39. BIKES I CURRENTLY KNOW - THE MONGOOSE...Pt2.

There are a few issues that arise when you choose an item primarily on the basis of colour and a 14 year old's memory of what a cool bike would be. 

Geometry for starters.

I know about geometry now because I've done a whole lot of reading on the subject of 'things you need to know before buying a bike' that I didn't get around to doing before I bought the Mongoose. If I had done all of that reading then, I might have been a bit wary of the really quite forward body position demanded of the rider by the Mongoose Hilltopper. 

It's an excellent body position for climbing hills apparently on account of it keeping your weight over the front wheel which stops it lifting off the ground and presumably flipping you over backwards as you grind up whatever hill you are 'topping'. Which is good and all, but I don't spend all of my time grinding up hills (in fact I try to spend as little time as possible grinding up anything) and when you're just rolling along the flat, or even more noticeably, riding down a steep and rocky trail, you tend to get a fair old workout on your wrists and forearms.

I've made a few alterations over the years in an effort to ameliorate this tendency, new handle bars being the chief one, without much success. All in all, it's something I might have paid more attention to when I was riding it around the Dee Why Cyclery's back carpark in '97 thinking - 'This is pretty cool but I wonder if my wrists are supposed to hurt after 3 minutes of this'.

To show I have fully learnt my lesson from this I am building my NEW bike without the benefit of any kind of test ride at all.

Um. 

Regardless of that minor quibble I have had the Mongoose now for nearly 20 years and it continues to serve with distinction. And like the man who deliberately does all of his training for the big race with a 20kg pack on his back just so he'll go so much faster when he takes it off, I reckon the limited selection of gears (compared to modern bikes) and not exactly featherlight weight of the Mongoose will serve me in good stead when I hop on my new bike....whatever that ends up looking like.

38. BIKES I CURRENTLY KNOW - THE MONGOOSE.

The requirement to remove another persons crap (by which I DO NOT mean ‘assorted paraphernalia') from my landing notwithstanding, there was a element of satisfaction to be gained from the theft of my first mountain bike (see here). That being – I would now get to buy another mountain bike.

It’s one of the great unspoken ‘perks’ of having your personal space invaded by some self entitled, disrespectful arse, that you get to replace the stuff the aforementioned arse makes off with. Of course this in no way makes up for the feeling of having your personal space invaded, particularly when stuff is nicked that cannot be replaced through normal means on account of personal attachment (said the guy who lost his wedding ring at football training).

It also helps if you are insured. I’m no fan of the insurance industry. Well apart from them employing my wife for many years....and therefore helping us buy a house and raise our child...and um, paying for the repairing of my car in a speedy and professional manner every time a kangaroo decides to end its life on my car’s front grill....apart from all that - I’m no fan of the insurance industry.

But I can see how they might get a bit jaded by some of the more creative claims they get in a society that often seems to consider it their right to be compensated for the theft of their 17 dodgy compact discs and the shitty player that went with them, with a multi-thousand dollar shopping spree paid for by their insurance company.

Not me though. I am of course above that kind of moral decrepitude. The fact that I have not been insured for any of the 3 times I have been ripped off has of course NOTHING to do with my standpoint here.

Lacking an insurance policy from which to extract the cash for a new bike, I was afforded the time to have a good look around before making my decision. As the ‘internet’ in 1996 was something housed in a 15 acre warehouse kept under heavy guard by the US Military, this meant lots of visits to lots of local bike shops, the consuming of more than a few magazines and finally a decision substantially made on the basis of colour, price point (expensive enough to convince myself I was getting ‘quality’ with one eye on my not massively bulging wallet) and the fact that I always wanted a Mongoose BMX when I was a kid and I had the cash now so fuck it – I’m getting a Mongoose.

1996 Mongoose Hilltopper (with some alterations - details to follow)

This Mongoose to be precise...

Next: More Mongoose...

37. UM....ERR.....PLAY FOR TIME...

Bum. It's Monday night. It's 10:31pm and lets be honest, I'm getting fairly desperate about what to post. 

I mean I have put some bits on the frame that make it look nice. If I'd taken a photo of that it'd look just peachy if I placed it just about....well....here

...but I haven't taken a photo of the lovely new cranks and bottom bracket and everything NOR have I taken a picture of the view up the Valley that I was going to use to illustrate what a smashing pastime riding a bike is. 

So you get this instead. 

I am ashamed.

You can however check out my other Blog in which I draw heaps of things ....... here. 

