Open for Business

Wed, 1 May 2013 23:08:23 -0700

I’ve been more than a little remiss updating the site for 2013. In short, I am open for business. I will be available for both weekday and weekend shuttles. Rates are unchanged from last year. Let’s hope the same or better can be said for gasoline come July & August.

A couple weeks ago, fellow Riv traveller and all around great guy Smitty organized a tour in Eastern Oregon. Lucky. I’ve wanted to do a ride out there for longer than I care to admit. I had given notice to my employer that my last day was going to be on April 30th. With a couple things to get properly finished off before the end of the month, taking a week to join Smitty and crew just wasn’t feasible. Ah, next year... (Speaking of employment, the start-up I co-founded is now a full-time gig. We’re doing K-8 educational apps. Check us out.)

I’m not sure I can recommend Eastern Oregon for a July or August tour, I’ve never been there that time of year and suspect it’s really hot. If those months are your only options for a vacation, the coast might be a better choice -- though they say it’s a dry heat -- I don’t know. However, if you want a great shoulder month suggestion, Eastern Oregon would be my first choice.

Mid-Summer Update

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 11:48:50 -0700

August is fully booked. Sorry. July still has some Sundays available.

I’m on twitter. Occasional posts, somewhat more personal opinion & comments on matters-of-the-day in nature.

At the behest of cool bike-dude and all-around great guy, Philip Williamson, a friend and I created an App for calculating the optimum tire pressure for your bike’s tires. A lot of people don’t know about this and pump them up way too hard. The long and short of it is that tires pumped too hard bounce off every little road imperfection wasting energy. It seems to feel good (at first) because people associate the bouncing with the same high frequency buzz that increases with speed. So, hard tires feel faster. But they aren’t faster. The opposite, in fact, on real roads -- nor is all that buzz good for the nerves in one’s hands. Philip worked on all the graphics (plus this one) for the app and they look great. The App isn’t free, but we tested the heck out of it and there aren’t any bugs so far as we know. Moreso, there’s no annoying ad’s! Computes in both kilos and bars for my continental friends and customers.

Hoping to fit an S24O (that’s sub-24 hour overnight) in with my son in the next couple of days. Wish us luck. We tried to go last month but got rained out.

Chain Lube

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 12:20:29 -0700

Chain lube is one of those things I tend to think about as little as possible. I generally hate the stuff for being messy, not long lasting, hard to differentiate, messy, suspiciously expensive, and messy.

Unlike motor oil, bicycle chain lube doesn’t seem to generate passionate discussion, or even dis-passionate discussion. Admittedly I’ve never went looking for chain lube discussions, but I think if it were something that mattered to even a few cyclists I would have stumbled across something by now. For whatever reason chain lube never started a conversation. Sure, I’ve read pieces on cleaning chains, replacing chains, when to lube a chain and so on. But never have I read what to lube it with. I think the reason nobody bothered to espouse a lube is because none of it was worth espousing. Fortunately, with Chain-L I’ve come across something well worth espousing.

Over the years I’ve tried general lubricants, specialized bicycle chain lubes, and aerosols of all make and manner (the best and only one worth mentioning was a graphite spray-on my father brought home from one of the big steel mills). I’ve tried them with fancy brand names and without. They all attracted dirt (well, not the graphite) and washed away with varying ease (especially the graphite). Excepting the graphite, none of them were something I would think worth buying again or telling anyone else about. Unfortunately with the ease graphite washes off, it is practically useless here in the PacNW. Chain-L is different stuff. Yes, it is still messy. Yes, it still washes off eventually. But I can attest it has served me better than any others I’ve tried.

First, I put a new SRAM 951 chain on my daily commuter in early August. I’m one that believes the grease that comes on the chain is fine and should be run until the chain is in need of a re-lube. When the chain does need a re-lube, I wipe it with a rag to get as much of the external gunk off. If I have the time, I additionally run it through one of those chain cleaners that attaches to the chain while still on the bike and looks like a mini-car wash. Anyway, by about mid-November the chain was well past due. Some time back I had seen a tweet from Clever Cycles pointing to a Chain-L review by Kent Peterson. Well, there’s two folks I highly respect, so figured I’d give it a try. Wow, the chain was like butter! All lubes are going to feel like great their first day on the job, the real test is for how long. Check this, I didn’t need to re-lube until February. Two solid months in the wettest time of the year? I’ll take it! When I did re-lube I used some old green stuff I had previously been using. I figured I would do a kind-of-sort-of-controlled experiment. The green stuff, which is supposed to be a wet environment formulation no less, was all but gone in three weeks. Back to the Chain-L, thank you very much.

