Pro Road Team Racing on Steel

Everything old is new again

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/photos/rapha-condor-jlt-steel-and-carbon-racing-bikes-gallery/

Everything old is shoe again

Wow, with a Look compatible three bolt cleat pattern, these Marresi leather cycling shoes would work with any modern road bike pedal system and look really fantastic. They'd probably break in and wear quite nicely, just like the Brooks saddle they could be used to match:

Of course, you'd have to polish or wax them for water resistance, but the perforations would make them better summer shoes.

Sweet Electric Bikes and New Things From Trek/Fisher

Gary Fisher has been using his Twitter/Yfrog account to display some radical new bicycles. Most of the concepts center around urban riding with an emphasis on transportation.

Belt drive electric storm trooper bike with fenders and disc brakes:

Retro motorcycle style derny-esque steampunk machine:

All photos swiped from http://www.yfrog.com/froggy.php?username=gary_fisher

You heard it here first - Campagnolo Athena

I just saw it tonight, straight from the GM of Campagnolo North America. They're bringing back the Athena road component group. Details:
-Forged aluminum crank at first
-Carbon crank to follow
-11 speed compatible
-Beautiful, bright finish, CNC machined big ring
-Ultra-torque coupling
-Carbon brake/shifters in the pattern of the current Record line
-All metal derailers
-Hollow pin chain

The polished aluminum will look great on a steel framed bike or any bike that does not need carbon ornamentation to make it look complete. Maybe it would go great with a pair of chromed chainstays?

I hope to have pictures soon, but I certainly got the scoop. You will not read this as of today on Velosnooze or Cyclingnews and it isn't even on the Campy web site.

Apparently, the original Athena was sold from 1989-1991 and was a notch below Chorus. The new Athena is said to be in the same quality range as ShimaNo Ultegra and run ~2300 grams for the whole set, less with the carbon cranks.

Foolishly, I didn't even have my cell phone camera on me. So, just dream about it for now.

Steel Reserve

First, let me say, thanks for all the tips on the folding bike. Selling the old one on Craigslist and replacing it with a modern model may be the way to go.

on an unrelated note, I once worked with a crusty, violent SOB who, when faced with a DUI drivers license suspension, reverted to commuting to the lab on his Schwinn Paramount. It was probably the vintage of this one, and a good looking bike. It was the only thing about him I could respect. I was surprised to see that Cyclingnews posted a review of a newly built Paramount. James Huang wrote the article (and it looks like he rode the bike for the photos). He's my new favorite journalist. He gave it a really positive writeup, raving about the comfort and beauty of the steel frame and pointing out that when built up with high zoot components, it came in at under 17 lbs. Then he dropped the bomb. This thing was being made by Waterford and being sold by Schwinn for $7000. I guess no one is set up to mass produce frames with polished lugs and high performance steel tubing, although the technology did at one time exist. We can only hope, that by the miracle of marketing trickle-down, the rave reviews this frame receives will bring about more traditional, repairable, recyclable steel frames. Schwinn has at least one lower end model with lugs, the Madison, on the market.

The steel bike re-revolution is here!

New Fuji With Downtube Shifters

Fuji has some strange names for their road bikes.  They have the Finest (women's model), the Newest (men's model), and one I'm calling the Cheapest.  For $500, you can buy a road bike with an aluminum frame, cromoly fork and downtube shifters.  That's right, downtube shifters.  I didn't even know anyone made downtube shifter bosses that could be welded to an aluminum frame.  For one thing, I think it's great that someone is making an entry level road bike, and even greater that they're not trying to dumb down or cheapen up integrated shifters.  Instead, they're relying on tried and true technology.  Only 8 speeds though.  Arghh.  Totally incompatible with everything that's out there now.  Why make it hard on the customer?  What are they saving by making an 8 speed derailler and sparing one cog?  If it were a 9-speed, at least the customer could easily replace the cassette and chain.  Also, there might be a side market for the downtube shifters they are having their Chinese factory produce.  1x9's are not right now.  Think Bianchi Castro Valley.  Anyway, everything old is newest again.

Photo from www.fujibikes.com

Dingle Cross

The dingle is a rare breed. This bike I saw was an Independent Fabrication cross bike with horizontal dropouts and S&S travel couplers. Sub note here, if you can race cross on a bike with travel couplers, they should be pretty much bomb proof. Anyway, this bike is a double gear ratio single speed. Hence the dingle name. You can rig it up in either of two gear ratios, one being lower than the other, but both requiring more or less the same chain length. It does require you to loosen the axle nut to get some slack on the chain, so I don't think this guy is shifting during races. Why build a dingle bike? I read an article by one guy who had to ride downhill to work and uphill and into the wind to get home. This reminds me of my bike commute in Boulder which was East (downhill and down wind) in the morning and West (uphill and into the wind) in the afternoon. Why not put a shifter on you ask? Well, winters in Boulder are kind of hard on drivetrains, and I'm sure the East Coast or central Europe is worse. Also, you get rid of cables which really do not like gritty road spray. Could be of benefit to single speed racers too. It allows you to pick the better drivetrain for the course once you get a chance to pre-ride it, unlike a true single speed setup that requires a tool-intensive cog change or money-intensive rear wheel change.

On as historical note, this reminds me of the original Campy suicide shifter:

picture from Rock The Bike

How long before we see the re-introduction of the seat stay mounted quick release?

Skewering the wheelgoods business

I tried to fix a quick release skewer problem the other day by joining the lever of one with the axle of another. Let me tell you, there's a bunch of designs out there, and most of them are pretty mediocre attempts at improving on Campagnolo's 1927 design.

These ones are rarely user serviceable, have poor leverage (the cam surface has a large diameter compared to the lever length) and bind up once you get some dirt in them (since the mechanism is hanging out in the open like a bad muffin top). Also, they rarely fit into an axle clamp on a stationary trainer.


These ones, I thought, were pretty good. Decent leverage, protected mechanism. However, they are put together by a workshop full of Malaysian elves with hammers and anvils by riveting the skewer onto the rotating pin. If it ever goes bad, throw it out, you can't access any of the mechanism to clean or repair it. The riveted bit is hidden under that shiny metallic tear drop shaped cap seen below. I found this out the hard way. Oh, and that thing that looks like a flat blade screw head on the other side? That's put there to fool you.

These are, always were, and will be the best. By removing the little spring clip on the other side of the lever, you can pop the whole thing apart, clean it, replace stuff with spare parts you have lying around, grease it, and put it back together.

And this stuff, well, that's for sponsored riders and people with more money than speed:

That last one, the DT Swiss Uber Helveti-Skewer claims 50% greater clamping force, which, if you're rocking traditional cup-and cone wheel bearings, could clamp things down too tight and result in premature bearing wear.

Photos from excelsports.com, branfordbike.com

More thoughts on Fargo

I philosophized on the Salsa Fargo and thought I'd share it with the world.  The bike industry started out making transportation machines, then added racing machines to their line ups.  In the US, cars became huge, and so the transportation aspect of bicycling mostly dissapeared.  Companies were concerned with performance (or in the case of K-Mart dual suspension mountain bikes, the appearance of performance).  With expensive gas, the concept of a bicycle as a tool is returning and if a bicycle is a tool, the Fargo is a swiss army knife.  In Europe, cars are important, but not entirely necessary because of the dense cities and mass transit.  A fashionable, heavy, comfy bike like an Oma Fiets is perfect there.   The US doesn't have those things.  We have long distances, dirt trails and a cycling environment that is more of a battlefield than a civilized affair. Xtra cycles, and used mountain bikes with slicks are the way to roll around here.  I hope the Fargo does well, I hope that mass trasit makes accomodations for bringing more bikes on board, I hope more people buy touring bikes than RV's next year but most of all, I hope you get a chance to ride your bike today.

Correction to Wikipedia

According to my favorite web encyclopedia's entry on bicycle suspension, full suspension first appeared on mountain bikes in the early nineties. A trip to the MOAH Vintage Vehicle Gala in Palo Alto, CA this weekend proved otherwise. I snapped these pictures of a vintage orange "MOTO-CYCLE" single speed double-boinger with front fender, year of manufacture unknown.

Seen at Tour De Fat - Schwinn Varsity Restoration

I saw so many things at Tour De Fat Truckee, I have pictures galore and stories to tell. The first story is about a guy who rebuilt two Schwinn Varsity bikes. A yellow men's frame for himself and a green mixte frame for his lady. They were set up as perfect touring bikes with a Carradice style bag on the back, a triple up front and a comfortable position. Some of the really cool features included handlebar wrapping finished with cork and twine, the leather chainstay protector (also finished with twine) and the upgraded Shimano drivetrain. He was able to do this by getting a bottom bracket shim to fit a late model BB and a by using a rate changing pulley on the rear derailler to drop make an 8 speed shifter work. I'll have to learn more about those parts later. For now, just enjoy the pictures.

Picture showing bottom bracket shim adapter and leather wrapped chainstay.

Picture showing pulley cable rate changer.

Hardasses (firm saddles)

File this under the category of everything old is new again. While Sheldon Brown and most touring afficionados have long advocated the hard saddle, its popularity seems to come and go, with various forms of padded saddles always being more popular. It stands to reason that a spongy saddle will be more comfortable, but your perineum begs to differ. Anyway, I see the firm saddle as having three evolutions:

• The Leather Years
• In which gentleman, racers, and everybody rode a Brooks
• Which is now coming back in the form of a Brooks resurgence and with companies such as Selle Anatomica
  
• The Plastic Years
• In which cheap BMX saddles where made of hard plastic
• Which is now coming back when companies like Tioga start making high-zoot plastic saddles
  
• The Space Shuttle Material Years
• In which crazy Europeans are making saddles out of magnesium and carbon
• Which, at a cost of up to $450 a piece, can't last long

So, to review, the history of the bicycle saddle: