Super Quick Update

And then this finally happened.

Whhhhhhaaaaaaat.

To answer a few questions - no, they are not for sale.  They are 25mm at the shim, so they will only fit with their proprietary clamps and won't work on other bikes, which is one of the reasons they are not for sale.  I am not sure yet what will be built with them, but I have enough to do three frames with aero head tubes (see that steer tube?  Yeah, that's a steer tube).  They are awesome, but I do not think I can get or order anymore like this.  Maybe. 

That's all for now.  I'm riding bikes a lot.  Track bikes and road bikes.  And building bikes.  Bikesbikesbikes.  

I need about ten more hours each day to get everything done

Or, maybe I can stop sleeping and instead update this sadly neglected blog that I have so much content but not nearly enough time for!  

I am keeping Petrichor decently updated with photos, and Flickr also gets new things here and there since uploading from my phone can be done from just about anywhere.  If things are quiet here, chances are I'm over there.  Or, you know, dead.

Really, the reason I have no time to write about bikes is because my life has become nothing but bikes.  Mostly riding them with rad people and building them, but also tinkering, buying and selling, and building up gems here and there.

Like this awesome XB3 Sport that has become my new timeshare bike, or will once I give that BB an overhaul.  Anyone ever seen an orange one of these before?  All original parts, but orange.  And tiny.  It's like it was made for me.







I have a couple non half-assed posts drafted up that I need to get to.  But know that things are awesome in my little bike world, and I couldn't be happier, which is why I haven't been around enough.  Hopefully I'll manage my time a bit better in the future, but in the meantime if you see me riding around LA, say hi!

Merry Christmas to All!

I've been traveling literally every weekend for the past three months, so please forgive the lack of content lately!

It's Christmas Eve and I have finally been able to sit down for a moment, so enjoy a couple fall photos that I took during Thanksgiving.  I was a bit obsessed with the leaves and with my wheels, if you can tell!

The leaves were falling like crazy as I rolled through them, and a combination of luck and wind caught me some stragglers.

Cockpit.

Birch leaves and crows feet lacing.  It's the little things in life.

I'm off to prepare for the holiday, but I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, or whatever it is that you and your family celebrate.  Have fun and stay safe, and hopefully Santa brings you a brand new bicycle.

Takhion Bars in the house!

Courtesy of Old Vintage Steel!  He's got a couple of Takhion track frames right now, so go check them out.  

42cm and 44cm.

Since one of my Takhions was missing true Takhion bars, I can now swap out the 3TTT for one of these.  And I'll have an extra for projects like this one which is still very much in progress.   

It's amazing to me how these bars seem to be quite difficult to fabricate, unless I want to place an order of 10,000 or so.  Finding the proper alloy and being able to do these bends is apparently outside of the scope of many of smaller fabricators, so getting a batch made has led to mostly nowhere.  I'm still trying!

Red Aero

I spent the day watching Game of Thrones and deep cleaning this glorious machine.

After lots of elbow grease (and Phil Wood grease), it's looking worlds better!

This red and white beauty was apparently built for Latvia with Columbus SL tubing, and is serial number 263 87.  Aside from wheels, it came with all original components, though the derailleurs are ХВЗ and not Takhion.  Everything else though, down to the seatpost, is.  

Tiny little Takhion stamp!

This guy was lost in the mail for quite some time, but thankfully showed up safe and sound after a few months.  I'll need to check alignment, but aside from the usual wear and tear that comes from a frame older than I am, this Takhion is in pretty good shape.  

It's all in the details.  

I put the front Antonov front wheel and the mystery rear road kevlar wheel on to take some proper photos.  Eventually I'd like this one to have a Campy C-Record wheelset (as I have been expertly advised) and matching derailleurs, since the XB3 drivetrain can be a bit...questionable.  

There's a full album here, if you want to see more!

Something Precious

If there's one thing to be said about the online bicycle community, it's that they're honestly some of the best people around.  Over the years I've made so many wonderful friends and have learned so much.  People here are always willing to help, to offer advice, even to sometimes do things that I thought were impossible.  

I received a gift today from one of these people.  

A fully restored XB3 Српинт.

I know what this frame meant to the friend who I received it from, and I can honestly say that receiving it moved me to tears.  Thank you, Alex, for being such a good friend and letting me question you to death about Soviet bikes.  You have no idea how much it means to me!  

Everything, down to the decals, is perfect.

I will do my best to do this frame justice.  And I will pay this forward in the future, somehow! 