The other comparison I have for it is on the kitchen fan above our cook-top. The spindle spins on a brass bushing instead of real bearings and the thing developed a horrible squeak after about two or three years. I tried all the usual suspects: Tri-flow, Pedro’s dry spray, even the aforementioned green stuff. None worked all that great, usually the fan would be back to squeaking in a few months. As time went on it also seemed like the time between needing to re-lube kept getting shorter and shorter. I’d about given up and just been dealing with the annoying squeaking. After getting the Chain-L I decided, “well, what the heck... give it a try.” When I went to put it on I noticed the spindle was burned and the plastic making the squirrel cage blades surrounding the spindle had spider web cracks indicating it had gotten too hot. &@#%, had I let it go too long? Well, I put the Chain-L on nonetheless and to my immense delight (yes, the squeaking was that annoying) not only was the annoying squeak gone, the fan overall was quieter, and I swear was even spinning faster. This is awesome. As far as I’m concerned better even than what it’s done for my bike chain. And in the four months since, Chain-L stayed put and I’ve not needed to re-lube either. Awe-some!

Coming to ride the coast this spring or early summer? You might think about giving Chain-L a try.

2012 Tour Planning

Sun, 5 Feb 2012 13:40:53 -0800

And so begins the fourth year of Portland Sag Wagon. I’ve fielded the occasional email from early planners and repeat customers and decided it was time to update the website to let the world know I’m open for business in 2012. (BTW, always nice to have repeat customer inquiries. Nothing confirms you’re doing it right in a service business such as this like repeat customers.) Rates are up slightly, by 10 cents a mile for the first 100 and by 15 cents thereafter. The rates page has been updated accordingly.

Like last year I also have a 9-5 gig. While the 9-5 part isn’t strict, it does markedly limit my availability M-F. Last summer I was able to make a few early morning runs to and from Hood River, as well as a couple late afternoon runs to the coast. I intend to do the same this summer. If your schedule is able to accommodate that restriction, I’d appreciate the opportunity for your business. As always, weekends are still wide open, though if history is any guide August fills up fast.

With that, I’d like to share a great resource the City of Portland maintains. They have a set of route maps for rides around Portland, the surrounding counties, and popular routes to the coast. The Portland routes are listed right on the page, while the rest for outside of Portland are in the “Table of Contents” frame in the lower right-hand column. Enjoy!

Best wishes for your 2012 cycling season wherever it takes you.

Last Minute Advice

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 14:45:29 -0700

August is at hand. It is the high season for bike touring along the Pacific Coast. I’m nicely booked for the month and thought I’d take a moment to pass along some last minute bit of advice for people setting out on their first substantial tour.

My advice is to get a brand new pair of the fattest tires your bike will take. The absolute, and I mean _absolute_ minimum I’d leave home on are 28mm. A better minimum would be 32mm. I only mention 28mm because quite a few bikes can’t fit more than 28mm. And to be sure, those are minimums. Don’t shy away from 42’s or even 50’s if they will fit your bike.

Unfortunately, fat tires have a bad rap. I suspect for two reasons 1) racers ride thin tires, racers must go as fast as possible, ergo thinner tires must be faster*, and 2) most fat tires one is likely to encounter are on cheap department store bikes. Taking them in order, racers ride thin tires because they are weight-obsessives that do what everybody else is doing. If you’re not in first place and are on tires different from everybody else, do you want to be second-guessing that just maybe you could have placed at least one spot higher if you were on different tires? No, it’s not worth the risk. However, touring has nothing in common with racing. The speeds are lower, the loads higher, the roads less predictable, the hours longer. Fat tires are superior on all these counts. And key to going with fat tires are to pay up for a good pair. If you aren’t an expert and aren’t sure what to get, go with Schwalbe. They don’t make a bad tire. Schwalbes won’t come cheap, but they will be worth every penny. You won’t be able to find them in a discount catalogue or in stock at any old suburban strip-mall bike shop. A good bike shop that caters to daily commuters will have a pair. And of course you are reading this on the internet...

As for me, my touring & camping bike sports a pair of 50mm Schwalbe Big Apples. I’ve ridden them up and over the North Cascades Hwy. I’ve also ridden them for very nearly a century, after getting a very late start (about 11:30, I think it was) and going until dark with a full camping load. I run them about 35psi and they roll like a Bentley. And believe me, if you’re going to haul a full camping load a 100 miles in a day, you want to be rolling like a Bentley.

So, there you go. If you haven’t left yet, there’s still time to get yourself a new set of rubber before heading out. You should be heading out on a new set of tires anyway, it’s not worth spoiling a tour with lots of preventable flats.

* In truth, Bicycle Quarterly readers know that fat tires are, in fact, faster than thin tires on real pavement: cracks, pot-holes, gravel, and all.