Hasta La Gadget!

Finally, after almost five months of searching (and kind of cheating by actually buying one ready-made), we’ve found a donor bike for the Gadget Lab fixed-gear conversion. It’s an old Massi Master road bike, with Italian Gara Cro-Mo steel tubing and forks. The groupset, or brakes and gears and everything else that moves, is Shimano 105 ,which has the gear-shifters built into the brake levers (that threw me at first).

As you can see, the frame is a rather lovely metallic purple color and the style of the graphics plus a little googling makes me think that the bike is from the 1980s. Judging by the comments we get on any of our bike posts, I’m sure y’all can do a much better job of identification.

The wheels have the matching Shimano hub with Wolber rims, and they look so nice that it seems a shame to swap them out. But swapped they will be, as however slick this looks as a road bike, it was bought to be sacrificed.

There’s one problem, and the eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted it already. The frame has vertical dropouts, meaning chain tension can’t be adjusted without either luck or an ugly tensioner. I will be using a half-link BMX chain, so fingers crossed — but the frame is so nice I couldn’t help but buy it.

The conversion will take place over the next few days, replacing wheels, chain, seat (it’s a nice seat, but plastic saddles in the summer are hell) and stripping off all the extra metalwear.

I need a few tips. First, the rear brake cable runs trough the top tube, entering and exiting through lugged holes. I’m keeping all the parts I strip, in case I decide to change back in the future, but this looks impossible to re-thread. What kind of voodoo is needed to do it?

Also, tips on chain-tensioners are welcome. I’m going to do my best to match up gear ratios and chain to avoid adding one, but otherwise what is the smoothest, quietest way to go?

I think everything else will be pretty easy, between a lifetime of tinkering and all the good advice the Gadget Lab readers have lent over this series of posts. First, though, I have a puncture to fix: The guy I bought it from hadn’t put enough air in the tires and I got a pinch-flat.

See Also:

• Gadget Lab Fixie Project Update: Things Are Going Slowly, But They …
• The Great Gadget Lab Fixie Project: Help Us Build a Better Bike …

This is the bike Steve McQueen would ride, if he was riding a cargo-bike from a San Francisco farmers market in pursuit of two kids on BMXs who had stolen his organic Porterhouse steaks and cigarettes. If McQueen wanted to catch these ne’er-do-wells lickety-split, and still make it home with a full load of groceries after launching himself off the crests of the SF hills, he do it on the Bullitt, from Danish bike-meisters Larry Vs. Harry.

The Bullitt puts the sport in “sport utility”. It is longer than a regular bike of course (245cm) but not much wider (47cm) or heavier (24kg). This is thanks to the oversized aluminum tubing, which is stiff enough to stop you wallowing with a full load and light enough that you could actually get up some of those crazy San Fran slopes.

There are several models, and aside from the bright colors the differences are mostly in brake and gear configurations: you can opt for a hydraulic front-brake (a good idea) and choose derailleurs or a 7-speed SRAM hub (pick this one. It’s no fun trying to push off from the lights in to high a gear, and hub gears shift when you are stationary). This bike looks like a lot of fun, and you can even take the dog for a ride.

Prices start at €1800 ($2,570), and includes a lock.

Product page [Larry Vs. Harry via Bikehugger]

There’s probably one thing that stops adoption of bicycle helmets more than anything else, and that’s the fact that they all look so dorky. The standard road-style noggin-covers make your head look like some ridged Klingon nightmare, and the slightly cooler-looking BMX lids are still rather unwieldy, and will muss your hair to boot.

Some of us just buy the best-looking helmet we can. Others would rather present their fragile melon to the asphalt in its raw, naked form. In New York, there is a third way. The Fuseproject is an attempt to make headwear look good. Inside is a skate-style helmet, and outside you can cover up with one of many “caps”. They do share a problem with other BMX-type helmets which have such little ventilation that they’ll boil your brain in anything but deepest winter.

These are not on sale yet, but are being handed out by the City at various NYC community events. Good luck!

NYC Helmets by fuseproject [Flylyf]

See Also:

• Yakkay Helmet and Cover
• Bern Brentwood: The Only Bike Helmet You'll Ever Need
• Smart Bike Helmets Disfigured by Decoration

The Osloh Pants from Brooklyn, NYC, address a need which doesn’t really exist, but at least thay do it in style. Available as regular stretchy pants or as (stretchy) jeans, the pants are designed for fixed-gear riders. Sure, you could wear them to ride any bike, but the two-strap cinching on the right leg keeps the oily dirt from the exposed chain away from your trouser leg and the tabs above the rear pocket fit a Kryptonite Evo Mini perfectly (and allow it to drag the waistband down for the trademark hipster-crack).

Inside there are a few other tricks. The crotch is padded and incorporates a chamois, the waistband can be tightened, there’s a cellphone pocket on the side and a key pocket hidden within.

$100 to $130 depending on fabric (the denim costs more), or about the same price as a pair of skinny Levi’s. Also, if you read the label wrong, they appear to be “Door Resistant” (it turns out to be just “Odor Resistant” in all-caps).

Product page [Chari & Co via Pedal Consumption and Corpus Fixie]

See Also:

• Hands Off! With the Kryptonite Evolution Mini
• Fabric Horse Utility Belts: Just Don't Use The F-Word

Kevin Cyr’s Camper Bike is “a functioning sculptural piece”, designed to be shown off and to star in Kevin’s own paintings and drawings rather than to actually be slept in, but we love it nonetheless.

The bike, actually modified into a tricycle, carries its home on its back, just like a snail and probably not much faster. But it does solve a problem of bike touring: Where do you sleep? In the old, pre Camper Bike world, you could either carry a tent, sleep under the stars or just bring along a credit card and stay in hotels. Now you can sleep in a real bed, and maybe even use a real toilet.

We say maybe as we’re not sure what’s inside. We suspect that this is, just like the snail’s home, nothing more than a shell. After all, a bed up top in the long section would render the rickety rickshaw dangerously top-heavy, especially on uneven ground. This doesn’t stop us from wanting one, though, if only to freak out other road users. And remember: Always engage the parking brake before sleeping.

Project Page [Kevin Cyr via Designboom and Trackosaurus Rex]