Wednesday, July 3, 2013

The white Mixte townie

Finally, here's a great shot of one of the early Douma Cycles bikes.

This is one of those awesome Mixte (pronounced Mixtee) frames that are known as being for both genders and for both racing and commuting. It is fast - very fast. And smooth. This was the first Douma Cycles bike built entirely from scratch from nothing but a found frame. The frame was lying in some garbage in a back alley, where bike frames and parts are often left to die. Adding cruiser handlebars to it instead of road ones turned out to be a great choice.



The original paint job was gray and blue, and the gray was replaced with neutral white and clearcoated into durability.

Because 10-speed road-bike parts are so easy to find, this came together quick and cheap. These steel 27-inch wheels are easier to trip over than they are to buy, because the popular thing to do is replace them with aluminum wheels. I know better than to put aluminum wheels on a steel frame, so this means I have an unlimited supply of old steel wheels that just need new spokes and some rust removal. The rust is, as in this case, usually just superficial. An old steel wheel will last longer, after it's fixed up, than a brand new aluminum one, and it'll have less theft value. A mountain bike seat and long steel seatpost completed this bike's transition into a total commuter, but the narrow road tires preserve its speed potential.

This was a custom build for a friend, and although it's needed some tube patching, it's been otherwise reliable for the two years it's been in service. According to the owner, it "practically rides itself" and is very, very smooth. It's been all over the GTA, and even the paint job has held up.

Monday, July 1, 2013

My "sorry for cycling" bike

My own beautiful main bike. I love it so much. I rescued it from the Beer Store in Little Portugal. It was tossed in the bushes with a broken chain, broken forks, no wheels, headset problems, bottom bracket problems, etc. But I knew its life wasn't over yet. After registering it with the local 14 division Police (who are super duper friendly about such things), I put my heart and soul into fixing it up to sell to a friend. Then, at some point, I realized it'd be perfect for me. Even though the frame was too small, I could make up for it with seatpost and handlebar changes. I'm still trying to get the bars in the right place, but as it stands now, this is the best bike I've ever owned. It's so fast and smooth, and it has a great feel.




I did so much work to it. I fixed up the drive system, then messed it up, then broke it, then gave up on it and turned it into a ghetto one-speed (with the cassette still on) and then finally, finally committed and replaced the cassette with a normal rear freehub. The performance difference of having a one-speed is totally worth it! I also painted it pink and then green. Maybe I should have left it white. It did look good. But it looks good Green too.




After awhile, I wanted to give it a name, or at least a title. So I wrote "sorry for cycling" on the side. It's kind of sarcastic, in that no matter what you do on the road, if you're on a bike, some driver will find a way to object and try to punish you for being there. But it's also genuine. I know that our infrastructure puts drivers and cyclists in conflict, making both much harder than they have to be. I also know that, since I switched from driving to cycling, I've been freed from buying enough cars and gas that at least one person has been put out of their job in the auto or oil sector. As cycling takes off, those industries are being affected, which is great, because they're very harmful to our public health, and they need to take a huge hit, but that hit doesn't just affect their corporate earnings: of course it affects jobs. The Auto industry is one of the last manufacturing opportunities for Canadians - which is also wrong and not my doing - but still, I am sorry to those who lose their job because I promote cycling as an alternative to driving.


But "Sorry for Cycling" isn't a name... it's a slogan. So I still want to come up with a nice model name for this thing. I was thinking I should label my bikes by their owner's name. At least their first name. But wouldn't having your full name on a bike have some value? I can't tell. I also wanted to name this something that indicated how quickly and smoothly it got me across huge distances... something like "portal" or "tele-" something. Nothing seems good enough. Naming things is hard.