Cyclelogue

Check out my new blog where me, Sean, J, and Tom will give the details on our mountain bike trip from Telluride to Moab at http://cycleogue.blogspot.com/.

Bike Projects

In the past few weeks I've been given two antique bicycles by friends. The first is a 1971 Schwinn Le Tour. The second is a 1983 Peugeot P6. According to the Lemonde frame size calculator, the Schwinn is pretty much the perfect size for me, being 54.5cm from the center of the bottom bracket to the top of the seat tube. The Peugeot is a bit big at 60cm. I can still mount the bike with enough clearance for the wedding tackle. Of course, the tires are completely flat so the stand-over height may be a bit big for me.

I'm thinking that the Schwinn will make a good candidate for an upgrade, while the Peugeot will make a good fixie. Aside from the fact that the frame is a bit big on the Peugeot, it also has many hard too find parts. Since the point of a fixie is to have as few parts as possible, there will be fewer parts to track down. Hopefully the bottom bracket and headset are in good shape such that I don't have to go from bike shop to bike shop looking for a stupid french replacement. The Schwinn has a non-standard fork and headset, but the headset feels pretty decent. I'll have to sit down and outline the details on the two projects. That will come at a later date. Stay tuned.

Real Men Use Reel Mowers

 
Why go through the hassle of using a loud and smelly gasoline powered mower that blows up dust and pollutes, when you can push a clean, quiet reel mower? I have a half acre lot (approximately) and I asked myself that question a little more than a year ago. I was toying with the idea of buying a reel mower and mentioned it to my friend Lee. It just so happened that Lee had a reel mower or two, or three, hidden away in the corner of his garage. He gave me two of them and I have been using them to mow my lawn for more than a year now. I've worn a heart rate monitor to calculate the calories burned while mowing and it requires about 1400 calories to mow my lot. Not too shabby. Of course, now my gas mower won't even start so I'm stuck with the reels whether I like it or not.