1980 Moscow Olympics decal!!

There are a few more photos of this lovely frame over on Flickr, and I'll be searching for more XB3 parts to get it built up.  Every time I look at this XB3 I'll be reminded of how fortunate I am to have made such amazing friends - and that is truly what's precious.  

LA River Commuting

Though I lived in LA before, the area where I am now is largely a mystery to me.  I worked and commuted on the Westside, rarely venturing east of 405, so being thrown in the middle of Northeast LA has been interesting!

Though I've only done it a handful of times, my commute has been amazing.  Believe it or not, there are only two miles of my 15 mile commute that are not on trails - just one example of LA's growing bike infrastructure.  

The past two weeks that I've been commuting by bike I have seen LA full of life in a way I never had before.  Jacarandas are in bloom, showering purple petals down over everything.  A flock of wild parrots chatters every morning at the first leg of my ride.  May Grey is in full effect, so mornings are cool, cloudy, and a bit misty - and we had a thunderstorm on bike to work day!!

The highlight though has to be the LA River Trail, which I take the entire length of.  It's been cleaned up quite a bit, and is now shared by cyclists, joggers, and all of the wildlife that makes the LA River its home. 

It's also the location of an awesome new Bike Cafe!!  Spoke is a rad little place that just, just opened (I was riding by as they were painting the mural) and that deserves its own write up.  I rolled in on Bike To Work Day and had coffee and a banana before continuing on my ride, and it was fantastic.  

If you're in LA and ride the trail, you can't miss it!

And, in true LA fashion, there's also a bit of weirdness on the trail.

It was gone the next day.

My commute also offers something else a bit new - hills!!  I've been riding Oblivion here since I live at the top of a hill, and also do a bit of climbing to and from work.  I'll still be using my single speed and fixed gear bikes, but probably not for commuting.

The only real downside is that I feel like the roads are so bad, I need a CX bike.  Might be a fun thing to build if I get some spare time, but I need to get the shop up and running and finish the backlog before I take on anything else.

If you ride the LA River Trail, say hi if you see me!

Amgen Tour of California

I'm still learning my way around my awesome little neighborhood, and it seems like every day I find something fantastic: The Flying Pigeon, Spoke Bicycle Cafe, Coco's Variety Store...there is a thriving bike culture here, and I love it.  

But something I wasn't expecting happened earlier today - Stage 8 of The Amgen Tour of California happened steps from my front door!!

My camera and lenses are meant for capturing still objects, and I don't have autofocus (I'm a few years behind in non-bike technology), so I didn't get any amazing shots.  But that said, here's a bit of what I saw this morning!

Pretty inspiring to watch these guys - they're ending this stage and the tour today in Pasadena.  Good luck to all of these extremely talented cyclists!

Last Flowers

I rode my final commute in to work this past week, and stopped along the way to photograph some of the flora currently in bloom on my ride.  

The bay area is covered in Ice Plant, which blooms lilac or yellow this time of year.  Fitting that the blooms would just be fading as I take my last ride.

This is a drought tolerant sedum (I think) that has these brilliantly purple flowers in full bloom along Seaport.  

And the torch lilies.  I'll always love the torch lilies. 

 I'm certain I'll find just as many lovely things on my new commute, but this was a great note to end this one on.  So long, Bay Trail.  

Takhion Crank, Take 2!

Not only was I crazy lucky enough to find a right Takhion crank arm, recently I also found this beauty pictured below.  

Chainring is NOT Takhion though...oh well!

This 172.5mm crankset is from 1991, and is in great shape aside from the fact that the Takhion logo on the right arm has been polished off, which I might be able to get fixed in the future.  How do I know it's still Takhion though?

This is how.

The year of production and length are stamped on the back of both arms.  Sadly 172.5 is a bit long for me when it comes to track riding, though it would be perfect for road.  If anyone has 165mm versions that they'd be willing to trade, send me an e-mail!

A different bike from the Soviet Union

Edit: Many thanks to my friend Adam for giving me an awesome history lesson on these bikes and clarifying a few things!

I just want to preface this by saying I am definitely not an XB3 expert.  Please correct me if any of this information is incorrect!  I am still learning.

When I first heard about XB3, it was not really, well, positive.

XB3 Rekord was a fairly low end bike, with questionable parts and construction.  Not only was is considered the worst model, but it was also pretty heavy and many of the parts had odd sizes that were hard to find.  This is all I thought that XB3 was until I did a little more digging when researching Takhions, and discovered the Sport, Kvant, and Velosuper.  

I have since learned a bit more about the types of XB3 bikes available: Above the Rekord prior to 1980 were the XB3 Sprint, which was chromed and made of Columbus or Reynolds tubing, and Meteor, which was made of Nikopol tubing.  

Later, there were three other frames: the XB3 Sport Git, Sport Sprint (different from the XB3 Sprint), and the XB3 Kvant.  The first two were made of Nikopol tubing, with the XB3 Sport Git being the lowest end model, but still much better than the Rekord, and the XB3 Kvant being the best, and also made from Columbus tubing.  After 1990, the name Kvant was changed to Velosuper.  Also, I feel like a total idiot here because I thought Kvant was a separate brand, and have even referred to it previously in this blog as such...now I know better!

There was also a Takhion/XB3 Moscow collaboration frame, which honestly deserves its own post.  

The awesome thing about the internet is that it's bringing bikes like this out of the woodwork for the world to see.  And with that said, I started to notice these frames a bit more.  When I saw a photo of a gorgeous red Sport that a friend of mine had, I gained an appreciation for these frames - sadly, that frame was waaaay too big, but I mentioned that I'd love to own one someday.

Amazingly enough, soon after a Sport frame came up in my size...and what can I say?  I love Soviet bikes!

This frame is a gorgeous teal - my camera captured it as a light blue.  Don't be fooled!

Definitely well loved and with some battle scaring, but no dents, rust, dings, or botched threads.  This will be a fun little machine, and amazingly enough I'll be able to fit on it.  

So far, finding Sport parts has been a whole lot easier than finding Takhion parts, but it's not without its own challenges!  The headset and BB in this photo are both XB3 Sport, and I have a few other bits for this bike in my shop and on the way.

The numbers on top read 4589, and the ones on the bottom read 91.  Difficult to see.

Now, Takhions will always be my first love, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate other bikes.  

I dig the headbadge logo.

If you're interested in seeing a bit more, the full album is here!  

Something A Bit Different

My love for Takhions and Soviet era bikes extends far and wide, and always will, but that doesn't mean that I don't share a passion for other bikes as well.  There's another type of bicycle that I don't think I've ever represented on here, though it more than deserves it.  And, surprisingly, I'm not talking about Italian steel, though I do genuinely appreciate the ornate beauty and craftsmanship that goes along with it.  

Nope, I'm referring to the sparkling paint jobs, the tight clearances, and the history associated with NJS bikes.

What's so special about an NJS frame?  How is it any different from any steel track frame?  For some, the appeal of recently made steel frames in a variety of sizes that can be found used on a slightly less daunting price tag is the biggest draw.  Others argue that the ride quality is second to none, on the track or on the street.  And there's also the people that just appreciate the look and craftsmanship of them, which is enough to convince them to give it a go.  Sure, a few also care about that NJS stamp and take pride in having a bike built with full NJS components, but most of the builds I've seen sacrifice at least one or two things to keep them from truly being full NJS.  

A brand new NJS frame costs quite a bit of money, but many of these frames are used for a season or two and then retired, which has led to a bit of a surplus.  At some point, a few sellers in Japan figured out that there was a demand for these used frames over here, much to the joy of collectors, velodrome riders, and enthusiasts alike.  

A few months back I found myself more and more drawn to the idea of building up an NJS frame for the track.  Really, the last thing that I need is another bicycle, but that's never stopped me before, and well...I have a lot of bike projects, and the reason that these stay in the "project" state for so long is that finding adequate parts for something like a Takhion is no easy task.  Of course, I could also build myself a steel track frame, but I already have another frame that I plan to build for me in the works, as well as a few orders that I need to fill first.  And the idea of getting a pre-loved NJS frame and being able to easily find all of the parts needed to build it up was appealing - I haven't built up a bike in over a year, and have been itching to do so.  

Then of course I started looking at what frames were out there, and for me that's like going into a pet store and looking at puppies.  Bright, sparkly Makinos, sleek and elegant Nagasawas, flashy Panasonics and Bridgestones - these frames are all downright beautiful.  And I began to see more brands that I hadn't heard of before: Stratos, Presto, Eimei, Kiyo, Giro, and Iribe.  

There were hundreds, with frames coming and going every day, but one caught my eye.  And no matter how much I kept looking around, week after week I would always come back to the same frame.  The size was spot on, the price was unbelievable, and it was a brand that was catching my eye more and more as I dug deeper into the world of NJS: Iribe.  

