Down Trails and shaded glens

I've been riding, just kind of low key instead of outright hyper on the bike culture-thing like I was last year.

Zwartehond, my Workcycles / Azor   Kruisframe/Pastoorfietsen has some updates, after correspondence and business with Henry Cutler.  Gone is the ridiculously heavy and complex Nexus 8.  Instead mounted is a SRAM automatix, a 2 speed hub that jumps from 100% direct drive to 131% or so, once the rear wheel is spinning around 11mph.  The Automatix also features a coaster brake, and is not particularly heavier or larger than the stock standard Shimano CB110 coaster hub.  Supposedly the Automatix is based on the older Fichtel and Sachs, and is generally designed to last forever.  I'm liking the simplicity.

The crank went down to 38T and I upped the rear sprocket to 23, so everything is nice and easy to pedal at in the 100%.  Front nexus rollerbrake is retained.  I added a Travel Agent to use more classy looking Velo-Orange levers.  Grips changed for coke-bottle. Crane bell added.

Gotta be about 10lbs lighter at least. Also removed the cafe-lock, as I don't operate in a particularly high crime area. I can use the cable, or U-lock or even still attach the cafe lock, depending on circumstance required.

I took the trail north for 40 miles last Sunday, to check my endurance. Of this only 1/3rd of the total 83 miles was paved.  Gravel, or even just grassed double-track got old pretty quickly.   Lots of food, lots of fluid.  My butt was sore, by the end of the ride, and I courted bonk at one point.  My Garmin GPS said I burnt 3311 calories.  Yow!

I originally intended on taking my new bike, a Virtue "Ortho" on Ragbrai, based on the assumption I'd lose lots of weight this summer, getting back down to a trim 135-140.   Yeah, didn't happen.  Still 190ish.  So Zwartehond it is, self-supported.  To increase cargo carrying, I purchased a Carradice Nelson Long Flap, and moved it to the aft position, moving the Carradice College up front.

This bridge could probably still carry a model-T, which was the car en vogue when it was built. Nowadays...

Carrying the bare minumums, Tent, Amana 6pt wool blanket, waxed chore coat, camera, film, tool kit, 2 pairs Wool knickers and Linen shirts, stockings. few toiletries, lights, a book and a sketch book, opinel, some soft canteens, powdered lemon, sugar, a good book, and whatever ad-hoc snacks I score en route.

'Was initially planning on doing the whole week of Ragbrai, but driving all the way out to Council Bluffs, and then suffering an 85 mile 4000ft climb day in the sun-blasted west prairie seems more like an exercise in masochism.   So I'm just going to pick it up in much closer Des Moines, and ride the remaining 4ish days.

 Hopefully I won't get completely zoned out, while being surrounded  in the sea of lyrca.

One of the things that bugs me about Ragbrai, is that the course hours are generally 6am to 6pm. 6am is fine-  but in July, in the midwest, it is essentially still light to 9:00pm and typically cooler in the evening.  Seems like they should be encouraging mid-day siestas and evening riding.  Oh-well.

Grand Weekend, Planes, Pigeons.

 

PA-02 Pigeon and Travel-Air 6000

Wow, the Pigeon received overwhelming attention at the antique airplane fly-in.  More attention than say, the more deserving airplanes. I was accosted four or five times on friendly terms "I've been looking for you, I want to ask you about..."    or "Does the light come with it?"    I pedaled about, and it was a great way to get up and down the rows of planes or to and from my campsite.  The schwalbe delta cruisers made easy work of the grass turf.  I probably should've stayed a little longer, but was somewhat quickly home-sick and: bugs.
Previously I've camped in a KampRite Tent-Cot, which I can't recommend enough.  This time, with the Pigeon filling up most of my hatchback, I decided to use my MountainSmith 2 person tent.   Well, it seemingly attracted ants and bugs like there was no tommorrow. I would turn on the light and look up, and see 300 ants crawling between the tent proper and the rain fly. A proverbial and psychologically damaging sword of formicidae hanging over my head. Even when I applied citronella to the tie-downs.   Between that and the weather, I went home early.  I'm going to have nightmares about that.

A day later after getting home, I followed up  Friday and Saturday's riding with the annual ride of the local Trail Sponsorship Committee, and then back up the CVNT trail to home, making for 20 more miles, and the longest single ride for the Pigeon.

The Pigeon held up strongly with it's British roadster heritage. Single speed and 53 or so gear inches, it has an easy going Pepe-le-Pew sort of pacing that has me covering plenty of ground with even effort.  I did get a little nervous during the group ride, as I was hemmed in, and the rod brakes don't quite stop as fast as everyone else.  Also, with such a thick crowd of varying skill levels, I had no problem wearing a helmet. As much to protect myself from accidents caused by my fellow bikers.

Dagnabit Dangit Nabit.

About two miles before I reached home, I got my first bicycle flat. Well, I pulled off in a shady spot, flipped the bike, and practiced what I've only seen instructed. Located the hole, rather an almost knife like slit in the tube with no visible penetration in the tire, or anything stuck in the tire.   I used one of the Park Super Patches,  but it let go, or  the slit-cut expanded after half a mile or so further. I noticed that the new rim-tape I purchased from the LBS was not covering the entire inside of the rim, also that there were a few sharp-seeming machining spots. Probably the issue.  Well I'll pull the wheel again and tape the rim with some 24mm tape, and throw on a new tube.

