Arsbars.com

Man what a day. Early ride with a customer. Deep breaths and a skinned elbow next we were working on building confidence and inner strength. Amazing what that lady was able to pull out of herself. A lot of soul was shown today in a short 8 mile loop on our road bikes.

Leaving the ride my car starts acting up, sputtering feeling like it wanted to back fire and not acting like the lovely Audi A4 should. Panic, drive to the shop, breathe Arleigh.. breathe. Panic all day. What the hell am I going to do if its a $1,000 repair or something? Finally get home tonight. A friend from Annapolis who works with Audi’s was THANKFULLY online. Answer to my problem (I hope) new coil pack. Common problem with my model of car. I hope this is the answer!

Oh wait. There is more.

Go to pull out the lovely Lemond from the back of my car. Is that what I think it is? Yes there is a crack on both sides of the down tube right below my cable stops. I wonder if they will warranty it with another Lemond? They are out of business now… I might be screwed. Fingers crossed. So much for a long road ride on Tuesday.

My commute home Thursday night.

A bit zonked today. Long day in the office (shop) and some really good customers with stories to tell. No riding today. Needed to play catch up with sleep and my body needed a day off. Now the evening consists of making some PB&J sandwiches and then getting in bed with a good book.

Tomorrow is an early morning road ride before a somewhat early ride with customers out of the State Park. I am still enjoying the shop and everything new it brings. I hope you do too… believe in what you do as much as I.

No gym this morning. My body woke up 10 minutes before the alarm but standing up took effort. No muscles are too sore, my body is just adjusting to routine, working out and commuting daily.

Quickly I reset my alarm before it went off and hopped into bed with the pup.

Arrived at the bus on time. Talkative bus driver makes up for the missed cup of early coffee.

Do you spy my latest gismo on the bike?

—Sent from my mobile device

Every week that passes it seems that more folks are visiting my shop requesting information about commuting or simply running errands by bike.  Earlier this week I was researching something for a co-worker who is doing a 3 day tour later this summer.  QBP (that large parts distributor I mentioned) is almost COMPLETELY out of panniers of decent quality.  We really couldn’t find something of decent quality for the guy because the largest supplier of parts, who carries 4 different (atleast) brand of panniers.. was out.

Tonight I rode over to the grocery store with my largest body hauling messenger bag I own with an expandable bag for the top of my rack on the Salsa.  The bag was pretty neat as it is slightly insulated and expandable so my gallon of milk, cheese and milk products that needed to stay cold fit neatly in there.  For once my bag wasn’t stuffed to its eves and 3 bags of food hanging from my handlebars on the way home.

So far I am enjoying my rack, pannier and bag for the top.  I know they look goofy but riding it after awhile you don’t notice and they are mighty convenient!

Think this has anything to do with the economy or gas prices?

Photo borrowed from Fritz.

Dreary and foggy in the Queen City today. quick meander thru a park of graves and I am at my bus stop. Motivation is not lacking today. 530am wake up call by a beautiful voice. Quick hop to the gym. Home, shower, dog walk…back on the bike to the bus stop. Go to the top to finish the story.

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Bike rides around town, coffee sips, jaunt with pup and catching up on daily duties I haven’t done in a weeks time. Opps. The rain we have been receiving has put parts of Charlotte many feet under water. Bill will have photos tomorrow proving cars being submerged!

Monday morning at the shop a box arrived from Quality Bicycle Parts (the largest distributor of bicycle parts in the states.) On the side of the box the logo of Salsa was found. Quickly I ripped open the lovely box to pull out a well packaged Salsa Casseroll in bike, wheel and fork form.

The packaging and build of the bike was rather impressive. The fork, while uncut, already had the crown race for the headset installed, the headset cups were pressed neatly (and aligned) into the frame with grease in the cups waiting for the bearings that were housed nicely in a baggy in the parts box.

Fork was installed, measured with extra spacers “in case”, removed from the bike and cut. Next came installing the star nut, installed the fork on the bike and then placed the beautiful Salsa stem in “mustard” color that matched the frame.

The rest of the build was mindless. Front wheel, front brake cable trimmed down and then bars wrapped. I measured out my seat height, fore/aft and off the bike went onto the roof rack to make its voyage home. At home I installed my rear rack, clip-less pedals and made sure I didn’t over look something. The next morning would be its initial voyage.

Oh wait – mother nature decided to dump the aftermath of a hurricane named Fay on us. No long road ride. Instead I had a day of rest and relaxing which was much needed. I seem, for a few weeks now, to not allow myself to sit down and chill with out thinking of what I should be doing. Bikes to fix, articles to write, websites to fix and well finally my brain couldn’t stop. What is next, why am I sitting down, there is too much to be doing!!! Finally early afternoon I went out on the bike to meet a friend for coffee, and though the bike felt great, it wasn’t what I was looking for. After arriving home from coffee I went to swapping out some parts. Mainly the handlebars.

The handlebars that came on it are great. Salsa bars that matched everything wonderful. As much as I like drop bars, for a commuter, I really don’t want to be sitting out on the hoods all day long. Long term I want to get a set of Nitto or Velo Orange swept back “amsterdam looking” bars. For now I put on a carbon riser bar I had laying in my parts bin. The next thing was brakes, the Casseroll has normal road calipers on them that take a different pull than a standard mountain lever. So I couldn’t run just standard v-brake levers. I hunted around for my cyclocross top levers I had. Only finding one and needing to stop with two brakes (I am running single speed) I went looking for another thing to pull the cable. Finally I decided on a rear SRAM X-9 shifter. I set it up so that one click “slows” down by barely pushing on the brake surface, the second click “locks up.” In general I won’t be using the rear shifter/brake as the front really is what I use to control my speed but it is nice to have there in those “oh shit” circumstances or if I’m really out riding with a good amount of weight on the rack.

After I installed all this I took it for a test spin with Fiona running along into the cemetery. I was content with my set up. The front end responded as it should, the tires I am still getting used to and may get replaced with something I know better, but I like how it rode. It was ready for its ride later that night to the gym and school. That ride is a post in itself. I’ll leave you with some photos from yesterday. More glamorous shots will come.  Charlotte is in a section of rain rain and rain so its rather gloomy outside.