Vague Idea Racing: Now with improved pine scent...

It's no secret that I tend to sweat the small stuff while at the same time allowing the big stuff to sneak up on me and bite my ass. I don't know why it is. I trim my brake lines down to the millimeter of aesthetic and performance perfection, but run my brake pads down to the backing material, thus destroying rotors and endangering my well being. I keep my chain wear indicator tool handy on the peg board, but still let my chains wear out way past the 1.0 mark, thus damaging rings and cogs and endangering my wallet.

Dinner is a plate of steamed broccoli with a serving of fish, followed by five beers and a dozen cookies.

I'll still sweat the small stuff. It's what keeps my mind occupied whenever it starts to wander. Last week, just in time for Christmas, I received a package that allowed me to break out a ruler and a pen and get anal compulsive for a short while.

Not one, but two Fibonacci spacer kits from Endless Bikes.

One set for the race Pink I's and the other for my "training" wheels.

What's Fibonacci?

This is Marshall Hance's ancestor, Brother Brousseau, explaining it with a giant pine cone.

The Golden Ratio, the Divine Proportion, the Spiraling Sphincter of Space and Time... Fibonacci's numerical sequence not only occurs all over the place in nature, it also allows single speeders across the galaxy to have a perfect chainline. All you have to do is follow the directions included inside every pack of spacers, and you too can enjoy the smoothest, most efficient drive train known to man.

1. Measure in millimeters (inches times 25.4) the distance from your chain ring to the dead center of the seat tube.

I chose to use the center of my bottom bracket, mostly because I like to look at the huge dent on my down tube.

I used my old dissecting kit ruler from a college biology class as opposed to the included paper ruler for nostalgia purposes. SCIENCE!!

2. Subtract this distance from 70mm (~.75″) if using a Kick Ass Cog, or subtract from 67mm for a cheap steel cog

This can be done using a calculator or by getting four friends to come over to your house and take off their socks and shoes. My magic number was 14mm.

3. With the rear wheel in the dropouts and nothing on the free hub body, make a pencil mark on the free hub body exactly the calculated distance in from the inside right hand dropout face.

Obviously there is no pencil in the image, but I couldn't hold the ruler, a pencil, and my iPhone at the same time.

4. Install spacers onto the free hub body up to the pencil mark.

5. Install your cog, additional spacers, and the lock ring.

The wet spots on the floor are tears of joy that were shed once I realized that I now have the most scientifically advanced and smoothest running drive train in the universe.

I was sad that I only got to use three of the eight total spacers from each kit to achieve absolute perfection...

until I read this bit about an hour ago:

"Any width needed can be achieved with three or fewer spacers placed inboard of your cog, guaranteed."

So I win anyways, without even trying, which is how it normally works for me...

At least when it works.

The spacer kit is quite gratuitous in both size and number due to the fact that it works with either SS specific hubs or geared hubs being converted to SS. I have lots of spacers left over, so perhaps I will get anal with my Fire Mjare this weekend.

And for those of you that like to get all matchy-matchy, Endless Bikes is now offering ano'ed spacer kits ($8 more) to match your Endless Kick Ass Cogs or you can get complimentary colors in order to complete a juxtaposer look*.

And remember, these cogs and spacer kits are made in North Carolina by North Carolinians. Well, actually they are made by machines currently controlled by North Carolinians but will one day be taken over by Skynet in order to produce terminators that will hunt the human race to near extinction...

But right now they just make cogs and stuff.