Ploafmaster General

I feel like my nerves are completely fraying with societal and weather anxiety, but my kids are both happy right now and my wife swam 6 events in a Masters swim meet.

And look, folks: fuck ICE forever, but I’m against the death penalty. Don’t hop up in my mentions advocating violence for violence.

State-sponsored murder, an incoming horrific winter storm (for my region that rarely gets something of this scale) and a week of freakishly low temperatures have me completely on edge.

Life in prison for all these ICE fascists.

I have a dull, persistent headache and a pulled muscle in my back, so no ride today. But I got to mock up a bunch of changes to the old Trek! Saddle is temporary, may take off the chain guard, but I’m pretty dang happy with where this is going.

Distracting myself from the ongoing domestic/global horrors by planning out my Trek restomod.

New seatpost fits the Trek! I got a cheap seatpost measuring tool, and also measured the existing steel seat pin and interior of the seat tube multiple times, but I was still relieved that the post fit. It’s a cheap 26.0 Origin8 2-bolt dealy, but it’ll do!

I am developing a sickness :-P

Just purchased an old XTR-M952 derailleur for the Trek. Gonna eventually run it 9 speed when I build up some 650B wheels for it, but it should work just as well on the existing 8-speed freewheel.

I’m working over some thoughts in my head around doomer leftist ideology and its similarity to certain end-times-focused evangelicals. Something about anticipating—even hoping to accelerate—a severe existential shift. A shift they view as a positive, but with dire prerequisite steps.

Having successfully spread the rear triangle of my old Fairdale Coaster to 130-ish mm (still gotta align the dropouts), I went to start on the same for my recently acquired 1990 Trek Antelope. I had measured with calipers with the wheel on and thought I’d need to widen the frame to fit a 130mm hub (so I could use an HG freehub wheel). I took off the rear wheel and re-measured the dropout spacing just to be safe (measure twice and such), and to my delight they’re already at 130mm! No cold-setting required! This will make my 650B conversion all the more straightforward.

This 1990 Trek has a 68mm BB shell, but the seller had put in a mountain BB flipped 180° (but very well greased). Remarkably, inside the shell is in near perfect shape, and I had the right BB with the same spindle length! Went in like it was a new frame!

So here it is! I purchased my first old bike to modify. This one doesn’t technically need much of anything because the seller pretty much cleaned it and gave it a tune up. I didn’t even get any dirt on my fingers during my detailed inspection once I got it home. Everything seems to be original except for the consumable parts and the grips/shifters, and the rack is obviously an addition (but it is Bontrager, which feels at least consistent).

I want this to slowly morph into my “second ride of the day” bike - for comfortable cruising when I’m going out to dinner.

What Do We Have Here?

According to the seller (and consistent with what I found in Trek’s 1990 catalog), this is a 1990 Trek Antelope 800. It’s the bottom version of the Antelope series, but the frame is still Tange Cro-Mo (even if the fork is hi-ten) and the complete bike feels lighter than I expected. Here’s what I’m starting with:

• Shimano 200GS drivetrain (I think this became Altus?). 7-speed freewheel on the back, 3 chainrings up front, but they’re the kinda crappy pinned chain rings on 175mm arms. Crappy pedals.
• The original thumb shifters and grips have been replaced by grip shifters.
• I think the cantilevers aren’t the original 200GS brakes. Looks like nearly brand new set of Altus brakes (but an older version?).
• I don’t think the brake levers are original either, but they’re some really nice Dia Compe control levers that feel great. They look like they were designed to nestle up against grip shifters, but as long as they don’t look goofy I could see keeping these on the future form of this bike.
• Steel seat pin with guts seat clamp and a replacement cushy saddle. I think I’ll keep the saddle for now because it’s comfy and wide enough for the riding position I want on this bike.
• Araya rims with 36 spokes and some Shimano low-end hubs that none-the-less spin for-eh-vurrr. Wrapped in some generic 44mm tires that have loads of tread and enough grip to ride the chunky gravel in my alleyway.

