Hi Ryan and all, The mystery rider finally comes out of the woodwork. Sorry I've
been
absent for so long but I have been lurking around the dark edges of the
discussions here.

The ride I took with Ryan on his P/R was great. I'm mostly a commuter rider and
was
looking for the next bike to take me to another level. Ryan's offer was too much
to pass up
and we did a 25 miler with little problem or soreness. The only issue I
encountered was
the shimmy.

I weigh about 185 and run a seat height of 77-78cm. This was up a good 8-10 cm
from
Ryan's setup, but we decided it was too much work to also change the bar height.
I was
riding the Trimlines with a Jintesha front bag with a fairly minor load to
it(5-6 lbs?). I was
checking out the bike to see how it fit and handled to help me with my decision,
so I was
doing things with it to see what behaviors ensued. One of those was to give a
shake to the
bars to see what that felt like. The shimmy that it induced was of a bit greater
amplitude
and duration than I expected or was really comfortable with. It was especially
something
that I noticed on downhill runs where I just didn't feel the solidity that I've
known on other
bikes. I feel that the added leverage and higher center of gravity of the
increased seat
height were contributing factors in the shimmy, as well as my inexperience with
the bike. I
always have found it takes many more miles to find the little adjustments of
bike and body
that give the harmony we all seek. I have little doubt that with a bit more work
and
experience things may have worked out that way.

As for my conclusions about the bike, I didn't end up buying one for a variety
of reasons,
most of which didn't involve the bike or the ride. The main reason I didn't buy
a Kogswell
is that the old Frejus that I bought in high school and traded on another bike
in the late
80's came up on Ebay. I bought it back and put together a dandy single speeder.
I also
found a set of NOS Reynolds 531 tubes and a mentor that I'm in the process of
building
my first frame with. (I'm a skilled metalworker and this just got under my skin
a bit.) I'm
working to design a frame that echos the P/R, but seems to more closely match my
odd
body proportions. I'll let you know what happens with it. I still think the P/R
is an amazing
machine and if finances would allow I'd have one now.

When I embarked on this, I bought a 30mm trail 650B P/R fork that I'm now
planning on
selling. Drop me a line if you might be interested and we can work out a price
or trade.

Cheers,
Jamie Hascall
Santa Fe
>
> No shimmy for me either way.
> Jamie, are you still here? If so, when did my bike shimmy for you?
>
> Ryan
>