My Week of Riding Dangerously [UPDATED]

The following essay was posted to both the Rigid/Hardtail and the 50+ Years Old forums at mtbr.com on 24 November 2023.

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Turned 57 a couple weeks ago. Means I've been riding mountain bikes for close to 40 years now. 

As happens to some of us, I ended up hanging on to many of my old bikes, and have acquired and restored a couple other vintage rigs over the years, too.  Several of my older bikes are still intact and quite rideable.  The rest have essentially become organ donors or wall-art, so in a sense still "around" if only in spirit.

Quite literally hanging on (the ceiling) to several old bikes

Had an idea pop into my head the other day, as a kind of 57th birthday commemoration, that I'd ride (as-in really ride, on singletrack trails, out in the woods, just like I used to back-in-the-day) some of my oldest bikes over the course of a few days in the vicinity of my birthday and try to hit as close to an aggregate 57 miles as I could in the process. Rounding upward by just a few tenths, I pretty much nailed it at the end of Day 4 of what I've decided to call: My Week of Riding Dangerously. 

It was brutal. It was amazing. Effort was expended. Flow was elusive. Skin was lost. Blood was shed.

Just about a bike: Schwinn Typhoon

Founding members of F.O.C.B.S.
(l-r) Joe Bob, Anthony, Ray, Johncoe, James

I'm all about riding "the wrong bike" around in the woods on any given day, and I do so, and likewise vocally advocate for doing so from atop my personal How I Think You Should Ride Your Bike soapbox, whenever I'm given the chance.

And, it pretty much goes without saying that my new Surly Pugsley is yet another proof of this concept and my commitment to it.  But this, dear reader, is not a post about my new Pugsley (though one's coming soon, to be sure).

No, this is a post about the Flagstaff Outlaw Coaster Brake Society, which is a recent creation of my old bike-shop boss, Anthony, who has a super sweet custom made Bomber Cycles cruiser which he likes to ride in the woods now and then, and until now, mostly alone.

Today we met by Facebook(damn you fuking fakebook)-invitation-only at the bottom of Schultz Creek trail for the Society's inaugural ride.  Five of us showed up on coaster-brake bikes of varying vintages and questionable suitabilities to trail riding.

Joe Bob arrived on a sweet new New Belgium Fat Tire cruiser which he won at last summer's Clips Of Faith expo.  Tony was on his Bomber. Ray, on a sweet all-chrome late '80s Ross Mt. Whitney with fenders. 

I chose to ride my 1968, rather finely blinged-out (note: chrome fenders, ding-ding bell, and period-correct galvanized Wald wire basket) once-green Schwinn Typhoon. And James rolled up on his most-ancient, klunker-style ram's-head Schwinn cruiser sporting full-on massive paperboy handlebars and a nifty, "basketball" clamp-rack on the back!

We rode up Schultz, which, with long rest stops and brief periods of walking, took (shall we say) a while, all the way to the Sunset trail-head at the top of the pass.

We arrived at the top covered in ample quantities of both sweat and dirt (it's very dusty out these days) and asked a random kid waiting in the shade next to his bike to take our picture. This noticeably concerned his dad, who rolled up a moment later, just as junior was finishing capturing our pose.  But he remained concerned only briefly.  On seeing our bikes, he quickly dropped his guard and instead began asking about our bikes, our sanity, and our ride up.

From this point, it was mostly downhill, though only in the geographic sense.  Fortunately, Ray surprised us all by breaking out a six-pack of The King he'd been hiding in his trunk-bag for the whole ride.  So, before we rolled down the mountain with only our antique coasters to slow us, we sat down for yet another period of well-deserved respite, this time with tasty, if not nearly luke-warm, bevies all around.

Good call, Ray!

The ride down was a hoot! And pleasantly uneventful, even by more appropriately prep'd mountain-bike-ride standards: there was no blood, not one catastrophic mechanical breakdown, and zero flat tires!

Quite insightfully, James observed at one point during the descent that "we should put some better parts on these old bikes, maybe a derailleur and some good brakes, and man, then this riding-bikes-in-the-woods-thing could really be fun."

I thought his wry observation was hilarious.


Getting accustomed to using a coaster brake and a big, heavy, long-wheelbased bike with basket and rattly fenders on singletrack really isn't all that hard, just challenging, like anything else new.  The only really scary part of the experience comes when your feet both pop off the pedals unexpectedly and you realize, in that instant, that you've just lost your brakes. Completely.

Fortunately, dragging your feet on the ground to slow your rate of descent works pretty well on most surfaces.

 

You stink

One really nice thing about the hoard of well-dressed-in-denim touristy-folk ranging hither-and-yon in any given direction, always within sight of the parked Pink Jeeps atop Chicken Point, is that they all smell wonderfully. Like soap and shampoo, clean linen and floral perfume.  When you're riding uphill on a singlespeed in Sedona you notice these things.  Because you're going slow.  And because you stink.

The blister on my palm hurts.

Singlespeed in Sedona is hard. Rigid singlespeed is harder. Drop-bar rigid singlespeed is, no question, the hardest.  Wrap those bars in cotton-tape alone, and, you're not being tough, or faithful to some long forgotten classic vintage.  No.  You're just being stupid.  You deserve your blisters. And your sore legs. And the broken spoke in your rear wheel.

Once, years ago, my wealthy aunt and uncle visited northern Arizona and asked us to drive down and join them in Sedona for the day, which we did.  After brunch, they surprised us with the news that they had booked us an exclusively chauffeured Pink Jeep Tour of our very own (they bought-up all the other seats). I've biked around the Chicken Point area a thousand times, for going on some 25 years now.  But that trip was my first, last, and only Pink Jeep tour through the area to-date.  And, I must admit, it was a lot of fun.  Not just for the good company: my wife and our well-beloved aunt and uncle.  But also for the comedic-cowboy commentary provided by our admittedly very skillful driver.  We took the company's signature tour out to Chicken Point and got to do the whole-shabang: the slow-screechy skid down the steep slickrock near Mushroom Rock, and the gnarly Devil's Staircase descent, too.  It was a hoot, and well beyond my own meager skills as a four-wheel-drive driver.

I mended my broken wheel down at the shop this afternoon; needed an FR-6 to remove the freewheel (not sure why I've never bought one of my own).  It's been quite a while since I've been able to spend any kind of time down there.  Nevertheless, I am pleased that there are a few of my former coworkers hanging around the place who still remember my name, and that they're willing to let me use a tool or give me a hand now and then when I need it.  However, just in case the place was filled with new crew members (this has happened the last few times I popped in), I arrived bearing the proper oblation.  It never hurts to hand-off a six-pack of Fat Tire to the mechanics before you ask to borrow a tool.

Beer can accomplish great things, especially in a bike shop.

Just about a bike: Rock Lobster Singlespeed [UPDATED]

3.3:1 gain ratio, 44.9 gear inches

My old Rock Lobster is pretty damn cool if you ask me: a fillet-brazed steel frame built quite early in the career of one of the founders of our sport, Paul Sadoff, in Santa Cruz, California, way back in 1985, the year I graduated from high school. According to Paul, it's the sixth mountain bike he ever made, that's why it's stamped 06 on the bottom-bracket shell. 

For the record: I bought it back in 1995 from it's second owner, and have always run it as a singlespeed.

Because of its vintage it's got a few neat old-school features, like a braze-on behind the seat-collar for a Hite-Rite, and a couple braze-ins on the main triangle for a portage-strap. To accommodate the shoulder of the portager, the bottle cage mounts are both located on the down-tube.  Otherwise, in terms of design details and geometry, the bike is decades ahead of its time.

It's a blast to ride, though a bit of an ass-kicker, too, to be honest.  Nevertheless, to this day, I ride it a lot. It's about as simple and elemental as riding a mountain bike in the woods can possibly be. I think this is why I ride it as often as I do. Such experiences have always crumbled my cookie.

My buddy, Mark, who I bought the bike from in '95 got it about a year before that from guy named Michael, who was the original owner. Turns out Michael was a friend and neighbor of Paul's back when they both lived in Santa Cruz in the '80s.  Michael, who's now an NAU Geology prof and a semi-regular customer at Absolute Bikes, where I work in the summertime, once told me that Keith Bontrager himself cut-down, re-rolled, and laced the front wheel.  But other than Michael's compelling provenance, and the small "The Bicycle Trip" sticker on the rim, I have no real, substantial proof of that interesting little bit of history, which really is too bad.

When I first got this bike it was blue and the frame decals were peeling a bit at the corners.  It's still blue.  And the frame decals are still peeling.  But please don't assume I've let the bike languish.  I haven't.  For one thing, I took off the incredibly-huge original quill stem and substituted a new, custom-made, significantly shorter, and slightly taller Rock Lobster quill stem, chiefly so I could get a set of WTB/Nitto Dirt Drops into more-or-less the right place.  When I contacted Paul to order the stem (by telephone, ya see, 'cause this was in, like, the 1990s, back before teh internets tubes were invented) he was super nice about making sure I got the right stem for this bike ("It's gotta be fillet. Can't put a TIG'd stem on that bike.").  He even sent me a nice handwritten note along with the stem, all about when he built the bike and what kinds of tubes he used to make the frame... and also a few suggestions as to how I might choose to light it for formal museum-quality display.

I built a new rear wheel for it a couple years ago.  All by myself.  No, seriously.  I did.  I even put fancy anodized gold and blue spoke nipples on it... and I got the every-other nipple-color thing right... and I got the hub-logo direction thing right... and I got a whole bunch of other things right, too. 

