I found an article in the Park Record recently regarding the Fort Collins Bicycle Library in Fort Collins, Colorado. I thought I’d fill you in a bit.

With an e mail address and an ID, you can get a Ft Collins Bicycle Library card. The cards enables locals and visitors to borrow bicycles for as little as 1 hour, and as long as 5 days. When you’re finished with the bike, lock it up at a designated drop spot, then return the key. Pretty simple.

The Ft. Collins bike library opened in April of 2008, and since then has rented bikes to over 500 people from all walks. They hope to soon increase their fleet of recycled bicycles to accommodate more users. Check out the website, www.fcbikelibrary.org.

Some other bicycle libraries I found online.

Arcata Bicycle Library, Iowa City Bike Library, New Brunswick Bike Library

My experiences at the Tour De France are some of the greatest in my life. Watching it on TV is OK, the commentators are pretty entertaining. But it could never compare to finding that perfect spectating spot, watching the peleton whiz by, then finding a cafe to watch the finish on TV. Trust me, the French coverage is way better than ours!

Of course, a flight to Europe right now is around $1000, and our dollar is exchanging at a near record low. Makes taking weeks to follow the Tour a bit tough for most of us. The Tour of Utah requires a bit less expenditure on the spectator’s part.

The Tour of Utah offers many of the elements that make the bigger race in France so awesome to be a part of. Seventeen top level cycling teams represented by 120 riders make for great racing with lots of colorful kits. The racers will ride for a $75,000 purse and a new car, over 5 days, 342 miles, and a lotta climbing.

The Utah bike race is a must see for everyone. The start and finish will offer a festival like atmosphere with music, food, drink and some of the nicest bicycles you can’t even buy. Out on the race course you can find a nice spot to watch and cheer. Watch your toes, the bike mechanics in the support vehicles drive kind of fast and aren’t really looking out for you. Take some snacks, water, libations, and something to sit on and the day is sure to be a treat.

The Tour of Utah is August 13-17.

Stage 1 Sanpete to Nephi.

Stage 2 Ogden to Salt Lake City.

Stage 3 Salt Lake Downtown Criterium

Stage 4 Park City to Snowbird

Stage 5 Miller Motorsports Park Time Trial (Tooele)

Tour of Utah Website

As I realized that CyclistVillage.com is a MySpace for bike people, I felt a sense of relief. Since I’ve already burned my social networking candle at both ends with MySpace, I couldn’t possibly waste a significant amount of time surfing CyclistVillage…………We’ll see how that goes.

The idea seems like a good one, a place to cyberly interact with people of similar interests. I hope the smaller platform will keep a sense of usefulness that MySpace loses in it’s exhausting amount of junk correspondence.

We’ll see if I can make any interfriends.

www.cyclistvillag.com/thepedalwrench

You have a rim, you have a hub, and now you need to decide what length spokes you’ll need to assemble a usable wheel with them. If you plan on buying spokes at the local bike shop, it may be easiest to have them come up with the appropriate spoke length. If you like to figure things out yourself, you can find help on the web in many forms.

Any spoke calculator you find on the internet will require you to enter some information. Just how much information depends on the web site’s spoke calculator and the popularity of the components of your wheel. Popular rims and hubs can often be chosen from a list. For these, the needed values will be provided with the exception of the number of spoke holes and the number of crosses your spokes will be laced with.

Having to measure for the needed values isn’t the end of the world. Some of the web sites will help you through the measurements but you will need a sliding caliper and a tape measure to get those measurements.

Here are some spoke calculators and information about wheel building you may find useful.

DT Swiss This happens to be my favorite, probably because it’s the easiest. Sign in as an anonymous user.

Sheldon Brown

spokelength.com

United Bicycle Institute

wheelpro.co.uk

appliedthought.com Great instructions!

Good luck building!

For the second year in a row, I got to hang out with the Cannondale guys and fix bikes along the coast of California, all in the name of raising money for AIDS research, education, and awareness. The $11.6 million the AIDS Lifecycle 7 raised this year should help the cause.

I wish I could count all the flat tires I fixed during the week, I’m sure the number would be in the hundreds, as I’m positive I did over 20 a day. The miles my left arm pedaled as I shifted through bikes’ gears also took it’s toll. By the time the riders reached L.A., my arms were weak and useless.

The amount of tubes that got thrown away along the route was unfortunate. I wish I had the ability to at least get them recycled, but transporting thousands of bike tubes would require some special arrangements. Maybe next year we could make those arrangements, or maybe have a contest to find creative uses for the tubes that won’t hold air. The crowd that rides the AIDS Lifecycle is a creative bunch and I’m sure the contest would be a hit and produce some entertaining results.

Second only to flat tires, worn pedal cleats plagued many riders, some multiple times during the week. The cyclists wearing mountain bike shoes with walkable cleats were laughing at the riders with road bike shoes waiting in line for new $20 cleats. Cannondale’s technical support team had a hard time fulfilling the need for Look Delta, Look Keo, and Shimano SPD R cleats for the poor soles(pun) that didn’t have cleat covers to walk around in.

All in all, a great week playing with bicycles. The faces I recognized from last year were great to see again, and I hope to see this year’s new acquaintances next year. I hope everyone heeds my warning and brings there mountain bike shoes and pedals, but I’ll certainly be there to change your worn cleats out for you. See you then.

For the fifth year in a row The Pedal Wrench lends it’s chief bicycle repair instructor, KC Gaudet, to the Park City School District.

From pcschools.us:

Save time, money, and maybe a trip to the bike shop! Keep your bicycle running smoothly and safely. Learn the proper way to clean and lube your bicycle, basic fit, basic maintenance, and emergency repair. Bring your bike to this hands-on class. Tool list provided in class, plus information on where to ride. Both road and mountain bikes are welcome. Limit of 10 people.

Registration and More Info

I didn’t really know Sheldon Brown. I knew his website and I’d like to think I can relate to the bicycle thinker side of the man. I was so impressed with his efforts to share some tid bits of his vast bicycle knowledge on the web, that I contacted him, let him know that I planned on doing the same, and it’s been my project for the past 5 years or so. His e mail response was short, but supportive. He even remembered me when I introduced myself a few years later at InterBike, the international bike show in Vegas.

As my web progress moves at a snails pace, I can see the dedication and time he must have put into sheldonbrown.com. Millions have benefited. Thanks Sheldon, I really dug your style.

Sheldon Brown July 14, 1944-February 3, 2008

On November 24th I posted about my Crank Bros. Multi 17 Tool. Even though the tool failed trying to remove a pedal, I still appreciate the size, tool selection, and price point. Now those warm and fuzzy feelings have been reinforced by a stellar customer service department.

Yesterday I received any early birthday gift in the form of a fresh, still in the packaging, Crank Bros. Multi 17 Tool in the mail. It took a mere 17 days for the process and only cost me the price of the original tool plus $1.58 for shipping back to the company. My new tool even has a snazzier finish than the one I sent back.

In conclusion, I highly recommend the Multi 17 for many reasons. Besides being your friend in your time of need on your bike, it offers a lifetime warranty that Crank Brothers has proved to me to stand behind. All that in a tool in the $10 ballpark, that’s pretty sweet. Buy one here.

I’m back in snowy Park City but the red dirt of Moab still hitchhikes in the crevices of everything I own. A reminder of my sleep deprived experience at the 24 Hours of Moab mountain bike race that I hardly saw at all. I’m not complaining, I saw the start and it’s probably the most exciting thing to watch. The pit area that Pereira Cycles had styled us with was top notch. A pop up trailer, an RV named Paca, and some tents, made our little piece of the desert a comfortable place to be. Our oasis also had a full selection of chocolate treats thanks to one of the sponsors, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

As far as the eye could see team camps were buzzing with support crews and racers, but I was confined to my own little bike repair world. I had all of the comforts of any bike shop ….with sandy floors. The bikes were constantly in need of cleaning and lubing as the sand seemed to work it’s way into every nook and cranny of the chain, dérailleurs, and shift housing. The single speeds were spared the shift ailments but battled chronic chain tension issues. Any of the tasks individually are simple and routine, but compounded together time after time and with sleep deprivation kicking you in the head, and coffee hardly providing anything but dehydration, they become Rubix Cube type problems to solve.

