The Lizzyville Coaster: Assembly

Were you looking to paint a frame?

Ahh, truing wheels while simulating a high-Q fourth order switched capacitor bi-quad.

Here's where the creativity comes in: I wanted to do a unique wheel lacing pattern. I originally intended to do a snowflake pattern for the front wheel at least, which is beautiful but totally impractical and hard to keep true. Since I can't hang around to keep the wheels true (do you know of a bike shop that would true a snowflake wheel?), I opted for "two-leading, two-trailing" also known as "pine cone" lacing. It's still eye-catching, but totally practical as it's really just a re-distribution of 2-cross wheel lacing.

It's pretty when looked at head-on, but that's about it.

A direct closeup of the rear hub shows the pattern. Unfortunately it's a whole lot more pronounced on the rear hub, which is high-flange, than the front. The truth is that "3-leading, 3-trailing" is a whole lot more impressive as it groups all the spokes into only 3 groups of 12, whereas this wheel has 4 groups of 8.

Before anything, unpack the frame and make sure it wasn't destroyed by FedEx.

The actual bike assembly is straightforward. First, I greased and installed the bottom braket and fork. It's important to liberally grease the headset races and bearings. Then you take the cranks, bolt them on, put the wheels on, measure the proper chain length and then attach the pedals. Mount the saddle to the seatpost, grease it and insert it into the seat tube. Mount the brake calipers on the frame--oh, nuts.

Oh, SNAP.

If it's not clear from the photo, these calipers are too short for this frame. What I hadn't taken into account is this frame was designed for 27" wheels, which are just a tad larger than 700c's. So I needed long-reach calipers. I was a week away from a deadline, so I went into panic and ordered a pair of Nashbar long-reach calipers for $24.99, and had them over-nighted. Crisis averted.

Something's still missing...

Continuing onward, grease the stem quill, insert into steerer tube and tighten. Bolt the bullhorn bars (which are really hacksawed drop bars) to the stem. Attach brake levers--awh, nuts. The problem is that a standard handlebar diameter is around 24mm, but flanges to 26mm at the bolting interface to the stem. The brake levers bolt to the 24mm section, except that on this handlebar the 26mm section extends left and right in both directions, making the lever placement awkwardly wide. It's the day after Thanksgiving, and you desperately need to assemble a bike and you're in Manhattan. What do you do? You go to Larry's 2nd Ave. Bicycles Plus, the best bike store I've found so far in Manhattan. Not only do you get the usual selection of high end parts you'd expect to find in a boutique store, there's a huge assortment of secondhand parts. Moreover Larry speaks French and Spanish, in case you have been reading this blog and haven't had the slightest clue what's been going on. I got new drop bars (which I promptly sawed down to bullhorns) for $8. I also bought grip tape, cable ferrules and a bike basket there.

After these initial hiccups, it was smooth sailing thereon out. Mounting the basket to the fender bosses on the front fork, routing the brake cables, fixing the brake cable down with zip ties (I'm a prize idiot, we know) then wrapping the bars with grip tape, and the bike is more or less done.

Click ahead to see the finished product...