I put in a photo here of where the black angled tube like piece goes.
http://earlwbollinger-bicycles.buzznet.com/user/
The black angled thing is probably a optional item, but it goes on the front
brake cable, between the cable end and the front steering tube mounted cable
stop. At first I left it out but eventually on one of the hard to see promo
photos of a Windsor Tourist, I figured it out where it went. If you have
your handlebars way up high you may need it, but if they are low probably
not.



The "S" shaped metal clip looks to be a cable clip to help route the front
cables more neatly. Beats me as to it's proper useage.



I think when I talked about the screws earlier was that I had all the parts
with the bike, nothing was missing, but the fenders I got, did not have any
screws. So I ran short of screws mounting the fenders. But since the fenders
aren't load bearing, a few black plastic zip ties will do the trick quite
well too. My fenders had no brand or anything on them, but they look like
nifty carbon fiber fenders though.



I liked the metal flake forest green color myself. It isn't a racing bike so
it looks sort of regal looking in this color. Theives may avoid it if it
isn't a fancy racing bright color like you see on the fancier bikes
nowadays.



Yes I agree that an adjustable tilt angle on the seatpost would be nice. But
the stock seat looks to fit it perfectly. So it is a simple cost savings
feature on making the bike. But a different seat may not work out the same.

As far as I can tell, from all the seat posts the local LBS's sell, no one
ever keeps the stock seat post on any bike anyway. I am planning to get a
nice carbon fiber seatpost myself later, or maybe a suspension seatpost
instead. As in city ridning and commuting I have to ride on all sorts of
surfaces anyway.



Personally, I prefer to not have a quick release seat post. Theives,
hullagins, and juveniles will all steal the seat and post just because they
can. Nothing is worse than coming out of Walmart and you discover your
safely locked bike is still there minus the seat and post, and you have to
ride home for several milss without a seat. I had that happen on my MTB a
long time ago. Do check the trash cans nearby and the shopping carts, as
they might toss it away right after they remove it. My seat and post were in
a shopping cart in the shopping cart parking area where the hulligans tossed
it as they walked away.



I put in one of those pocket knife like tools with a bunch of metric allen
head wrenches in it into the seat bag. Thus if I really need to, I can
readjust the seat while out riding around. But I find that after you get it
setup you usually don't need to mess it it much afterwards. So carrying a
couple of regular metric allen wrenches for the seat and seat post on a few
rides, will usually get it done.



Watch out for those stupid pliers like multi tools, absolutely nothing on
the tool will fit anything on the bike.



You only need to have a allen wrench for each of the different allen head
screws on the bike, and a wrench to fit the pedals, and maybe a wrench for
the kickstand if you put one on. Then a phillips screwdriver and maybe a
flat head screwdriver (spoke nipples or deraileurs). A spoke wrench maybe
handy too. Possibly a big wrench to fit the steering head nut but that would
be pretty severe for emergency purposes.



Of course you need a spare tube, two or three, three tire irons, a good tire
pump. I would suggest both a CO2 charger, and a good tirepump too. A nice
folding tire for radical emergencies is very handy too.



Avoid those mini-pumps, they are almost totally useless. Use either a Topeak
Morph pump, or one of the old style super long frame mount pumps (like a
http://www.silcapompe.it/impero_en.htm, or a Zefal HPX, or a long Topeak or
Blackburn frame pump), or better, actually carry along a real floor pump.
The basic method to determine if a tire pump works is whether you can really
use it or not to pump up a tire. I was going to give up and carry along a
regular narrow style floor pump, until I discovered the Topeak morph pumps.
The Topeak Morph pump expands out into a small floor pump and it has a small
rubber tube, valve head and tire guage all built into a small compact
package. Those little mini pumps just don't work for me, trying to hold the
thing still on a tube valve without tearing out the tube valve and pumping
like crazy for 10,000 strokes just kills me. Plus those fancy smart valve
heads don't work as good as they sellers advertise, as you can't tell if you
got it on the tube valve OK or not until you actually start to pump.


"GRL" wrote in message
...
I just got mine a couple of days ago and echo what you say.

I'm 6'1" and was agonizing whether to get the 58 or 64 cm size and boy am
I glad I got the 58 as the fellow at BikesDirct recommended. Plenty big
enough for me.

I was disappointed with the generic instructions included that did not
address the specifics of this bike well.

For $590 delivered plus a couple of hours of your time to tweak the thing,
I don't think you can beat the deal, though. The components are good
quality at least. I do worry a bit about the cable guide that mounts under
the bottom bracket as I'm not sure how easy it will be to replace when it
wears out (plastic) and I am not crazy about having a hole there on a
steel frame (rust). The frame looks to be good quality with decent welds.
As you say, the rack is light and strong-looking. (Mine did come with
mounting screws, by the way. They were in the paper box with the pedals,
etc.)

