Vacation, with Dahon

For spring break, I took a break from driving up north to Michigan to turn around and drive south with the family. I borrowed a new Odyssey from work so we wouldn't rack up more miles on our aging Pilot. As Henry and I were loading up the van on Saturday morning, we both looked at my Dahon in the garage with the same thought.

"Dad, let's take it!" Henry said. He didn't have to twist my arm too hard. We nestled it in the rear cargo bin to smuggle it south:

Quickbeam Updates

When I got my recent Rivendell Quickbeam, I had a thought that I would keep it as received for a few months before I started futzing with it.

That lasted about two rides before I could no longer fight the urge to tinker.

Which brings us to today's build:

The fenders were the last touch, installed today for a drizzly ride, after I looked around the garage and realized I didn't have a single fendered bike. I also added my VO front rack as a simple way to mount the front fender. What's not simple is the rear fender: with the rear facing track ends on the QB, I can't install or remove the rear wheel without also unbolting the rear fender stays. Longer stays or plastic QR clips would be a better solution, but this is what I had on hand. So I just hope I don't get a rear flat, and I won't be flip flopping over to the freewheel side with any regularity.

The forward facing dropouts on my Surly and BMC were a lot easier to live with, even if they didn't have the ultimate adjustment range of the QB.

Dahon Enters the Fold

I've been travelling a lot with my latest work project, back and forth to Michigan every week since this past fall. Of course, this presented a reason for N+1, so I decided I needed to pick up a folding travel bike. I spent some happy time researching various wheels sizes and folding mechanisms, trying to find a cheap bike that would fit my 6'3" self. Finally, during a slow moment in the Super Bowl, I somewhat impulse ordered a used Dahon Speed 7 off ebay. It came packed up in this odd box:

Dawn of the Quickbeam Era

I've wanted a Rivendell Quickbeam pretty much since I first saw one maybe 15 years ago. I've filled the interim with a succession of cheaper replacements: my Cross Check, various vintage Treks, and lately my Black Mountain Monstercross. But here in the winter of discontent, I finally decided to take action. I put up a "WTB" ad on the Riv and iBOB lists, not expecting much response, but Howard from Virginia quickly responded with a 64cm for sale. Just my size. A deal was quickly made, my bike fund was even more underwater, and I finally had a Quickbeam in my garage.

Trek 830 Updated

I wasn't in love with the drop bar setup on my old Trek mountain bike, so spent a few lazy evenings converting it over to flat bars. I swapped the V brakes for cantis along the way, since I was out of flat bar V brake levers. So it went from this:

With a bit of weather change thrown in as well. The bars are an improvement in comfort:

Jones Gets Less Cheap

There was a rumor out there--which turned out to be true--that Shimano was changing their policies in 2019 to now allow European imports into the US so cheaply. That motivated me to line up an order from Chainreactioncycles with some new bits for my Jones:

Trek 830 to Glacier Ridge

I made a few quick fixes to my recently acquired '95 Trek 830 (swapped seat, adjusted brakes and controls, pointed the bar ends a bit more earthward), and the twins and I ran over to the school and metro park to try out our new toys. I had my bike:

and Sam had his new football rocket thing, a bonus reward for selling lot of pricey boy scout popcorn: