fill in the highlights of the year.

Still riding! 206lb this morning. About 20 bikes under my belt in the last year.

I like to tinker and started bike flipping. Pick up a neglected bike put a few hours into cleaning and fixing and sell if I don't fall in love with it. I'm not getting rich but I do make enough to cover the keepers.

I regret selling that Peugeot. Had some sentimental value for some reason. The Mountain commuter didn't really pan out all that well. The handle bars being the biggest issue. Lack of hand positions and the long top tube just didn't make for a real comfortable riding postion for long distance. I did put 1200 miles on it last year but shortly after my last post a 1995 Cannondale T700 touring bike showed up. Second I saw it I knew I had to have it. Little haggling it was mine for $220. Back wheel had a hop in it (bent) but not bad.

I have put about 1800 miles on this bike so far and still enjoying it. Picked up a closeout back wheel at REI for $35. It was for a 9 speed but with a spacer I could run my 7 Speed. Not long after I bought the wheel (and before I even installed it) I ran across a ad on Craig's for a STI set up that included a set of Tiagra 9 speed brifters, 105 rear derailleur and used 9speed 11-28 cassette, 26/36/48 Octalink cranks and for a few bucks more a Tiagra front derailleur. Never thought I would like STI shifters so much but I do. Fenders racks and this is what the bike looked like by the end of the year.

Janice and Mom bought me a Brooks Champion Flyer for X-Mas. The red bottle is the air tank for the Air horn.

I also picked up a 1989 Cannondale R600 road bike that I really liked. Full 105 groupo. 700x23 tires. FAST bike but the gearing was really tough on the hills around here. I bought it with the intent of being a Sunday rider or for riding in events and Centuries.

She turned out to be a cruel mistress. Looks so hot but made me hurt so bad! New seat helped a lot but the problem was the size. 58CM made for low bar to seat combination. GREAT for going fast but not so great for my achy back on long rides. I did put a taller stem on the bike and that helped but it was making the bike something it wasn't.

I had been looking at rides to take part in and noticed the Tour de Cure benefit ride for American Diabetes Association. This one hit close to home since one of the reasons I got back into riding was my blood sugar level getting up into the "Pre Diabetic" levels. My riding cured me of that but I am still at risk. http://tour.diabetes.org/ I decided to do the "Metric Century" or 100K (62 miles) ride. Farthest rides I was doing up to this point was 40 miles.

AT&T has a national team and since I work for them I decided to join that team. Problem was while they had a huge showing for last years rider there was no Team for 2009 showing. I dropped a e-mail to Dan Bariarti (sp) the National captain and before I knew it I was the Atlanta Team captain. What i didn't know at the time was why there was no team. The past team captain had taken retirement in the company merger Re-org that had been happening. The CWA was also in contract talks for renewal. It seems that the person that was going to take up the Captain duties was CWA and was waiting for the Contract to be signed. If it wasn't signed and they went on Strike was the reason.

Leading up to the ride I did a lot of training to get up to where I could do this 60mile ride. Much of that riding was on the Silver Comet Rails to Trails MUP on the R600. I had a chance to drive part of the course. They call it "The Silk Sheets", rolling in scenic. Sounded nice and flat. It was anything but that. Rolling or "Rollers" are a series of hills and in this area they are pretty steep. I soon realize that the tall race gearing on the R600 was going to be murder on me. I decided that the T700 was the bike to ride. It would be heavier by 10lb but it had lower gears to make the hills easier.

So the day arrives (May 17) I load my $220 Craigslist touring bike made commuter onto my $10 garage sale bike rack on the back of my $1400 1986 4Runner and drive down to the event. Rain in the forecast. I find a parking spot between a 5 Series BMW and a Chevy Tahoe with $2k worth of custom rims. Both with $2-3k+ Carbonfiber race bikes hanging on the back. The types of bikes that weigh 17-18lb. Owners in full team kit wearing $200 bike shoes. I put on my $35 REI scratch and dent shoes unload my bike that is pushing 32lb compete with MTX trunk bag with rain fly and go sign in.

Start is loose. Their is an official start time but it is optional. Once you have you wrist band you can take off. So I am sitting there with 100+ other riders who are mostly in full kit on $2k+ bikes. I don't like the start situation. this is not a race but these folks are lined up like it is the Tour de France. One person fall and it would be a mess of others crashing. I didn't want any part of it and took off about 10-5 minutes before the official start.

I set a goal of a 15mph moving pace. Decent speed for the hills but a pro rider would be well over 20mph. The course had SAG stops about every 10 miles. Just before the first SAG the "Teams" in matching Kit start catching me as to the stronger single riders. Now competition is human nature and you get a group of people and they are going to push each other to see who is faster. So these folks are keeping about a 20mph pace to my 15mph pace. We come to the the First SAG and the team is still dismounting. I am feeling good and decide to pass the first SAG and ride onto the second. Again I get about a 10 minute lead and about 17miles from the start the "Teams" catch me. This time the mob mentality is in full effect and I start getting Heckled about my "Touring" set up and in particular my trunk bag in its silver rain fly. Comments like "What is in the cooler?", "Where is the picnic", "Whens Lunch?" Good natured but still the Mob mentality that alone nothing would have been said. I took it in stride and returned a few comments like "coors" ect.

20 mile SAG and I catch back up. Refill my water bottles, Eat a couple bananas and a BP&J. Good fuel foods. Between the 20 and 30miles SAGs is a 3+mile long uphill grade. There is no flat spots to catch a rest, you peddle to you get to the top. Of course this is the point where it starts to rain. Now I have fenders and a bike with no fenders just soaks the rider. Back wheel slings water and what ever is on the road on your back. Front tire slings water at the frame where it sprays onto your feet. Some of the slings off the front tire and blows into your face. Riding a a group the guy in the front of you is slinging it on you. It is miserable. I have fenders and a lot of those problems do not happen. I get rained on but I don't get the road grime and my feet stay fairly dry.

So half way up that hill I start catching the weaker riders that dropped from their "team". I get to return the Heckles. "Ready for that beer yet?", Almost time for lunch, are you hungry" etc. Again in good nature and we all laughed. It was on this hill that I caught up with the oldest rider. I have not found out what her name was but she was easily in her late 70's if not mid 80's. She was on a Hybrid and keeping a good pace on that hill. She was an inspiration to see. I beat her to the 30 mile SAG and she had her own fan club waiting for her cheering her on. I had to join in. She was great to see out there toughing it out.

The rain did not stop. I pressed on and caught or was caught by a few other riders with better rain gear and fenders. We rode together for a while till we got back in the rollers. For some reason I attack hills and get to the top as fast as I can to keep momentum. I dropped the folks I had been riding with. That felt good to have that much energy left after 40+ miles. I ended up having 5 hours of saddle time and average 15.1 mph moving time.

Well I will fill in the rest on a separate post. This one has gotten pretty long.