The Screamer is atilt

When we bought our Screamer in August, I figured I had enough "hours in type" that I didn't need to do a pre-purchase test-ride. Over the first several times Jenn and I rode it, I worked on tweaking the seat position and handlebar position to get them where I was most comfortable, but I always felt things were a little "off."

For one thing, the captain's seat had a peculiar and disquieting ability to move on the roll-axis. I made a temporary fix for this with some folded aluminum foil in the form of a shim between the RANS Rad-Lok seat clamp and its centering rail, and went on our merry way.

The thing still felt a bit "off," though. My right knee would rub the front brake cable once in a while, and the handlebar felt as if it was off-center to the right. If I centered myself on the handlebar riser, I was off-center in the seat, but the bike felt a bit better otherwise. It took me a few rides to zero in on this, but there it was--my seat was following my political bent by leaning to the left.

I removed the seat and figured out a primitive, if effective, way to measure whether the Rad-Lok rail was centered on the frame, using a couple of carpenters' squares (the top and bottom tubes of the frame are of differing diameters). The rail was off-center by a thirty-second of an inch.

1/32" doesn't seem like much. However, at one inch from the axis of rotation, that 1/32" translates to over 3/4" at the top of a 22" tall seat--enough to be awkward for any length of time.

Of course, as we are the third owners of the bike, RANS was not about to do any warranty service work. To their credit, however, their staff was willing to brainstorm with me a bit, which led me to consider making or having made a new rail to center the seat--this time with the screw holes offset enough to have things more in alignment.

I spoke with a friend and customer who is a machinist by trade, figuring that he'd have access to better milling equipment than anything I have, and hoping that he'd have a way of getting a more accurate measurement of the problem.

He didn't have a ready improvement on my measuring trick, but was willing to help me with the rail. I picked up the new rail from him a while ago. I plan to install it on the bike tonight and see how it works. I won't be able to ride the bike for a few days, yet, though. While he and I were measuring and figuring out how things go together, the struts supporting the seat back broke.

I'd rather they break in the shop than during a ride. They can't be but so expensive, so having a new set won't hurt the wallet as much as having them break during a ride would hurt other parts of me.