Used Bike Sale To Support Phoenix Bikes

LHT Xtracycle: I Want One

In the spring I want to start taking my daughter to school every morning before heading off to work on the LHT. I've considered getting a trailer but that's not something I want to deal with in the office. An Xtracycle seems like a good solution. It's strong and versatile enough that when my second girl is big enough, I could take them both on errands with plenty of room for whatever comes up.

There is plenty of LHT Xtracycle porn out there:

As well as lot's of diy child seat possibilities.

Has anyone had good/bad experiences with an LHT Xtracycle build? Please share.

More importantly, if anyone out there in the DC metro area knows of one for sale pass it along.

This is how I spend my holiday.

Market Saturation: Too Many Bike Shops?

You can never have too many bike shops. As of late February, I will pass three bike shops along my commute: City Bikes, on the trail at Connecticut ave, Silver Cycles, on Georgia Ave, and now The Bicycle Place, which is moving to Brookville Road a few blocks from where the Capital Crescent Trail lets out.

Bike shops are like assholes, some times they're full of shit snowflakes, no two are alike, and passing by three shops twice a day means I should be pretty well covered. The question arises, with help so close by do I really need to pack a tube and pump?

Problem Solvers and Problems Solved

Anyone who has had an LHT (yeah you know me) for a while or run the Shimano UN54 bottom bracket can feel my pain here. It's simple and it's stupid, the aforementioned bottom bracket uses a non-drive side ring made of plastic...  sigh. Plastic that cracks over time and starts to make a clicking pinging sound. I don't really care why Shimano did this, I can only speculate that it's because they don't love me and want to hurt me.

Thankfully someone at Problem Solvers does love me and made a replica of the plastic crap for crap, (above right) out of loving metal that would never hurt me (above left).

I proceeded to remove the bottom bracket from my daughters drying rack (seen above) and attempted to replace it with another UN54, this time using the Up Cup from Problem Solvers. The problem was that I couldn't get the drive side of the BB to come loose. I couldn't get any leverage because my Park BB-22 tool was too shallow or something, whenever I muscled down on it the BB tool would slip out. The one time I managed to get leverage, I had all my weight on it and the BB still wouldn't budge. I needed another type of problem solver. I presented my problem to Sam over at Silver Cycles. He showed me the trick to solving my leverage problem by holding the BB tool to the frame with an extra large washer and a crank bolt. It may look obvious, but it was new to me.

Knowledge is leverage.

It put up a strong fight but after several rounds the BB finally broke free. Water had gotten into the BB housing and rusted the threads to the frame. It was at that point that I remembered buying a can of Frame Saver last year. It seems the purchase alone wasn't enough to save my frame. I headed home and applied a healthy portion of Frame Saver before installing the new bottom bracket.

Cheers to Sam and Silver Cycles for once again solving my problem.

Alberto Contador Cheater Or Beef Eater?

Alberto Contador says he tested positive because he ate tainted beef. A video of the cow he reportedly at has surfaced.