There was a strange series of events that happened, and for a moment I set aside all plans to build or buy anything else.  But just as quickly as things changed for the worse, they changed for the better, and when they did I decided to bite the bullet and buy this little frame that I had eyed for so long.  

Really loving the logo work on this one.  

I actually ended up having really bad timing with this frame - I few hours after I bought it, I was on an online fixed gear forum and someone had posted a photo from the auction gallery for it saying that they were excited about the new frame they were going to get.  Oops :/.  I felt really terrible, but I ended up contacting that person and promised that I would make it up to them.  

The full album is here because Blogger now gets angry if I include photos taken in portrait and not landscape, but I'll include some highlights in this entry as well.  This was raced on for a season, so it has some "beausage" but is still in excellent shape.  

I'm working on finding out more about the history of its frame so I can do it justice with the build, and though it certainly won't be full NJS it will be pretty close.  It will be velodrome bike - no street riding for this one, or at least very minimal.  

A note here - while many of these frames are fine aside from some chipped paint and a small dent in the top tube where the handlebars swung around (referred to by some as the "NJS-special"), there are a few that come through questionable condition.  You have to know what you're looking for and be careful - only buy from known sellers, make sure there are plenty of photos of the frame that highlight any issues, and avoid rust.  Also keep in mind that many desirable names might seem like a good deal, but that Nagasawa might not be in as great condition as a lower priced, lesser known brand.  Many frames also have 110mm rear spacing, which is something to take into consideration.  

Fork Crown Chronicles: The first (steel) prototypes

:D

It's a bummer that I won't get these in the shop until Saturday, but I'm psyched to have them in hand!  They look great, but definitely need somme work.  Here's what I've noticed so far:

Machining: these guys need a lot of it.  There are printing marks (visible in the photos) and the tolerances from the casting and printing was a bit off.  I had to do some filing to allow the clamps to fit.  Other than that, I think some smoothing and possibly lathe work will solve everything.

Profile.  You can see some of the rough edges a bit better here.

Clamps: better ones are in the works.  These look nice, but I'd rather have them closer to the Takhion style clamps so that they could be interchangeable.

I made fork crowns!  That's super neat!

Weight: these guys are much heavier than my test crown.  I haven't put them on a scale yet, but I'll need to see what I can do to get the weight down.  They're made from 4130 steel, so they are strong!  That said, they also have the extra weight from the clamps to account for, so maybe this is a non-issue.

They'll need to be tapped.  That's not too bad, thankfully.  

"WE'RE HUGGING"

The rest will be tested on Saturday.  I can certainly get them polished and looking a lot prettier than this, so I'm not worried about anything thus far.  And I won't be the only one doing testing - one of these is going to a friend of mine who will be helping me iron out any kinks that I might find along the way!

Winter Sunlight

I caught this at just the right time as the late afternoon winter sun was filtering in.

Within about two minutes the light had passed.

Just thought it was a pretty sight.

On Loving Two Wheels...And Four

I meant to write this back in August, so considering it's now January I'm going to go with better late than never.  But why August?  

Well, I bought a car in August.  

When I had decided to do so, I had been driving my sister's Mazda 3 (recommended) while she was living abroad, and prior to that I had my grandma's old Hyundai Accent (not recommended) that she had graciously given to me when I was in high school and she decided that she didn't want to drive anymore.  I've got some great stories about that car that all end with "don't buy a 2002 Hyudai Accent."  

Though I don't drive much at all, as my family is in a too close to fly yet too obnoxious to take the train zone, and I don't have a cargo bike (yet), it's nice to have something to haul heavy things to and from the shop when I need to.  So when my sister announced she was coming home, I had to finally bite the bullet and do it.

Most of my non-cycling friends were surprised that I would consider buying a car because I bike everywhere, but they were all pretty cool about it.  Though a few were confused that I was still biking in after I bought the car.

The most interesting thing was the divide among my cycling friends.  When I mentioned that I was going to be buying a car, half of them were excited, and I mean really excited.  This group asked about models, years, specs, offered to take me to test drive, gave advice, sent me pictures of really beautiful vehicles, and were overall supportive and excited for me.  Most importantly, they each gave their input on how well the cars I were considering could transport bikes, while still being reliable and fun to drive.  

The other half of the cyclist group looked at me like I had just told them I'd given up cycling forever and had burned all of my bikes.  And theirs were next.

This group of people seemed to take it personally.  No one was really mean about it, per se, but there were a few that were genuinely trying to discourage me.  A lot of people that fell into this group didn't seem to think it was possible to really love bikes if you also had a car, or drove a car, or even loved your car.  To them, they felt like I was going to be losing a little of the part of myself that loved bikes if I went through with this whole car buying thing.  All of this was told to me while I *did* have a car at the time...so that was interesting.

Which brings me here.  If you bike everywhere, that's awesome.  If you bike a lot but drive sometimes, that's awesome too.  If you have to drive during the week and put in your miles during weekend rides, you're still awesome.

Come on, even Volkswagen teamed up with People for Bikes to make this shirt!

GTI + Bike = <3 - available here!

I've always hated the bikes versus cars argument, and really tried to stay out of it.  But after this whole thing, I'll come out and say it.  I like both, and why shouldn't I be allowed to?  How does that make me any less of a cyclist?  Why can't we all just get along?  

Personally, I have a huge appreciation for both cars and bicycles - the engineering, the design, the many different models created for different applications, etc.  You can admire a beautiful car or bike or respect the engineering that went into it.  You can love a Sunday ride through the hills, or a Sunday drive down Highway 1.  There's an art to driving just as there's an art to riding, and both bikes and cars have a fascinating history.  

Plus, with the advances in technology that are making electric cars better, or developing self driving cars that are able to detect bicyclists faster than a human driver can, we're definitely headed in the right direction.  And lets not forget that hating cars gets us nowhere - if you want respect on the road, no matter what vehicle you're in, you have to be respectful of others on the road...no matter what vehicle they're in.

So, I bought a car in August.  And I love the hell out of it.

The only thing missing...a roof rack.

Do I ride any less?  Nope.  Do I enjoy driving more?  Definitely!  I get an entirely different sort of joy zipping around in this awesome little GTI that I love no more or less than I do zipping around on my bike. 

And, I lovingly named it Merckx.

Anyway, this is a blog about bikes and will always be, so I'm not going to suddenly switch over to writing about cars or anything crazy like that.  But that doesn't mean that I won't keep appreciating them.  Enjoy the drive, and enjoy the ride!  

Happy New Year!

Over the holidays I was mostly doing non-bike related work (bummer, I know) but I did manage to find a kevlar disc wheel!

Sorry for the potato quality.  I wanted to try to capture the sunlight coming through, like I've seen other people do.  

I love the color of these wheels.

There are no markings on it, and I assume it's a Fluidisk - but it has a different structure and pattern than my other Fluidisk.  I wonder if they were different versions?  Aside from the legendary "666" wheels and Juna, Fluidisk is the only other type of Kevlar wheel that I know of.  Definitely interesting!

Even more awesome was how this came packaged.  When I pulled it out of the first box, I was greeted with this:

Why, hello!

This disc is going on the Takhion Temp, which I had mentioned to the seller.  It was a small gesture, but it really made my day!

Hangin' with the District.

So that puts me at two rear kevlar discs, and one mystery rear disc.  Someday I'll find a front one of these!

All in all, a pretty good way to start the year.  

Finishing

Today I was greeted by a nearly empty acetylene tank.

It was well over 250 when I left last time.

If a tank is leaking, it's extremely dangerous and should be taken care of immediately!  Fortunately the warehouse that I am in is a massive, non-enclosed space and there are no ignition sources, so I removed the regulator and checked the tank.  Looks like the tank itself is fine, which is good news...but also means I need to get my regulator repaired, as it's the culprit.  My oxygen regulator is already out for repair, so at this point I might just throw in the towel and buy a new set.

Because I couldn't do any brazing, I spent the day finishing.  There are still some areas with pits that I need to fix, but I was able to at least start to smooth out the fillets and remove some extra brazing material.

Getting there!

This one was far easier to finish than the bottom bracket.

Head tube!  Here you can see some small pits that need to be filled in.  All the more reason for me to continue to practice!

Overall, I managed to at least get a rough finish on almost everything, and will do final polishing once I've brazed the problem areas and done the last few braze ons.  It's been slow, but I'm getting there.

Happy Halloween!

There were some great Halloween festivities today at work, and my friend showed up with an awesome costume (that not enough people seemed to get, unfortunately!)

Though I'm not sure if he spent the day pretending he was Italian.

Even Moonboy is decorated!

Whether it includes a costume ride, trick or treating, or horror flicks, have a safe and happy Halloween!