I've been changing my rosters lately. Don't get me wrong, I love all my bikes, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten them in the first place.
Bikes I no longer own:
Trek Sawyer (Gold) - Love it. It's much lighter than I thought. Sold it because it's too nice of a bike to be ridden and taken abuse.
Soma Juice 29er - Light weight steel mtb. I purchased Surly Ogre as a replacement, which I feel might be a mistake. Juice is a much lighter frame than the Ogre, and it handles better. Takes a double kickstand too. Argh...
Surly Long Haul Trucker 26" - My plan was to bike to SoCal (from NorCal), but due to my current situation, I'll have to take a rain check and it's too heavy as a commuter; therefore, I sold it.
Pake C'mute - Don't know why, it's a great bike for commuting.
Jamis Aurora - I like this bike a lot, but sold it b/c I feel the standover height is a bit too high, but not dangerously high
Origin8 CX700 Frameset - I love the way how you can turn it into any kind of bikes you want, but the frameset itself is super heavy.
All City Mr Pink - Modern steel bike. It's a great bike but I liked vintage italian ones better.
Currently in my stable:
Torelli - Columbus Nemo tubing, first bike I bought with the paycheck from my first job, fast
Mondonico Diamond - Columbus SLX tubing, love the way it handles, but it's way too stiff
Mikkelsen Road Bike - fast, but another bike I feel gets too much attention.
Surly Ogre - Alfine 8 town bike
Marin Muirwoods 29er - My beater. I can take it to the mountain or regular roads with this bike.
80's Fuji Del Rey - Another beater that just won't die. It also serve as a guest bike.
Dahon Helios - Folding and guest bike. Not heavy to carry it around. Using to commute to the SF Peninsula by Bart.
Sunday, August 13, 2017
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Powder Coated My Surly Ogre Frameset
I've been wanting to repaint my frame for a long time, but I just didn't have the time to do it. If you are looking to repaint yours, there are two reputable places in the San Francisco Bay Area. One is D+D cycles in the East Bay, and the other one is West Coast Powdercoating in South San Francisco. I am sure there are other ones too, but you can't go wrong with these two.There are three common ways to paint your bike: brush, spray, and powder-coat. I won't go into details, but D+D Cycles does spray painting and West Coast Powdercoat does the other type of coating... (you got it). To be honest, brush and spray paint sounds pretty explanatory to me, but what is powder coat? According to Wiki:
Powder coating is a type of coating that is applied as a free-flowing, dry powder. The main difference between a conventional liquid paint and a powder coating is that the powder coating does not require a solvent to keep the binder and filler parts in a liquid suspension form.If it's still not clear to you, here's the clip to give you a better picture:
If the video still doesn't make any sense to you and doesn't look too different from spray painting, don't worry, that's exactly what I think too. For expert powder coaters, please forgive me for not having knowledge in this area. From what I heard, Surly and many bike manufacturers powder-coat their bikes.
I have a Mikkelsen bike that is painted by Rick from D+D cycles, and I can tell it's absolutely gorgeous to look at. This is the reason why I called Rick up and requested a quote from him for my Surly Ogre.
Rick quoted me $400.00 for the painting a single color on the frame and the fork and providing my own decals. Hm... my Surly Ogre frameset only cost $600.00 new, it wouldn't make any sense to spend another $400 on the frameset only. So I talked to AJ Costa from West Coast Powder Coat, he quoted me $100 for the frame and +$20 for the fork.
Weeks before, I tried to strip the paint myself because I thought it's something that they wouldn't do for you. It turned out I was wrong they would strip the paint for you, which was a very good news for me because it wasn't something straight forward for someone like myself to do it. I followed some DIY websites that instructed me to apply CitrusStrip, then wrap frame with plastic food wrap, let the frame sit there for a few hours, and finally sand the paint off. After two attempts, I couldn't even get 20% of the paint off the frame. Other stripping chemicals might work, but I wouldn't recommend CitrusStrip for your bike frame.
Anyways, I made my decision and went with West Coast Powdercoating because of the close to 5-stars reviews from Yelp, and the price is more reasonable for a Surly frame. Also, I decided to choose my favorite bike frame color, black, and not to paint the fork because it's already... black. I bought my frame in on Monday and got it back Friday of the same week. I should've taken some before-pics, but I didn't. Below are some pictures I took:
Some shops paints the inside of the bottom brackets, but I am glad West Coast PC doesn't do that and super happy with the result. Now I need to prep the frame, and possibly buy a Rohloff Speedhub which this frame is designed for. It's still to early to decide what I wanted to do, but I will keep you updated.
More Info:
West Coast Powder Coating - Yelp Reviews
D+D Cycles - Yelp Reviews
D+D Cycles - Youtube:
Monday, February 16, 2015
Flying Machine 3D Prints Their Way Onto Mountain Bike Trails
Everyone loves new technologies. However, a steel or aluminum bike is more like a typewriter, which many of us are still comfortable with. There's nothing wrong with it, really. Are we ready for a tablet? Is this our future?
Flying Machine 3D Prints Their Way Onto Mountain Bike Trails
Flying Machine 3D Prints Their Way Onto Mountain Bike Trails
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Monday, October 20, 2014
Silca Super Pista Repair
I realized since the adapter is already messed up, why don't I open the adapter and try to find where the problem is. At first I thought, it might require some googling and spending some time to learn about how a pump works, but taking the adapter apart is actually not hard at all. All it required is 30 seconds of your time to unscrew the head and take the washer out. As you can see in the photo, it turns out that the washer has been damaged, and I need to find a replacement for it.
I did some googling and found out there are more than one version of the washers out there:
1) Silca Leather Plunger Washer: Pista, Super $7.19 shipped
2) Silca Large Rubber Washer for Presta Head $8.98 shipped
3) Silca Rubber Washer, Fits Reversible Head $19.95 shipped
I decided to trust the picture on the page and went with the second one, (Silca Large Rubber Washer for Presta Head). The rubber washer doesn't look exactly like the one on Amazon, but I did get the right part, no more leaks, and let's start riding.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Selling Items on Craigslist or Ebay
I am still obsessed with bicycle buying. It has became a daily ritual for me to check out sfbay.craigslist.com, ebay.com, nashbar.com, performancebike.com, jensonusa.com, and treefortbikes.com every single day. If you have the patience to wait for killer deals, good things will come. Some may find this type of behavior a little too obsessive, but I am sure a lot of bicycle aficionados would do the same. Lately, because I am running out of space in my garage, I've been doing a lot of selling too :)
There are two sites for me to sell used bicycles or new/used bike parts: Ebay and Craigslist. EBay currently doesn't charge a listing fee, so you can sell an item without paying a cent, that is before your item is sold. It is also one of the best place to sell something. To a certain extent, Ebay is well known to many parts of the world. Even if you have an item that only a few people in this world appreciate, there will be someone who is willing to pay for it on Ebay. The company's popularity comes in a price too. Luckily, (or unfortunately), if someone bought your item either by auctioning or "buy-it-now," Ebay will charge two fees: 1) 10% of price sold, 2) 10% of shipping; that's 10% from the total (shipping + item price). If your buyer is sending payment through PayPal, there will be an additional 3% charge for a single transaction. If you do the math, Ebay/PayPal will be taking 13% fee out of your cut. It doesn't end here. There's also the handling charge which varies from item to item. Well, those fees are for Ebay to run its business, which includes resolving problems between buyers and sells, running the website, and possibly for its high paying CEO, VP's and other upper management, and making the company look good on paper. (I know... I know am going a little too off topic). I will provide a real world example of how much I get for selling my 2012 Trek Sawyer after all the non-sense cost for listing on Ebay, but before I go into that let's take a look at Ebay's nemesis: Craigslist.
Especially in San Francisco, Craigslist.com is one of the most popular site for selling your used items. If the price is reasonable, it's almost a guarantee that you can sell it. If it's a super awesome deal, you will literally get at least 10 emails asking about your item a second after you created your listing. The whole process of creating a post takes less than a minute, for me at least. This is a no-fee-for-listing, cash, and you'll-get-every-single-penny-you-asked-for transaction. What's the downside? Unfortunately, it's a face-to-face transactions, so safety can be an issue. In the SF Bay Area, there are people who will to kill someone for a PS4, or $400, (sad, sad reality). There are also the unavoidable solicitations, "low ballers," and scams. You have to filter them out and have at least three emails back and forth with the potential buyers until you can sell your items. Compared to Ebay, which attracts potential buyers nationally/globally, an item listed on Craigslist is only known to buyer close to your home. I have had a buyer who drove 80mi from where I live just to buy a bicycle frame, but it was still a good deal for him though. Being said that, there are a lot of awesome people out there. Fortunately, for me, most my experiences on Craigslist have been very positive.
While it's much safer to list something on Ebay, I still prefer to sell on Craigslist based on my own experience. The 10% Ebay fee + 3% Paypal do not justify for me. Ebay will take a cut out of your shipping, which I think is really unfair to the seller, but I can understand where it is coming from. Ebay didn't care about the shipping cost when it first started, so dishonest sellers used to sell their items at lower prices and charge ridiculous shipping fees, so they put more money into their own pocket. Let's say you wanted to sell your item at $80.00 total including shipping, there used to be two ways of doing it: 1) $60.00 (item price) + $20.00 (actual shipping), or 2) $10.00 (item price) + $70.00 (shipping). Even though the buyer eventually pays the same price for an item, the seller can avoid the actual Ebay fee of $6.00 if he or she go with the second option, which the Ebay fee is only $1.00. Try thinking about selling an item for 10 times more, which option should the seller chooses? I'll leave that up to you, but it's Craigslist all the way for me just for its simplicity.
Here's a break down of how much 2012 Trek Sawyer I sold on EBay.
There are two sites for me to sell used bicycles or new/used bike parts: Ebay and Craigslist. EBay currently doesn't charge a listing fee, so you can sell an item without paying a cent, that is before your item is sold. It is also one of the best place to sell something. To a certain extent, Ebay is well known to many parts of the world. Even if you have an item that only a few people in this world appreciate, there will be someone who is willing to pay for it on Ebay. The company's popularity comes in a price too. Luckily, (or unfortunately), if someone bought your item either by auctioning or "buy-it-now," Ebay will charge two fees: 1) 10% of price sold, 2) 10% of shipping; that's 10% from the total (shipping + item price). If your buyer is sending payment through PayPal, there will be an additional 3% charge for a single transaction. If you do the math, Ebay/PayPal will be taking 13% fee out of your cut. It doesn't end here. There's also the handling charge which varies from item to item. Well, those fees are for Ebay to run its business, which includes resolving problems between buyers and sells, running the website, and possibly for its high paying CEO, VP's and other upper management, and making the company look good on paper. (I know... I know am going a little too off topic). I will provide a real world example of how much I get for selling my 2012 Trek Sawyer after all the non-sense cost for listing on Ebay, but before I go into that let's take a look at Ebay's nemesis: Craigslist.
Especially in San Francisco, Craigslist.com is one of the most popular site for selling your used items. If the price is reasonable, it's almost a guarantee that you can sell it. If it's a super awesome deal, you will literally get at least 10 emails asking about your item a second after you created your listing. The whole process of creating a post takes less than a minute, for me at least. This is a no-fee-for-listing, cash, and you'll-get-every-single-penny-you-asked-for transaction. What's the downside? Unfortunately, it's a face-to-face transactions, so safety can be an issue. In the SF Bay Area, there are people who will to kill someone for a PS4, or $400, (sad, sad reality). There are also the unavoidable solicitations, "low ballers," and scams. You have to filter them out and have at least three emails back and forth with the potential buyers until you can sell your items. Compared to Ebay, which attracts potential buyers nationally/globally, an item listed on Craigslist is only known to buyer close to your home. I have had a buyer who drove 80mi from where I live just to buy a bicycle frame, but it was still a good deal for him though. Being said that, there are a lot of awesome people out there. Fortunately, for me, most my experiences on Craigslist have been very positive.
While it's much safer to list something on Ebay, I still prefer to sell on Craigslist based on my own experience. The 10% Ebay fee + 3% Paypal do not justify for me. Ebay will take a cut out of your shipping, which I think is really unfair to the seller, but I can understand where it is coming from. Ebay didn't care about the shipping cost when it first started, so dishonest sellers used to sell their items at lower prices and charge ridiculous shipping fees, so they put more money into their own pocket. Let's say you wanted to sell your item at $80.00 total including shipping, there used to be two ways of doing it: 1) $60.00 (item price) + $20.00 (actual shipping), or 2) $10.00 (item price) + $70.00 (shipping). Even though the buyer eventually pays the same price for an item, the seller can avoid the actual Ebay fee of $6.00 if he or she go with the second option, which the Ebay fee is only $1.00. Try thinking about selling an item for 10 times more, which option should the seller chooses? I'll leave that up to you, but it's Craigslist all the way for me just for its simplicity.
Here's a break down of how much 2012 Trek Sawyer I sold on EBay.
| Buyer won auction @ | $921.00 | |
| FedEx Standard (from CA to AZ) | $100.00 | |
| Total: | $1,021.00 | |
| PayPal Transaction Fees (3% for both item and shipping) | $1021.00 x 3% | $30.63 |
| Ebay | $1021.00 x 10% | $102.10 |
| Bike Box + Misc Cost | $10.00 | |
| Packing | $60.00 | |
| Total: | $202.73 | |
| $1,021.00 | ||
| $202.73 | ||
| What I am really getting back: | $818.27 |
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