Bicycling

Mini and Bicycle Racks

We have the 2-bike version of the Saris Bones rack that is perfect for the Miata and carrying our road bikes (or in a pinch the tandem), but now we also have a Mini and mountain bikes. Because of the plastic roof small lip spoiler on the Mini there is no place to hook what would be the top straps of the Bones without risking breaking that plastic piece. After doing a bunch of online searching around the Mini Forums and not really finding anyone with a good work around, they just put the straps on ignoring the pressure on the lip, I was about to give up when I had an idea – a pool noodle.

I went to my favorite store, Amazon, and found the largest diameter noodle with the highest density and bought an Oodles Monster Jumbo Pool Noodle. When I got it, I cut it to the length of the width of the back window to try it out. I got the rack arms adjusted to get them parallel to the ground and braced the bottom legs on the bumper. I then lengthened the straps so I could get them hooked in the right spots. The top straps hooked in on top and the noodle was just right in keeping any pressure off the lip spoiler, the side straps hooked on the body of the door, not the glass, but the bottom straps would not reach the bottom of the hatch door. I think it might have worked without them, but I would probably get some longer ones for some enhanced security.

Seeing as I have never tried the mountain bikes with the Bones rack, now was the time. I went and got my MTB to put on spot closest to the car because it is the tallest. Because of the frame geometry the bike rested in a nose down attitude, unlike the level look of the road bikes. The frame tubes are rectangular, not round, they didn’t rest in the cradle nicely, but with the three loops tightened it was held in tightly. I then grabbed Donna’s size small framed bike (mine is a large) and it would not go over the rack arms, there just wasn’t a large enough opening in the frame. Now what?

My first thought was returning to a roof rack, we used to have one that was universal and removable, so I researched the genuine Mini rack first. This has the benefit of being designed for the car. The roof rack base system is a couple hundred dollars, the rack itself is about $150 and you need two of them, so this would cost roughly $500 to out fit the car. I think this is the best way to accomplish this and I an order would already be placed except for the negatives. Firstly, this would be mounted on the car at all times generating wind noise, slightly decreasing gas mileage and getting all covered in bugs. Some of this could be eliminated by removing the bike rack section, leaving the base, but this increases time and trouble when you do want to transport the bikes. Secondly, there is the issue of having to lift the bikes up onto the roof, I am tall enough, but my MTB weighs 35 pounds, and that is a lot of unwieldy to hoist up that far making the chance for a mistake of scratching the car or dropping the bike a consideration.

Option #2 was a trailer hitch mounted rack. This option comes in around $400 if I do the work of installing the $200 trailer hitch. You have to remove the rear bumper which according to folks on the Mini Forums only takes an hour to 1-1/2 which translates into around 4 to 5 hours in real life. The pluses are that you only need to lift the bikes a foot off the ground, it is easy to put on and take off and you have zero chance of shearing everything off the roof when you drive into your garage forgetting about the bikes. The big negative is that the trailer hitch receiver comes out of middle of the bumper and you lose your back up light/rear fog lamp assembly. No one on the forums mentioned anything about whether the car throws a code because of this, I would think with the electrics being on a CANBUS system there might be some issue.

The third possibility is a variation on the roof rack, a pair of Talon suction cup mounts from SeaSucker. This option costs about $500. This is the 21st century version of that original universal and removable rack as it is easy on and off, but the hoisting the bikes up issue still remains, although slightly easier because you get to remove the front wheel. But the removed front wheels now have to be stored inside the car, that is unless you want to spend another $250 for a pair of suctioned wheel mounts again for the roof. Other downsides are the trust issue of just suction cups alone holding your bikes on the roof, the extra care required to keep the car paint clean and unscratched, plus the ease of installation translates into ease of theft…

The fourth, and most radical, option is to just sell the Mini and buy a Jeep so we can get one of those bike racks that fit on the spare tire, but then again that probably wouldn’t fit Donna’s small framed MTB. Though a trailer hitch rack on the Jeep would be perfect. Now I just need to go start a GoFundMe site for that Wrangler…

Morning Bike Ride

That turned into a walk. The goal was getting some fresh bagels from downtown. I am almost positive this is only like the second time we have ridden the tandem since we have been in Oregon. We took it on our usual early morning route that we use on the mountain bikes, up the hill, down the hill, transit the Link River Trail, ride along Lake Ewuana and pass through downtown on the way back up the hill to home. The nearly 3 mile long Link River Trail is all gravel, but this should not be an issue for the tandem because we rode that Lock to Lock Ride in Augusta last may and the gravel portion of that was a lot nastier than this stuff.

After picking up the bagels and less than a 1/4 mile later the road suddenly turned rough. Turns out it wasn’t the road, but the lack of air in the rear tire. I hoisted the back of the bike, spun the back tire and Donna found a sand spur embedded in the middle of the tread. I don’t where we picked it up along the route, but I was pretty sure it was the culprit. Even though we carry everything needed to fix a flat, including a nice spare tube, seeing as it was the back tire and we were less than a mile from home we just walked it.

Later in the morning I went to fix the flat, I used the tools and supplies we were already carrying on the bike, but as it turned out we would have still had to walk home. The back wheel came off easy enough, the tire levers popped the tire free easy-peasy and the replacement tube went in fine, but because the rim has a slight aero profile the presta stem didn’t stick through far enough to get the CO2 cartridge inflator on well enough to fill the tire. There was a little Zefal Mini Pump in the trunk bag, but unfortunately that wouldn’t have helped either, somewhere along the line during the cross-country move it got swapped out for the schrader valve model.

I inventoried all our tire repair kits, spare tubes and inflators and created a list of needed items so that there would be enough for each style of bike to have whatever was needed, flat tire-wise, to prevent walking home in the future. Then off to Amazon to buy two CO2 inflators, a couple of patch kits and 4 inner tubes.

As an interesting side note, between us we have 5 bicycles, 2 mountain, 2 road and a tandem, and each and every one rides on a different size tire! My MTB has 29 x 2.0, hers has 27.5 X 2.0, while the tandem rides on 26 x 1.75. Her road bike has 27 X 1-1/8 tires and mine sports 700c X 25.

Bye Bye Bob

First go read Requiem For Bob, I’ll wait…

Seeing as the bike was no longer rideable it was hung upside down in the garage at Boardman Road. Then we had this bright idea to hang it from the cathedral ceiling on the screened porch right in front of the life-size B & W screen print of a vintage bicycle.

I removed the modern brake levers/shifters off, along with cables in hopes of finding some old school just brake levers. I took the pedals off to put them on the Bianchi to replace the Celeste Green clipless pedals that I didn’t really like. But when I tried to rebuild one that was not turning smooth, I lost a vital part (which of course is not available separately) somewhere in the garage, so the Celeste Green ones went back on the Bianchi and Bob’s went in the trash. This was OK because the screen print had rat trap pedals and toe clips, so I needed to source some of those too.

But the project never got off the ground, literally, because we could never figure out how to hang it up there in a manner that would not permit it to move in any kind of wind, look good and be cheap all at the same time.

Bob was still hanging upside down in the garage when it came time to ship our household goods to Oregon. I thought maybe it was time to discard the bike, but Donna talked me into bringing it along figuring maybe we could still turn into an art piece, either indoor or garden. Unfortunately we can’t find or think of a place to utilize it here at Pacific Terrace, so it was doing nothing but being in the way in the garage. Even after I got all the storage locations for the working bicycles settled Bob was just in the way.

We found a perfect place for Broken Bob right here in Klamath Falls though. There is a place in downtown called RAD Used Bikes that accepts used bikes and parts as donations to help get people who can’t afford a bike out riding, be it for fun or needed transportation. Today being Saturday, we drove down and donated the almost 40-year old bike. We even dropped off a bunch of old bicycling specific tools I’ve had for years because maybe I should be getting out of the mechanicing business (see the pedal fixing fiasco above.)

74,000 Large Pieces of Gravel

Andy Jordan’s Bicycle Warehouse in Augusta has been putting on a ride called the Lock to Lock Ride for 27 years and Donna has been trying to get me to do this ride for most of them. This year she wore me down and I acquiesced. The route is a little over 18 miles one way, there is food and door prizes in the park, and then if you are brave enough, you ride the 18 some odd miles back to the start.

The eighteen miles is broken down into three almost equidistant segments. The first part is along the Augusta Canal tow path from the head gates on the north side of town into downtown. The second part is mostly through downtown city streets with some along a paved section of the tow path. The last part is along the top of the levee from town to a park at the lock & dam on the south side.

We were brave. We figured, how bad can it be? We ride a lot and 15 – 20 miles is a piece of cake, it is all basically flat, no big hills, and we’d be on the tandem, so it will be half as easy. The first third of the journey we were familiar with as we used to ride it sort of regular like back when we had mountain bikes, it is a hard packed dirt road and quite shady. The middle third we have driven the car on enough to know that it was dead flat and the traffic would be minimal on a Sunday afternoon.

The third third was the big surprise, we had never been on it as it is normally locked because the levee runs along behind several industrial plants. The worst part of this segment was in the middle of it was 2-1/2 to 3 miles was covered in loose, large gravel rocks. After the smooth dirt and city streets, this stuff was a rude awaking. You had to keep moving to keep the bike on a straight course. It was nearly impossible to get to the water bottle or catch a quick break by coasting. I felt like I was riding in the Paris-Roubaix road race which is called the Hell of the North or A Sunday in Hell.

When we arrived at the park for lunch (very good BBQ sandwiches with a large selection of snacks) we kidded that maybe we should shop around to see if we could get a ride back to the start. But with our bellies full and our thirst quenched, determined, we stated back. On the way back we contemplated walking the bike over the gravel section, but when we tried it, was almost harder walking on it and much, much slower, so we rode. When the 74,000 pieces of gravel was over the rest of the ride back really wasn’t too bad.

We made it back to the start point dead tired and there were only a few other cars in the parking lot. There were around 275 entrants and I bet less than a quarter of them did it both ways. The ride is very well supported and we might do it again, if it is not ninety degrees out and if the gravel wasn’t there and maybe just one way…

Not far from home on the way back the CTBNL ticked over the 74,000 mile mark.

Bikes on Cars


A search for a picture of Donna in uniform for a Veterans Day Instagram post sent her on a treasure hunt into several of the boxes that are full family photos. After a couple hours of searching she found a wallet size of her Navy Boot Camp Graduation photo. But just as she was locating that one, I found the directory on the PC where I had stored a couple of scanned images we used at ASCO for a Veterans Day thing a couple of years ago.

But she also unearthed a couple interesting pictures of our cars with bikes on them. First up is our 1982 Honda Civic 4-Door Sedan with two road bikes upright on top. I think with this combo the car was now taller than it was long. I also almost screwed up once big time with this rack when it was on our 1979 Accord Hatchback. I pulled into a hotel portico without thinking and I only had about 4 inches to spare.

Number two is is the replacement rack for the one in the first photo. When we bought a Miata we lost a roof to put a roof rack on. This was a nifty rack that would fit on almost any trunk by adjusting the angle of the front arms and removing the front wheels. The front wheels sat in their own mounts between the two bicycles. We used this for over a decade until something broke on it that couldn’t be repaired. They weren’t making this style rack any more, so now we use a regular bumper mount rack.

Busy Day

Day 19 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

Glenbrook, NV to South Lake Tahoe, CA and back.

In the morning we went up to watch the women start their Stage 2 of the Amgen Tour of California, in the afternoon we went to watch the men finish Stage 6 of the Tour of California and in the evening we went to a drop in for the wedding guests at the Stateline Brewery & Restaurant.

The Past 4 Days

Things that have happened in the past 4 days, listed in no particular order or level of importance:

  1. I managed to get two photos posted to Instagram.
  2. The Mini got a bath.
  3. Managed to bike ride to work on Friday.
  4. Donna got a flat on her bike ride home.
  5. Watched Up in the Air on HBO – again.
  6. The Miata got a bath.
  7. Bad breakfast sausage?
  8. Got 5 more pairs of glasses from Warby Parker.
  9. Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue