1962 Ford Falcon Project: August 2021

Because Grace has been a naughty girl and is still in time-out (and frankly I'm a bit burned out on that stupid car), we're going to do something different today. Like I mentioned in the last post, one of the many motivating factors in returning to California was living near mountains again. I really like mountain biking in part because it helps me stay away from cars.

I started riding mountain bikes back in college, so 12 years ago I bought a bike from a pawn shop. It cost $160 back then and it's been my main bike since then. It's gone through a number of changes, and I've owned several other mountain bikes since then (pictured below) but none of the stuck around for long.

This is the first bike, purchased at a pawn shop.

I then proceeded to upgrade every component

I then bought this Transition Preston and installed all the good components, which was promptly stolen

Shortly after graduating college, I bought this Fezzari Abajo Peak. For whatever reason, I just didn't like it and sold it.

So for 12 years this bike has been my go-to. And it's served me incredibly well. But mountain bikes have changed immensely in the past decade. Well they changed immensely in the decade preceding too. Let's just say since inception they've changed pretty rapidly. I was ready to join the modern age and enjoy all those changes... sorta. See, mountain bikes are expensive, and if they are high-end, they are really expensive. Add to that a global bike shortage, there's no way I'm affording a minty-fresh-off-the-showroom-floor bike with all the goodies. Besides that, I've never bought a new mountain bike and I'm not about to start now!

Old Bike

So I started looking around, and had my eye on a Trek Remedy or Santa Cruz Bronson. Both bikes are mid-travel with 150mm suspension, and run 27.5" wheels. My old bike has 26" wheels, which every mountain bike had back in the days of my youth. Today, almost every bike has 29" wheels. For whatever reason, I decided that 27.5" was the size for me. They don't roll over obstacles as well as 29ers but tend to be more agile. I wanted a bike that had a more playful character rather than just absorbing everything in my way, and the aforementioned bikes had that reputation. Then while visiting Mammoth Lakes, California, I stumbled upon a good deal on an older (but still modern) Santa Cruz Bronson in my size. I took it for a test ride and was convinced. So here she is, the 2014 Santa Cruz Bronson C.

New-fangled tech parts 1 & 2: Carbon fiber frame, 27.5" wheels

New-fangled tech part 3: Remote dropper post. Get that pesky seat out of the way for descents with the press of a lever on the handlebar.

New-fangled tech part 4: 1x drivetrain. Ditch the front deraileur, shifter and chainrings. The sprockets in the rear have a 500% gearing spread.

During the ride I noticed that the fork didn't feel amazing, but I chalked it up to the suspension not being set up for me, and also needing maintenance. I did the much-needed maintenance and tried to tune fork for me, but I couldn't quite get it where I wanted. All my past experience with Fox forks had been quite positive but after a little research I found that lots of users had complained about this fork. Normally you can count on Fox to make really nice products, this fork just turned out to be enough of a turd that fox made an air spring retrofit kit for those customers who called the tech line to complain. And though it's been out of production for 7 years, they still had a few retrofit kits in stock. So of course, I couldn't not do it!

Pre-operation

The culprit: the adjustable travel air spring

On the operating table, next to the transplant

Body cavity open

inserting the lower half of the air spring retrofit kit

inserting the upper half of the air spring retrofit kit.

all greased up and ready for re-assembly

Post-op, with the diseased organ to the right

Another interesting product I came across was the oval chainring. As you probably know, bikes have a power stroke, not unlike that of a combustion engine. Each leg will alternately provide a power stroke on each revolution of the crank. But again like a combustion engine, there can be dead spots in the revolution where power is not effectively transmitted to the drivetrain. An oval chain ring shortens the effective radius of the chainring during the dead zones, and lengthens the radius in the power zones. In theory it should smooth out the power delivery to the rear wheel, decreasing wheel slip and improving efficiency. Does it work? Who knows, but it seemed worth a try and I needed a smaller chain ring to compensate for my flabby state of physical fitness.

Did it all work? I think so? The problem with being so out of shape is that the uphill climbs leave my sad little legs and lungs so tired that it's hard to be really perceptive. I can say the fork felt much better and the reduced tooth count on the chainring was an improvement. In any case, the biggest improvement is goint to be fixing the loose nut behind the handlebars.

Local trail test run

With all this work going into the new old bike, you might think the old old bike is feeling left out. But I'm not cruel, I still have love for the old bike. I had noticed that the air spring on its fork was losing air. So I tore it down and found that there was a tiny blemish in the top of the air spring piston that was leaking. I think there was a bubble in the plastic casting and after 14 years of hard use it began to leak. I cut away at the area and filled it with the cheapskate's secret weapon, JB weld. It's not like Fox had that part in stock anyway. So I replaced a few seals while I was in there and put it back together. With a little luck, this fork will last me another 14 years and at that point will be a historical artifact.