In general, everything is working great. The wheels are true enough, rust is surface level, and there are no dents or cracks. Plenty of chips (especially where there used to be a kickstand), but nothing terrible. Graphics and paint are mostly in terrific shape for its age, and I love how it looks. I can seriously ride this bike as it is. For how clean, tuned up, and immediately usable it is, I feel happy with the $75 I paid, even if it is the 800 Antelope.

Short Term Plans

• I want to replace the crappy pedals. Thankfully, I happen to have some decent composite platform pedals with pins, and they’re a neon green that should go well with the bike’s graphics.
• I want to replace the cranks and chainrings. These 175s are a bit longer than I’m comfortable with, and I have the 170s that came with my Space Horse. They’re some FSA thingies with a weird 120/90 BCD, but I can just put the 42T ring back on there and run it 1X for a while. Some of the teeth on the cheapo chainrings are busted, but I don’t notice it while pedaling.
• I already have some Uncle Ron’s Ortho bars that I want on this bike, but if I use them I need a longer stem. Something like a Technomic that can give me both the length I need and plenty of height adjustment.
• If I switch the current stem, I’ll also need a cable stop for the front canti brake since the current stem has one built in. I’ve already ordered a thin, cheap-o stem spacer cable stop, and I seem to have a regular spacer on the headset already that I can swap out.

Eventually…

• I would like to try converting this puppy to 650b. I’ve seen success stories on Reddit from folks that did as much with Antelopes of this vintage, even squeezing in some 48mm tires! So that would mean building up some wheels.
• Building new wheels or not, I think I’d like a bigger cassette—and an actual cassette—in the rear. It’s a 7-speed freewheel at the moment, and I just don’t want to mess with that.
• All of this also probably means spreading the rear dropouts a little. They’re currently around 126-ish millimeters, but if I want a QR hub that’ll fit a modern HG freehub, I think I need something closer to 130 at least?

Wrapping Up

I’m thrilled to have a new project, even more so that it’s a bike I can start enjoying as I improve it. I’m not rushing it since I have rideable bikes already, and I’m not planning to go nuts on any particular parts. It’s the perfect bike to spend time collecting/hunting for parts where I can find good deals on well-loved bits that clean up well.

I leave you now with a tighter shot of those tight graphics!

<img src=“https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/149855/2026/img-8090.jpg" alt=“close up of the frame graphics on the 1990 Trek Antelope 800. The word Antelope is on the top tube and TREK on the downtube.”>

Okay, gonna write a little more about this tonight, but update: Marketplace bike purchase was a success! I’ll include some photos, details, and my short/long term plans.

For the past few years I had thought the last movie I watched in theaters before COVID was the execrable Rise of Skywalker. What a way to enter a cinema-going hiatus on a downer. I was reminded today, however, that Uncut Gems was released in 2019 as well. I now recall watching that at The Byrd Theater with my friend over the holidays. So at least I saw a movie that was actually worth watching before getting stuck at home, though the infinitely rising tension really set the stage for the year ahead in a way I couldn’t have imagined.

Kind of unreasonably excited about my first potential vintage #bike pickup. If it all works out, I will post giddily about it tomorrow 😁

One Battle After Another: awesome. Tense. Great characters. Sean Penn’s best performance in ages. What a dang killer score from Greenwood. Chase Payne? I hope her career really tales off after this.

Look, drivers, you know I love you (no I don’t). But did you know that you don’t have to pass me super close on my bike just because there’s another vehicle approaching from the other direction? Did you know you have a whole second pedal for something called “brakes”?

So broadcast frame rates really are just a result of a given region’s electrical frequency, huh?

Really wish YouTube had a way for me to indicate “It’s not that I don’t like this channel, I just don’t want to subscribe and also don’t want 80% of my recommendations to be from this channel just because I watched 2 gawt dayum videos.”

Did you know that you can post positive—even joyful—things online without always prefacing your words with an acknowledgment of how shitty the world is right now?

Prometheus’ punishment for Stephen Miller, but instead of an eagle and his liver, it’s children from his least favorite countries destroying his endlessly regenerating testicles with a claw hammer.

Me too, little buddy. Me too.

Cowboy Tomi with his first vid in a while, doing up a tandem #bike real nice for some of his friends: www.youtube.com/watch

Still sick. It still sucks.