All in all a good labor-day weekend.

Opinels

From Top to Bottom: Opinel Numbers  9, 6, and 5

I've seen Opinel knives starting to show up in lifestyle merchants, places like Archival Clothing, and the Kaufmann Merchantile - sometimes with little explanation about why these knives are good, or little in the way of reviews. Well I've had Opinels 20 years, so this is a long-term review and some thoughts.

The French version of the block-corner store is the Tabac, and when I was visiting that country in  1992,  I invariably remember that along with the newspapers, magazines, and tobacco, would be a display of these wood-handled pocket knives, set in a red velvet flocked tray.  This was my introduction to the Opinel knife. Seriously affordable, I think my No5. was 30 francs or a little more than $5.00 dollars.  I purchased it and a No6.

The Opinel brand starts in the 1890s, but similar pocket knives go back much, much further, to at least the late 1500s, chiefly seeming to be a product of various Arabian and Middle Eastern countries, migrating repeatedly into Europe through trade. By the 1600s  familiar pocketknives are regularly produced in cutlery centers, Toledo, Sheffield, Solingen, Aveyron, etc.  Most of these were of moderate to considerable quality, with numerous hand-operations required for production, and as a result carried something of a price.

In 1890 or so Joseph Opinel created a pocket knife suited for mass production - with techniques first pioneered in the United States - and largely automated handle shaping and finishing, resulting in knives of extremely low cost, but of quite reasonable quality. Distribution through peddlers and consignment in Tabacs- resulted in high sales, which further increased purchases and drove economics of scale - with sales growing to hundreds of thousands a year. The Opinel quickly eclipsed its more expensive Laguiole knife brother.

Opinel No6 with the Viroblock collar rotated to lock the blade

The classic opinel knife has a wooden handle of varnished beech, with no liners. The handle is capped by a ferule, through which the rivet that secures the blade is driven and peened. In Opinels #6 and up, a locking collar - the virobloc is clamped over the ferule. This twists so as to lock the blade into the open or closed position.  In the No5 and smaller opinels only the friction of the handle keeps the blade into open or closed position, and care must be taken to only apply force back and against the edge, or else the blade might just close onto your fingers. I tend clamp-grip the No.5 between my fingers and thumb, out of the way of the blade's travel. That said, even the locking models are not intended for excessively stout work, and care should be taken to keep forces applied to the handle to a minimum.  I will also hold the blade only, by the sides, for fine work.

The Opinel blade is thin -  a bit over 2mm thick, and while latest models can be had with a stainless - inox steel, the classic knives use a high carbon steel. While requiring some maintenance, this steel is both easier to sharpen and arguably cuts more effectively than stainless.  The Carbon or "Carbone" steel blades will take on a patina- (the so called 'stain' that stainless steels avoid) with use- especially when cutting acidic fruits or vegetables, this has no effect on the cutting power of the blade though. I lightly coat my blades with olive and/or vegetable oil, to keep them from rusting. My No5, is in my pocket every nearly day, and I use it frequently in peeling oranges. I'll keep the blade dressed in the orange-oil from the peel, which has some anti-rust properties.

The large No9. Makes a great light camp and cooking knife, perhaps the only one needed while out in the field. (Do the heavier cutting chores with a hatchet or camp-saw) All Opinels prepare vegetables with aplomb, their thin flat ground blades chop slice and peel, my No9. has seen weeks of use in this role. All opinels are very light, making them perfect for bike camping or hiking.
Sharpening. It took me forever to become good at sharpening, and my Opinel no5. holds a special place in my heart as it was the first knife that I was able to resharpen to a hair-shaving edge. I would always use stones, but never get a truly sharp edge. After much internet research, especially at youtube- I picked on the technique of drawing the knife along the stone- (I use a Smith's Tri-Hone-6) as opposed to pushing. I'll use the fine-stone to set the edge with alternating strokes to each side. Then to finish, I will use the scary-sharp method (again, learned on the wonderful internet) which involves using extremely fine grit sandpaper (I use 2000 grit) laid on a cheap mousepad. With light alternating circular draws over the paper, the blade will then become literally shaving sharp.   I've found that I can touch up the edge by stropping in a similar motion on the rough cardboard back of a legal pad.

When I recieved my Workcycles Kruisframe from the freight company, the only knife I used in the unpacking was my diminutive No5. I then cut the cardboard shipping container into quarters, to toss in the recycling stack. The blade literally cut through about 18 feet worth of corrugated, and with a stropping on the back of a notepad, is just below hair-shaving sharp.  When I get around to it, I can sharpen it back up fully. Not bad for a 20 year old, 30 franc knife.

Hopefully this review has given some background on Opinels, a little flavor, and an idea about the knives. You can pick them up for very little from various merchants on the internet. If you've never experienced a carbon steel knife, or want a economical but good knife to learn to sharpen on, it would be hard to go wrong with an Opinel.