Cyclokairos

In this article, acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton describes silence as “…not the absence of something but the presence of everything”. On a daily basis I encounter plenty of noise that drowns out everything – a classroom full of pupils, a commute that takes in a busy stretch of motorway. I sometimes wonder how I got here, how I ended up living such a cacophonous life? Age is a factor in my disquiet – the younger me didn’t feel such unease with noise. Cycling is means to seek silence – even around here. But the quietest of lanes and tracks can have an unnatural rumble in the distance – venturing into Shropshire or Wales is the better option. Of course it’s not silence that is encountered but rather nature’s tones. I could prattle on (again) about the fulfilment of connecting with nature, but suffice to say, life is richer.

There’s not been much cycling of late. Work, with a colleague absent, a lot a work, and illness putting paid to it. There was talk in the media of a quadruple threat: COVID, Flu, RSV, and Norovirus. Not the fourth one, but the other three? Probably. Just when health had returned, something else reared its head.

I finished my last post with a New Year’s vow of never building another bike. Ha. As if that was ever going to happen. Back in the autumn I had scratched the itch of having a go at painting a frame. Using Spray.Bike products, a blue Novara Randonee frame, long sat unused in the garage, became burgundy (or is it purple? I’m favouring aubergine) with a cream band.

I couldn’t resist the atelic draw of some fettling. With an eye on tempering my consumption, I had a go at building it up with what I had lying around – slim pickings. Certainly little in the way of my preferred silver. Among the few spare bits I had, there was too much black, and often black with off putting branding. Well, spend as little as possible and use as much as I already had was the remit. I ended up here: 

Yes, shifter-less bar-end pods (the shifters are on the down tube of The Green Bike). And the in-your-face-white details of the headset, and to a lesser extent the stem (how did the former ever come into my possession in the first place?). And those brake levers – I’m not convinced (bought a few years back, on and off a few different builds, ultimately cast aside, until now).

There’s a lot going on in the cockpit. The frame is of an age when 1” threadless forks were commonplace or at least commoner. There’s a 1” threadless headset (with that branding / writing…my eyes, my eyes), a 1” brake hanger (silver, too much of clash with the all pervasive black? Hopefully, the parts I still need to acquire will bring more silver), two 1” to 1 1/8” shims above the hanger, and on top of the shims, 1 1/8” spacers and a stem with a 1 1/8” clamp. Elegant? No. Functional and from the spare parts bin? Yes. 

A little spending and shifters were bought, as was hardware so that I could use a set of mudguards that had seen service on a number of bikes. Improvisation to the fore as always with fitting them. Is it just me or are straightforward and mudguards rare bedfellows for others too? The most notable workaround was a bracket to lift one end of the rear guard – less protection of the bottom bracket but better clearance around the tyre. Narrower tyres is another solution for better clearance, but on the surfaces I do most of my riding on, 35 mm or so is about right. On the The Green Bike, I crimped the mudguards around the chain stays and fork blades – something different this time.

I also removed the detailing on the stem body – being stickers, some adhesive remover did the job. The same product also cleaned up remnants of previous tape on the handlebars. Not something I could do with the etched wording on the stem, but if you squint hard enough from distance they read ‘Chris King’.