The Cycle

Kenda Kwest: Tires Of The Zombie Apocalypse

2012-01-31T12:00:00.000-06:00

I have owned four pairs of Kenda Kwests in my lifetime: 20-inchers on an old Bike Friday tandem, 26ers as replacements for the stock knobbies on our current tandem, a 700c set that tricked me with a crazy-low clearance table price (folding tires for $10 each?!?), and the 20-inchers (again) that came stock on my Xootr Swift.

And, without fail, I have loathed them all.

See, the thing about Kenda Kwests is that they are INSANELY durable. Four sets of 'em, thousands of miles, single bikes, tandems, every surface you can imagine, and I have NEVER flatted one. Not once. I haven't even been able to wear one down to the point where the carcass is thin enough to be vulnerable. I suspect Kenda keeps a zombie locked in a basement somewhere whose only job is to bite every pair made. It's the only thing that would explain how hard they are to kill.

You're thinking that sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Super durable tires? Tires that refuse to flat? Sign me up, right? But here's the catch. Are any of my readers old enough to remember the joke about Campy Nuovo Record? Namely, was so reliable that it would shift like crap forever. Well, have I got the tires for your Nuovo Record bike. Inflate Kwests to a vaguely reasonable pressure and they have all the compliance of oak planks. Release a couple psi, and they wallow around like pigs in slop. Either way, they have the dull, plodding responsiveness that again reveals their zombie DNA. But, lucky you, they'll provide this awe-inspiring performance for years... and years... and years...

I got to inspect the set on my Swift this weekend since the mild winter inspired me to pull the studded tires off. Happily, the sidewalls on my Kwests are starting to feel just a little dry (thanks to a lot of UV and winter salt), so I might have an excuse to dumpster these things when Spring finally arrives. You can bet that when I do, I'll follow Rule #4:

Wheels Of Fortune

2012-01-29T19:39:00.000-06:00

In case the vast dry spell between posts (and the even vaster spell between posts containing actual new content) didn't tip you off, the old brain case isn't chockablock with ideas these days (in truth, I've been distracted by the making of musical-ish noise via bass, but you don't care about that).

To break the mental logjam, I picked up a copy of Buy-cycling magazine at the local Mega-Corp-Bookapalooza store yesterday (just to peruse, not -- shudder -- to purchase). Lest you get the wrong idea, I don't find Buy-cycling all that inspirational, but it does generally provoke a low-level buzz of rage that can inspire at least a few days' worth of ranting drivel. And the latest issue was no different.

The article that tweaked me this time had to do with upgrade road wheelsets. "Huh," I thought. "I have a semi-normal road bike in the fleet for the first time in years, so maybe this will interest me." The wheels in question, the article assured me, were not the high-zoot, mortgage-the-McMansion stuff reserved for race day. Nope, these were just workhorse wheels designed to provide a step up from the dreck one finds on most production bikes. "Okay, so they're cheap too, like me," my inner monologue continued.

Not so fast, frugal inner voice. The cheapest wheelset in the shootout was still about $600 worthless U.S. dollars... or 66% of the cost of my whole freakin' bike, wheels included. And almost every one featured some kind of wacked-out proprietary hub design, funky spoke/nipple interface, or acid-trip lacing pattern. In short, you blow out a piece of one of these "cheap" wonders, you're beholden to the original manufacturer to provide you with (no doubt reasonably priced, he said with much sarcasm) replacement parts... assuming said parts still exist, since that manufacturer's probably found some other proprietary design to chase down next year's rabbit hole.

The dirty little secret that Buy-cycling did NOT want you to know (as it would no doubt tweak their advertisers) is that any reasonably skilled wheelbuilder can make something that would CRUSH the field of $600-and-up stupor-wheels on weight, price, reliability, and long-term repairability. You want the best-kept secret in high-zoot wheels? Ultegra hubs, double-butted spokes (Wheelsmith or DT, take your pick), Mavic Open Pro rims, and someone who knows how to handle a spoke wrench. If you want to get nuts (and really trust that person with the spoke wrench), go with aluminum nipples. I'd wager a goodly chunk that you could put that combination up against any of the $600 machine-built "cheap boutique" wheels and come out ahead in both price and performance. Sure, they wouldn't impress your buddies (which seems to be a key selling point for the Buy-cycling demographic) and they won't rake in the Benjamins for Buy-cycling's advertisers, but you can't have everything.

Here's where I have to give props to Cycling Plus, a bike magazine from over the pond (which I don't get to read until I get a shipment of back issues from loyal reader Steve K, since the local Mega-Corp-Bookapalooza wraps it in plastic like it's some kind of bike-geek porn). Most of their wheel shootouts will include a handbuilt set of wheels crafted by a respected U.K. builder... and those humble handbuilts often whup the knickers off their mega-brand cohorts. Jolly good, old chaps.

Phantoms (Part 9 - The Final Chapter)

2012-01-11T12:00:00.000-06:00

Congratulations! You made it to the end! Or if you just stumbled in, here's some background.

Thanks to some sort of large-scale meteorological confusion -- El Nino? La Nina? Global warming? -- December has switched places with October this year, temperatures hovering near sixty degrees for a solid two weeks after Thanksgiving. Daylight or not, I cannot resist the lure of a shirtsleeves ride in the twelfth month, borrowing a high-powered halogen lighting system from work and unbolting the Paramount from its prematurely-imposed sentence. At 8:00 on a Monday night, in the blue glow of an almost-new moon, I set out for home, completing just one more commute.

No delusions of grandeur tonight. While it was easy to play Greg Lemond on the glacier-graded plains of Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio, western Pennsylvania offers one punishing climb after another. What local riders call “flat” (like my commute) matches the geography of a “hilly” ride back home, with multiple climbs that match or exceed Moonlight Bay. The wide yellow beam of my headlight rocks as I shift down, stand, and struggle. I learn quickly that a night ride offers no perspective, no view of the world beyond my headlight; I toil like Sisyphus in a small yellow oval, trying to reach a point somewhere out there in the dark.

The bike shifts under my body, rolling over the unseen crest, picking up speed as I drop back into the saddle. My hands on the brake levers fill the periphery of the headlight, fingers casting terrifying shadows on the edges of the road, poking into my line of sight with each shift. Speed increases. I hurry through the gears, snapping the shifters to keep up with the terrain. My oval of light proves worthless at this speed; obstacles pass through it before I can respond. I know, having taken this route daily through the fall, that the road breaks sharply to my left at the bottom of the hill, but I can only guess where that bottom may be.

A white mailbox zips past, flashing briefly along the edge of the road. My body remembers it as the breaking point of the curve, although my mind has never consciously mapped this landmark. Too late for brakes, I press the bike down, leaning, hoping the tires will stick. Physical memories play: the slide of a rear wheel, the splintering crack of helmet on pavement, the metallic warmth of blood in my mouth. My mind illuminates the blackness along the outside edge of the curve, the deep ditch which would catch the bike, the dense weave of trees my body would come to rest against. On this isolated road, I could lay bloody, broken, and unconscious for hours. For an instant, I see myself. I am not Greg Lemond. I am not an exuberant child, leaping into my grandfather’s garden. I am not sixteen, laughing at a broken helmet. I am here, terrified, feeling nothing but the blood rushing through my fragile body.

Phantoms (Part 8)

2012-01-10T12:00:00.000-06:00

If you don't know the story by now, here it is.

On one of my last rides on my old Trek 830, hurrying across the University of Iowa campus for an exam, I misjudged a curb-hop, too intent on the history of American labor movements to focus on the maneuver. Instead of lifting over the curb, my front wheel struck it at full speed. The bike stopped immediately, launching me over the handlebars, inertia breaking the connection between rider and bicycle. I tried to turn in midair and land on my shoulder, protecting the delicate bones of my hands and wrists -- a textbook mountain bike crash technique -- but I didn’t quite make the rotation. My right elbow struck the sidewalk, driving the ball of my upper arm deep into the socket of my shoulder. Seven years later, my doctor jokingly says, “You’ll never throw a good fastball again,” as if I ever could. On impact, the bones in my shoulder scraped together, causing permanent and possibly degenerative arthritis. Despite weeks in a sling, months of physical therapy, years of weight training, I will never be as good as new. The ligaments are stretched beyond repair. I aced the test, but my body is damaged goods.

