Cruiser Cotilion 2003

terminaut — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 05:33:00 GMT

I'm happy to report that the inaugural Cruiser Cotilion (2003) went off smoothly and did not result in any participants being mamed or killed.

As 10AM approached, participants began to trickle into the Fairview Park parking lot one by one. Among the first were Robin of ShareMTB fame and Mike aka PainFreak.

Here, Mike and Robin give each other's cruisers a trial spin.

Jane also gives the lowrider a try.

Mike shows us the proper look for this badboy cruiser.
The lot gradually fills up with more and more people. Despite the large turnout, many end up too shy to compete and opted to spectate.

Timan shows off his beauty of a Colnago as Calvin takes a photo.

Somehow this "white trash" character found out about our little event... When he rolled up, I think everyone was caught very off guard!
For the first portion of the competition, all "Beauty and the Beast" contestants lined up and would one by one strut (rode) a short distance for the audience.

Ed rolls out first.

Timan trys to up the ante by riding my Breezer.

Photoshop-master Chris is next on his spraycan special. This is the gentleman/genius behind the Zonic Man "Lord of the Dance" photo.

Mike rolls... hoping that he can make the tight turn.

Jeff aka Hollywood aka "white trash" bares his guns for the show, much to the delight of the women.
After some deliberation, the crowd determines that Robin and "white trash" tie for first place, with Mike taking second. Ed took third, although I'm not sure if this was correctly scored since 4 competitors ended up placing.

Robin takes a victory strut.

As does "white trash". Yes ladies, he's available!

[Edited by: terminaut - Oct 22, 2003 - 5:43pm] The next competition was the 3 lap short-track criterium. This was quite enjoyable to watch for everyone.

Caprice counts down the start of the event and they're off!

Steve aka DDawg takes the holeshot and early lead.

Everyone safely rounds the first corner towards the singletrack.

Single-filed through the twisty and somewht bumpy singletrack.
Steve holds on to his lead for the first lap and easily crosses the start/finish in front of the rest of the field.

Hollywood was giving good chase, although the mullet may have caused too much wind resistance.

Mike's long wheelbase was a huge disadvantage in the singletrack, but he sure looks like he's having fun!
Steve continues to hold his lead position, spanking the monkey for all it's worth.

Robin looks quite hip with his turned-back cap.

Hollywood chases down Ed but just can't seem to get by.

Grossly disadvantaged, we sent Mike on a bypass to shorten the route of the last lap a bit.
In the end, Steve's awesome Monkey prevailed and won.

Chris rolls across the finish next, but it turns out he cheated a bit by shortcutting the course. He was not tarred nor feathered. :-)

Mike eventually makes his way back to the finish, well exhausted.
The next part of the competition was the unexpectedly treacherous dragstrip eliminations. Before the festivities continued, everyone takes in the sight into the valley and towards the Santa Ana river.

In the background is Huntington Beach. The beach skies caused all these photos to have the unusual tint. I'm only using a cheap(ish) Casio Exilim camera as it was the easiest to lug around (thus the low-quality pictures).

Ed leads Hollywood in the first round down the dragstrip.

The trail was filled with short rolly sections that would allow you to get some air if you opted to do so.

This is the last shot of Hollywood "intact". In the final rounds his awesome might would prove too much for his SRAM chain...
Next up were the the two Steves. Timan Steve took on DDawg Steve in a fierce run.

The Karate Monkey proved to be too much to chase for Timan today.

Hollywood waves his mullet to start the next group with Chris, Robin, and Mike.

Chris charges off with much determination to take the holeshot and eventually the win for the round.

Mike leads Robin through the finish but word was that there might have been some foul play in the form of an arm blocking Robin's path!
Molly sends the finalists off, which included Steve, Ed, Chris, and Jeff. I added Jeff in as a technicality of the first heat being run sort of unofficially.

And they're off! The adrenaline is high and everyone stands to hammer.

Baboom! Jeff goes down in thundering flames as his chain breaks under power. Despite feeling quite badly for him, it was way awesome to witness. Even the other competitors are looking back in awe!

I quickly ran up to take a picture... then asked him if he was ok. Heheh.
Meanwhile, those still upright continued to race. Once again Steve takes his Karate Monkey to a win.

