Just about a bike: Surly Steamroller [UPDATED]

4.8:1 gain ratio, 65.6 gear inches

Long before I got my Pugsley (which of all my Surly bikes ride most often these days) I got a Steamroller (and then, a little later on, I ordered a Cross Check, too). 

Mud brown, the first-generation (circa 2000) Steamroller was only sold in that color and, likewise, only as a frame-set.  

I like to imagine that I was an early-adopter of the whole fixed-gear thing.  Not true by a century or two, I know.  But still, in these parts, when I bought it way back when, there weren't very many of us riding fixed gear bikes, that's for sure.

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.