Why is this so accurate?!?!?Sent from my iPhone Ryan, yes! For reference.. <Screenshot_20250421_082759.jpg> <Screenshot_20250421_082920.jpg> On Monday, April 21, 2025 at 7:34:58 AM UTC-7 Ryan wrote:
Bill's cafe racer versus Leah's Gold Wing
On Sunday, April 20, 2025 at 10:19:35 PM UTC-5 ttoshi wrote:
Bill, it was great to see you yesterday, and I can attest to all that the Charlie is a very handsome bike! Are you planning on doing the Marin Mountains next Saturday? Apparently they were forced to make the route harder, but they are giving more time under gravel randonee rules. I am hoping that for you, more time, despite the extra hills, will be welcome. I am rooting for you to finish that beast of a ride! (Have some kind thoughts for me the following weekend for the 600k!)
Best wishes, Toshi
In honor of Leah's rain club ride, I took Lord Charles out on a proper road ride today. I had considered doing a Diablo Summit, but instead decided to knock out the next route of the East Bay Bike Trails book that my daughter gave me for Christmas. Next in the book was ride 7A, which was a 27 mile loop through the Berkeley Hills. Rather than drive and park near the start point at the landmark Claremont Hotel, instead I rode out my front door through Berkeley so I could stop and pay my respects to Jitensha Studio, which is losing their storefront.
It was cool to start (high 40s) but looked like it might get into the 60s by the end of the ride. It had been a while since I did the climb up Claremont to Grizzly Peak. Normally I treat Claremont as the shortcut DOWN if I'm in a hurry. It's quite steep, with the steepest bits getting over 15%. Lord Charles handled it just fine though, and it was the beginning of the ride, and it was a good way to get warm. After climbing up Claremont and Grizzly Peak the route passed the famous Steam Trains and dropped down South Park into Tilden. South Park is another steep road, and in the early days of Strava, death wish riders would take huge risks battling for the KOM down this hill. It's not hard to get over 50MPH. I picked one of the safer sections to let Charlie run, and took it up to ~68kph. I'm not completely dialed on my descending position on a flat bar road bike, but the stability of the bike definitely was "like a Riv".
After South Park I headed out Wildcat Canyon to San Pablo Dam Road and took that through Orinda. There Toshi passed me with a small group and said hello. He was on his green Riv Custom, fresh off his 400k last weekend and looking sharp in Grizly Peak Cyclists kit. SPDR became Moraga and then I turned right on Canyon and then up Pinehurst, another steep climb. Before that I tried to grab a springtime green hills photo:
On the climb two different roadies on standard-issue carbon complimented my bike. After that steep climb the route followed Skyline to Old Tunnel Road and back down into Oakland/North Berkeley. I was going to stop by Jitensha Studio again and hopefully catch Natsumi or Hiroshi there in the store so I could buy something for the last time, but today is "CAL Day" and the whole campus area was a total zoo. I sort of avoided the area and went home. 43 miles 4200ft of climbing and a lovely day on the bike. Lord Charles is a solid road bike, and I'm happy to have him in my stable.
Bill Lindsay El Cerrito, CA
On Saturday, April 19, 2025 at 5:55:22 AM UTC-7 Bicycle Belle Ding Ding! wrote:
Finally got out on Charlie for a proper club ride yesterday. Oh my gosh, the skies blackened and dumped on us just minutes into our ride. This was NOT in the forecast, but…Michigan. Anyway, suddenly there was thunder and lightning and this has not happened to me before. Well, what they apparently do in Michigan is knock on strangers’ doors and ask to be let in their garages!
Charlie has fenders, and oh, how I hand wrung about fenders. I wanted to keep him Pure Road Bike but then I also know we have wet roads…well, I was ever so grateful to have fenders yesterday! And so was whoever was behind me. The rest of us got “rooster tails” to the face for 20-some miles. Road water. In your mouth. Gross.
Charlie was trashed at the end and I had to take him to a manual car wash and gently hose him off. I wasn’t looking much better than he was. But that was because of other people’s bikes!
He rode as nice as could be, even though we fought a lot of wind and conditions were not ideal. I think he did better than my Platy would have done. I’m really glad to have a Charlie Gallop.
L If there is a supreme favorite, it is favorite because of the act of self-_expression_ that a build represents for me. I put a lot of myself into each of my builds and my current stable really has zero duds from that standpoint. Each of them has a lot of me in them but the one build that has the most of me in it is Bambi.