Ed cruises in for a second.

And Chris places third on his department store contraption.
We take a small break to repair Jeff's chain. Fortunately, his fellow competitors had the parts and tools to get him going again.

These next two shots are purely for your enjoyment. For the ladies in the audience, might I suggest that you enlarge and print these out as wall-sized posters.

It's time to do some timed hill-climbing! Robin grunts off the start.

The (steeper than it looks) hill proved to be challenging and...

a dismount was necessary. Robin ran his bike up the final yards.

Chris torques the cranks off the start as well. Everyone was trying to get as much speed as possible before hitting the incline.

The gradually-steepening hill proved too tough to ride.
One by one the competitors tackled the hill. Hollywood is the first to make it all the way up to the top without dismounting.

Ed also makes it to the top cleanly.

But not Steve. He slips a pedal towards the top and actually falls over! His awesome speed still allowed him to take the win though.

Here is Steve picking up his Monkey after having fallen over.

This is an archived article from the original singlespeed.net site.

Tensioning chain slack on your singlespeed.

terminaut — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 22:16:00 GMT

One of the first issues that you'll need to address in building a singlespeed bike is the method by which your bike achieves and maintains proper chain tension. The reason for this is that even though you will have shortened your chain to accomodate the new single gearing, there's a high probability that there will be some amount of slack in the chain's tension (unless you're extremely lucky). Without proper tension, the chain will not stay secured while riding, especially when under stress of climbs.

On a geared bike, the rear derailleur provides tensioning as well as shifting the chain from gear to gear. If you aren't really sure that you'll be into singlespeeding for the long haul and want to avoid spending money, you can continue to use your derailleur as a tensioner by removing the shift-cable and adjusting the two travel-limiting screws to lock the positioning of the derailleur to the gear. This isn't very ideal, but serves well enough as a stepping stone.

When you're ready to ditch the complex derailleur entirely and go with something a more simple such as a singlespeed-specific a tensioning device, there are a couple of choices to choose from. The original tensioning device is from the guys at Surly, and it's called the Singleator. The alternative device is from Paul's, and for reasons unknown to me it's called the "Melvin".

If you're working with a very limited budget and don't mind a little bit of elbow grease, a low-tech tensioner can be fabricated from the cage and a single pulley of an old derailleur. This method basically requires that you dismantle the derailleur to take off one side of the pulley cage then bend it as appropriate to line up with your cog. Excellent details of doing this can be found on the Dragon Tongue Singlespeeds site.

The traditional derailleur can be used for tensioning the chain for short-term purposes. If you go this route, keep your chain somewhat longer than a normal singlespeed chain length because the derailleur won't be happy "wound up" so tightly.

Get a satisfactory chainline by positioning the derailleur to line up with the cog or gear of your choice, then just screw in the two travel limiting screws to lock it in place. In some instances it may be necessary to remove a plastic plate under the limiting screws in order to allow the screws to tighten enough.

Surly's Singleator is the simplest-looking tensioning device available. The initial setup can be a little tricky, but once properly installed (I recommend pushing UP on the chain) it works very elegantly to keep your chain on.

Paul's Melvin tensioner is machined from aluminum and somewhat resembles a derailleur with its two pulley design. This more sophisticated/complicated design allows the tensioner to take up a wider range of chain slack, which normally isn't an issue. However, if you want to run TWO speeds up front the Melvin enables you to do that.

I've previously run a two-speed setup by having both a 24-tooth granny and 34-tooth middle ring up front.

The ideal way to achieve chain tension is with horizontal dropouts, which are normally only found on dedicated singlespeed frames. Horizontal dropouts allow you to slide the wheel axle fore and aft to adjust the chain tension without the use of any additional hardware. This method should seem familiar since this is how BMX frames have done it for years.

One of the latest innovations in singlespeed frame design is the adaptation of tandem-style eccentric bottom brackets for chain tensioning, as seen on this nice Seven closeup. The bottom bracket shell rotates to adjust the chain tension and thus alleviates the need for special treatment such as horizontal loading to the rear dropout. This in turn makes it possible to accomodate disc-brake setups since the rear wheel is always mounted in the same position. If you need to run discs, this is a very elegant way to go.

This is an archived article from the original singlespeed.net site.