He took the frame out of his old-school hiking pack, added some bars and cradles from a rear hitch bike rack and strapped that damn bike to his back:
Clever? Yes. Silly? Yes. Awesome? Yes. Dangerous? Absolutely.
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He took the frame out of his old-school hiking pack, added some bars and cradles from a rear hitch bike rack and strapped that damn bike to his back:
Clever? Yes. Silly? Yes. Awesome? Yes. Dangerous? Absolutely.
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Downtube Shifter Mounts
Because we like things that are old school and we want to keep using 'em. This handy-dandy mounts to 31.8 & 28.6mm tubes so you can mount your old downtube shifters on your new bike.
ChainSpy
"1x" drivetrains are the new singlespeed for a lot of folks, in case you hadn't noticed. If, by chance, you don't have one of those fancy new derailleurs with a clutch mechanism, some sort of chain retention is necessary. Our ChainSpy is simple, easy to install & adjust for your custom 1x applicaton. If you're a downhiller, you're barking up the wrong tree.
Singlespeed Cassette Cog Carrier
Stamped steel cogs are nice 'n' cheap, but they dig a nasty groove into your freehub body. Wide profile cogs are awesome, but tend to be pricey. What we've got here is a wide-profile alloy carrier (won't damage your freehub) sandwiching a stamped cog (won't damage your wallet). The pattern is 6-bolt compatible for attachment to your rotor mounts to allow for the fixed-gear riding as well.
11-Speed Cassette Spacer
For putting your 9/10-speed cassette on a new 11-speed freehub body.
Leather Washers
Because they're awesome, that's why. They look great, they keep your fender hardware from rattling, they won't scuff or scratch.
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2. Realize that you're in over your head and find a tree that someone else already cut down:
3. Cut
4. Cut
5. Realize that you should have brought the gas can with when you hiked in. Go home. Get the team together to strategize:
6. Return the following morning with gas, better transportation, and your resolve steeled:
7. Transport section of log from woods:
8. Slap some 4 x 4" & 2 x 4" logs together for a base, and get out the wood burner to inscribe your sigil:
9. Gather some of your friends to hammer the night away. Note: since your back yard doesn't have legal consul, you can probably skip the safety goggles, but depending on your condition, you may want 'em just in case.
Thanks to all the folks who joined us at QBP's Frostbike this past weekend: you made it great.
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We've got a few new faces on the Problem Solvers team, so I thought I'd introduce y'all.
Gage Jacobson—Customer Service
My baptism into bicycles came from bicycle hooliganary in my middle-teen years, when a friend and I started a bicycle chopper gang. My mechanical skills and the ability to re-build a coaster brake got my foot in the door at Bingham’s Cyclery (an original Schwinn concept store from the 70’s featured in the movie RAD), where I received a crash course in bicycle retail and tech from a pair lifers. I eventually scored a job as a telephone personality at QBP. I habitually build up bicycles; I probably have one of everything. My riding preferences seem to reflect this common trait—jack of all trades master of none. I’m seeing the most use from my commuter and my polo bike at the moment. I’m a firm believer in DIY lifestyle: if it’s broken there’s no harm in breaking it until it’s fixed. I also enjoy home brewing and dumpster diving.
Mark Woker - Customer Service
I’ve been tinkering in the bike industry for more than 15 years now and have no desire to stop anytime soon. Mountain bikes are my jam and I’m certified to work on nearly every type of suspension out there. Commuting to work is something I’ve taken on in the past few years due to getting fat in the winter—there are only so many sweaters in my wardrobe to cover up with. It’s pretty simple to describe me. I fix things, I make some things worse, I like good beer and I usually have a way to keep people talking for hours. You’ve been warned.
Anders Broste - Engineer
To me a bicycle is freedom to go, freedom to think, and freedom to achieve. I ride because I love it and for no other reason. I've always loved fixing bikes, and now I design bikes and bike parts, which is a dream come true. I love Problem Solvers because necessity is the mother of invention: creativity at its finest. And we've always been about re-purposing and reusing all of our bike stuff, which was "green" before "green" was cool.
Welcome gentlemen.
]]>You find an awesome Problem Solvers part—like our handlebar shims—and decide you want 'em.
Clicking the "Buy Local Now" button brings up a new window where you select which thickness of shim you'd like to purchase. A list of bicycle retailers (in your area, or the zip code of your choosing) populates the map. The red pins represent dealers who have the product in stock at their store, blue pins mean they have it in stock at the warehouse, gray pins are dealers who can order the product:
You pick the shop you'd like to go to (or purchase from online). Easy.
We understand that despite our best efforts, time keeps moving forward. Kids in my mom's high school English class don't know who the Beatles are. I haven't seen a rotary phone in years. And a whole bunch of people these days have mobile electronic communication device-phones and "internet" book-computers—and they may prefer to shop online.
It's important to us for our customers to get the most out of their Problem Solvers product. The local bike shop is in the best position to help you with your bike. They have the knowledge, they have the tools and most importantly, they can interact with you and your bike in-person. They can tell you that the shim you are about to purchase isn't compatible with your current handlebar setup, for example. They can make certain that our parts are properly installed. They are the real problem solvers. We want you to go into bike shops, because bike shops are some of the greatest places on Earth.
So Buy Local Now gives you a little of both worlds. Click a couple of buttons to purchase, and it's up to you if you'd like to take a quick trip to the store to pick it up, or drink hot cocoa at home while you wait for your shim to arrive...we hope you like it.
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Todays post comes from Certified Problem Solvers and grip-tape-enthusiast, the BikeTinker. Standard disclaimers apply...
"I’m a big fan of grip tape on pedals. It’s been sticking soft-soled shoes to skateboards for 40 years, so why wouldn’t it work for bike pedals and bicyclists?
It does. I use it on my wooden skateboard pedal decks, and I’ve used it on a couple pairs of platform pedals. $5 worth of tape will do about 800* pairs of pedals. These are some MKS pedals.
Recently I got some magnesium BMX pedals that come with 18 spikes per pedal. They’re red. Just the word “shinburger” has kept me off pedal spikes, and some of my shoes have soles thin enough so I can step on a penny and tell “heads” or “tails.”
I used a little specialty hex tool, and a pipe wrench for the leverage to pop the Loctite free. Now I have a little bin of pedal spikes, which is nice, because having little bins of hardware of indeterminate future use is an end in itself.
To make the grip tape fit the pedal, I put the tape on a cutting board, grip side down, and traced each side of each pedal with a sharpie. I labeled each one, and then cut them out with an Xacto knife.
This uncut one has the non-pedal parts filled in, to make a robot monkey face. The left-over rounded bits went into another bin, in case I ever need sandpaper that sticks to the end of my finger.
Peel it off, line it up, and press it down firmly. Pay attention to the edges. The rounded corners will help keep the tape from peeling up, and you can burnish the edges down with something hard and smooth that won’t get too ripped up by the tape. I think I used a bottle.
The finished pedals look pretty professional, and give me a good grip for my size 12 (or 13) feet. So far, nothing has peeled or slipped.
These are 360 grams, if you care.
*Exaggeration for effect.
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You too could look this good.
Check 'em out here: New Shop Rags
Get 'em at your local bike shop.
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Brad over at Urban Velo shares his thoughts about the Brake Stud Light Mount.
http://urbanvelo.org/problem-solvers-brake-stud-light-mount-review/
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I had to get this bag – the ad said, “Great hack!” And from the sound of it, it was. The seller had cut the mounting straps off a Carradice seat-wedge, drilled two holes, and mounted it to a handle-bar mount designed for water bottles [Shameless editor's note: Problem Solvers provides a similar product, check it out]. I bought it, liked it, and messed around with it myself. Here are the two bolts – they’re button-headed M5 bolts with washers under the heads, inside the bag.
I tried the mount in two orientations: up-jutting and down-pointing. The up-jutting mount tucks the bag up under the stem, which is pretty clean. The bar part of the mount goes in the middle of the bag.
On the bike, the bag sticks forward a bit, and is almost flat. I like the look, but I’ve always had terrible luck with flat bags – they eject their contents, and over-stuffing them is impossible.
Not bad, but I thought flipping the mount over would give a better result. The down-pointing mount puts the bar near the top of the bag, instead of the middle. The bottom of the bag sits on the fender… if you have a long drop from bar to tire. If you have less, you can always drill new holes.