36. BUYING LOCAL...FOR A GIVEN VALUE OF ‘LOCAL’.

The argument goes like this – The right thinking cyclist should support his or her local bike shop, even if it costs a few extra bucks, on the grounds that:

1. You get a whole lot of extra value from buying your gear from the local guy (like measuring, advice, experience and the ability to actually swing your leg over the merchandise before parting with your cash) that you don’t get from Mr Internet and,

2. Much more bluntly - If you don’t support your local guy he’ll go out of business and then what are you gonna do when you need to get your kid’s next bike (not to mention like, the bike shop owner gets to be unemployed and probably turns to crime and ends up stealing your bike so you don’t have a bike anymore and....it’s just all very messy).

Two very good points to be sure and I’m going to say that I agree with a lot of the first point and some of the second.

I should also point out, sorry, admit, that all of the stuff I have purchased for my bike so far, has been purchased online.

I know. It’s terrible. It’s like I don’t love Australia or something.

But seriously – Online prices beat the living daylights out of the local equivalent. The same goes for availability. Mind you, the bar here is not exactly set very high. I went into one of the local bike shops (local is a very elastic concept out here) a couple of weeks ago looking for some oil and not only did they not have it, they weren’t that confident that what they did have wasn’t what I wanted....which it wasn’t....confused?

See it’s fine to use argument No.1 but you’d better be ready to pony up with the expertise when it’s looked for. It is possible I admit, that the situation might be better if I lived slightly closer to civilisation. But I don’t. So I excuse myself.

I also excuse myself on the grounds that most of the research work in my case is being done by myself and the fact that I am building my own bike immediately disqualifies me as the preferred target of most bicycle retailers who would really rather sell me one of the complete packages they have sitting, ready and waiting, on the floor.

As far as argument No2. goes – I’m not as sympathetic as I could be here. I do feel somewhat sorry for the retailer who gets his or her time wasted by ‘customers’ whose only intention is to use the information gained to make an online purchase, but perhaps instead of simply lamenting the unfairness of it all a new approach needs to be taken.

If the local bike shop can’t compete with the prices offered by some of the online behemoths maybe they need to admit that to the customers, point them in the right direction, maybe even through a computer in the shop, and then make themselves available to fit whatever it is the punter ends up buying. I’d pay for that. Many would.

Because it’s one thing to get your hands on a cheap component. It’s another thing entirely to attach it to your bike without screwing the whole thing up.

Next: Bolting, screwing, whacking...

35. A BOX OF METAL STUFF...

I am conscious of the fact that my titles may be getting a tad unimaginative....

I got a box in the mail yesterday that was chock a block full of this..

....look at all that stuff. Mmmmm – stuff.

Before you ask – the blue handled thing to the left is not actually going to be a part of the bike, but is required to attach other bits that will be part of the bike, to the bike. This is obviously an area that could easily have caught one not so prepared as myself unawares – it turns out many of the things you need to do in the construction of a bicycle require tools specifically designed for that job and that job alone (though I suppose I could re-task this one as a makeshift club or something...).

I am assuming this is part of some frightfully well planned plot on the part of the Bicycle Mechanics World Wide Brotherhood to ensure their services are not easily done away with. There are a couple of tools I have come across that go into the $400-$500 mark (that it is not my intention to purchase by the way). Trick for new players.

I ordered all this stuff from an online outfit in England who were considerably cheaper than any of the other places I had a look at and even do free postage if you order over $99.00 worth of gear (something I’m outstandingly good at co-incidentally).

This is a practice that is the subject of quite a lot of discussion in the bicycle press currently, with the argument being put forward by many, that we (by which they mean – ‘I’) should be giving our business to local bike shops instead of feeding the insatiable and growing appetite of the ravenous beast that is online retailing. I do feel a little bit guilty about this (my wallet less so) which is convenient as it allows me to utilise the discussion of that guilt as the subject for another blog - everyone is a winner....except the local bike shop.

One of the downfalls of online shopping is that you don’t get to check the thing you’re buying before you leave the shop with it. A risk that has unfortunately been illustrated by the inclusion of a chain ring in my box o goodies that is different to the one I ordered. As a result I have two 34 tooth chainrings instead of a 34 and a 36.

So now I get to find out how good this particular online retailer is at customer service when it doesn’t involve me giving them money.

Should be a hoot.

Next: The ethical quandary that is online shopping.

34. PEDALS. COMPLICATED? WHO WOULD OF THOUGHT?

I know. Flat things that you stick your feet on and go round and round. That’s about as complicated as putting on a shirt right?

