I have been mystified for some time by the terms 'Keirin' and "NJS' in reference to fixed gear bicycling, and now I have answers. (The following was taken from Norwegian Fixed Gear Online).

Saturday, November 22, 2008
What is Keirin?

During the early days of cycling, as far back as 1880, track cycling was popular in America and in Europe. By 1893 cycling had a large enough following to permit a World Championship. Just three years later bicycle racing made its way into the first inaugural modern day Olympic Games. By the 1920's indoor track racing had become one of the most popular spectator sports, drawing enormous crowds. Track racing reached the peak of it's popularity in the 1930s in the United States, when 6-day relay races were held in Madison Square Garden in New York, from which the track discipline "Madison", a relay cycling race, still takes its name. Interest in bicycle track racing declined during the late 1930's and early 40's, principally due to the rise of soccer and motor sport, and bicycle track racing lost its former position as the number one spectator sport. It enjoyed a revival in Europe after the Second World War, due to the reintroduction of 6-day racing, and in the late 1950's and early '60's, the European public's interest in track cycling gradually rose, though never again to the same level. However, far away from the traditional cycling nations and little known to the rest of the world, bicycle track racing is enormously popular.

Keirin, meaning "racing wheels" or simply "bicycle race", originated in Kokura City in November 1948. It has become a Japanese social institution attended by around 57 million spectators every year, who place bets amounting to1.15 trillion Yen annually. Keirin compares most closely with greyhound or horse racing in the West. Races are held almost every weekend at 50 tracks around Japan. The events are usually held over 4 days; entry costs only100 yen (90 Ct), there are 11 races per night with 9 riders per race. The crowd is mainly made up of older men who gamble on the races, there are very few women spectators. There are seven different types of bets, combinations of the placing of two or three racers. Picking the winner of a Keirin race is a complicated matter; the punters have to examine the background of each rider who is participating in the race. Blood group, astrological sign and thigh measurements in addition to starting position and seasonal form are only some of the factors taken into consideration when placing a bet. Form and information about the athletes can be studied in special newspapers, and for the punters having successfully analysed the riders is part of the reward when they win. Paradoxically most people don't watch the races 'live' but watch on the TV screens, even though they're at the track.

After the riders come out of the tunnel, "the racers gate", they ride slowly to the start, fix their bikes in position in the starting machine, and bow once before getting into the saddle. There are usually nine racers but six, seven, or eight competitors can start. They are clad in brightly coloured jerseys and helmet covers, to make them easy for the crowd to identify. The colours were standardized in the mid nineties, the numbers one through nine wear the colours , white, black, red, blue, green, orange, pink and purple respectively. The races are usually 2000 m (5 X 400 m), although some tracks are 333m or even 500m long. The track is steeply banked at each end making for a very dramatic racing atmosphere. The race starts slowly, the riders jockeying for an advantageous position behind the pacemaker, who goes off the track after 3 laps and a bell rings opening the sprint. During the last two laps the pace rises, and the riders begin a furious battle, fighting to get into gaps. In the final sprint for the finish line the racers reach speeds of up to 70 km/h.

There are four standard strategies in Kerin;
Senko, leading with high speed from the front.
Makuri, passing from behind in the final straight.
Mak, sprinting past from second place.
Oikona, coming out from behind the leaders back wheel to win.

All this is however only theory. There are a lot of tactics involved, and some riders will work together in a race to gain an advantage, so observing ones opponents is of utmost importance. A certain amount of pushing and shoving is tolerated by the rules and as the speeding riders manoeuvre in the fight for the best position spectacular crashes are not uncommon. The surface of the track is hard and rough to provide good traction even in the rain, so the racers wear plastic body armour under their jerseys to prevent serious injury should it come to a crash. The races typically require photo finishes, the riders who win going on to compete in higher-staked races the next day.

A Keirin pro will race 80-100 times a year, prize money can be upwards of 100,000 € for the winner of a large keirin event, the top riders earning up to 1.5m € a year. The riders all use similar steel framed bikes, specially built racing machines. They have some choice over the gear they ride, 12-16 teeth on the sprocket and up to 55 on the chainring, but only frames and components approved by the Nihon Jitensha Shinkokai ( Japanese Bicycle Association) NJS, are permitted to compete at Keirin races.mThe bikes are checked before each race by the "Kencha" the technical inspection authority , no flat spokes, disc wheels, carbon fibre, or aluminium frames are approved, meaning a whole industry of frame shops dedicated to building high quality racing frames has grown up around Keirin.

There are 4000 registered Keirin riders in Japan. The average age of the riders is about 35. It is not uncommon for a keirin racer to compete into his fifties, the oldest Keirin racer ever, Uemura San was 60 years old when he retired. In 1969 women racers were taken off the Keirin registers. Women's racing was stopped due to a lack of interest which resulted mainly from the lower level of performance, in comparison to men's Keirin. Prospective Keirin competitors must attend the Japan Bicycle Racing School at Shuzenji, in the Izu area. The only Keirin School in Japan was founded in 1968 and is dedicated to teaching the academic and practical skills the students will need to compete. The 10% of applicants fortunate enough to be accepted then undergo a strict, 15-hour per day training regime. During the 10-month period of training and study, the students aged between 18 and 22, learn the rules and tactics of the sport, bicycle mechanics and physiotherapy as well as riding technique, and endurance. The goal is to achieve harmony of heart, body and technique. The Keirin competitor is trainer, manager, mechanic, and racer. Those who pass the graduation exams, and are approved by the Japan Keirin Association, are then registered by the association as competitors and are eligible to take part in Keirin events. Every year 150 new riders are admitted, first to a four-month stint in the newcomer's league, following which they are assigned a ranking. Rankings are adjusted, based on a competitor's performance, every four months.

There are three 'S', four 'A' and two 'B' groupings.
S1 with 130 riders.
S2 and S3 with 150 riders each.
A1-A4 with between 2400 and 2500 riders.
B1-B2 with between 1460 and 1560 riders.
Only 'S' level riders are eligible for the Grand Prix events, 'Normal' events are the province of 'A' and 'B' class riders. The riders of the S class wear shorts with a red stripe and white stars, the A class a green stripe, the B class blue. Formerly the A and B class riders wore shorts with simple white stripes, the stars reserved for the S class athletes.

Although the Keirin stars are national heroes, they and their sport are little known outside Japan. One exception was Koichi Nakano, an expert sprinter, who won the World Championship Sprint title for ten successive years from 1977 to 1986, bringing himself much recognition, and attracting the interest of the outside world.
International Keirin races have been held in Japan since 1981, and the international series has become a popular event in the Keirin calendar. For the international series, held annually in April and May, the top international track racers are invited to compete against the local stars.
Until now the only countries to hold Keirin events outside Japan have been Korea, where events have been staged since 1994, and some South America nations.
Keirin was adopted as an official discipline at the Track World Championships in 1980 and as an Olympic discipline at the games in Sydney 2000. At these events the riders are paced by a motorized cycle known as a derny. Other than this the races are identical, just as exciting and unpredictable as the original. Keirin has become an established international track cycling event, enjoyed by fans throughout the world.

Volvo updates

Over the past few weeks I have been tinkering with both my Volvos quite a bit. As I said in my Oct. 25 post, I have very serious dreams of putting a Ford 302 in my 142; and toward that end I have made a couple of modifications that, along with just being cool, will help clean up some space under the hood and drop some front end weight too.

To begin with, I eliminated the badly leaking brake booster canister and adapted the mounting bracket for a non-power setup. The brakes require a noticeably firmer leg now, but the booster had not been working very much anyway (besides also adversely affecting engine behavior because of leaking vacuum), and the overall result is quite reasonable. I still feel perfectly safe driving the car because the only difference is in pedal effort, not actual braking ability...but I have yet to try them out on the highway.

Below are some pictures of the booster bracket marked out for the grinder, and the bracket pedal plunger with a new bolt in the end for the proper depth with the booster.





Pictures of the finished job next time.



The other modification was moving the battery to the trunk. Between losing the battery tray altogether and 40-odd pounds of battery from far ahead of the front wheels, just behind the grill, I think the engine bay and front suspension are ready to contemplate how to accommodate the beastly Ford mill. The actual engine swap is still a ways off, but my mind is made up on this point, and I am collecting in preparation: this old family sedan is going to be faster than the Little Old Lady from Pasadena's Super Stock Dodge!



Like my under seat battery quick-disconnect?

biodiesel!

I really want this emblem, but I can't justify $25 for it!

Totally, Absolutely Classic

glumbert - Tiny Car Review

I discovered another anomaly about my old 1982 motorcycle last week.

It has been about a month since I've given my motor over to professional, equipped hands, right? Something like that.  Too long, anyways.  Much too long.  Paul clearly does not require much business to stay afloat in his dingy little alley in Oxnard.  One fine warm morning, Thursday of last week, in fact, I receive a message asking to call back.

I call back.

"It's a real questionable situation here.  You have some irregularities, some corrosion" (leakdown from me washing the engine, I bet) "and it's one of those, well I don't want to TELL you what to do.  It's right on the edge there, of whether to bore it out, or not to bore it out, you know.  There's a few irregularities in there.  I ran the flat hone through it, took it to two thousandths, you can run it out to four, four and a half thousandths and be within spec.  So what do you want to do?"

What do I want to do.  Paul says a new cylinder kit costs 600 bucks.  I'm not liking the sound of that.

"It's curious here, it's already overbore, 2 mm over already.  And look at this, it's got the old style circlips on it, really old school, the spiral kind"   So this thing was bored out very shortly after it was bought in the early 80's. Really.  The surprises keep coming.  Rearsets.  K&N pods.  Now this.  Why didn't he, if this mysterious previous owner bothered to go all the way to have it bored out to 1134 cc, (1134? From 1097? I mean, come on!) why didn't he bother to put a V&H four to one on it and rejet the carbs?  Hell, maybe he DID rejet the carbs.  Does he know more than I give him credit for?  Who the hell rebores a motor and leaves the exhaust STOCK? And leaves the cams stock??

I drove out the next night to talk to Paul and look at the bores.  They do have some imperfections.  It would, more than likely, eat some oil.  So do I do it right?  Is it only money?  Will I hate myself for having to add oil to a 26-year old bike with a fresh top-end?

Reality is, when it was running I wasn't having to add oil between changes, and it had a leaking head gasket and crumbled exhaust valves even then.  It can't be that bad.

It's hard, because it's not just money, it's my future.  I'm facing the difficult reality that I may have to sell this machine sometime in the not too distant future, a future that involves a four-wheeled, practical vehicle that costs insurance and crap like that.  And I'm not going to get more than 2 grand for it.  Hell, with say 110k, it won't fetch more than $1500, tops.  Tops.  And if the tranny does decide to go, it will be worth whatever lifeless steel is worth.  Nothing.

And "top end rebuild, 1134 cc" sounds exactly the same in a craigslist ad as "top end rebuild, 1167 cc" since modified bikes are worth less than unmodified bikes, at least in the world of UJM's.  They're like used Honda Civics.

Fact of the matter is, I can afford to re-ring, but with nearly 2 grand sunk into this project already I can't afford to put shiny new hammers in.  So I guess that answers that....

The True Stand Cometh

So I was in a conversation with a friend of ours, and next thing I know he's handing me this ancient True Stand. It belonged to his now-deceased step-father, and is a family heirloom of sorts.

Though lacking in modern features, it is amazing in its own, historical beauty. I am learning to true wheels, with the help of Brandt and Brown.

One for the blogroll

Cool barnfind blog which I found today...tons of interesting cars....

I know this isn't a proper project or even my car, but I had to share it anyway:

One of the sweetest examples of imperfected awesomeness ever!



More here.

Tales of the weird and wonderful

Today when I was driving to work I noticed that a fuzzball appeared on the left side of my hood. Whoops.

...

Two days ago on Ebay I bought a '70 Mustang fastback sight unseen in WI an hour away from my folks. My coupe needs roof work and for ballpark the price of these repairs I'd rather just convert the car to a fastback (yes, I know it isn't an equivalent job). It appears that the one I bought was a rare-option 'grabber special' is one of nine known to exist; but I can't say for sure until I get a Marti report. The administrator of the linked Grabber registry seems to think it is, but we'll have to see. I now have an immense project.

If it is a "grabber" I can convert the car back to stock and have something rare, but I'll need to get a '70 donor car to make that happen.



The other more appealing option is use my '69's parts and make a Boss 302 clone--the 'scoopless' rear quarters, unique in '69 (amongst teh fastbacks) for the Boss 302, would make my car look pretty convincing. And nowadays, ford is offering a new tooling of the original Boss 4-bolt main block, and the rest is all out there supported by aftermarket. Yeah, I'm dreaming, but why not?

Back to Work on the Merc

I know I haven't introduced my latest automobile here yet, but that's only for lack of time and want of pictures -- I need to get out there on a sunny day and photograph the beauty.

She's a 1986 Mercedes-Benz 300 SDL, and I've got her cooking up a storm on biodiesel. She's actually in really good shape, especially for a 22 year old car. I can't see ever buying a newer car, and in fact, if I continue at this rate, of buying older and older cars... the possibilites are amazing. Custom registration, no seatbelts, and so forth.

Anyways, I've got the basic overhaul to do on this car, the one you do when you buy a new-to-you vehicle with either an uncertain past or missing records, or both.

From left to right we've got a new brake wear sensor (cool!), a couple of oil filters (it uses a reusable case and an replaceable internal filter, and a permanent, washable air filter!), a new primary fuel filter (transparent so you can diagnose water in the fuel, a must for diesel), semi-metallic brake pads for both the front and rear, a Fram primary fuel filter (which I think I forget to delete out of my cart when I changed my mind to order the Beck/Arnley one instead -- good to have a backup anyways, and its only a few dollars), and a secondary fuel filter.

The other things I need to do will be check the water level on the battery, flush the tranny, check brake fluid, and do some minor repairs.

This batch of parts came from Kragen/Schucks/Parts America, and I ordered what I guess many consider the premiere work on Mercs.

Saga of a Nova

Once upon a time in the Autumn of 2003, I was sitting on the back steps of Wagon Wheel Bowl, on the phone with my Dad about a certain old muscle car he owned, discussing a growing dream I had of resurrecting it from the hayfield in Eastern Washington where it had been callously abandoned. He had bought the car in 1978 when he was 19 years old (it was 9 years old at the time, with 67,000 miles on the clock), two years before he got married, and that beautiful hunk of American Icon was the only family car we had until child number four, and it remained Dad's daily driver even after the Chevy van replaced it as the family hauler until the summer of '96. It was parked that year initially because the transmission needed new bearings and because the floorpan was rusted through in a bad way. It still ran fine, but there were just too many things on my parent's plates to give it the attention it needed. Seven-and-a-half years later it had lost it's mildly-built 307 CID engine to my uncle's boat project, and the mice and waist-high weeds had seemingly turned it into a piece of history. But my memory was alive with that particular green glow exuded by 1960s American dashboards, the throaty sound of a V8 with glasspacks, the certain little clicks and pops of the doors and locks that only this car makes, and most vividly, learning to drive in it at 9 years old on back country roads with two phonebooks behind my back, manual 3-speed and all.

In 2003 I was still college, but the vision of having it back on the road was strong, and that winter, with the help of Dad and a couple of friends, we hauled it from its muddy bed, cleaned it up, cut out and replaced the floor boards, and built up a motor for it. At that point I ran out of money, and needed to focus on my Senior Year of college, so it sat partially finished until Easter, 2006. I was in a position to work on it again.

With the transmission still going out and dry-rotted tires I headed for Southern California and a new job.

Then the real troubles began. The fuel tank sprang a bad leak, and it started inexplicably burning a ton of oil. The suspension was shot, as was the interior, and the trans wasn't going to hold up for much more than another oil change or so. My enthusiasm went it fits and spurts, and I bough some parts, but didn't get around to putting them in.

Then I met AC.

Two years later I had moved twice (hauling the neglected beauty behind me on a trailer), changed jobs twice, gotten married, fallen it love with old Volvos, and AC was pregnant. And it still wasn't street-able. Seemed all that work was destined to be wasted...

Now at this point I have to admit (with a degree of shamefacedness) that this car had lost a lot of appeal for me. I still had the memories and the nostalgic attachment, but I had been bewitched by the European sport sedan look, specifically the Volvo 140 series, and after years of dragging around that expensive dead weight I didn't really have the drive for finishing it anymore. Not to mention that I was tired of spending money on it. I was thinking very seriously of selling it exactly as it sat: sad and unfinished.

After talking with Dad about my thoughts and feelings concerning the project, I realized for the first time just how attached to the car he really was, and how painful it would be for him to see it finally go. I decided to get it going once and for all, and a combination of guilt and excitement spurred me on to the finish line.

October, 2008. With a huge sigh of relief and pride I am proud to announce that my father's 1969 Chevy Nova is happily rumbling it's way back to Washington under its own substantial power, signed back over to Dad less than one week before his 50th birthday. Roughly twice a week for more than 6 months I have been out at 'The Ranch' often working late into the night to bring it, finally, to this day of completion.

Here is a partial list of what has been done since the winter of '03: Performance-built 327 (twice: the shop screwed up big time on the first build, resulting in a ruined block. I did the building myself the second time.)---325 HP; 1993 Camero T5 manual transmission installed with a custom fabricated crossmember, clutch linkage and a shortened driveshaft; All new sport shocks, springs (lowered), wheels, tires, anti-sway bars; Professionally repaired fuel tank; Electric fan conversion; Headers and new exhaust; Completely red-done floorpan; And an endless list of misc. items that needed attention to make it safe and drivable. The interior is still terrible, and the paint is pretty bad, (though it looks pretty decent now after and polish and wax), but it runs well, drives well, and it is making Dad happy. And most of all, it has stayed within the family isn't sitting in field somewhere, dying alone and forgotten.

I guess I would say it has all been worth it. I wouldn't do it again, at least not like I did, but it is definitely something to be proud of.