It’s a pretty solid setup, and the bag is vertical enough to keep things inside. My iPad fits, and a wool jersey, and a pump. The bag doesn’t appear to be waterproof, but I’d like to rectify that somehow.
I like the added utility, and it seems to integrate well with the overall look of the bike.
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He noted, "my selfmade solution looks really disgusting...I combined an old [cable adjuster] from an 80's road bike with the clamp from a cheap and old set of shifters. I urgently needed the bike ... and it works well."
Pretty slick.
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Todays post comes from Edelstone, Certified Problem Solver and all-around thoughtful guy. Standard disclaimers apply.
"Nowadays there are a lot of great ways to mount a headlight on your bike. Recently I’ve been trying out one of these nifty QR Nut Light Mounts from Problem Solvers:
This accessory replaces the nutted side of a standard quick release skewer, thus placing the light beam at a significantly lower position than handlebar mounting allows. There are two primary advantages to the axle-level mounting position: 1) It frees up space on your handlebar for aesthetic or practical reasons, and 2) a lower beam resultsin a longer section of road lit up in front of you. This supports safer reaction times to approaching obstacles, especially at higher speeds. If you ride at an average speed of 12 mph - like I do - this might not be a huge benefit for you.
Conversely, there is a small disadvantage to axle-level mounting: high-powered light beams at this height tend to cast long shadows on benign road debris. This is not a significant problem, but because of this I tend to advocate mounting headlights midway between the handlebar and the wheel axle whenever possible. My first recommendation is always the fork crown (the section of the fork where the two fork blades meet). I consider this the sweet spot for beam pattern height, but it also has the added advantage of allowing for completely centered light mounting. Unfortunately most battery powered lights aren’t designed to mount here, and there are a slew of other reasons why mounting at the fork crown is impractical, or impossible. For example, my current bike project:
Although my Supernova E3 dynamo headlight came with a bracket specifically for fork crown mounting, my front rack is clearly going to interfere with that possibility. And in this case, handlebar mounting isn’t even a practical solution because items stacked up on the rack could obscure the beam. So what other fork-mounting options are there? If your fork is drilled for a front rack there are some good DIY solutions for creating a light mount at mid-fork. [Editor's note: If your bike has cantilever brake studs, Brake Stud Light Mounts might suit this purpose for you]. If these are not viable options for you, here is a solution that will work. I already had the Problem Solvers QR Nut Light Mount mentioned above, so that will be the first prerequisite. And if you’re like me, you probably have a few handlebar mounting brackets laying around, like this one:
This is a pretty ubiquitous Cat Eye Flextight bracket included with most of their lights these days, but I’m sure other mounts could be used as well. First, remove the little swivel section on top of the light mount with a phillips screwdriver; you won’t need it. Next, there is a little nut wedged behind the rubber shim on the inside of the mount. Slide that out.
This nut is threaded for an M4 bolt. For this project it needs to be tapped out to an M5. I don’t own a set of taps, so I had this done at the local hardware store where I picked up the last ingredient: a continuously threaded M5 x 0.8 bolt. If you don’t own a saw and a file, be sure to get this bolt cut down to about an inch while you’re at the hardware store. This is all the hardware you will need:
Reinstall the nut and hand-thread the bolt into the clamp until it bottoms out (you may need to ream out the plastic a bit where the bolt enters the clamp).
Now simply thread on the Problem Solvers QR Nut Mount until it stops.
Install the mounting bracket on the fork blade the same way you would on a handlebar and then mount your light. Here’s mine:
Be sure to comment below if you have any suggestions or alternative solutions. And have a good (night) ride!
- Edelstone
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Brake Stud Light Mounts - 22mm diameter mount, about 38mm of clamping area. These came from our kinsman Greg at Calhoun Cycle here in Minneapolis. I was all excited for our QR Nut Light Mount; he thought it was okay...but immediately asked if we would consider doing a brake stud mounted version. Done and done Greg (sorry to keep you waiting; your set is on the way!)
I've been waiting for this one for a while. New and in-stock at Big Momma QBP. Call your local bike shop to order up a pair!
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