Is it a fat tire road bike? A gravel bike? An all road randonneur? It's a lot of those things. Beyond that it has a narrower Q-factor than 99.99% of bikes made in the last half-century. That's probably the bike I love the most. That's the bike I guarantee I'll never sell. What's the rush, riding it? I'll have it forever. We've got time...
BL in EC On Wednesday, April 16, 2025 at 12:20:14 PM UTC-7 Bicycle Belle Ding Ding! wrote:
Bill, So is there really no bike that you just favor above all others and want to ride outside of the rules? You’re never tempted to say, “Ok, this (insert name) bike needs another 500 miles buuuuutttttt, I’m running off with Lord Charlie for the foreseeable future…. There is really no supreme favorite?
I don’t even like having 4 choices. I have 4 bikes and that’s 1 too many. The mermaid bike is my least favorite and it sits. Actually, maybe that’s why you make The Rules - to avoid choice paralysis. You have a system and you follow it.
My bikes are all late models so your theory about people getting excited about new bikes and selling off old bikes might apply to me. I have sold a Betty and a Clem L. In my defense, a lot has changed as I’ve learned more about the type of rider I am and what I want to do on the bike. I don’t have a system, but I have purpose bikes. Well, they are supposed to be, but the Platy Trio is pretty interchangeable. Everyone had clear roles but they all got messed up when Charlie came.
Speaking of him (he is such a scoundrel), Randi Jo et all sent his custom-color bag and it arrived today. Now I can give back my younger son’s RJ bag! L "She would like to move Bill’s Rocket Charlie to the top position"
That's totally allowed when the mileage tiers ratchet up. It's kind of like musical chairs; when I add the 2600 mile level up on top, there's nothing technically stopping me from just riding Lord Charles exclusively for the next three months and putting him at that 2600 mile level. I've got a little bit of leapfrogging planned, but as that plan sits, I've just got three bikes that will stay put, allowing three other bikes to leapfrog those spots. Lord Charles is one of those. It'll leapfrog over my Hetchins townie, to the 200 mile level, while the Hetchins stays put at 100.
I think that's what some people end up doing: They have a number of bikes, but get excited about a brand new bike, ride that bike exclusively and fall out of love with one or more of the "old" bikes and get rid of them: "It's just not getting ridden anymore..."
I rode Lord Charles today. I drove my car down to the shop, and rode Lord Charles back up the hill. It's a dreamy bike.
Bill Lindsay El Cerrito, CA
On Tuesday, April 15, 2025 at 1:48:49 PM UTC-7 Bicycle Belle Ding Ding! wrote:
Bill Lindsay is a self-professed Bike Clothes Horse with a plethora of cute bike outfits being held captive to Bill Lindsay’s Arbitrary Rules that he cannot change. Bill Lindsay would have to go to Bill Lindsay to change the Rules, and not even Bill Lindsay is brave enough for THAT.
Leah Peterson, a known lover of cute bike outfits, and first-rate bossypants, is unafraid of her Big RivBros (well, maybe a little afraid of Bill Lindsay) and would like nothing more than to get into Bill Lindsay’s closet and rearrange his cute bike outfits and his mileage pyramid. She would like to move Bill’s Rocket Charlie to the top position, weight him down with some colorful bits, toss out a few of those imposters (several non-Rivs will have to go!) and replace them with a paddle of Platypuses in a rainbow of colors to really brighten Bill Lindsay’s Bike Outfits up and round it all out. Then she would like a photo shoot.
Fortunately for Bill Lindsay, Leah Peterson lives several timezones away and his closet is probably safe for now.
Leah "How do you have the willpower to keep rotating bikes? If I have a rocket, I’m riding that one."
The answer is I'm not sure how I have the willpower; I just do. Grant once told me: "It must be hard being you". I guess I think about it the way a "clothes horse" thinks about a new outfit. No matter how cute that new outfit is, I'm not wearing it every day. I still pick my spots for when to wear it, and I'm definitely not forgetting about my other cute outfits, nor will I resist buying the next cute outfit.
I'm definitely a compulsive. For a minute there I had four new builds that were off-limits to ride. At the moment there are still three I can't ride. What I've got is a mileage pyramid. One bike is assigned to the 100 mile level of the pyramid, another assigned to 200 miles and so on. Twenty bikes cover 100 miles up to 2000 miles cumulatively on Strava. Above 2000 miles the steps are 200 miles each and there are two bikes up there: one assigned to 2200 miles and the current top of the pyramid is at 2400 miles. That's 22 bikes. I spread the use to get each bike to its assigned level, and I'm allowed some margin over that assigned level, but I won't bleed over to the next level up. That's a no-no. I'm very close to having all those slots filled: My Black Mountain Model Zero needs 48 miles, and my Crust Lightning Bolt Single Speed needs 45 miles. At that point, I add the 2600 mile level to the top of the pyramid and have a wide open stable to ride whatever I like.
