Dirt

Today, Brant and I hopped on our mountain bikes and rode out our front door. That is one of the magical things about where we live--within minutes you are in open space and you rarely need to drive your bike anywhere to get a good ride, and in our case, we never do.

Ten minutes later we were climbing Stage Coach Road. On the way up we found some familiar faces, and for a few moments we got to share the climb.

This ride was a big one for me, not only because I am still quite the novice mountain biker, but more because I really got to test  out the feel of a Rohloff hub. One ride in and I am hooked. It was super simple, responsive, and functional...a pretty nice ride for a beginner. I'm super stoked to ride it over the next few months, and then finally to get one of my own.

The way down was a roller coaster--a bumpy one--but just as thrilling. Brant was a patient, fantastic teacher, never pushing me to go too fast but always offering good technical pointers. I am most definitely a beginner, however, I have been riding mountain bike trails since childhood. My mom has been riding mountain trails and playing bike polo since the eighties, so I've been towed in a Burly trailer all through Annadel State Park, and been the only girl at mountain bike camp in Yosemite. I couldn't be more thankful for the support from my family to live life on bicycles. In honor of my mama, I am excited to build my confidence in the dirt.

Firsts

Brant has built his first Rohloff wheel. 

We want to ride durable, built to last bicycles on our trip. Brant is working with a local bike builder on his dream world touring bike, which is revolving around a Rohloff hub. Lauren hasn't found her perfect rig quite yet, but would like to have the same hub. 

In an effort to see what we are getting into, Brant is almost finished building a Rohloff configured bicycle for Lauren to ride. This hub is on loan from the campus Human Powered Vehicle Club.  So, Lauren gets to be the lucky girl with a Rohloff bike for a month or so. 

Here you see Brant putting anti-sieze on the threads of the cog to ensure that it comes off again someday.

Below is a view of the hub with its cog removed.  This requires a special tool that has already been purchased.  The interesting thing about the Rohloff cog is that it is reversible, meaning that you can wear out one side, flip it, and wear it out all over again.  The problem with the tool, like so many others in the bike world, is that it does not have a large wrenching surface.  This leaves your wrench prone to slipping off under high load potentially damaging the tool and yourself.  Brant thought of a brilliant solution, to put it in the vise.  Unfortunately, the cog is also the seal surface and he dumped the oil that remained in the hub after years of being in storage.  An oil change has since been performed.  Brant hopes to reproduce a custom tool, concieved by Aaron Lisco, and engineered and machined by Evan Anderson.

Here is the external shift mechanism showing the cable pully and the transfer gear, which must be properly aligned before installing the axle plate.

Installing the cables in the grip shifter.  The system uses two cables to pull in both directions, eliminating a spring from the shifting equation.

Fussing with the shift cables.  This system is significantly different from anything else I have encountered, so care must be taken to first peruse the owners manual.

Ah, a thing of beauty.

More to come. 

Home.

Bo and I are sitting in the den around La Familia and listening to the Laura Gibson album "La Grande" which you can listen to for free on NPR's lovely website: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=144623414&m=144700695

This home has shaped me in so many ways and has taught me much about the magic and beauty of community and sharing life with so many different people.

Brant has lived here for over five years, and I have lived here for a year and a half. I hear that this home is very hard to leave or recover from, meaning that nothing is ever quite as good or magical. Not that all life stages don't have their purpose and beauty, but here there seems to be something special and unable to be fully replicated. People have tried, and it's never the same magic. I suppose when we leave we will just have to take all of the lessons learned to our new homes, never trying to recreate the past but always seeking to find the magic in the present. We shall see how we do.

For now we have 6 months and counting to soak up the light of the kitchen in the morning and the house dinners with good friends, bottles of wine, and rich food.

Tweedle Dee

Sunday May 15, 2011 was the first of many SLO Tweed Rides to come. We all dawned our best stockings and tweed jackets and rode around our old town on vintage bicycles only stopping to drink champagne and to play croquet. 

Triangle Park.

The movers and shakers...