The wheel I built is a Surly fixed-free flip-flop hub on a Mavic something-or-other hoop.  I've got it set-up with an easy-climbing 34x20 gear on both sides, which is a great singlespeed gear around these parts, but a fairly low fixed-gear gear for anywhere that isn't dead flat.  But still, sometimes I ride it fixed in the woods anyway.  Mostly, though, fixed off-road in Flagstaff is just stupid-hard and no fun, no matter what gear you're running.  So, really, I usually ride it as a singlespeed, and coast a lot and do bunnyhops and smile and have fun and stuff on downhills... and just talk-tough about how awesome riding fixed-gears on singletrack is. 

But, really, it's not.

Here are some other pictures of me having fun riding this bike:

UPDATES:

• In May 2010 I noticed a crack in the Rock Lobster's seat-tube.
• In July 2010 I sent the frame back to Paul to be repaired.  
• He returned it to me, fixed, in early September 2010.  He refused to accept payment for the repair.
• I had it repainted in October 2010.

• Since that time, I have replaced the old Suntour cranks with a much prettier set of Cook Bros. and installed a Thompson post instead of the well-worn Kalloy.  The portage-strap, which I made from a piece of an old back-pack (and for which, as noted above, there are braze-ins installed on the frame) comes and goes.
• In September 2016, I replaced the dropbars with a stylie set of 28" wide chrome-plated genuine Nitto Bullmoose bars and a pair of super-giant old-school Shimano M762 brake levers. Cool!
  
  
  
  
  
  

• In June 2019, I replaced the Bullmoose bars with a fairly generic 680mm matte black Answer Alumilite handlebar with a nice rise to it and some good sweep, too. Just for fun, at the same time, I also reinstalled the "the incredibly-huge [160mm!] original quill stem" which hasn't been on the bike since the day I bought it back in 1990-something.  Likewise, the super-giant Shimano M762 brake-levers were traded during this update for a period-correct pair of gently-used SS-5s, black with the plasti-dipped handles, natch.

         

• In October 2020, I replaced the 160mm stem with a custom fillet 130mm Rock Lobster stem, put the Shimano M762 levers back on (again. They work much better with the BR-MT62 cantis) and reinstalled the Hite Rite. I also fashioned a new leather portage strap from an old belt and installed it using the original braze-ins on the top- and seat-tubes. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Just about a bike: Ibis Mountain Trials

This is my Ibis Mountain Trials.

I've owned this bike since 1996, which makes me it's longest-owner.  But I am not the bike's original owner.  I bought it from Flagstaff local-legend Steve Garro of Coconino Cycles fame, who owned it back in the day... before he was a world-famous frame builder.

Before that this bike was owned by another well-known Flagstaff Mutant, Rex Jenney, who ordered it through Cosmic Cycles, Flagstaff's original mountain bike shop, back in the early 1990s.

The spec sheet that I got from Steve when I bought the bike indicates "Prices effective 4/1/92"

However, the serial number on the bottom-bracket shell, 1087, would seem to indicate that the bike is actually of a slightly earlier vintage (around 1991, I think).

I used to ride this bike a lot, so it's not in pristine condition by any means.  But it's certainly a special bike, two different-sized wheels, uncommon geometry, handmade in Sebastopol by Scot Nicol, stuff like that.  Plus, it's got a few cool parts on it.  Over the years I've done my best to A) fix it up just a little, and B) keep it in decent condition while riding it on a regular basis.

When I got it it had never been painted, just primered... and then cleverly Sharpie'd by Steve.  Of the many things he wrote on it, my personal favorite was written in bold lettering on one of the seatstays: "Yes, the rear wheel is smaller!"

Click images to enlarge

I got a local auto painter to remove all the old primer and paint it a neat gray with blue-metallic overspray, put new decals on it, and finish with several layers of clear-coat.  It turned out great and looks especially cool in the sun.

The USA-built Mountain Trials bikes (Ibis also imported a less expensive Taiwanese version of both the Mt. Trials and the smaller 24x20" Trials Comp for a few years) were manufactured in only two frame sizes, 13" and 17". This bike is the larger of the two and it fits me, a six-footer, nicely.  

It's a spectacularly fun bike to ride in the woods here in Flagstaff. I used to take it down to Sedona all the time, too, and even rode it in Moab on a couple trips way back when. It's crazy good at riding up slickrock, but ('til you get the hang of it) kinda scary going down.

Like all Mountain Trials of this vintage, has a 26" front wheel and a 24" rear wheel, 15" chainstays, a 72 degree headtube, a 72.5 degree seat-tube, a 22.75" top tube, a 12" high bottom-bracket, and a 2x8 drivetrain with a milled-down outer chainring to act as a bash guard.  It's still got its original Koski fork and the original Salsa high-rise stem, too.

Needless to say, it's rather unique.  

Of all the bikes I've ever owned, it has been, hands-down, the most challenging one to learn to ride well.