As a combination of sand and Stan’s No Tubes solution worked it’s way into my digital tire pressure gauge I struggled to accurately measure tire pressures of my teams’ riders. Tire pressure was a topic of discussion through the night. The course had a typical Moab mix of large rocks and sand making it hard to pinpoint the perfect pressure. Most ran a higher pressure to avoid tire and rim damage from the big rocks they encountered. It was hard for me to help any more than offering a pressure range to try, as everyone’s setup is different. Tire pressure should be adjusted according to riding technique, tire choice, terrain, and bike choice, and I had never ridden with most of the participants. But by the end, with no gauges that registered reliable readings, I was giving the tires an educated squeeze and telling the riders exactly what they needed to hear to head out into the darkness, those tires are perfect. A slight stray from the complete truth? Maybe not, maybe it was the perfect tire pressure?

The duration of the multifaceted suffering is what cracks the participants of this type of mountain bike race. Of course, if you overcome said misery, you gain a giant sense of something positive. I’m not sure what that something is. What is your something? I gained my something through relentless wrenching and I’d be happy to do it again.

Thanks to Katie of Panic Button Media the great photos.

Thanks to Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory of Provo for the support and certain cavity.

Thanks to all who supported me while I supported them.

I’m off to Moab tomorrow afternoon. The 24 Hours of Moab starts on Saturday, and since I’ll be 1 of 2 wrenches for the 4 teams that Pereira Cycles has entered in the event, I want to make sure our pit location is prime. Today is prep day and I don’t want to forget anything, so I thought I’d make a list. Here it is.

Tools & Lubes: PCBR Spoker, shop apron, repair stands, wheel truing stand, air tank, air compressor, air compressor hose, air compressor attachments(schrader, presta, air gun), pressure washer(handy in muddy situations, but set it on low), pedal wrenches(6mm hex, 8mm hex, 15mm open end), multiple multi tools, hex wrenches(2 sets), open/box metric wrenches, 3/32 hex wrench(for Chris King Hubs), Flat head screwdrivers(little to big and everything in between, phillips screwdrivers(full size run), tire levers, spoke wrenches(Mavic, Shimano, standard), chain tools, tire pressure gauge, brake bleed kits(Hayes, Magura, Avid), Knipex Plier Wrench(a TPW favorite), diagonal cutters, housing cutters, chain lube, degreaser, hand cleaner, rubbing alcohol, safety glasses, hack saw, spare hack saw blade, bottom bracket tools, cassette tool, torque wrench, magnetic parts tray, chain whip, crank pullers, cone wrenches, floor pumps, lock ring wrench, chain whip, headset wrenches, wire brush, toothbrush, scrub brush, calipers, measuring tape, spanner tools(great for eccentric bbs), toe straps, clamps …….

Spare Parts: derailleurs, derailleur cables, derailleur housing, brake cables, brake housing, brake ferrules, shift ferrules, brake pads(Hayes, Magura, Avid), brake lines, brake fittings, brake fluids, brake rotors, spokes, chains(single speed, 9 speed), Shimano chain pins, Sram Power Links, Stan’s No Tubes Solution, Nite Rider light mounts, chain ring bolts, spokes, my bike, hair spray, 26″ tires, 26″ tubes, 29″ tires, 29″ tubes, Sram shifters, Shimano shifters………

Misc.: table, headlamp, work lights, stationary trainer, front wheel block, carpet, pop up canopy, tie downs, buckets, chairs, Trixi’s bed, Trixi food, Trixi bowls, pit bike, yoga ball(crucial), goggles(in case of dust/sand storm), sleeping bag, pillow, extension cords, outlet splitters, tunes, rags, paper towels, hand cleaner, flooring …………

I’m positive I’ve left some things out. I do like to be over prepared but forgetting a few things isn’t usually a big issue. In my experience, there’s always a solution to be found for any mechanical problem, right in the pit area. The 24 hour racing community creates a friendly and supportive environment for everyone. Hopefully we’ll see you there.