Spring Projects

Ah spring…

The time of year we look at our to do list and start those jobs around the house or cottage. Also the time of year we look at our bikes and say ‘how can I improve it this year?’ Some take the plunge into a new bike and others update their familiar steeds.

Others, like myself, create projects to keep myself busy and to avoid doing the gardening. These are this years projects…so far.

Repaint the Schwinn:

I got this bike while working at Sportwheels. It is a 2005 Tim Horton’s special Aluminum framed cruiser bike. I quickly ditched all the accessories such as the fenders, rear rack and the swept out bars. I installed a conversion kit in the bottom bracket to accommodate a sealed unit and a real set of cranks. The rear wheel was replaced with a coaster brake alloy wheel and the front with an alloy quick release wheel. The stem was eventually changed with a 1” to 1 1/8” adapter to increase stem and handlebar choices. I was also fortunate enough to get a mtb handlebar with a good amount of rise with the support bar to make it look cool.

All this had been done prior to this spring but it was missing something (besides gears and high functioning brakes). The paint job was tired. The red to white traditional Schwinn paint job needed was done. With some help from a local business I managed to get the frame water blasted. I then applied the primer and the first coat of ‘hammered copper’. Yup, that’s what it was called ‘hammered’ copper. It looks great so far. I need to apply another coat, put some clear coats on it, but it is going to look awesome!

Department Store Bike Build:

You read that right. This summer I built bikes for a local department store and noticed that although most of their offerings are low end, there are a couple of frames that are decent quality. Heck, they even come with replaceable derailleur hangers. Not sure where one would get one if needed, but I’m sure something could be made to work.

So, I got to thinking and checked my stock at home. I realized I had enough spare quality parts at home to see what I could do with a department store bike. I bided my time to get the frame I wanted at the right price. What I scooped up was a 2012 CCM 29er. We’ve all seen these, aluminum frame, Suntour forks, and alloy wheels. The components are suspect, but I had the solution to that.

Firstly, I removed everything I didn’t want to use. This included the rear derailleur, shifters/brake levers, crank, bottom bracket, and forks; essentially, most of the components. I replaced the bottom bracket with a basic Shimano sealed unit, installed Truvativ cranks and a Deore XT Rear derailleur for a 1×9 drivetrain. The seatpost was replaced with a one bolt aluminum version. I used a set of Avid 1.0 brake levers to give braking a much more secure feel. Finally, I swapped out the fork for a rigid chromoly version for weight savings, and because I could.

For now, the wheels, bars, stem, and brakes are stock and will probably be replaced in time when I can get the parts for the right price. Up until now the conversion has cost me very little, besides time.

Overall, it isn’t a bad riding bike with the modifications. Yes, my Norco Shinobi will remain my main ride, with the CCM showing it’s face occasionally and making a great cottage bike.

I’m sure I’ll have other projects or changes I’ll make on these and my other bikes, but for now it’s time to hit some trails!

Going Back to School

About a week ago I had an amazing opportunity. I worked with 6 students from J.L. Illsley high school on a program to maintain their fleet of mountain bikes. These students all showed an interest in giving back to their school in volunteering their time to take care of the bikes that the school uses.

I was contacted by Steve S. and on Wednesday I arrived with tools and stand in hand to go over the basics to ensure the students made the bikes safe for everyone. I was greeted warmly by Tom McCutcheon, and was led to a room full of some well used Norco Mountaineers and six bright eyed students.

After some introductions, a brand new Park Tool stand was put together and I took a glance at the bikes in question. For the abuse they had taken over the past few years they were in decent shape. A few broken derailleurs, and some adjustments would be all that was needed.

I conducted a clinic on basic repair and after some great questions from the students, they were eager to get at the bikes. We put aside some of the more involved repairs and focused on the easier ones. Throughout the morning, the boys repaired almost all the bikes.

After lunch we tackled the harder cases and before you know it, all but a couple of bikes were ready to go. The remaining bikes need a couple of parts but the boys know how to fix them once the parts arrive. After a quick ride in the parking lot to test out the bikes they were hung up for safe keeping.

The main thing that resonates is the enthusiasm that these students have. They were attentive, respectful, and readily took in all the information and had some great questions. I thoroughly enjoyed my day with some stellar students.

Congrats to J.L Illsley, the staff for their commitment to supporting their students. The school bike program is an amazing way to get kids active in a way that does not have to be overly expensive.

fight tales

just got back from my third ride in the last four days at the fight trail system. every ride was different in it’s own way and each ride had it’s own route which allowed us to tailor the tempo. just got to say it is so cool to finally have a trail that is able to withstand the wet weather and at the same time be so fun to ride and offer so many options as far as how you actually ride the various loops. you want hard core then do the back half it’s got it all. looking for flow? head to the basement and do laps till you drizzy. neither/either there are so many other options i would run out of space trying to list them all. I can remember riding in the area back before there was any real trail just interesting terrian and a gleam in lor’s eye. then came the original fight trail which was just straight thru and then back on the road. it was a hard core ride on the other side of the lake with a lot less granite to be had. but i got to say i sure don’t miss the ride back on the shoulder of the blacktop. in fact there is not a whole lot of the original fight trail still used today. instead we have lou’s basement, gords gold, triple s and bloodline but we still refer to the whole system as the fight trail. today we have some good folks working on our behalf to get a land use agreement with the governments owning the lands in the area. so there is your brief history of the fight trail. as far as some of the tales the best is probably how the trail got it’s name in the first place. remember the movie fight club? well it was out at the time of the first group ride and as we fought our way thru the raw terrian. mr t in his famous drawl says it’s like fight trail man. and that was that, trail renamed fight trail. that was a truely epic ride that day. just ask wrandee about his chest slide down the granite slope off the fortress of rock that guards the entrance to gords gold. don’t worry he said, it felt worse than it looked. seems many of the best tales involve various fourms of mayhem some more serve than others. the rock ledge on the backside of the halifax rock has claimed tk’s shiney new hardtail frame when he balked at just the wrong time. we all got a laugh out of that one. but when the flying v lost his front teeth on the very same spot after his bomber snapped at the crown, well let’s just say no one was laughing that day. gords has claimed a few victems as well and even if you made it chances were you still might need to wash those shorts in the heavy duty cycle. the sky bridge and the rock faces being the prime suspects. legend has it a few locals have pulled off a nose wheelie down the second sheet. most riders were was just glad to still be in one peice at the bottom. as for myself i have had more than one memorable ride, got caught in a snow storm one year and in the end we were struggling just to stay on our bikes/trail. the good the bad and the ugly i seen it all on the fight trail. been banged up and left my blood stains here and there. had a couple days were everything came toghether and others spent moving sticks and stones. but in the end i will keep coming back to ride and work cuz it’s that damm good.

the anti social bastards blog

as a hold over from the anti social bastards riding club i am going to take it to the net with the blog thing. for the most part i intend to talk about riding a bike and throw in some/a lot of trail talk as well.  an other topic that will come up is moab and the trip that i will be taking to the mighty mountain bike mecca this september. so were to begin? well first of i have to be honest and admit that i have been riding my bike on the trainer this winter. i would not call it training as such, but i have been fortunate enough to hook up with some others that have been training this year and just kind of followed along. but really the strong drink of rum and a dip in the hot tub is a pretty strong incentive to turn the pedals for awhile durning the cold winter months. speaking of the cold what the frack. this latest snow has sure put a damper on what was starting to look like a good spring. i allready had my secret trails over in shubie cleared out and had started mapping out the ultimate spring loop. guess we will all just have to wait a little longer no real choice in the matter. so the latest ride ended up on the paved paths thru the city proper and along the harbour shore. anyone been down to the dartouth side of the harbour lately? there is a nice run from the new condos at the old marine slips downtown to the woodside ferry terminal. it’s cool to see that the trails the city have been building are slowly begining to connect up. (pause here to remind you to go to the city trails survey and ask for more cycling trails of a singletrack nature). still not what i would call hard core but every ride works toward an end goal of having fitness in order to be able to enjoy the riding that much more when the sun comes on the scene and we all start riding the good stuff back in the woods were we belong. well going to kick this off and see if it goes thru before i go to much farther.

Pedal Trout The Next Generation

Welcome to the new site. I’ll try to keep this short, but I wanted to take the time to gab about the new site and the best way for everyone to get up and running again. (I’m also long winded and can’t be trusted)

The site consists of 2 bits now, 1 is the website it self. On the website we’ll post interesting news articles, selected special events and “PedalTrouty things”… whatever that means. We don’t know yet. We don’t really have an agenda except “to talk lots about bikes” :)

The second and probably most interesting part of the site is forums. We’re taking a trip back in time to the days of ECMTB and just presenting a simple forum for our users to chat, brag, show off pictures and organize events. For now we’re keeping the sections as simple as possible as usage warrants we’ll make the forums more granular and specific.

How to get access – the important part

Getting access to the new site is pretty simple. You can do one of 2 things, the first is preferred as it will be the quickest and involve less of my time.. (which results in less waiting for you)

1: Go to www.pedaltrout.com/forum then click on Login and then “I forgot my password” from here provide your username and email address and information on setting a new password will be sent to you.

2: This method is if you forget your username and password or have other troubles: email info@pedaltrout.com. Tell me your troubles, provide enough information such that I can find your account and we’ll get you rocking.

That’s it! except….

Except that we didn’t try to take EVERYTHING from the old site. It got hard. No better excuse than that. Sorry. We really just wanted to get rolling with the new site.

  • Videos and photo albums didn’t come over, you’ll have to resubmit them. (Just make a new thread in the right forum and start adding)
  • Not every single topic was copied, about 10 errored out and I didn’t chase them down.
  • I haven’t imported all the older blogs yet, but do plan on it one of these days.

The End

Well with that said, I hope everyone enjoys what we’ve done with things. We went for super simple and easy to use, few bells and whistles.

– Jeff MacDonald a.k.a. Bignose
info@pedaltrout.com