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Farmers Market Saturday
We had some unseasonably hot weather in the last week of May (up in the 90s and humid), but we just got a reprieve from that for our first Saturday of June. I got up this morning and found it cloudy...
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Look Ma' - No Seat Tube!
There's nothing on a bike that's more pointless than the seat-tube. Am I right? I mean, if bicycles have an equivalent to a vestigial organ, it's the seat-tube on a diamond frame. And that's why any...
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Fathers Day 2018
As far as I'm concerned, there is no better way to spend Fathers Day than going for a bike ride with the RetroKids. It was a hot one today - with temps up near 90º - but that didn't stop us from...
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Man, Derailleurs Just Keep Getting Uglier
Yes, they do. Mountain-bike derailleurs have been going that way for a while. But the latest generation of road components are doing everything to catch up. They've expanded, or swollen. Sprouted...
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New Old Brooks and a (Slight) Makeover
I just replaced the Brooks saddle on my Rivendell. It had 17 years of use on it and was getting almost a little too soft and saggy for my taste. Now, I've seen people ride them until they looked like...
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Another Nice eBay Find
Once again, eBay comes through. Right on the heels of finding a 17-year-old virtually unused Brooks saddle, and a new-old-stock derailleur of the same age, I managed to find a pair of these: classic...
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Getting Shafted
Chains are such a drag. I mean, what else can you call a transmission system that's only 98% efficient? And yes, they're, simple, straightforward, "proven" technology, and relatively inexpensive - but...
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Tour de France Coverage, Retrogrouch Style: 1978
Once again, the Tour de France is happening, and I'm not really giving any more than casual interest in it. The last-minute clearing of Chris Froome from doping charges, while maybe good news (?),...
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How Light Could You Go?
Back when I first caught the bike bug, I remember hearing something that even back then was a well-worn saying, but it was true then, and I think it's still true today. "Light, Strong, Cheap - Pick...
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Will We Ever Be Ready For "Pump Action" Cycling?
It is with a heavy heart that I report that the cycling world is likely to be denied the greatest technology breakthrough that we have seen since the invention of the safety bicycle. Funding for RRAD...
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A Visit To Maine
If the blog has seemed quiet for a little while, it's because I've spent the past week on a family vacation in Maine with little/no internet and fairly limited cell-phone coverage. That can be...
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More Warnings About Carbon Fiber Bikes
I recently came across an article in Outside online that rings more alarm bells about carbon fiber bikes and components - though it's all well-trodden ground on this blog. There's not much in the...
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A Bit of Photo Editing Fun
I was recently fooling around a bit with some photo editing software and came up with a set of fun images to share. Regular readers of the blog have probably noticed that I often create composite...
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An Anniversary
It occurred to me today that I just about missed an anniversary.The Retrogrouch Blog first went online five years ago, in the last week of August 2013. I wasn't sure at the time how much I'd be able to...
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A Trailer Project
Wow - it's been a while. Sorry about that, folks.Not that this comes close to explaining the long gap in posts, but I recently picked up a bike-related project that readers might find reasonably...
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Merry Christmas Happy Holidays Merry Jingles and All That
It's Christmas day, 30 degrees, and partly sunny in Akron, Ohio. Good day (if a bit chilly) for the annual Christmas bike ride.We have the in-laws coming over for my beloved pot roast today, so I...
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Removing An Extremely Stuck Bottom Bracket
I recently picked up an old bike frame for a future project. It's a mid-'70s Motobecane and it seemed to be in decent shape overall, but it did have a drive-side bottom bracket cup that was extremely...
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What's A Swiss-Threaded Bottom Bracket Anyhow?
I guess this post is kind of a follow-up to the previous one in which I described removing a stuck bottom bracket from an old Motobecane. That little project got me thinking about threading issues on...
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New Bikes for the Retro-Kids
My Retro-Kids are growing up.It was pretty apparent by the end of last Fall that they were on the verge of having outgrown the last of their "kid" bikes - a couple of 24" wheeled machines that they'd...
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That Time Road & Track Test Drove A Bicycle
I used to be a "car" guy. I loved cars. LOVED 'em. Yeah, that's changed. Nowadays I barely tolerate them.When I was a kid - and I mean a pretty young kid, like no more than 10 or 11 years old - I...
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