Doing The Ebay Thing
| Stem: | Silver Thomson Elite, 1 1/8”, 5 deg. 120mm, 25.4mm |
| Fork: | Pace RC31 C-Type, 420mm AC, 7 3/4” steerer, 1” dia. |
One Man’s Trash Is The Same Man’s Goldmine
A few months ago, I converted my old Litespeed Ultimate to a singlespeed road bike to be used as commuter to work. Having only one gear, it added more fun to the daily commute through the city. The Shimano gruppo went on Ebay and some light and inexpensive Cane-Creek brake levers went on the handlebar. Converting my Fulcrum Racing 1 rear wheel was not as simple as slamming a King cog on it. This older generation Fulcrum wheel was equipped with a 10-speed only aluminum freewheel body for Shimano cassettes. A singlespeed cog wouldn’t fit, so I ordered a SRAM/Shimano compatible steel freewheel from an online shop.
In the old days I would have gotten this part from my local bike shop who might have given me 5 bucks for the old aluminum freewheel. Such a take-off part would have ended up in a parts bin and a few years from now in all likelihood in a recycling bin never to be used again. Now that our world is one global village, such a perfectly good part doesn’t have to go to waste. Do the environment a favor, put it up on Ebay and have a big smile when it sells for a whopping 68 dollars. Beats the 5 bucks from the old days!
October’s First Chilly Road Ride
As far as cycling goes, October has gone off a rather slow start. The days have now gotten too short to ride after work without a decent light and at the moment I have none. My Magicshine batteries had been recalled in the spring and I thought I’d have the replacements by fall. Well, we’re mid October and Geomangear has not been able to send me two new batteries yet. I ordered a full new set from DealExtreme because I also need a bright front light for my daily commute to work. Those lights are currently somewhere between Hong Kong and Switzerland and should hopefully arrive here next week.
October also brought the first wet weekend where I left the bike at home and went outdoors in running shoes. Yesterday on the other hand was once again a fantastic day to be out on two wheels. We had some shopping and groceries to do, so by the time I pushed the bike outside the house it was past 3PM. Cycling for many, especially road cycling, is more of a morning sport. Now though, that we’re in the fall and winter will be knocking at the door soon, I find riding in the afternoon a much greater experience. Take yesterday, the morning sky was sitting high and grey. One could have climbed and never reached the sun. The afternoon was a whole different story. It was still a bit hazy, but the sun wasn’t far.
I left for a 65k loop to the Chasseral climbing up from Cortébert to the Petite Douanne, where I entered a couple of gravel miles up to the Petit Chasseral. Riding those slopes right now is amazing. Everywhere the trees are turning yellow and red. Combine that with an afternoon sun sitting low in the sky, a bit of haze here and there and you end up riding through a surreal world. I love it. Best time of the year to be out on the bike. Temperatures were hovering around 7 degrees Celsius requiring arm and knee warmers for the first time. Makes riding even better. Just great to feel a light chill.
The descent from the Chasseral felt a lot different from previous rides. Due to the cool air I was probably sitting a bit stiffer on the bike, but the way the tires and pavement interacted was awfully different too. The pavement felt quite a bit harsher, the tires were less supple and seemed to have less grip. Yeah, temperatures have a big influence on tires. As a result, I grabbed my brakes a little harder than usual. Near Lamboing, I passed two female cyclists and thought “nice to see someone else out there”.
Back home I checked my Ebay auctions and saw that everything sold. Awesome, some money in the bank and a few more things that won’t be catching dust in the basement. While I have several bikes, I follow a strict rule not to have unused parts sitting in boxes. There are some spare tires, tubes, an extra chain and small parts like nuts and bolts, but as soon as something the size of a stem isn’t being used, it goes up on Ebay. You take something off a bike and say “I’ll use that again on another build”, but the simple fact is that it just won’t happen. I prefer the extra cash these items fetch to finance the things I do need.
My Ebay cash will go towards the new cyclocross bike, which I’m looking forward to with an excitement I have not had in a long time. My Alize is an awesome road bike and the Air 9 Carbon a sweet riding mountain bike, when I have one to ride (still no news about #3), but with the Mares CX 2.0, I’m about to discover a whole new way of cycling. Something nearly as fast and effective as a road bike without the limitation to stay on the road. I can’t wait to hit the trails on it.
| Distance: | 65.3km (40.6 miles) |
| Elevation: | 1’835m (6’020 feet) |
| Time: | 02:30:19 |
| Speed (avg/max): | 26.1/71.4 kph (16.2/44.4 mph) |
What Would One Do Without Ebay?
Back in my early days of cycling, the only places to buy things were the local bike shops and a couple of mail order catalogs. Today, mail order catalogs are a distant memory and visits to a bike shop are fewer than visits to the dentist. Online shops, Ebay, Craigslist and the For Sale sections of forums have for many years not just been my primary source for anything cycling related, but they’re more than often a real treasure trove. Last November, I purchased a “new with tags” Hotel San Jose team jersey on Ebay. The only thing missing at the time were matching shorts, so I dropped a feed into my desktop reeder to keep an eye on Hotel San Jose team clothing. Sure enough, the other day a bunch of items were put up and I grabbed myself a few more goodies. It’s great to be a global consumer in a global economy! Special thanks to simoncini78, full.carbon and theproscloset for selling the above pictured items.
Monday Morning, Back To Work
Monday already and I missed a weekend to ride. Saturday started cloudy with some heavy, dark clouds hanging over the Jura. It cleared up towards noon, but I didn’t get a chance to launch into the woods on my knobby wheels. Sunday the rain arrived. We’ve been pretty lucky so far, it really hasn’t rained all that much this year and we started November with an Indian Summer. I visited my bikes in the basement, swapped springs on my Eggbeater pedals on the Air 9 Carbon and cleaned my Litespeed road bike as I’ve neglected the thing the past couple of weeks. I also discovered that I put a huge gash into the side of my few months old road bike saddle. I have not the slightest idea how and when that happened. The rest of the weekend was spent at home with only a short early Sunday morning trip to the bakery for fresh, warm bread. Also spent a couple of hours on Ebay browsing bike stuff, something I haven’t done in quite a while. Heck, even found a pretty cool cycling jersey, which I obviously had to buy.
Doing The Ebay Thing
In keeping with getting rid of all stuff not used, I put some bike components on Ebay that would just collect dust and take space in my basement. The current list:
- Set of black RaceFace Turbine LP cranks
- One red 34.9mm Hope seatpost clamp
- A Selle Italia SLR saddle with little butt-time
Zoom
For Sale: FSA Platinum Pro Mega Quad Bottom Bracket ISIS 68x108mm
FSA bottom bracket with titanium axle and two double-row bearings. BC 1.37” x 24T, 68mm x 108mm. For ISIS road cranks. Installed on a bike once but was never actually ridden. Included: 2 pairs of M14 aluminum crank bolts, 1 steel crank bolt set. In original box with assembly instructions.
