If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Or a New Rivet Saddle...

The Rivet Imogene test saddle arrived a week ago.  I've been waiting on this saddle for probably a year.  Of course, I had tweaked my back and wasn't doing any wrenching at the moment...

Fast forward to today.  Swapping saddles is expected to be a relatively easy operation.  Put the bike in the stand.  Removed the saddlebag, Carradice Bagman, and spare tire.  Measured from stem to back of saddle, and top of saddle to bottom bracket, so I could reproduce the placement.  Removed the existing saddle.

Rough-installed the new saddle, getting the height and setback as close as possible - the Rivet is taller and a bit shorter than the Selle Italia Diva.  Took the bike off the stand to get the tilt set.

And that is where the "fun" started.  I'd get a tilt setting, crank down the bolt, and ride up the driveway.  No matter how tightly I cranked the bolt, the seat would tip back.  After a few go-arounds with this, I removed the saddle, and dissassembled the seatpost, a Nitto Dynamic 626.  After poking at it a bit, it seemed that the tilt adjustment was frozen.  There was a piece that looked like it should slide, but it wasn't moving.  A little Tri-flow, a big screwdriver and a rubber mallet were called into service, and I gently knocked it loose.  Lots of wiping, regreasing, and reassembly, and I again had a functioning seatpost.

A few more tweaks of the tilt and tightness (and trips up and down the driveway), and I called it good.  Time to reinstall the rear luggage.



Got the Bagman and Barley back on, and happened to look at the bottom of the Barley bag.  The straps didn't look right, because they were hanging on by a couple of threads (!!!)



Located the Speedy Stitcher Awl (I've repaired bike luggage before!), and removed the bag.  Emptied the bag (wait, no spare brake cable!  Fetch one from the parts stash!).  Vacuumed it out.



Repaired the straps.



And FINALLY, after all that, reinstalled the bag and spare tire.

Longish ride soon to test it out.

Love the One You're With

In my previous post, I alluded to an upcoming Big Adventure, and testing out packing strategies.  My Carradice Barley and Acorn Rando Bag did indeed hold everything I needed for the trip to Eugene.  And I do plan to carry, at most, a set of off-bike clothes, maybe another pair of bike shorts, and any additional outer clothing, as needed.

The ride to Eugene was accomplished in hot, sunny weather.  I started out with knee warmers, arm warmers, and the wind/reflective vest, but they came off and stuffed in one or the other of the bags within the first hour or so.  The Bike Adventure will take part over two weeks in mid to late October, riding from Washington DC to Freehold, NJ, including a couple of permanent populaires, followed a few days later by a 200k perm to Philadelphia and back.  The weather might not be quite so wonderful, and I should have space for the extra bits.  I can stuff a lot of things in the Barley, but perhaps not quite that much.

I did buy the Banjo Brothers Racktop Pannier Bag.  I have, on order, a Racktime Fold-It silver rack.  It has been on order since early August...  Maybe in October, they tell me.

There are two unused racks in the garage - the venerable Jim Blackburn brake bridge mount rack, and a Racktime Light-It I bought to try maybe a couple years ago.



The Light-It didn't work well for the purpose I intended - the deck is narrow, so it doesn't manage a racktop bag well.  So I set out to install the Jim Blackburn rack.  That didn't work out - I suppose a longer brake bolt would have helped, but I didn't want to go forage for one.



Turning my attention back to the Light-It (it does have the advantage of a rear light mounting setup), I wondered if I could fake a wider rack deck with coroplast.  Made a pattern out of newspaper, cut up one of the sheets of coroplast I have in the garage (I didn't vote for that candidate, but I do appreciate his donating to my coroplast stash), and mounted it on the rack.  It seemed to work.



Then I proceeded to mount the rack on the bike, and remembered the other parts that didn't work out so well.  The rack mount and the fender mount crowd each other, but with some determined wiggling, everything bolted on.  This won't be a problem on the Adventure; the plastic fenders mount differently.



Rack mounted, I installed the bag.  Of course, me being short, the accessible rack deck area was less. :-(

But the bag did install, the panniers were deployed, and I took a test run up and down the driveway.  In flip flops :-)





It seems to work; tomorrow's 200k will test it out.

Some days, it is hard to be a good little demographic

I surely tried. Fitz told me to get the Brooks Saddle of my choice for Mother's Day. Duly accomplished yesterday. It is installed, but there is a small problem - my venerable seatbag does not work with it.



All the other seatbags we have around are of the same type, except my Carradice Barley, which will work even BETTER with the new saddle, but it does not work and play well with the briefcase pannier, so those are all out of consideration.

Ah! Time to get a VO Croissant or Rivendell Banana bag! Finally, an excuse.

Darn. Both out of stock.