2010 Seattle Century Finish Line with the Bike Friday Tikit Model-T

The Bike Friday Tikit Model-T at the finish line.  The bike performed flawlessly and confidently through the entire hilly course.  The stock 8 speeds provided the perfect range of gear inches for the entire route.  100 miles, 5220 feet of elevation gain, 11 hours from start to finish including rest stops. Good job Bike Friday for making a bike which I not only take on the bus with me every day, but is also a grocery getter and centurion.

Repair kit.

Century grade repair gear.

1. Three new tubes
2. Patch kit
3. Sticker patches (not that these have worked in the past)
4. Extra glue
5. 3 16 gram CO2 cartridges and nozzle
6. Extra seat post pinch bolt
7. Rim tape to replace my front wheel's rim tape when the opportunity presents itself.
8. Two Pedro tire levers.  These are awesome.
9. Stock BF allen wrench
10. Multi-tool
11. Frame pump
12. Small Swiss Army Knife.
13. iPhone (for bus routing and schedules in case of a complete equipment fail)
14. My cycling partner was carrying our first aid kit on her bike.
15. Cash, the ultimate repair tool.

Graceful Dismount

First graceful dismount at the 10 mile rest stop.  Zipped up a wet grassy hill.  Not such a brilliant idea on Kojaks.  They are like glue to pavement, but worthless on every other surface I've tried them on.

Ortlieb Small Pannier. A trunk for my junk.

Sure, it might not be the most aerodynamic thing in the world, but I am not a fast rider and carrying weight low makes for good handling. It's a bit more puffed out than it was on the Century.  I like that this bag yields a smaller wind profile when loaded more lightly.  It's really an awesome bag.  Easy off with one hand, but never falls off in transit even under rather extreme circumstances.

Ergon small dia grips and bar ends.

The Ergon grips made all the difference in the world.  Once the stock bell and shifter were out of the way, these grips, in size small, enabled me to get a secure grip on the bars between the first two fingers and thumb, while giving a nice comfy platform for my palms.  I adjusted the rotational angle of the grips such that, with my padded gloves on, I felt secure and supported while not feeling like my hands were going to slip forward over the bars.  It took a while to get this angle exactly right.

The bar ends helped greatly when climbing out of the saddle. While I normally would opt for traditional MTB bar ends to get me farther forward over the stem, they would have increased the folded size of the bike.  These are a good compromise.  They are full size and are covered in sticky rubber so they are easy to get a confident grip on.

Handlebar water bottle holder so two bottles can be carried onboard

Since holstering the seat post water bottle proved dangerous, I needed my water bottle to be more available.  Also, since some rest stops were 25 miles apart, I needed two water bottles to make it between stops.  I found bits to mount this holder on the handlebar.  At first, the bottle hit my chest when climbing while out of the saddle.  When I rotated the cage away from me far enough for the bottle nipple to not poke me in the chest, the cage pressed on the shifter cables.  This necessitated rotating both the shifter and right brake lever farther forward than was optimal.

I still don't have an optimal solution, but at least this kept the bottle top far enough away for this ride. It also let me carry two full bottles from each rest stop.  After draining the one on the bars, I was able to swap for the spare easily and keep going.

Shimano Alivio Rapid Fire shifter

 

I found the Shimano Rapid Fire type shifter to be much more conducive to handling rolling hills and switching between seated climbing and out of the saddle climbing where going up or down 3 or 4 gears at a time is the norm.  It also  yielded a more secure grip on the bars than the stock gripshift.