Well thankfully, for the sake of this last minute Monday morning post, the wonderful world of cycling has endeavoured to make it a bit more complicated than that. Please observe.

...now that I look at it, I could have labelled these in a more logical sequence but as the overall effect is to increase the confusion you all might feel, I will go ahead and pretend that it was my intention from the beginning to allow you to feel some of the ‘what the hell’ I got to experience when I started to look into what I thought would be a comparatively simple part of the bike assembly process.

The pedal at ‘B’ is what I have had on my various bikes since the first road bike I got back in the 80’s. Manually tightened toe clips that hung down whenever you took your foot out and were quite often a right pain in the arse to get your foot back into when pulling out at the lights or whatever. While they did anchor your foot to the pedal allowing you to pull up a little on the ‘up’ pedal (a phenomena I have since read is a load of bollocks) they also made it difficult to remove your foot, especially if you did them up tight, leading to some quite comical - 'Ooh look at him. Is he going to fall over? Yes he has!!' – moments.

At ‘C’ we have the pedals the rest of the serious cycling world moved into quite some time go. They are somewhat bizarrely called ‘clipless pedals’. I say bizarrely because the deal with these is that you actually clip your foot into the pedals via cleats screwed into the bottom of your shoes as illustrated in picture ‘A’ with an allegedly effortless, once you get used to it, twisting motion...I am assured.

Road cyclists with any kind of self respect whatsoever would not be seen dead without a pair of these and biomechanically these things give you all sorts of advantages and there’s physics and graphs and all sorts of shit to prove EVERYTHING baby LOOK just put them on your bike or you’re a total loser.

Despite those well put arguments - I have some issues with these pedals.

Firstly – it still seems to me I am nailing my foot to the pedal and I am not yet good enough on unstable terrain to give up my God given option to put a foot down really quickly. Secondly – using these means wearing the fancy shoes and clicking about everywhere whenever you aren’t on the bike like a dirt covered, entirely lost, tap dancer and I’m not sure that’s entirely me.

So I have elected to pay attention to the one or two articles I have found that say riding with flat pedals like these...

Shimano Saint MX80 flat pedals (I assume you get two in the box..)

 ...is entirely the go if you want to perfect your pedalling technique, gain more confidence in tricky situations, become less reliant on the fact your foot is nailed to the bike when bunny hopping etc and be able to walk around quietly in the relatively normal shoes you get to wear (though I should point out you still get the excuse to buy shoes with special ‘sticky’ rubber soles to maximise your flat pedal effectiveness).

Next: Hopefully – attaching the bits that surely have arrived by now....

33. WHAT THE **** IS A CHAIN DEVICE?

I know, I know. Sounds a bit weird and despite all the magazines and forums and websites telling me otherwise I was initially dubious about the need for me to get one of these. But apparently, if you’re going to have a single chain ring up front then you need to get one of these..

 ...attached to your bike or as soon as you hit a bump your chain will fly off the ring, club you repeatedly about the head, empty out your bank accounts and strangle your entire family. That seemed like a bad thing so...yeah. On a normal bike with more than one ring and a front derailleur and everything the chain is kept from wreaking this bloody havoc by the derailleur cage as seen here...

That's the derailleur sitting up above the round thing with lots of teeth on it. Really should clean my bike more often...

Once you get rid of that (the derailleur I mean) you need something else to guide the chain onto and off the chainring. So – chainguide. Which, when attached, will look something like this...

Except mine is black (see above). There's a little wheel in the white thing down the bottom that helps the chain run around without hassles..

 It’s just pictures galore today. There are other options of course. Some are bigger and have bashplates for ‘soaking up the hits’ which sounds quite worrying if you ask me. Some are smaller. A company call SRAM (pronounced um, SRAM) which is quite the major player in the bicycle world, has recently released a dedicated 1x11 drivechain (as in 1 ring up front and 11 out back which of course means all the cycling press get to make absolutely HILARIOUS Spinal Tap references all over the place) that claims not to need a chain guide at all, but it costs an absolute SHITload more than I am currently willing to fork out.

And if, once I get it all going, it seems to me that I don't need a top and bottom guide, I can just remove the bottom bit. Which is a preferable option to buying a top guide only and finding out I really needed the whole shebang.  

Plus. I've never been accused of not overengineering the hell out of everything. Check out our 70 ton solid hardwood cubbyhouse if you have any doubt.

Next: Pedals: More complicated than you would think....