Two years ago, during an unseasonably warm Ohio January, I took my road bike out for a trip up and down the Olentangy Bikeway in Columbus. While leaning the bike over in a curve (going too fast, playing Greg LeMond again, I’ll admit) my rear wheel hit a pile of wet leaves and slid out. My helmet struck the ground before I could react. After a moment of silent, stunned recovery, I stood, spit, and assessed the damage. Taking off my sunglasses, I surveyed my face in the curved reflection of the lens. Blood dripped from deep asphalt gashes on my nose, upper lip, and chin. When I ran my tongue around the inside of my mouth, I realized that I had just spit two of my teeth into the woods. A bloody gap marked where my incisors had been just seconds earlier.

I may not have my fastball, but I can still play a decent-to-mean game of racquetball if I’m careful on the overhead shots. With color-matched resins, my dentist has created two artificial teeth that can barely be distinguished from their natural counterparts, as long as I don’t try to bite a carrot with them. I am superficially whole, Humpty Dumpty pieced back together thanks to modern medicine, yet when I wake in the morning and feel the click of rough-edged bone between ball and socket, I feel my father’s bewilderment, his fear, wondering, “When did I get so old?”

Yet, as a mechanic, I see my bikes still refusing to age. I have yet to crash a bicycle in a way that causes permanent damage to the machine. On the Olentangy Bikeway, where I lost two teeth, my bicycle lost a rear derailleur. The replacement part cost fifty dollars, considerably less than two artificial teeth. That plus thirty minutes of labor and my bicycle rolled on as if it had never touched the ground, immortal. Properly maintained, bearings greased, chain oiled, tires inflated, my bicycles will outlast the aging, collapsing body that provides their momentum. My Paramount -- the favorite child, I’ll admit -- was built in 1985, and its steel tubes react with the same liveliness they did just after the paint dried over a decade ago. In twenty years, as the bike reaches its mid-thirties and its rider heads into his late forties, one of us will be just like new, begging to get out on the road for a ride. What fantasy will I use then? Who will I be? Greg Lemond will be old and gray. Will I remember the dirty, bloody leaps into grandpa’s garden? The chatter of mountain bike tires over rocky trails? Or will it be enough to recall a time when my creaking, twenty-six-year-old body could finish a slow, ten-mile commute?

Phantoms (Part 7)

2012-01-09T12:00:00.000-06:00

If you don't know the story by now, here it is.

Schwinn first reissued the Black Phantom in 1995 to celebrate both their centennial and their return from the ashes of bankruptcy. The company had gradually cashed in on the growing rush for “retro” bikes with some less-expensive replica cruisers, but the ‘95 Phantom aspired to much more than these cookie-cutter novelties could ever hope for. It was to be an exact copy of the original, top to bottom. The project was to create pure anachronism, bicycles designed from crumbling original blueprints, constructed with tools that had not been used in almost half a century. Where original tools could not be found, they were built, created from history and memory to fabricate one small production run at an astronomical cost. The 1995 Phantoms were born of human touch in an industry dominated by computer-controlled robot welders. The project cost a fortune, well beyond what the company could recoup from the sale of the bikes, even at almost three-thousand dollars each. It made no sense. It was beyond business. It was irrational. And it was beautiful, all the way down to the tiny ridge across the bottom bracket replicating a flaw in the original casting process. I imagine the idea taking root not in conference rooms, but during a ride. A group of true bicycle nuts pause after a long, hard climb to catch their breath, and in the dizziness of oxygen debt, someone jokingly says, “why don’t we build a Phantom?” After the ride, over coffee and donuts, someone else starts drawing on a napkin, tracing the chromed curve of a springer fork, a design Schwinn hasn’t built in decades, and something in that curve sticks in the imagination.

However the concept was planted, it slowly grew from silly idea to fully-realized rubber and steel, history rendered in metal. The company had faced death, become an industry joke, and come screaming back to legitimacy. What better way to announce its return than with a piece of the past, a bike that, like its parent, would surprise the industry simply by existing, enduring? So Schwinn created the 1995 Black Phantom reissue, a small pocket of 1950s America, a testament to durability, to timelessness. At work, when I walk past the reissue, I cannot help but pause, awestruck. The bike is 1955 made tangible, a blend of deco design and car culture lifted into another era. It is graceful. It is brash. Ridable examples of the original Phantoms still exist today, and I don’t doubt that this reissue will still beg to be pedaled forty years from now. The bike laughs at time, dares aging to touch it.

Those original Schwinns would eventually become the first mountain bikes. In the early 1970s (while I was busy navigating sidewalk cracks on a green tricycle) a group of men were resurrecting big Schwinn cruisers from California junk piles, driving them to the top of mountain roads, and riding down at top speed. Each run burned most of the grease out of their antique coaster brakes, forcing the riders to repack their hubs with fresh lubrication. To most of the 1970s cycling world, this new kind of riding made no sense. In a bike culture enamored with slender European road racing machines, the very idea of riding down mountains was laughable. Yet, each weekend, a group of accomplished road racers donned jeans and flannel shirts and did just that, sliding through switchback corners on their sixty pound relics. They fell. They drew blood. They broke bikes. They broke bodies. Then, they laughed, went back to the top, rode again, fell again, bled again, laughed again. And those bikes, those abandoned, rusted relics raised from the dead refused to act their age, taking flight just as they had under exuberant ten-year-olds in 1955.

Phantoms (Part 6)

2012-01-08T12:00:00.000-06:00

Here's the reasoning behind my delusions of grandeur.

By the time I started mountain biking, Dad couldn’t follow. He could remember his old Schwinn, but the feeling of that heavy bike under a ten-year-old boy was lost. He could only recall the shame of dragging it home, axle snapped, to face a mother’s “wait-till-your-father-gets-home” and the long, punishing wait until that father got off his late shift at the power plant. What he didn’t remember was the instant of silence when sixty pounds of Schwinn steel lifted off from the curb. Who could blame him? On that much bike, time in the air didn’t last. Landings were what stuck in the mind, the splay of the front fork, the crunch, the consequences.

But I remembered. I grew up mountain biking before I knew such a thing existed, cruising my parents’ farm. A downhill chute, four feet wide, ran between the east cornfield and the machine shed, opening in the gap between the shed and the barn, closing down to a green tunnel between barn and field which would spit me out near grandpa’s garden at top speed. I’d veer out of the chute at the corner of the barn, cross the broken concrete of the empty cattle lot, pedal frantically to the two-foot drop at lot’s edge, and lift off, a frenzy of sound meeting the anticipatory silence of flight. Landings in the garden meant flat tires, bloodied elbows, a mouth full of dirt, ringing ears, but who cared about consequences when you were in the air? Were the astronauts, my childhood heroes, worrying about the landing when they saw sky give way to space?

My father doesn’t mountain bike because it’s marketed as an “extreme” sport. He doesn’t understand or want to understand all this “extreme” nonsense. As if on schedule, exactly thirty years after leaving Kent State as an idealistic liberal, he has become a grumpy old bastard. “What’s this Mountain Dew commercial about? All these mountain bikers screaming at me... what’s the point of that? Stop screaming. Go get another piercing.” He puts on a good show, but I can see the fear and bewilderment. In a span of time that must seem sudden to him, the counterculture has gone from peace signs and pot to nose rings and heroin. The new teachers he hires at his school are younger than his own children. A stomach which once tolerated morning pizza heated over a dorm desk lamp has become delicate. On his forehead, the hair has gradually crept away at the corners leaving only a narrow peninsula in the center. After fifty-three years and two heart attacks, he is just starting to accept the possibility that he might be getting old.

Phantoms (Part 5)

2012-01-07T12:00:00.000-06:00

This thing is still dragging on? Here's a lame stand-in for an apology.

In the bike shop where I work, I hear it almost every day: “Oh, I had one just like that.” The customer is usually male, mid-fifties, responding to the Schwinn Black Phantom reissue cruiser that hangs from our ceiling. I would guess that eighty percent of these glassy-eyed nostalgia sufferers never owned a Phantom. Most probably owned another model in the Schwinn line, or perhaps a bicycle built by Schwinn to be rebadged as a department-store model. After all, in 1950s America, the Schwinn Black Phantom was, without question, the best -- and most expensive -- bike a kid could have. Granted, from a strictly utilitarian perspective, the original Phantom was nothing new, borrowing from balloon-tire technologies Schwinn perfected two decades earlier. However, unlike its prewar ancestors -- the Motorbike, the Autocycle, the DX, the Excelsior -- Phantoms had all the toys. Deep black and red enamel, blinding chrome on just about everything, tubing junctures smooth as poured liquid, flowing curves, long antique white pinstripes, real leather saddle, drum brakes, fenders, built-in wheel lock, rear rack with working taillight, working headlight growing organically from the line of the front fender, and a small button on the side of the imitation gas tank controlling the battery-powered horn inside. Everything about the bike was big and overbuilt, from the wide balloon tires on rolled steel rims to the long cowhorn handlebars. In one bicycle, Schwinn blended all the fantasies of postwar Americans, adult and child alike. Style, polish, power, and features -- if they sell cars, Schwinn reasoned, why not bikes? The Phantom brought ten-year-old boys to tears of desire, a machine-as-identity lust that would eventually be transferred to four-wheeled vehicles like Mustangs, Corvettes, and Camaros. In its time, it was simply the ultimate bicycle. Even fifty years later, the Phantom still stands as a defining moment in bicycle history, pursued by collectors like a two-wheeled Holy Grail. So I can’t blame these glassy-eyed men in my shop for the blur in their memories, the hardening of want into remembered ownership. My own father, now fifty-four, suffers the same illness.