Say, what are the small S-shaped plastic piece and the J-shaped plastic
tube with the clear tubing inside for? I've figured out the rest, but
those two pieces puzzle me.

I plan to add Freddy Fender fenders. Is that what you mounted? Looks like
them. I'd also like to put on a chain-stay mounted kick-stand, but the
spare spoke mounts may kibosh that idea. The lack of angle adjust on the
seat is a little disappointing as is the lack of a quick-release for east
seat height adjust. Heck, my $225 Mongoose had that!

My only real reservation is the metal-flake green color of the thing is
pretty darn ugly. I think I'm going to name this thing Godzilla in light
of that.

- GRL

Earl Bollinger wrote:

I had recently discussed getting a Windsor Toruist bike on this newsgroup
a while back.
here are some photos that I took of the one that I got.
http://earlwbollinger.buzznet.com/user/?id=866856
The bike actually turned out pretty good. I am sure I could probably get a
$2,000 bike that is a lot better, but in January your choices are
incredibly limited.
When I went around to the local LBS's there just weren't any touring bikes
available, although one shop had some 20-30 year old touring bikes that
looked really nice still. One store had a Trek 520 in a window sporting
goods display, but it was the wrong size.
One problem is that if you are mechanically challenged, you will have
trouble, as there are no instructions on how to assemble and adjust the
bike. You really need some real bike tools to put it together with, you
cannot use a crescent wrench and a pair of pliers, plus you need a cable
cutter tool as well. it uses metric screws with allen hex sockets for
everything. Now you can go to several websites for generic information on
assembly, and so on. At our local Half Price Bookstore they had several
bike books on repair and maintenance as well, but these were older bike
books though. Buying a more modern book through Amazon.com is probably a
good idea. Basically, some of the local LBS's may not want to work on the
bike at all, so you may have problems there. Some LBS's will work on it,
but on a low priority basis.Their own customers come first. In any case
you would have to pay house rates for working on it.
The stock seat actually was surprisingly comfortable, but I changed it out
for my Brooks Seat, as it fits me even more.
The stock Zoom headstem was very nice but was still too short for me, so I
put in a Zoom adjustable headstem instead. I rode the bike for five miles
with the stock headstem and decided it was just too short for me. I guess
that comes with being an old guy nowadays.
I also added some cool carbon fibre look fenders and a kickstand. Putting
on lights and a bike computer is typical too.
The stock tires worked amazingly well, they are a more univeral tread, but
when I rode the bike today, it had just finished raining and was still
having a bit of a drizzle and the roads and bike trails were all wet and
puddles were evewrywhere. Somedays I really I love fenders. Like normal I
am the only one that seems to be out riding again. I did see a couple of
joggers though.
The bike uses Shimano Deore deraileurs and they worked very nicely, but
they don't shift quite as good as the ones on my Raleigh bike. But that
maybe because I am not used to the Shimano STI style brake/shifters yet.
The bike has Shimano Tiagra Flight Deck brake shifters which look like the
Shimano STI models. You can get the rear gear shifter to actually shift or
jump two gears, but it does this so smoothly, that I don't know if this is
by design or not. the Shimano instructions talk like it is normal, just
don't move the shifting arm so much etc.
The crankset is a TruVativ brand, and it has bolt on chainrings, so I
expect it should be fairly easy to get new chainrings later.
Currently the bike has 52/42/30 chainrings which are what you would
normally see on a road bike, but for loaded touring or commuting, putting
on MTB chainrings would be better.
The wheels are the typical low cost ones but they are pretty nice still.
But you may want to true them up more as they are off slightly in my case.
This isn't a big deal, but it does take some patience and time to do it up
proper. I had looked at some $1200 to $1600 road bikes earlier and their
wheels weren't trued up any better either.
The luggage rack that came with the bike was pretty good, it was no
problem installing. With the fenders and all I did need to go to my local
hardware store and get some more stainless steel 5mm allen cap and socket
head screws and as I was short. The fenders did not come with any screws
I must say that you need to double check the rear quick release skewer as
on my bike it was just snugged down some, it needed to be tightened up
more.
Plus double check all the other screws and bolts as well.
I did notice that the distance between the two pedals is more narrow than
on my Raliegh bike which has a wider pedal stance.
The stock pedals are typical cage pedals with straps, you may want to
change them out for your favorite type. The stock pedals were tight at
first but after twenty miles or so they loosened up nicely and work OK
now.
Oh yeah, the little sticker on the head of the frame says it is "Made in
Taiwan", but with all the internationalization nowadays, who knows where
all the parts really come from.
Anyway the parts are look pretty good, so one could buy the bike just to
get all th parts to use on some other more fancy carbon fibre or aluminum
frame.
I guess all I can say is that it works, what more could one want.