Valoria II: Frames and durability

I debated for quite a while over whether to get a bike with suspension. The fact that Giro does not offer a suspension on any of their bikes was a big factor — I liked their relatively simple frame design.

In the end I ruled a suspension out, because I was too worried that it would slightly reduce the energy I was able to propel into the bike while climbing hills. (I knew I was going to spend large amounts of time slowly climbing hills when the recumbent was loaded for touring.)

Valoria II: Custom gearing

An afternoon poking around online led me to this Shimano Deore 2-piece 9-Speed Mountain Bicycle Crank Set, model FC-M590, with 175mm arms and 22/32/44 gearing.

You know a product is often sold to do-it-yourself types, when it comes with a warning like this printed on it!

I know how to do a fair amount of stuff to a bike, but installing a crankset properly is still beyond me. When it arrived, I handed it over to Zach, and he did all the work:

In retrospect, his advice was excellent. Now the smallest gear is even smaller, and the largest front gear actually serves a purpose. (On my old Giro with the stock cranks, I almost never used it.)

The only thing left for me to do was install the chain. To make sure a chain is the right length you need to place one end on the largest gear at the front, then thread it around like it usually goes, running it over the largest gear on the back, so it comes back to the underside of the front gear. Then you take up the slack on the bottom (pulling the chain tensioner forward almost as far as it will go) and then place the other end of the chain on the front gear.

Where the chain starts overlapping itself on the gear is where you need to shorten and join it.

There are chain tools you can get that are small enough to bring with you on the road, and you can use them along with your hex wrenches to remove a chain, replace a broken link, and rejoin the ends, in only a few minutes.

It’s amazing how easy this stuff is, if you’re willing to read a few directions!

Valoria II: Custom colors

Over the following weeks, I barraged Zach with questions about customizing the Giro 20, forming a plan of action. The first thing I asked about was color:

This is what a Bacchetta frame kit arrives in.

Here are the parts I want to re-coat. That’s the main boom with all the decals removed, the fork, the kickstand attachment plate, two segments of handlebar riser, and the cap that screws onto the end of the riser to attach the handlebars.

The boom of a Giro 20 is made of aluminum, but it comes with metal spacers that attach to the rear dropouts. You can get these in a couple of different sizes, to match different wheels. When re-coating this frame you need to make sure that you don’t coat the inside area where these spacers connect, because the fit has to be precise.

I called and emailed a bunch of different places in the Bay Area, and eventually paid a visit to West Coast Powder Coating in South San Francisco. Just a brief look around at their current projects convinced me that they knew how to properly coat a bike frame.

I dropped off the parts, and in about a week, I came back to find them coated. In general they did an excellent job. The new coat was actually more precise than the original factory one:

Before ...

... After

Everything that was threaded was left bare, as it should be. The one exception was the spot where the steering column passes through, a.k.a. the “head tube” on a regular bike frame. They’d coated it all the way through:

I wasn’t sure if this would be a problem later. But, I didn’t want to demand a re-do of a job that was already so close to perfect.

So I wandered over to their work area …

… and pilfered a couple of large rubber stoppers from their bin!

It’s possible to remove powder coating with paint thinner. You just have to be very careful to make sure that the thinner only contacts the area you want to remove. It’s also quite toxic. You don’t want to get any on your skin, even for a short while, and the fumes are intense.

I wrapped the stoppers in tinfoil, to keep the paint thinner from dissolving them, then plugged up both ends of the head tube and filled the area inside. The idea is, you let the paint thinner do all the work – softening up the coating – so you don’t have to work so hard scraping it away afterwards.

About an hour later, I pulled out the stoppers, thoroughly rinsed the head tube and everything else, and with only a little bit of poking from a wire brush, the tube was clean.

I also had to remove some of the coating from the curved handlebar stem, because it needed to fit inside the straight piece. I did that by brushing on a few narrow stripes of paint thinner, peeling off the strip that came loose, and cleaning it up with an X-acto knife.

And there we go! A Bacchetta Giro 20 frame in a custom color!

Valoria II: Building a new recumbent

This is Valoria:

My trusty steed, Valoria, crossing the valley!

I can’t remember how she got the name. Something to do with valkyries and heading off into wild territory, I bet. I purchased her almost on an impulse from a stranger at my workplace, just a few weeks before my first long-range bicycle tour. I am very glad I did. It was life-changing.

Valoria is an original Giro 20 recumbent – the first version that Bacchetta made. Her frame is steel. She’s got an Old Man Mountain rack on the back, in a shape that the company no longer makes: Old Man Mountain racks do not have handles any more. That sucks because the handle is a great way to move around a recumbent — like grabbing a kitten by the scruff of the neck.

Valoria’s seat has braze-on eyelets underneath it, for attaching a rack directly beneath the seat. Giro no longer includes those braze-ons, and no one makes the under-seat rack any more. If you want another one like it, tough luck. Also, all the Giro 20s nowadays have the headset and idler wheel in a different place, closer to the front. This affects the geometry of the steering. The handlebars are also several inches wider. If you want a set of handlebars like the original Giro 20, you either find an original Giro 20, or you give up.

She is truly a one-of-a-kind bike. So why am I even trying to replace her?

The short list:

1. She does not have disc brakes, and there’s no way to retrofit them.
2. Her shifters are very worn out.
3. She’s got more steel in her than I need. She’s rated to carry 280 pounds, and I only tour with 250 at the very most.

That’s it. Not a long list. But it was item 1 that did the trick. On the trip from Colorado to Ohio, I hit the v-brakes at the same time I hit a pothole, and the pressure cracked my front rim, cutting my tour short. On the New Zealand tour, I did a number of descents through very long, windy mountain roads, with fast-moving traffic, and a full load of gear. I couldn’t actually slow down as much as I wanted because I didn’t have the hand strength to grip the v-brakes hard enough!

A few close calls in Oakland were enough to force the decision. I wanted disc brakes, period.

And so, I began a dialogue with Zach Kaplan, master recumbent builder, fleshing out the details.

First question: Did I want an entirely different brand of recumbent, or another Giro 20, in the modern style with disc brakes?

Some further research confirmed this. I found a few videos of P-38 owners packing up their bikes for travel, and no one managed to get the task done in anything less than an hour, despite plenty of experience and practice.

So, it looked like the P-38 was too light. At the other end of the spectrum, I knew the HP Velotechnik bikes were all quite heavy. I’d done test-rides with the Speed Machine, the Street Machine, and the Grasshopper. The suspension felt luxurious, but in my touring, I just never spend that much time on rough roads. Besides, the way HP Velotechnik prices their frames and parts, I would pay almost $2000 more for a bicycle whose only additional feature is a suspension. Not a clear winner over the Giro 20.

In fact, no matter how many other options I looked at, I kept coming back to the Giro 20. It seems I was not going to replace Valoria — I was going to reincarnate her!

The choice made, Zach and I began to hash out the details.