The four other builds (22+4=26 bikes) waiting to be used included my Gallop. I have it at the 0 mile level, which means I can ride it, but not over 100 miles because then it would get up into the next level which is already occupied. There are three more bikes assigned to the -100, -200 and -300 levels, which are imaginary, so I can't ride them at all. When I get to ratchet up the framework, then one more bike will be unlocked. The other way to earn the privilege of riding another bike is to sell a bike and make a new vacancy in the pyramid.
Unlocking the stable is really close, but I'm stalled getting those last two bikes over the finish line: The ModelZero has a new drive train set up in the works, and I'm missing a critical part for another week or two. It's in the work stand disassembled. The Crust is stationed at my office in San Jose, and I don't get out there more than once a week, and when I do get to the office it's usually for full-days of meetings and such that make it hard to get out. I can still ride, because I can carefully use up that surplus that each bike carries. That surplus is over 2100 miles, so I can ride plenty and I can ride pretty much any of my bikes. The Gallop carries 88 miles of surplus. I can even do my next 200k brevet using up surplus miles: My Ebisu is assigned to 2200 miles, and it's at 2215 miles, so it is carrying 185 miles of surplus. I can use it for my May 200k, and still have 60 miles of surplus left over.
Don't blame me! I don't make up the rules! (said the person who literally made up the rules)
Bill Lindsay El Cerrito, CA
On Monday, April 14, 2025 at 2:30:15 AM UTC-7 Bicycle Belle Ding Ding! wrote:
A rocket! Pretty exciting! How do you have the willpower to keep rotating bikes? If I have a rocket, I’m riding that one. I don’t know if my Charlie is a rocket; it doesn’t have those tires and certainly weighs more than yours. I was hoping to ride him tonight in the club ride but they’re predicting 37 mph winds. I don’t think that will be fun and it might not even be safe, so we’ll see…
L I hinted that my Charlie Gallop might make its appearance in my rotation this weekend, and it has. I did not ride it up Mount Diablo, but I did ride it down into Berkeley and back. It is most definitely a rocket. Blazing fast down the hill on 700x38 Barlow Pass Extralight tires, and blazing fast up the hills in part because it's so darn light. It'll take a little getting used to the handling with a Jitensha bar, but the fit felt super natural.
I also hinted at a tweak or two, and one of those conceptual tweaks did happen. It turned out I needed a lightish 110BCD crank for a project, so I stole the Silver 3 crank off the Gallop for that application, and put on a White Industries VBC crank with a single 36T narrow-wide ring. That's a perfect match for the White Industries Titanium BB that was already on there, and it dropped ~15g. I don't have new photos yet.
Bill Lindsay El Cerrito, CA
On Saturday, April 5, 2025 at 5:39:41 AM UTC-7 Bill Lindsay wrote:
I've probably disappointed some people because I spent a ton of time talking about my Gallop build and have spent zero time talking about my Charlie Gallop gallops. That's because I haven't ridden it yet. It's not laziness or neglect or a lack of wanting to ride it. It's my weird self-discipline. I have a mileage framework with rules I entirely made up for myself, and the consequence is that I won't ride the Gallop until I can insert it into the framework, and I can't insert it into the framework until I make a spot for it, and the way I make a spot is by riding each of my other bikes to its assigned mileage level. The punch-line is that I'm just a few days away from having a spot for Charlie in my riding framework and then stuff can begin. One of the first things I'll do is gallop the Gallop up Mount Diablo, perhaps as soon as next weekend.
Meanwhile, independent from riding, there are always projects parading through my brain, and some of those thoughts end up happening in my work stand, and there is a real non-zero chance that Charlie is going to get a couple more unconventional tweaks.
Bill Lindsay El Cerrito, Ca
On Saturday, April 5, 2025 at 4:17:52 AM UTC-7 Bicycle Belle Ding Ding! wrote:
Hi Kat! I would have chosen the Roadini if the Charlie didn’t exist. The Charlie is, in size 53, lighter in tubing. And I love a dropped tube. Also the graphics and head badge and horses running along the chain stay are just YUMMY. And who doesn’t love that gold color?
The above all made it the winner.
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