New Bike, Rebuilt Bike, Old Playground

We had a gorgeous weekend here, so we made sure to get out and enjoy it. After getting sunburned (in April!) at the kids' morning soccer games, I took my recently acquired Trek 510 out for an afternoon jaunt. I had rebuilt this into my image of a kind of bike path cruiser:

I was hoping to find that this bike planed like a triple seven, but my hour plus spin was a bit inconclusive. When I had purchased the bike, 3/4 of the bearings were quite loose (the front hub seemed OK), and I adjusted or replaced everything. However, there's still a clunk or knocking from the freewheel, which, combined with the noisy drivetrain, made the ride less than satisfying.

I don't really know anything about freewheels (before my time), but I managed to remove it later in the shop. The hub seems fine, so I'm guessing something is up with the freewheel itself. Fun fact: the freewheel removes with a cassette lockring tool. At least while I had the cogs off, I removed the steel dork disc.

Also, those 25mm (actual, labeled as 28mm) whitewall tires need to go. Besides being too skinny for me these days, the white/black combination makes the tire look flat all the time.

I rode north to check out some potential S24O spots that I had noted while driving by our future neighborhood:

I followed a small trail away from the pond and came across a deer stand up in the trees:

Might be OK as a future spot, except during deer season.

My new cockpit is an On One Mary bar with a flipped over thumbshifter:

That was comfy, but the vague shifting in the rear didn't work nearly as well as my modern Hyperglide systems, even in friction mode. I guess my friction shifting skills are at least partially aided by all the tooth profiling and flexible chain of a modern drivetrain.

I don't have a 130mm wheel to fit in this frame currently. Actually, I do have my "fixedhub" wheel, but it's packed up in a POD until we move. I may shelve this bike until I can try it as a fixed gear, post move. If I really like how it rides, I would think about trying a 650b conversion. Again.

Saturday evening, Sam and I had the idea to go for a quick bike ride. We ran into Henry and Kate coming home from a friend's house, and they wanted to ride to a playground. It's almost like old times now to ride to a playground:

Kate is stylish as always in her new bike helmet:

Henry is back to riding Jodi's bike, since he likes it better than his Giant:

And of course this has worked out to me scheming to sell his cheap Giant and build him up a 26+ frame. This might be a nice little project for us this summer if I can find a suitable used frame.

The twins should get another season out of their bikes. Maybe.

Sam found a big mass of ants:

And then to play:

I'm happy enough with Jones as an off road machine that I converted my KM into a city bike:

The dreaded combination of track ends + discs + gears:

It could only be worse if I had fenders on it. Which I would have done, except my big fenders are also packed up in the POD.

There's a lot I like about this build: big tires, comfy riding position, lots of standover clearance, and, of course, hydraulic discs. But something's not quite gelling for me here. I think the tires a bit too big for what I use this for--40-50mm seems to be the sweet spot for me for a utility bike. And I'd like to have more head tube, fewer spacers, and a non suspension corrected front end, but I don't think I'm going to find something like that short of going custom. This works OK for now.

One last stop on the ride home:

We need to get more of these rides in while we still can. Our new neighborhood doesn't have all the playgrounds nearby that we do now.