Miche road components

In our recent post about road bike drop bar shifters, reader Kraytwin makes a great point - Miche is out there selling what looks like complete component groups. However, if you scrutinize the pictures on their web site, it appears that they use Campagnolo 11 speed and 10 speed shifters to anchor those gruppos. I don't know too much about them, and there's not too much about them written in English on the web. I do know that the last time I was shopping for a replacement cassette for my 9 speed Campy bike, their steel 'pignone' were the best deal. Anyone out there using their other stuff?

(BTW, pignone means gears and should not be confused with Pignoni, the Baroque painter who liked his women like he liked his wine - full bodied)

Photos from www.miche.it

The original linear pull brakes

I saw these on a mountain bike at the Velo Bella Surf City cyclocross race last weekend. I recognized them from a story a former coworker told me about the brakes on his mountain bike, maybe 7 years ago. The owner confirmed that they were indeed early versions of the linear pull brakes made under the name "Marinovations." The very first models were apparently nothing more than a piece of aluminum window frame, drilled to fit the studs, cable and pad. These were second generation models that had purpose-made aluminum arms and were more reliable than the first generation. The guy runs them on all his bikes because they just don't fail him.

Nothing exceeds like excess

By my count, there are currently 22 shift / brake lever options currently on the market for your drop bar bike:

Campagnolo Veloce 10 speed Ultra Shift

Campagnolo Veloce 10 speed Escape Ergo Power

Campagnolo Centaur 10 speed Ultra Shift

Campagnolo Centaur 10 speed Carbon Ultra Shift

Campagnolo Chorus 11 speed Ultra Shift

Campagnolo Record 11 speed Ultra Shift

Campagnolo Super Record 11 speed Ultra Shift

Stram Rival 10 speed

Sram Force 10 speed

Sram Red 10 speed

Microshift Arsis 10 speed (seriously, you named it Arsis?)

Sampson Stratics 10 speed

Sampson Showtime 10 speed

Modolo Morphos 7 to 10 speed

Shimano Sora 9 Speed

Shimano Tiagra 9 Speed

Shimano 105 10 Speed

Shimano Ultegra 10 speed
Shimano Ultegra SL 10 speed

Shimano Dura Ace 10 speed

Shimano ST-R700 10 speed short reach

Shimano ST-R600 9 speed short reach

Shimano ST-R500 8 speed

Has there ever been more selection? Will the economy force bike manufactueres to streamline their product portfolio? Do all these options make sense? Should the big two keep selling 4 different gear number options (8,9,10,11 speed)? Will this explode into consumer confusion with electronic shifting?

Did I miss any?

-p-

The Bike Hut

The Northern California bike community is the recent recipient of some amazing generosity. Christine Pielenz and Bill Laven, owners of the enormous Potrero Nuevo Farm, have set up a rest stop specifically for bikers.  They own an organic farm and have dedicated a picnic area and garage to be a spot along the PCH where bikers can stop, get free water and eventually buy organic drinks and energy snacks.  Sometimes when you're riding out in the country, not everyone's very friendly to cyclists so that's pretty nice of them.  

Check it out, it's 1 mile inland of the coast on Tunitas Creek Road, just north of San Gregorio.

____________________

Just got an update from Bill.  They have made an email address just for the bike hut, thebikehut (at) potreronuevofarm.org  They're also soliciting feedback from you, the potential user.  What would you buy from them if you stopped?  Organic energy gel perhaps?  He also let me know that they would have a pump and such stuff for riders in need.

Cyclocross Cable Hanger

Cyclocross season is hot and underway and it's a good time to point out the elegance of this drop cable stop cooked up in part by the mechanic for team HRS Rock Lobster. It's nothing more complicated than a bent piece of sheet metal (pick a fancy alloy for light weight if you want) with a couple of holes. There are tons of cable hanger designs out there, from complex to simple. It is claimed that this one adds a bit of compliance to the brake - fork system minimizing fork chatter.

Raise a Belgian beer for the man who makes his own bike parts.

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

Ride Test - '08 Specialized SWorks Epic

During the Passion Trails Fall Demo, I also got a chance to ride the 2008 Specialized SWorks Epic. It's no longer advertised on their web site, and the 2009 is suspended differently, but I thought I might still share my findings. Prior to this bike, I had only ridden one other carbon framed dual suspension bike and that was the Yeti ASR Carbon. That thing had such a steep effective head tube angle it was shocking. It taught me something though - carbon framed mountain bikes are aimed at the racer crowd. Expect them to act accordingly. With the Specialized, it was little different.
-The bike had precise steering, but not as twitchy as the Yeti. I could really carve up the trail with this thing in a race, but it would probably become fatiguing on a recreational ride.
-The suspension was not very intuitive, and would require some learning and dialing in. The rear shock bottomed out during my test ride, negatively coloring my impression of the bike.

-The thing was fast and didn't mind being thrown off the occasional jump in the trail
-The bottom bracket - seat tube connection was nice, keeping me in a power position at all times
-The Magura brakes faded at one point, bottoming out on the handlebar. I tested them with a few quick pumps and they came back. Wonder what that's all about?

I'll be honest, I'm not in the market for a bike like this, but the Specialized demo fleet was offered up so I had to try it. The Specialized folks were very friendly and knowledgeable and fun to ride with.

Passion Trails is the same. Very cool little shop in Belmont, CA. They specialize in mountain bikes and have even obscure parts. If I ever need my suspension fork serviced, this is probably where I'll take it. They had enough general bike equipment to help you with your road machine, but were really focused on being experts with off road riding. They also had a cool Tom Ritchey original frame hanging from the ceiling:
Ritchey headquarters is only a stone's throw away from the shop.

Ride Test - Maverick ML8

Last weekend, I got the chance to test ride some bikes as part of the Passion Trail Bikes fall bike demo. Very good shop, more on that to come. I'm not the most experienced dual suspension rider, owning a hard tail Niner myself. However, I did own a Gary Fisher Cake 3 for some time. I ended up selling it because the flexible frame deflected under breaking loads and felt imprecise during hard cornering. I just checked the web site, apparently Gary doesn't make it any more. It had the features I wanted, just not the performance. Anyway, on to the review.

We took the bikes to Water Dog Lake park which is steep, loose, rocky and semi urban. Good for teenagers with a desire to smash themselves against dirt, or people looking for a quick, fun experience. There's a half buried jalopy car in one of the ravines that you can rider over.

The first bike I tested was a size large Maverick ML8 and was set up for me by the owner of the shop himself who explained the suspension system and Speedball R seatpost. The bike was fitted with an DUC32 fork. Once under way on the trail, I noticed a few things:
-The suspension put power to the ground very well, somewhat making up for the weight penalty during climbs
-The linkage changed the distance from my saddle to my pedal, an unnerving feeling coming from a hard tail
-Speedball seatpost goes forward, rather than straight down, due to the slack seat tube angle. It was still a fabulous trick, and allowed me to motor down downhills like a dirt biker
-The suspension tended to 'squat' the bike under load. This might have been the "Parallel Path Technology" suspension I was feeling.
-The combination of squatting suspension, lowered seat height (due to Speedball) and ability to bomb downhills resulted in me dropping my heels while pedalling, causing the inside heel to strike the ground on some turns. No harm, but it did scare me for a quick second.
-The Shimano XTR Dual Control shifters worked like a dream. The rear derailler direction was chosen such that both levers went "up for uphills" and "down for downhills". Very intuitive, very fast, worked very well.
-Although I didn't need to adjust the suspension, the controls seemed straightforward enough that I didn't have to read a manual to figure them out.

It would have been interesting to try the Durance model as it looks more my speed. I think that if I were the kind of guy who spent a lot of time mountain biking at ski areas, or went on really long, rocky rides, I would appreciate the incredible suspension and rideability of the ML8. I am, however, a water bottle user so the lack of easy water bottle placement was a bit of a nag, but probably not enough to prevent someone from buying the frame. Speaking of which, if you are interested in owning one, I couldn't talk you out of it.

Just what exactly is for sale here?

A buddy of mine was browsing the Specialized web page, looking for a good city bike. In their menu of product lines, right under 'Fitness/Commute', he found what you see above. The Specialized Fat Boy. $2800 of pure kick stand, banana seat fury. Apparently, the target market is female body builders who hang out in front of tattoo parlours and unzip their leather jackets to contemplate their rhine-stoned belt buckels. I think that perhaps Specialized in Morgan Hill, CA has picked up a Marketing person from the now defunct Indian Motorcycles in nearby Gilroy, CA. Or, maybe they're just trying to fit in with the current political climate:




Photos from http://www.specialized.com/bc/SBCExperience.jsp?eid=129 and http://americaneedssarahpalin.blogspot.com/

Riding the hoods can be hazardous to your health

The pictures above show the results of last weekend's cyclocross race.  The first picture shows how my bars looked after the race.  The second picture shows what they looked like after I straightented them out.  The course was loose and sandy with good barriers and pavement riding, but had several bumpy downhill segments.  I was riding with my hands on the hoods and heard a loud crack noise.  At first I thought something had fractured, then after the terrain flattened out, I took stock of the situation.  My bars had rotated downward.  Now that I think about it, there's a lot of torque on the handlebar clamp when your riding in the drops, and that spikes when you're leaning on it during a bumpy downhill.  You rarely see handlebar rotation on mountain bikes because they are more or less straight and you generally don't hang on to bar ends during a descent since there are no brakes there.  

So what to do?  Whell, I finished out the race using my bar top brakes, and I could have been using those all along.  I also probably should have been descending in the drops for the best control and leverage on the brakes.  I don't think that any more clamping force would have prevented this unless the mating parts were splined (as in a bottom bracket axle).  I guess I should be happy to have learned a technique lesson with all my facial features intact.

A frame has been commisioned

Due to my monkey like proportions, I find I have a hard time fitting off the peg bike frames.  My cross bike, for example, is a 57cm with a tall headset stack.  I had a road frame built for me with a tall seat tube and short top tube, and it fits great.  I've been thinking for some time now that I should have the same done with a cyclocross/touring frame.  Well, the opportunity has recently presented itself.  Sanner and Ratliff Bicycles is a startup frame building outfit with several frames under their belts.  They need to make some showroom models though, and needed the capital.  I fronted that capital (they gave me a price break) and should have a frame in a couple of weeks.  Lugged, steel Deda tubing, custom geometry, cyclocross style.  They're going to deliver it unpainted but otherwise finished.  I'll keep you posted on progress.

For now, I'm thinking that I'll just keep it clearcoated.  Ugly bare metal cyclocross thumpin' stick.

Image swiped from http://www.littlefishbicycles.com/

Nipple Works - Cyclelicious

Thanks to the owner of Cyclelicious, we've been featured on their blog with an enticing caption.  That should bring a lot more readers our way.

Nipple Works - Cyclelicious