A new standard :-/

Just what the world needed - a new cassette standard.

http://www.xddriverbody.com/

Add it to the list of wacky crap nobody actually needs, like BBRight: http://www.slowtwitch.com/Tech/Bottom_Bracket_Standards_2573.html

Donkelope

I saw a Donkelope bike last week in Portland. Hammered fenders, wooden rims, file tread sew ups. Definitely not what you're getting these days in the stores.

Wheel Overhauling

About a month ago, I posted about overhauling the front hub on my touring/commuter bike. The bearing cone was deeply pitted and in really bad shape. Last weekend, after ordering the right bearings (but the wrong cones since there's almost no good way to buy stuff like that if you're not a shop), I took the axle out of my rear hub for bearing replacement and repacking with grease. Bad news- the cones were wrong so I couldn't complete the job. Good news- I didn't have to. Cones were in pristine condition (as you can see in the picture above). Why? Both wheels had seen the same mileage, through the same weather and road conditions. And, the rear wheel sees much more load due to my center of gravity location and panniers always on the bike.

Differences that might explain why the rear wheel bearing races are lasting so much longer:

-Larger bearings (1/4" vs 3/16" for a larger contact patch, less stress on the cone)

-More braking load on the front wheel

-Occasional front fork chatter which may stress the hubs

Anyway, I packed everything with grease, buttoned it back up and lubed the drivetrain. Now she purrs like a kitten.

Monkey Lights

Brought to our attention - Monkeylectric Bike Wheel Lights. I'd buy just for the name.

Looks like the designers have put a lot of thought into making them waterproof, probably hoping that they become all the rage in Portland.

Photo from http://store.monkeylectric.com/

Front Wheel Bearing Project

The front bearings on my touring/commuter bike were making a crappy sound, so I figured, time to look into replacing them.  First step - figuring out what parts to get.  The Shimano web site has drawings for all the hubs with details on the bearings and cones.  However, Wheels Manufacturing cones are sold for a lower price through mail order.  You have to go to their web site and use a cross reference chart to figure out what the right cone to use is.  Bearings are pretty standard and can probably be purchased at your local bike shop.  You can see in this picture, how pitted and ruined the original cones were:
After removing the cones and axles, I tried something new.  I once read about Belgian bike mechanics putting grease ports in hubs to force grease into the bearings from the inside out.  So, with that in mind, I drilled a hole that I could later tap, or jam a syringe into in the middle of the hub with a flexible shaft die grinder:

I then taped the hole over, blew out the drill debris, cleaned out the cups with a cotton swab and applied a liberal amount of grease to the bearing surfaces.  I used lithium axle grease.  If it's good enough for car axles, it's good enough for your bike.

All that grease makes a nice sticky place to put those bearings with a tweezer and make them stay.  After putting in all the bearings, I tightened everything up.  It took me multiple iterations to get the cups and cones not too loose and not too tight.  It always does.  I guess if you're a full time mechanic, you get a feeling for this.  At some point, maybe after 1k miles or so, I'll try injecting grease into the port until it squirts out the sides, wiping off the excess.  I'll let you know how it goes.  Until then, they spin like a new set of wheels and should carry me to work and play many more times.

Soma Fixie / Fauxie wheels

What you're looking at here are a set of attention grabbing anodized wheels with a fixed gear style nut (no quick release) and a machined brake surface. Are these

a) urban wheels with a nut to foil bike component thieves?
b) a product aimed primarily at people who ride fixed gear bikes with brakes?
c) a confusing combination of compromises (not convenient for road riding due to the nut but not meant for track riding either)?

Grammo Seat Post

Came across a new company at Sea Otter - Grammo. Started by a group of college buddies in New Zealand, they're making Genius brand frames and Grammo brand components. Their website is mainly in Italian which makes me wonder if the story I was told at the show was false or if they're doing that to make you think you're buying Italian designed stuff. The wheels looked like a rather sketchy assortment of tubular-carbon spoked hoops. The seatpost caught my eye though. It's a one bolt design that has a quick release function . This would allow for quick saddle adjustment or changes. However, I don't know of any cyclist who needs to quickly change out saddles. There does seem to be an increasingly wide selection of seat post designs, all trying to improve upon the traditional and robust laprade style or knock off the adjustability of the Thompson.

Hubdock

The most innovative and different component product at this year's Sea Otter wasn't at the SRAM booth (although they did an impressive job of sponsoring the event and had a huge booth) and it wasn't another familiar company like Ritchey (although I did see some new stuff there too), it was at Hubdock. Born and raised in the USA, Northern California to be exact, the Hubdock is a patented rear wheel quick release system meant to greatly improve the speed and ease with which the rear wheel is removed from the bike. No fuss, no muss. The wheel, rim, spokes and hub come out while the chain, cassette and drive side axle end stay on. I know, it doesn't make any sense. Look at this picture to see what I mean:

How does it operate? Watch the video.

You can't really see it, but a nut tightens down the drive side. They had a more advanced version of the non-drive side quick release than what's shown in the video. As a wise man told me last weekend, there's nothing new in bicycle technology. That's probably true, and this new method no doubt builds on mechanisms attempted in the past but you can't blame them for trying.

They're currently looking for larger companies interested in their technology. That shouldn't be too hard. Most of the component and bike manufacturers are doing things to improve the casual user's experience with cycling whether that is internally geared hubs, belt drives or electronic shifting. The Hubdock aims at that mark.

Shimano Alfine Wheelset

This came across my email today from Universal Cycles in Oregon. They're selling a really practical wheelset, if only there were a bike to put it on. The front wheel has a 6 volt, 3 Watt dynamo hub to run your headlight, and the rear wheel has an 8 speed internally geared hub. Perfect. Only, the rear wheel has hub spacing of 135 mm (mountain bike size) and the rims are 700c (roadbike / 29er mountain bike size). The rims fit tires from 25-37 mm (touring size). So, they won't fit any road bikes, and won't fit a 29er mountain tire. They might, might fit some touring / comfort bikes with 135mm spacing or a rare cyclocross bike with 132.5mm spacing. You could also throw them onto a 29er frame for use as a pretty bomber commuter bike (ala Salsa Fargo), as long as you run CX tires. In conclusion, they're probably on sale because you probably can't use them. But man, they'd be sweet.


photo from http://www.universalcycles.com/

Bluetooth + Bikes = Brilliant

Some nerds at MIT have developed a sweet bolt-on (aftermarket, easy installation) electric rear hub for bicycles. Best part - wireless Bluetooth throttle.

Check it out here:
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/02/19/mit-greenwheel-simply-an-electric-bicycle-revolution

Carbon 29er rim

Edge Composites seems to be coming on the scene hot and fast selling all manner of carbon fiber bike components. How many of you knew they were making a 29er mountain bike rim? How many people knew that anyone was making a carbon 29er rim? Scary light, but probably necessary for today's XC and endurance racers to stay competitive. I saw this model (it's the bigger hoop in the picture) at the Edge booth at the Santa Rosa stage finish of the Tour of California.

2nd Mara Abbott Sighting

I have a knack for taking pictures of people that aren't exactly what you'd hand out as head shots at. Team Columbia pro Mara Abbott is now the victom of two such photos of mine. Back in August I spotted her after her win in the Boulder Roubaix. Today, I saw her at the Tour of California Women's Criterium, suffering in the rain with all the other competitors. Of note are her deep dish wheels. Columbia was pretty much the only women's squad running high profile carbon rims in the crit. Lots more pictures from that event and the surrounding festivities to come.

Spokester - Spoke noise maker

When I was a grommet, the kids on the block would get a crappy baseball card and one of mom's clothes pins and clip that card on their bike frame so that the spokes would slap it around and you'd get a sweet BRRRRRRRRR motorcycle noise.  Apparently, today's kids are too lazy, baseball players have Myspace pages instead of cards, and moms don't use clothespins any more because someone's selling the Spokester - bicycle spoke noise maker.

The makers of the thing claim it is a safety device because drivers will hear your kid better. Spokester doesn't necessarily promote bicycle helmet use though.  If your kid has a Huffy and has already installed all the aftermarket accessories available (streamers, license plates, baskets, bell/horn), teach her how to make a proper spoke noise maker and she'll be the envy of the neighborhood.  Or, buy one for your $3000 road bike to make it sound like a $5000 road bike with fancy new Zipp hubs.

Photo from http://www.spokester.com

Super Clicky Hubs

Ever noticed how loud and clicky some high end bike hubs are? Why? The picture above gives a clue. The pawls on this Zipp brand hub are large, thin and sprung by a long leaf spring. They are bound to make more clicking noise as you coast. Compare that to an older style hub:
Why do the Zipp pawls make more noise?
-WARNING WARNING, SUPER TECHNICAL DISCUSSION AHEAD-

Each of those little pawls is like a diving board (or extended simply supported beam). Each one vibrates as it clicks through the teeth of the mating part (the black hub body in the picture), much as a diving board vibrates after the diver jumps off. The frequency of that vibration is dictated by the following equation:

where wo is the natural frequency, k is the spring constant of the beam and m is the mass bouncing on the beam. In this case, the mass is the beam itself, and the Zipp pawl has much less mass than the old style pawl. This means that the Zipp pawl vibrates at a much higher frequency than the old pawl, giving it more of a 'tick' noise and less of a 'thud' noise.

Although I don't know this for sure, I imagine that the Zipp hub comes packed with less heavy grease than an older style hub since lower rotating resistance is much more important than longevity to the owner of the Zipp hub. That grease would act to deaden the sound of each pawl strike.

I hope you enjoyed today's nerd-out. Tune in next time for a discussion of flux capacitors.

Pictures from http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/ and http://www.roadcyclinguk.com/

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

As seen at the velodrome

The rare double disc bicycle.  Caught this guy at the Masters Nationals track races in San Jose.  You never see two disc wheels on time trial or triathlon bikes.  The usual reson given is that wind can really mess with your steering by hitting your front disc.  I suppose that even an outdoor velodrome is fairly wind free though.  The only other place I've seen that is at an indoor velodromes in the Olympics.  Here's an article about Taylor Phinney with a picture of him on a TT bike with double discs.  In general, it seemed like a lot of people dropped a lot of $$ on gear for the masters races.  It was always fun to see a guy line up on a lugged steel frame now and then between all the carbon and other fancy stuff.

New rims

Ah, the possibilities. The miles they will see. So shiny, soon to become so dirty. I knew I needed some spoke hole covering solution for these new wheels and so while I was in Boulder, I picked up some yellow Pedro's rim tape. I measured the bead-to-bead distance as 19mm on my Mavic A719 rims. I didn't have them with me, so it was a guess (although a safe one) that the 17mm rim tape would be the right width. It was, although I could have gone wider. Not as wide as mountain bike tape though, and narrow road bike tape probably wouldn't cut it. When I was done, the tape was still kind of tacky and I was worried that it would stick to my tube, pulling out during a tire repair. So, I'll let them sit for a week allowing the glue to dry out.

Anyone try those little plastic rim plugs? They claim to be lighter, and for spoke repair on a touring bike, they may be far more convenient. They are, however, much more expensive.

Photo from http://veloplug.com/

In the mean time, I figure I can't go wrong with the plain old fabric stuff.

Bladed spokes on a mountain bike?

According to Cyclingnews.com, the 2009 Specialized Epic dual suspension mountain bike recently ridden to wold championship victory has bladed spokes. You know, for aerodynamics. More likely for efficiently cutting the tree branches that other guys stick in his wheels.

And no, it wasn't being ridden by this guy:

Crazy things I saw at the track

I went to Hellyer Park Velodrome this past Friday to witness the American Velodrome Challenge. Saw some great racing under the scorching sun and the electric lights. Check out this video I took of the women's Keirin race:



Besides the feats of strength, hot racing action and shocking crashes, I was really interested to see some of the kit these guys (and girls) were sporting. Check out the disc wheel seen on a Specialized factory rider's bike:

That's right, the thing was narrower'n a washed up starlet and narrower than the tire as well. Just enough width for the tire to get glued on. This guy killed the competition too with an amazing display of power, I've got to believe that aerodynamics played some role in his victory.

Nippleless - the Prêt-à-porter wheel

What's missing from this photo? I was hanging out in a local shop and someone pointed out a wicked light set of Mavic tubular wheels complete with carbon hubs and carbon linguine spokes glued or otherwise inexorably attached to the hubs at the factory. No nipples. According to the product entry at Excel Sports - no truing of the front wheel is necessary! What they don't mention is that no truing of the front wheel is possible. The front wheel is basically a $1400 disposable hoop. I'm also skeptical of lateral stiffness, given that the the spokes are flat in the left-right direction, giving them the moment of inertia of half a popsicle stick. It's not like they can't make a wicked light wheel with replaceable spokes. They do that with the Mavic R-Sys. It's just that they prefer to manufacture a product that will be rendered into a heap of pencil lead when it comes into contact with a curb, pothole, or even the furry behind of a chien.