On March 3, 1954, for his ninth birthday, my father received what he remembers as a Schwinn Black Phantom. That morning, my grandparents probably gave him something small, pretending that the gift-giving was over. Then, just as disappointment set in, they handed him a small note: “Look in the hall closet.” In the hall closet, another note: “Look under your pillow.” I see my grandparents exchanging smiles over coffee as their son scurries around the house. Under the pillow: “Look on Mom’s dresser.” On the dresser: “Look in the garage.” Since it was March in Illinois, I’m certain my grandmother stopped him on his way out the door, insisting on a coat and hat, adding one more delay just as the suspense reached its zenith.

Finally, a warm coat wrapped over his pajamas, he burst into the garage, and there it was: his Schwinn. Black, with cream trim. Black-painted fenders with matching cream pinstripes. A rear rack. Chrome springer fork. Big. Gleaming. Most birthday presents would require a bow, but the Schwinn had enough style simply propped on its kickstand. They rolled it outside into the bitter Illinois winter, stood boy and bike in front of the garage door, and snapped a picture in the snow.

In the next four years, my father would shear off the coaster brake fixing strap (as well as several of grandpa’s replacement straps) and shatter the front axle jumping the bike off what he calls “a small wall.” The social mores of preteens would shift, decreeing that bikes were no longer “cool,” and the bike would be abandoned in the garage, then sold. But forty-four years later, if I could just find that photograph, my father would still be a pudgy, grinning nine-year-old in his winter coat and hat, the piles of snow would never melt, and his Schwinn would remain unridden, unbroken, and unquestionably cool. Would I have the heart to tell him his bike was the less-expensive, less-coveted Panther, not the Phantom it has become in his mind? Would it matter?

Phantoms (Part 4)

2012-01-06T12:00:00.000-06:00

Some wannabe writer appears to have hijacked this blog. The culprit explains himself here.

That grey 830 went from first love to rusted beater in the span of four years: accessorized, stripped, cared for, neglected, covered in stickers, abandoned in Dad’s garage, abused, left in the rain, and taken to college because it was finally too ugly to steal. In 1991, when my affections were finally stolen away by a big, tennis-ball yellow Trek 6000 with its three extra gears, ultralight aluminum tubing, stop-right-now brakes, and (finally) quick-release wheels, I stripped my first love bare, painted it black, swapped out the teal stem because it didn’t match the new paint, reassembled it with some help from Roland, and sold it to my then-girlfriend’s father. He rode it a few times and hung it in his garage, too polite to admit it didn’t connect for him like his old Schwinn three-speed. I don’t doubt it’s still there, hanging from the rafters. I’ve considered calling, perhaps offering to buy back his piece of my cycling past, but I can’t figure out a polite way to say, “This is your former future-son-in-law... I know I’m no longer in love with your daughter, but that bike...”

A true bike nut remembers them all fondly. Each bike sticks in the mind like an old friendship I’ve grudgingly outgrown. The orange-and-red banana-seat Murray. The chrome Huffy BMX bike. The royal blue Murray mountain bike knockoff. Dad’s brown Free Spirit ten speed. The sky-blue hand-me-down Schwinn Continental from Dale. My blue Schwinn World Sport. The grey 830. The yellow 6000. Schwinn 974 racing bike. Cannondale M400 mountain bike. Cannondale T700 touring bike. Specialized Epic racing bike. Schwinn DeLuxe Twinn Tandem. Nishiki Citysport cruiser. GT Slipstream hybrid cruiser. And finally, my current friends, the Specialized Rockhopper mountain bike and Schwinn Paramount road bike. I learned to ride a bike twenty years ago. Seventeen bikes in twenty years. And I remember them all, because every one helped me live out a fantasy of who I wanted to be. At seven, I carried the absolute conviction that my banana-seat Murray looked just like a California Highway Patrol motorcycle. As I cruised the long gravel driveway of my parents’ farm, twisting the plastic grip like a throttle, I was Jon from my favorite TV show, “CHiPs.” I chased down the car thieves, rescued children from burning buses, wrote out speeding tickets. On my bike, I was the hero. It sounds funny to me now, but even today, when I shift into the big chainring on my road bike, somewhere in my mind I see Greg LeMond tucked low, methodically making time on Laurent Fignon to take the 1989 Tour de France. Different bike, different fantasy, but I’m still trying on identities, wanting to be more than simply me.

Phantoms (Part 3)

2012-01-05T12:00:00.000-06:00

Jeez, this looks different from the standard snark. Here's why.

My tires crunch on the gravel, spitting out rocky shrapnel when I stand and accelerate. The path follows the Hennepin Feeder Canal out of Rock Falls, Illinois, a tiny waterway originally designed for barge traffic. The track, once worn bare by mules pulling loaded barges, has been turned over to the park district as a recreational area and buried in white sandstone to create a trail. It is the only off-road riding within range for a kid still working on a driver’s license, my first opportunity to take my new mountain bike into its element. The canal is on my left. On my right, a thin strip of trees separates my ride from the strip malls, hotels, and restaurants of Rock Falls. The illusion works; under the canopy of overhanging branches, I can convince myself that I am alone, that I no longer follow Dad’s wheel.

After a quarter mile of flat gravel riding, the real trail begins. A worn dirt path breaks away from the canal into the woods, cut by renegade motorcycles, kept open by kids on BMX bikes. I veer into the trees and climb the ridge that separates canal from city. The riding is frantic silence, rubber tires on dry earth, trees passing like telephone poles along the highway. The branches close in, no wider than my handlebars, leaves brushing my knuckles. My pulse presses out on the foam shell of my helmet. Lines of dusty sweat creep down my cheeks. The trail begins to roll, its rise and fall like slow breathing under my tires. Each downhill slope loads my momentum, carrying me over the next rise, picking up speed with each trip across the trail’s wavelength.

My front wheel strikes the knob of a half-buried root, knocking the handlebars from my hands. For an exhilarating instant, I lose control. The wheel chatters out of its line. I grab for the bars, but the distraction is too much on such a narrow trail. A branch snags the bar and rips it from my hands. The front wheel turns sharply off the trail into the brush. I have no choice but to follow, slapped by branches. The bike finally strikes a tree, tossing me over the handlebars head first.

When I reach up to wipe the grit from my forehead, half my helmet is missing. On impact against the tree, the foam has split in a jagged arc across the top of my head. The rear stays in place, held by nylon straps, but the front swings open like a door. The helmet comes apart in my hands when I release the straps and take it off. I sit in the dirt -- dizzy, aching, with a hemisphere of helmet in each hand -- and laugh, because I am sixteen and don’t know any better.

Phantoms (Part 2)

2012-01-04T12:00:00.000-06:00

Not sure what happened to your regularly-scheduled babble? Here's the answer.

1988. My father and I pause outside the door of Mr. K’s Bicycles and Billiards, our first stop in the search for my first mountain bike. Dozens of “Authorized Dealer” decals radiate out in a confetti blast from their point of origin near the Business Hours sign: Cannondale clothing, Finish Line Authorized Service Center, Oakley eyewear, Brunswick pool tables, Trek bicycles, Park tools, Specialized bicycles, GT BMX... I can hardly find enough glass in the door to see inside. When my father pushes it open, there is no bell or buzzer to announce our entrance. A strip of rubber-backed red carpet runs from the door to the counter at the back of the store. On the left stand two new pool tables, fields of untouched green felt broken only by cardboard pyramids touting “Marble Base” and “Financing Available.” Locked glass cases of cues line the left wall like weapons on display. On the right, three rows of new bicycles sit in formation, a fourth rank hanging from hooks in the ceiling. The front windows on both sides are lined with bikes. Nylon saddle bags, plastic water bottles, and shining Lycra shorts fill the gaps in the pegboard walls.

“Here’s what Dale got.” Dad leads me over to a pearl-white Trek 830 mountain bike with teal decals, the exact same bike my cousin bought just two weeks ago. “I love the paint. Not just white. See how it catches light, like a shell?”

Roland, the owner (Mr. K himself) comes out of the workshop, wiping the grease from his hands onto his denim apron. “Afternoon, Gordy. What can I do for you fellas?”

“My son is looking at mountain bikes.” So true. I am looking at them all, awed by the thick rubber tires and shining frames in symmetrical rows. The bikes form an impenetrable line of toughness, of attitude. If internal combustion engines had never been invented, this is what the outside of a biker bar would look like.

“Thinking about that 830?”

I nod, thinking about it a lot, even though the paycheck burning out of my pocket -- the first of my working life -- won’t cover half of the $350 asking price.

“Did you see the one in the window? The grey one?” He leads me back across the border to the front of the store. At the end of a gleaming row of identical Specialized Rockhoppers sits a lone Trek 830, dark grey, with the same teal decals and a painted-to-match teal stem. “This is last year’s model. Brand new, never ridden. A leftover. It’s on sale, fifty bucks cheaper than the ‘88 for just about the same bike. Looks to be your size, even.”

“We have a trade in,” Dad announces, calling Roland back and giving me time and space to think. My father’s haggling is a warm murmur on the periphery. I’m too busy falling in love to notice. This grey leftover is different, the last of its breed. I decide, without hesitation, that I don’t want Dale’s bike. I want Jason’s bike.

Like any good salesperson, Roland wasn’t telling me the whole truth. After five years of on-again, off-again work in bicycle sales and repair, I now know the differences between 1987 and 1988 beyond paint jobs. The frames were the same, but the ‘87 had lousy brakes, fewer speeds, and oval chainrings designed (in theory) to increase the rider’s power, a theory which has since gone the way of the flat-earth hypothesis. The wheels bolted on instead of using the more convenient quick-release levers, a difference I came to appreciate with each knuckle-skinning slipped wrench. Color-matched stems were a cycling fashion trend that came and went in the span of two model years, right before neon paint jobs took over. Side-by-side, despite sharing a model number, they were two completely different bikes. Roland was dumping, getting rid of old stock with a customer who didn’t know any better. Having done the same thing, I’m in no position to question the ethics of the sale.

What Roland saw, and what any good bicycle salesperson comes to recognize, is the connection. That’s why I still respect him, despite what my after-the-fact mechanical knowledge tells me. When someone makes a real, visceral link between their identity and a bike, you can talk quick releases and skinned knuckles all day, but it won’t matter. They may not understand the link consciously -- I can only verbalize mine with a decade of hindsight -- but when they feel it, the sale closes. Something about one specific bike meshes with the person they want to be in a way that the other bikes simply cannot. Try to convince a ten-year-old to ride a blue bike when she has her mind set on a red one and you’ll see just what I mean. Kids just haven’t learned how to justify their paint-job instincts with technical specifications yet.

With my decade of hindsight, I know what connection I made at sixteen, what I needed. My old ten-speed was slender, perched on delicate tires, designed for long, meditative journeys down empty county roads. It didn’t fit under an overweight, insecure teenager looking to test his limits, his identity. I was tired of those long, boring rolls through the country watching my father’s back wheel. When a territorial farm dog made its sprint for the property line, teeth bared, aiming for our spinning calves, Dad reached for his Dazer -- an electronic dog repellent which looked like a garage door opener but emitted an ultrasonic squeal dogs couldn’t tolerate. I sprinted, daring the beast to give chase, standing on my pedals, laughing as teeth snapped shut inches from my leg. Dad lagged behind, giving the tired animal a half-hearted Daze once it gave up on me. When we challenged Moonlight Bay Hill, a quarter mile stretch that shot defiantly out of the Illinois plain, Dad shifted to his lowest gear and fought his way up, one painful pedal stroke at a time. I raced past him to the crest, turned back, rode down to where he labored, and raced up again. My young legs could do three laps before he made it to the top. He probably hated me, but he always graciously bought two Cokes at the McDonald’s up the road to celebrate our defeat of the worst hill in the county.

Phantoms (Part 1)

2012-01-03T12:00:00.000-06:00

Wondering what this is all about? See this attempt at an explanation.

Bike season just ended. Although I dutifully commute to and from work on two wheels well into the fall, when daylight savings time runs out I give up. “Too dangerous,” I justify to myself. “Pitch black when I get off at 6:00, isolated country roads, weather getting colder, asthma kicking in.” My road bike now serves a six-month sentence indoors, bolted to a trainer in front of the TV for winter workouts. I can’t stand to look at it. A classic Schwinn Paramount, Italian steel lugs and tubes hand-brazed into long, traditional road racing lines, painted in thick coats of pearl white, hung with Campagnolo parts. Decades of racing tradition, rendered in steel, aluminum, and rubber. The bike wants to be on a road, diving through corners, attacking hills, rolling for long hours on endless pavement. It seems offended, immobilized on living-room carpet, propped up and secured like nothing more than a hamster’s exercise wheel.

“At least I’m using you,” I want to say, trying to appease my guilt. “And you get to stay in the apartment.” In the garage, my mountain bike isn’t so lucky. It hangs from an angular black storage stand, abandoned until the spring thaw, waiting impatiently. It is big, loud, modern, ignoring the history of its older, more refined cousin in the living room. Its brash blue paint bears the scars of past crashes, caked with the dirt of the just-ended season. Even on the hooks, five feet off the concrete floor, the bike wants to run things over, deep knobbed tires longing to bite fresh soil. I built it from the ground up, matching each part to my own preferences, choosing everything from the extra-durable wheels to my favorite saddle. A small plastic Chuckie Finster (the redheaded toddler of “Rugrats” fame) dangles from the handlebars for luck, features frozen in his trademark apprehension, splattered with months of mud. The bike’s shifters and brakes are now three seasons out of vogue, but I prefer these designs to their more cutting-edge equivalents, resisting the siren song of “new and improved.” In another two seasons, these parts will be old enough to be called “retro,” and both my bikes will have slid into cycling history, relics of another time. In cycling, obsolescence can be quick and cruel.

When I throw my leg over these bicycles, cleats on my shoes click into retention mechanisms on the pedals. The handlebars rest naturally where my arms fall. The grips show wear in the spots where my gloves rest. After years of bearing my weight, the saddles have shaped themselves to my contours. These three parts -- pedals, handlebars, and saddle -- are called contact points, the three places where the rider’s body touches the bike. After years of connection -- the sound of my cleats snapping in, the shape of my palms pressed into the grips, the relief outline of my pelvic bones on the saddle -- these bikes can no longer be entirely separated from their rider. Without their reassuring familiarity under my body, a part my identity seems absent. They are part of their owner, my attempt to define and redefine myself. When I hunker down on my road bike into a low aerodynamic crouch, hammering along an empty country road, I can momentarily forget that even in peak condition, I am thirty pounds heavier and ten miles per hour slower than the professional racing legends I pretend to be. And when I crest a hill on my mountain bike, slicing between trees, my tires sliding through corners and banging over logs, sometimes I forget that I am afraid of crashing.

The Grand Experiment

2012-01-02T16:35:00.000-06:00

When I started this drivel (lo, those many years ago), I had every intention of classing up the joint by slipping in a bit of my "serious" writing from time to time... with the obvious ulterior motive that I fully expected some publisher to stumble in here, snatch me from obscurity, and pay a massive advance for the first of many books. In short, this was supposed to be a springboard to spending every day in my jammies putting together mildly interesting sentences.

Fast-forward five years, and you have no doubt noticed that my penchant for drivel has pretty much driven away any and all hope of seriousness and a life spent in jammies. That stops today, though... er, tomorrow. I'm going to knock the dust off a piece from my long-lost attempt at becoming a "real" writer (back in the olden days of the 20th century), break it into chunks, and spew out those chunks here one by one until I reach the end of either the piece or your patience, whichever comes first.

Before you run screaming, this IS a piece about bicycles. In fact, it's the first time I ever sat down and tried to write about bikes. Depending on your perspective, it either a) showed me my "true passion" as a writer, or b) ruined me for good. Some perspective: This baby wrapped in the halcyon days of 1999, when I was (much) younger, I worked for a bike shop in Latrobe, Pennsylvania while finishing up a Masters' thesis, my fleet of bikes looked much different than it does today, and -- most importantly -- my dad was living the life of the (grumpy) old man you'll meet here. I would lose him to a sudden, massive heart attack about a year after I finished this piece.

Okay, enough circling the airport. High noon tomorrow (Central time), the first chunk of "Phantoms" drops right here, and the rest will spin out one slab at a time, every day at noon. If you like it, tell your friends. If you can't stand it, hang in there -- you only have to wait for nine days for my artistic self-indulgence to run out and my usual self-indulgence to resume.

Prehistoric Garmin?

2011-12-28T12:00:00.000-06:00

With all the talk of cycle computers (or as my Pennsylvania pal Kenny used to call them, "confusers") in my last post, I did some digging through my old (er, "classic, vintage") files and found this image from my (now long-forgotten) Blast From the Past series, scanned from the 1984 premier issue of Cyclist magazine.

Now THAT is some high-tech stuff. I'll bet it can tell you your current speed, your trip distance, AND the current time, all in a package the size of a freebie-giveaway-with-contract smartphone.

Actually, this thing was probably a huge step forward from the cable-driven spoke-pinger speedometers of its time. As much as I disliked those, I wish I still had the one from my grandparents' 1967 tandem with its labelmaker-applied fifth digit added by my grandfather to indicate first 10,000 miles, then 20,000. Pretty impressive.

Kids, those are BRAKE cables in the photo, not badly-routed STI shift cables. Ask your grandparents about brake cables that didn't run under the bar tape. Not sure what to say about that helmet. Maybe he's on his way to a hockey game?

I do get warm fuzzies from the sight of those Spenco gloves, though. My late-dad LOVED that exact model with the crocheted back and the red/black/blue stripes. When they were discontinued, he rode his last pair until the palms split and the gel-snot squished out. Oh, man, it looks like they're available again (though not in that color). Now I feel like I need to get a pair just for nostalgia's sake.

Reflections On Ought-Eleven

2011-12-26T12:00:00.000-06:00

First, let's get this out of the way: My mileage sucked. Like, to the point that I won't even admit the total in public. I can explain away some of that with the fact that I did lots of my commute (and therefore immediately post-work) miles on the folding bike that never quite seemed to get a cyclometer, and tandem miles were practically nil due to my stoker's knee injury, but even a generous estimate of those lost miles leaves me with a number that's hardly worth recording.

So with ought-twelve fast approaching, I find myself in a bit of a pickle. I've always been a compulsive mileage journaler, so much so that I've been spotted riding around the block to "top off" a ride that happened to end at something-point-nine miles. Sad, right? My thinking is that maybe it's time to break myself of that habit. Maybe it isn't healthy/necessary to measure the value of a year by the digits in a tiny journal. Maybe it's time to force myself to stop caring about the "how far?" and start focusing on the "how good?"

I'll still leave cyclometers on all the bikes (and might even finally get around to adding one to the folder), but those will be for tracking maintenance intervals and daily accomplishments, not accumulating incremental miles toward some arbitrary year-end goal. I don't know if that's going to result in more or less riding. I just hope that it will result in happier riding, riding that's focused on the ride rather than a tiny LCD screen.

The Un-Bustable Bottle

2011-12-23T12:00:00.000-06:00

If I plug Kleen Kanteens one more time, I'll probably get called out as a shill. Honestly, I buy these things with my own money, and I get no kickbacks from the Great Stainless Steel Water Bottle Cabal. I just find this product dang impressive.

To whit: This is an almost six-year-old Kleen Kanteen that goes back and forth to work with me each day. It's been through the dishwasher more times than I can count. I've dropped it off the bike several times. And just last week, it got away from me on a flight of concrete stairs, bounced/rolled its way down about a dozen steps, and came away with just these cute little dimples (and nary a leak) to show for it:

Crazy. I would photograph one of my six-year-old plastic water bottles for comparison, but those generally last a year before I have to condemn them to the recycling bin.

Here's the cap of that same bottle. I can't say precisely how old it is since I swap the caps around my collection, but based on the fact that it's the older pre-carabiner-loop style, I'm going to say it has to be at least four years old.

There's a little scuffing on the lip (probably from that encounter with the concrete stairs), but other than that cosmetic damage, it works like new. No leaks, no cracking, no nothing.

Kleen Kanteens aren't perfect (they rattle in a bottle cage, the unsqueeze-ability can make drinking more of a challenge, and the pressure release valve sounds like an amorous porpoise), but as water bottles go, the value proposition can't be beat. If you're frantically searching for a last-minute Festivus gift for that bike geek on your list, you could do a lot worse.

STI: Shifting My Own Paradigm

2011-12-21T12:00:00.000-06:00

Forgive me for that post title. I'm a recovering graduate student.

The funny thing about my new bike is that if you look past the steel frame/fork, the retro paint job, and the Brooks saddle, it's actually the most modern bike I've owned in this century. For instance, it has the weird elephant-proboscis Shimano two-piece crank on an oversized hollow spindle where all my prior rides sported traditional crankarms on traditional square-taper spindles. Can I honestly say that I feel the dramatic leaping-forward burst of efficiency that this (reportedly) stiffer setup claims to provide? Uh, no. But of course, I have the horsepower of two heavily-sedated gerbils, so maybe I'm just not using the stuff to its potential.

Where I do notice a difference, however, is in the cockpit. This is my first STI-equipped bike ever (I dabbled in integrated road shifting in the 90s, but I was a Campy Ergo snob back then). Bear in mind that I only have about 50 miles on the stuff so far (which, for the record, is 9-speed Tiagra), but with that caveat, here are a few first impressions:

Dang, that is some light shifting action. With winter gloves on, I can hardly feel the clicks. So far, this is neither good nor bad, just a big change from the extremely tactile CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! of my previous 8-speed bar end shifters.
It's going to take me a while to warm up to the overall bulbosity of the lever bodies (and the big loops of exposed cable housing) from an aesthetic standpoint, but gosh, those chubby things do feel good under my hands.
Optical gear displays? Really? Pardon my snobbishness, but is this really need-to know information? The front shifter (a double) is on one of two rings, and it's right down there between my feet. Sure, the rear has nine choices, but chains in 2011 can pretty much run across all of them regardless of chainring choice. I guess I should be glad that they're now integrated into the lever rather than a blob grafted into the cable run.
Regarding that front shifter, I'm finding that a shift from the small ring to the big is usually a two-step affair... jam it all the way up, then tap the downshift to back off to the "trim" position. Sort of annoying but not awful. It does make me wish that Shimano would abandon front indexing once and for all, though -- a friction front STI would be heavenly.
I do, however, applaud Shimano for including easy-to-use reach adjusters with the levers, though (and I applaud the guys at Skunk River Cycles for recognizing that someone might want them included with their owner's manual instead of just tossing them out). These custom-fit rubbery shims pop into the space where the lever opens, making its "resting" position slightly closer to the bar -- a very simple, easy to use solution. I haven't tried them yet, but I plan to, having inherited my father's stumpy fingers.

Now, before my retro-Luddite buds (who -- almost to a person -- suggested that I swap these abominations out for downtube shifters immediately) move away from me on the Group W bench, I will say that I have some reservations about running a very complicated shifter that should probably come with a "no user serviceable parts inside" sticker. Still, retro pals, let's take an honest, objective look at STI for a second. It's been around for what, over 20 years now? It's been in some of the toughest professional races in the world (tended by professional mechanics, yes, but still). Even more compelling, it's trickled down to the ranks of amateur bike-abusers, cross-country tourists, RAGBRAI yahoos, you name it... yet I don't see the warranty boxes overflowing at the LBS.

I may just be justifying my purchase (guilty), and I may sing a different tune the day these things fail me in the middle of nowhere. But for now, I'm trying my darndedest to keep an open mind. We'll see when the mileage tally on these goes from 50 to 500... or 5,000.

My First Brooks: The Early Rides

2011-12-19T13:59:00.000-06:00

During the recent fleet upheaval in our vast testing laboratory here at The Cycle, I found myself the new owner of my very first Brooks leather saddle (a vintage Belt leather saddle once passed through here briefly, but I didn't ride the thing long enough to form an opinion.) Now, those who know my Luddite retro-dork tendencies may find this to be a bit of a shock -- a Brooks seems so weirdly archaic that it's almost inconceivable that I've yet to try one. But there you have it.

The new Raleigh, however, came box stock with a Brooks Swift. Being too lazy to go down to the testing laboratory and photograph it, I'll just plonk in some Spamazon:

Now, being a Luddite retro-dork, I tend to hang with more of the same, so I've heard (ad nauseum) tales of Brooks woe/joy for years. Thus, I carried all sorts of baggage into my first Brooks encounter... break-in times, proper saddle care unguents, setup techniques with spirit levels and protractors and whatnot, raincovers, blabbity blabbity blab. However, I decided to be contrary to even my contrarian pals. I brought the bike home, adjusted the saddle like I would adjust any saddle (it's shaped very much like several of my preferred non-leather saddles, so no big whoop there), eschewed the unguents, and just rode the darn thing.

The verdict after about 50 miles? Uh, folks, it's just a bike saddle. Not an ass-hatchet, and certainly not worthy of the almost pornographic pleasure-descriptions some folks use when discussing their beloved hunk of hide. As I described it on another one of those social mediums I haunt, while my butt and the saddle have begun negotiations, we're a long way from lasting peace in the region.

I fully intend to continue riding the hide to see if it does that magical conforming to the fingerprint-specific contours of my rump that Brooks-folks go on about, and I'll probably apply some of the magic Brooks juice from the little tin (since the bike shop convinced me I needed it, and what else am I going to do with it?) But unless I start feeling that joyous "you'll pry this saddle from my cold, dead cheeks" sensation (which would almost justify the boat-anchor girth... of the SADDLE, not my cheeks), I might dig out one of my tried-and-true "modern" saddles and sell the Brooks to an unsuspecting hipster.

Hey Mikey! He Likes It!

2011-12-09T12:00:00.000-06:00

Just realized that in two posts, I've used up my monthly quota of exclamation points in titles. Bummer.

As the resident bike geek amongst the people who tolerate my non-virtual presence, I often volunteer to make sad bikes (and consequently, sad bikers) happier. The latest such project comes from Pal Mike of the Epic Beard. Mike's a former corporate drone who just up and decided to hop off the treadmill, go back to school, and become a teacher. And he likes to ride this to work:

I only have "after" photos, so pretend it looks worse than this.

That right there is (I'm guessing) a mid-90s Trek 720, photographed (as required by Bike Photographer Law) in front of the garage door here at The Cycle World Headquarters. When it reached my door, it was suffering a host of maladies:

One almost-entirely-exploded Grip Shift -- which, if you remember 90s Grip Shift, wasn't exactly precision equipment in the first place.
Half its drivetrain (i.e., front derailleur and the second Grip Shift) missing.
One of those Shimano cranksets with the riveted/press-fit rings -- and the rivet/press-fit was failing, leading to some pretty wacky chainring wobble.
Wheels that hadn't seen trueness since the late-grunge era.
Brakes that, well, didn't.
General bearing sadness all around.

Underneath all that, though, is a pretty darn nice frame: U.S.-made, chromoly, brazeons all over, good tire clearance, not terribly heavy, and a fairly springy ride. If I didn't know that the 520 tourers of that era had level top tubes, I'd think they shared a frame -- the details look that good. It just got junked down with some of the low-end parts of the MTB Boom era, parts that probably did fine for a few years but couldn't hang for the long haul.

First up, I tried to see what I could do with a little simple tuning -- no major surgery. Once the hubs and headset were properly adjusted, they felt pretty good. The wheels trued up surprisingly well. The brakes were cheap low-profile cantilvers which -- unless I went all Sheldon on them -- were never going to be great. I did the best I could, put on some fresh pads, and called it good. The exploded Grip Shift, while quite awful, was still making a valiant effort to move the chain thanks to some carefully applied electrical tape (I didn't do it, but it did my Mennonite heritage proud to see it). In short, it rode.

At that point, I consulted with Mighty Mike, and we decided that a little drivetrain work could make a big difference. He'd been riding on one chainring for years and it didn't bother him, so we stuck with that. I chucked the lousy crankset, swapped in a single-ringer from my stash, ordered a fresh right-side shifter, cassette, and chain, and tah-dah!

I liked it, so I put a ring on it.

A bike from the 90s gets one of those trendy new 1xn drivetrains all the cyclocrossers are raving about. For the gear geeks, that's a 40-tooth BMX chainring driving a 7-speed 11-28 cassette... a range of 38"-98" on Mike's 700x32s. Good spread for an urban runabout. (Confession: I just happened to have the 40-tooth ring, so it isn't like I planned this.)

Oh, and a word on those tires: At some previous tuneup (perhaps with Electrical Tape Guy?), Mike's Bike had picked up a set of Serfas Tuono 700x32 slicks. Not a particularly fancy/expensive tire, but I was duly impressed during my (admittedly short and nowhere near scientific) test rides. They have some kind of puncture-resistant belt (which is supposedly the kiss of death when it comes to ride quality), but I found them plenty lively. They looked pretty true to size too, which could make the 700x38 a real sleeper hit amongst the go-fast tourist crowd.

So there you go, Mike. Hope it brings a smile to your beard.

Scandal! Fleet Shakeup At The Cycle World Headquarters!

2011-12-07T19:04:00.001-06:00

I recently let on (in an actual quasi-public forum, i.e. one that -- unlike this one -- has more than four regular readers) that I was selling a bike. And not just any bike: My beloved, much-raved-about Bruce Gordon, which has graced the test fleet here at The Cycle for a solid decade.

The response was a strange mix of endearing and disturbing. It was like I'd started giving away all my worldly possessions. So, for the dear friends who now have me on Cyclist Suicide Watch, I thought it best to lay out the what-and-why of that decision here.

First, the what: The Bruce has moved on to a new and (I hope) happy home, and has been replaced by a 2011 Raleigh Clubman that looks a little something like this here:

(Thanks to the guys at Skunk River Cycles for hooking me up -- and no, they didn't give me a deal in exchange for the plug. They just earned it by doing a good job. But that's another post.)

So why, given my incessant, lovestruck ramblings about ol' Bruce, did I cast it out into the cold and take in this shiny green interloper? Well, first, I was just flat-out smitten with the thing. Classic British Racing Green? Check. All silver parts? Check. Painted-to-match fenders? Check. Swanky leather (and faux leather) accents? Check. Weird (some would say discordant, but po-tay-to/po-tah-to) mix of classic aesthetic touches with modernity (sloping top tube, threadless steerer) that for inexplicable reasons appeals to me in a big, bad way? Check. Oh, and did I mention my obsession with sidepull brakes and their lack of sticking-out bits and cable hanger doo-dads? (some would call it a fetish, but let's not go there...)

So okay, the not-entirely-rational part of the new bike bug bit hard. But did it make sense? Well, in the last decade or so of my adult cycling life, my non-tandem riding has broken down into two simple categories: Pootling around town and going on long pavement-only country jaunts. The Gordon was meant to be the One Bike to Rule Them All, filling both duties, and it did so admirably. But c'mon... me? One bike? So along comes a motley cast of who-knows-how-many, all vying for some other niche of do-it-all-ness, all overlapping in one way or another. At night, I could hear them out there, arguing in the garage over who got to go to work with me the next day. It was sad.

My answer (at least for now -- with apologies to my wife, who probably just did a spit take) was to pick two very distinct specialists. Not specialized to the point of being utterly useless outside one very distinct discipline. Just two bikes tailored specifically to the two types of riding I do 99.9999% of the time. 'Round town riding in normal shoes? Grab the folding bike. Pretending to be fast? Strap on the shiny silver click-in shoes and grab the green machine. Now if I happen to get a wild hair to head off down the road after work, the folder will do that just fine. Or if I see an interesting stretch of gravel while I'm pretend-pacelining the Raleigh, I can swing it (carefully) on 700x28s and still have fender clearance to keep the sandstone schmutz off my bum.

Okay, my navel feels sufficiently gazed, and my concerned friends are (I hope) satisfied. I'll probably spend my off-season blogspace cataloging the bike from stem to stern and waxing poetic on each component. You've been warned.

Balancing The Screed

2011-12-03T18:30:00.001-06:00

After yesterday's post, I'm feeling kind of worried that I may come off as one of THOSE bike bloggers, the shrill, 100%-anti-car type. Not that there's anything WRONG with being anti-car, of course. Heck, good blog pal Kent P. is like the David Byrne of the Pacific Northwest, insofar as he doesn't own a car (and if reports are to be believed, when you ride with him, you may find yourself in another part of the world... and you may ask yourself, "how did I get here?")

But, for me, everything in moderation. So, to moderate myself, let me say that -- whether or not it kills my credibility as a bike blogger -- I happen to like my car. A lot. In fact, like a proud poppa, let me share a photo:

This was the day we brought him home from the pound... er, dealership. Isn't he the cutest little thing? Don'tchya just want to walk right up and hug him?

That happens to be a late-model Honda Fit with about 65k on the ticker (though 65k Honda miles is like 35k on just about anything else). I confess, when Honda brought these little buggers to the U.S. (it was sold overseas as the Jazz for years), they had me at hello. Advertising with a bike in the backseat and faux IKEA boxes in the hatch? Crap, you just drew a humiliatingly effective bullseye on my demo.

The real nail in my car-buying coffin, however, was our trip to Israel this year. There, I saw a whole world of what I like to call "shuttlecraft cars" (hey, I was a Star Trek nerd before I was a Waterloo, Wisconsin Trek nerd): baby-sized hatchbacks that sip petrol yet can swallow a payload like nobody's business. Seemed like that was the de facto auto style in Israel (from about a jillion different brands, some of which I'd never heard of), and nobody seemed to be suffering for their lack of Hummers/Escalades/Canyoneros. The bug bit hard, and the lease on our mini-Canyonero just happened to be expiring, so the next thing you know, that bundle of cuteness above was in our garage.

So, since I'm shilling (free) for Honda today, just what is it about this evil, carbon-footprinting beast that I find so appealing?

It is dang small, which (obviously) means more space in the garage for bicycles.
Fold the back seats up and my folding bike can fit like it was made to go there.
Fold the back seats down and my 59cm big-boy bike with fenders fits inside with room to spare.
The internets rumor mill says you can even get a tandem inside as long as your stoker doesn't mind sitting behind you during the car ride. Haven't tested that yet, but I plan to.
In terms of normal cargo, it holds as much as either of our last two mini-SUVs while absolutely DESTROYING them on gas mileage.
Did I mention mileage? 35mpg isn't going to win me any smugness points at a Prius convention, but it's nothing to sneeze at. I did see a handful of Jazz hybrids in Israel, so I'm crossing my fingers that a 50-plus mpg Fit could show up here someday.
It's stupid-reliable. I know how to fix bikes... cars, not so much.
Did I mention how freakin' cute it is?

Just to earn back a shred of cred, I will remind you, dear reader, that the ENTIRE staff here at The Cycle (all two of us, which -- coincidentally -- matches our readership most days) shares this one little car. So that's 0.5 cars per person (or more like 0.33, since this thing barely adds up to a whole car), which still makes us slightly suspect anti-car zealot freaks to most of the United States population.

Albatross Versus Elephant

2011-12-02T18:00:00.000-06:00

One of the arguments against bike commuting that never quite makes sense to me is, "But you have all that extra stuff to deal with!" Have you heard that one? The helmet, the jacket, the lock, blah blah blah blah. And it's actually true -- bike commuting has its accessories. Here's my usual load for quasi-coldish weather:

Helmet (no pro- or anti-flame wars, please), a reflective band to keep my pants out of the chain, hat, gloves, light jacket, and a medium-sized man purse (er, messenger bag) that usually houses a few tools, my lunch, some coffee, and my glasses. The lock stays on the bike rack (per the advice of the late, great Sheldon Brown). Sometimes I'll have a water bottle too. If I'm feeling like a neatnik, I'll wad all the clothes up into the bag when I get off the bike and clip the helmet to a bag strap. If I'm feeling late and/or messy (which is most of the time), I just shove the wad of clothes into the helmet and carry it separately. The Great Corporate Overlord provides me with a narrow little locker where this all gets shoved during the day, until it's time to suit up again for the ride home.

Kind of a nuisance, no? Lots of junk to deal with? Lots of space taken up in a tiny cubicle cell? But the thing is, most of the people who tell me they'd hate to have to figure out what to do with all that stuff bring one of these to work instead:

By my rough calculations, that's about a zillion times more stuff (by weight or volume, take your pick) than what I carry. And those same people who tsk-tsk at the poor bastard on the bike who has to figure out what to do with his two cubic feet of bag usually do so as they're circling the block, looking (in vain) for a place to store their half ton of steel for the day.

Now if I could just get the Great Corporate Overlord to convert that parking space I'm not using into secured bike parking, I'd be in business...

Bring It On

2011-12-01T19:27:00.001-06:00

It's snowing tonight in Des Moines. But I'm ready:

Yup, those are studded tires. In 406mm bead-seat diameter, a.k.a. BMX 20". You think studded bicycle tires are weird/obscure/rare? Try finding a set for your small-wheeled folding bike. But I got 'em.

I will rest easy and ride safe having read this:

Now I don't know the first thing about snow tire design. But I'm guessing that a guy named Jurgen must, right? I mean, the internets tell me he's probably of Scandinavian origin, and who knows more about snow than Scandinavians? (hush up, you Minnesotans, the Scandinavians of North America).

I am less enthused about this model name, though:

Granted, I know about as much about volcanoes as I do about snow tire design or Scandinavians, but as my almost-five-year-old nephew tells me, volcanoes are full of hot lava, and thus (one must assume) wholly incompatible with snow.

Tonight's snow is pretty wussy, nothing that inspires me to wrestle Jurgen's inappropriately named handiwork onto my rims for tomorrow's commute. But by golly, when the big one hits, I'll be ready.

Comfort Zones, or What Happens When You Assume

2011-11-09T19:52:00.000-06:00

As a cyclist, I have some sacred cows. I admit it. I ride overbuilt steel forks because, well, using a wisp of gram-shaved carbon as the only line of defense between my face and the pavement isn't worth whatever miniscule weight/ride feel benefit it might confer. All my bikes have fenders because, well, I don't like having a wet butt.

And, until last week, all my bikes had the bars cranked WAY up high. The main steed sports a stem that looks like it escaped from a box-store comfort bike. The tandem has a serious up-jutter mounted on top of a stem riser for good measure. And when I ordered my Swift Folder, I bought the biggest "size" (they're all the same size, but hang with me) just so I could get the crazy-tall stem extension. On top of that extension, I put a stem with some rise just because, well, I thought I should.

This all goes back (gulp -- am I this old?) 14 years, to my days as an angst-ridden graduate student in a creative writing program. Spent my days poring over student essays on "What I Think I Need To Write In Order To Make This Weirdo Pass Me" and my nights pounding away at "What I Think I Need To Write To Impress Professors And/Or Get A Book Deal" -- leaving precious little time for riding. I got chubby, and thus could no longer tolerate the riding position on my go-fast that had been honed over years of doing nothing but working in shops and riding when I wasn't working in shops.

Then I discovered (fanfare) the Nitto Technomic. Fetish object of Grant Petersen, gateway drug to recumbents, and savior of fat men with bad backs the world over:

So much quill, it's probably illegal in five states and indecent in seven more. But that quasi-phallic aluminum monstrosity let me get back on my racerboy bike with some modicum of comfort (the frame still only took 23mm tires at best, so there was a limit) and even got my corpulent arse through the Tour of the Scioto River Valley in '97 (clocking a personal best century time on the first day thanks to a friendly tailwind and an even friendlier tandem that let me sit in). I was sold, and my bars have stayed in the stratosphere ever since.

Until last week, that is. For reasons that escape me entirely, I got a weird itch to see just what it might feel like to get those bars a little lower. I started by moving the Swift's stem down on its extension -- which has maybe a half inch of range. Big whoop. So I got extra-crazy and flipped the stem over. Stepped back, braced myself, waited for lightning to strike... nothing.

But the ride? Transformed! A little weight on that little front wheel, and all traces of twitchiness went away (not that it was a twitchy bike to begin with). My hands weren't entirely pleased with having to support a bit more of my girth, but my lower back (where I fully expected punishment) sang hallelujah. The wonky disc (that likes to bulge out from time to time and send me into spasm just to remind me that I'm a geezer) found its happy place right away. And -- knock wood -- it appears to be staying there.

Obligatory disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, I don't play one on TV, and medical advice gleaned from a random blog is worth just about what you pay for it. I can't say that lowering (or raising) your bars or changing your saddle or trying different pedals or riding a recumbent or doing your favorite loop backwards is going to be some amazing revelation that will cure male pattern baldness, get you the big promotion, and make you the life of the party. I can say, however, that if you get too deep in your own rut (as I'm often wont to do), you close yourself off to the possibility that something better (or, heck, just something different and/or fun) might be out there. Give it a shot. You might like it.

Shoes: A Guest Review (Or, I'm Too Lazy To Write Yet Again)

2011-10-24T11:47:00.000-05:00

Esteemed guest reviewer James Black (who you may remember from my praise-riddled introduction) has been kind enough to ride and review the Chrome Kursks that didn't quite fit my chubby dogs. Since the weather's gorgeous here in Iowa today, I'm turning this space over to James and heading out for a ride. Ah, the joys of being an editor -- especially when the source material doesn't need any editing.

If you like what you read below and also happen to dig architecture (Mr. Black's day job), he also puts out a darn fine blog on the subject called The Lower Modernisms.

Okay, the link juice is sprinkled, the sun is out, and my tires are aired up. James, make yourself at home, and help yourself to anything you find in the fridge.

Jason offered me a great opportunity here – he sends me free shoes and all I have to do is hijack his blog with a spew of my opinions? Having the correct size foot is a key that can open doors. Thanks, Jason, for giving me hipper feet for this brief episode in my life.

Knowing that positive reviews are both boring and harder to write, I endeavored to take my role as a critic seriously and find a way to complain about the failures of the Chrome Kursk. I wore this pair of size 9 1/2 Kursk sneakers most days for a month and offer this report: I grudgingly approve of the Kursk and acknowledge that they are pretty okay.

APPEARANCE:
I am a little ambivalent about how they look. Although I am but 35 years of age, I have the tastes and preferences of an 80-year-old statesman and usually favor ugly, heavy, traditional shoes of leather. Looking down at these sneaks is like finding a child-man has taken over my lower body. The Chrome imagery probably appeals to these kids today, with the pseudo Czarist-Sovietskikh imagery reminiscent of the propaganda-styled work of successful sell-out Shepard Fairey of “OBEY” fame. I am a bit skeptical. Does the Chrome brand really have street credibility? I find this imagery a little contrived, but the red-on-black does have a winning graphic boldness.

Three of my coworkers complimented me on my new sneakers, including one unexpected “nice dogs.” Usually I get no compliments on anything I wear, so I interpret this as evidence of how misaligned my taste is.

Visually these shoes cut a profile more lithe- and long-looking than most sneaks, including the Vans and Converse that set the precedent for this type of shoe. They look sharp. They pair better with slimmer-cut trousers.

PERFORMANCE:
I have moderately narrow feet and typically wear shoes in size 9 1/2 or 10. I tied these on and immediately felt that my smallest toe was constricted – the double-needle seam behind the rubber toe top lands right on my toe where the shoe bends when my foot flexes. Although otherwise the shoes fit very well, I feel that the toe box is both too narrow and not high enough. This sensation made walking rather uncomfortable, although not rising to the level of painful. Initial expectations were quite low. But surprise finale: Quite unexpectedly, after a few weeks something in the shoe has evidently yielded and they have become more comfortable and less pinchy.

Over the course of the month I walked about 60 miles in the Kursks, and rode about 120 miles on bicycles equipped with rat-trap pedals and toe clips and straps. While walking my initial three-mile trip to work, I experienced some rubbing at the top back of the heel, but this later went away. Keeping the laces tied nice and tight helped ameliorate the rubbing. The laces are too long, but the elastic “lace-keeper” does its job.

Aside from the aforementioned issues, the shoes worked well for the long walks – the stiffened sole did not impede walking, and the oval-shaped heel cutout fitted with gel insert seemed to perform as intended. My heel bottoms felt great after walking.

My longest bicycle ride while wearing these shoes was about 40 miles. In past personal experience, when riding in lightweight canvas Vans sneakers, the flexible soles allow a caged-style pedal to become torturously painful after about 20 miles of riding, so I needed to find out how the Kursk would hold up. They did fine, my feet grumbled about nothing other than Pinchy Toebox.

The sole rubber is very sticky – so sticky that they make it slightly difficult to slide one’s foot into the toe clip. This is probably a good feature for those that ride with no foot retention. Despite the stickiness, the soles show little wear after all the walking, just a slight rounding off at the back of the heel.

The uppers are made from a sandwich of durable, abrasion-resistant Cordura nylon on the outside, a lighter-weight canvas of unknown material on the inside, and some kind of padding or other material sandwiched between. This is quite a difference from the single-ply cotton canvas of traditional sneakers. Cotton canvas is breathable, stretchy, and water-absorbent; the Kursk uppers are none of these, and therefore not so comfortable. I didn’t get a chance to try them in the rain, but I expect they are pretty waterproof. I also found them uncomfortably warm on hot days and they made my feet feel clammy in a way that I don’t experience wearing leather shoes. This may be more satisfactory in colder climates than my own Los Angeles.

After 60 miles of walking and a month of usage, the only real sign of wear is a delamination of the piping that joins the sole to the upper where the forefoot bends, as you can see in the picture. That will probably get worse, but then I will have more street cred when my shoes show some beausage*.

On the whole, I like them okay and will continue to wear them, but they would need a bigger toebox for me to call them comfortable and offer unqualified praise. Chrome, please listen to the clamor of the broadfooted masses and offer these sneakers in a wider fit at the forefoot.

*Exposition from your friendly neighborhood editor here: "Beausage" is a term coined by Grant Petersen of Rivendell Bicycle Works. It combines the words "beauty" and "usage" to describe the type of worn-in beauty that comes from using an object for its intended purpose. Being a bit of a linguistic retrogrouch, I'd grumble that Petersen could have just stuck with "patina" and spared us a clumsy French-sounding neologism, but as a good host, I'll leave it in my guest's text and keep my whining down here in a small footnote.

Medium-Rare, Please

2011-10-20T20:00:00.000-05:00

Jeez, in all my shoe prattle, I totally missed the opportunity to introduce the replacements for my beloved (and be-shredded) VP-565 pedals.

I give you... THE SHIN-BURGER 9000!

In case the watermark doesn't give it away, I horked that image from danscomp.com, which is my preferred Interwebs vendor for all things small-wheeled, gnarly and rad. Yes, a fat geezer does sometimes order from a BMX shop. I gotta get my flat-brimmed caps from somewhere, don't I?

Okay, so the real name of that pedal isn't the Shin-Burger 9000. It's the much less compelling Wellgo MG-4A. But as you can see by the beckoning, fang-like Pins of Gore, it really deserves a grisly moniker. I have no idea why I had a pair of these kicking around my parts boxes. Frankly, they scare me. If -- through some bizarre flailing -- your foot gets loose from these babies, just hit the eject button, get yourself well clear of the vehicle, and abort the mission. Otherwise, they will draw blood. A lot of it. From you, from innocent bystanders, from a stone, you name it.

By the way, the definition of marital trust? I used to have these on my end of the tandem, where it was my (lovely, wonderful) spouse who held the power of life and death at every stop. If she'd ever spun those things backwards when my stance wasn't quite wide enough, I would have needed a Camelbak full of A-positive.

On the upside, MG-4As (a.k.a. Shin-Burger 9000s) are pretty cheap (like $20), freakishly, you-canna-change-the-laws-of-physics-Jim light, and (at least on mine) the bearings spin like they came out of some Campagnolo Skunk Works laboratory.

So, there you have it: Good pedals, though not for hemophiliacs or the faint of heart.

More Shoes Reviews For Youse

2011-10-19T19:40:00.000-05:00

Alas, the original plan to torture test my entire Imelda Marcos of Cycling closet on the same route/bike setup was thrown into disarray when I recently pulled my unintentionally wicked BMX stunt and ground the nubbins from one of my test pedals.

Luckily, I'd put a pretty decent test interval into these before I went all EXTREME:

Can we just pretend the photo quality is the result of a hastily grabbed "spy shot"?

Those are Keen Coronados, not to be confused with the (supposedly) bike-specific Coronado Cruiser. Can you tell the difference, other than a $20 "bikers are gullible" MSRP bump on the Cruisers? Yeah, me neither. And I've actually put both on my chubby little feet.

Now, this is not the first time I've raved about Keens, as I am mightily wide of foot. Their sandals are my go-to "flat pedals of summer" shoes, and these Coronados are quickly stepping up (hah! see, a shoe pun!) as a worthy winter alternative. They are, like most (bitter rant on why I can't say "all" forthcoming) things Keen, as wide as the day is long. Putting my 4Es into these babies is the foot-equivalent of napping solo on a California King bed. I could probably add a sixth toe in there (assuming my buddy Walter can get me one) and still not feel cramped.

But how, blabbermouth, do they work on the bike, I can hear you asking. Just hunky and dory. You may recall that in the post that kicked off this self-indulgent shoe-gazing, I griped about the plasticky coating on the sole of new Converse Chuck Taylors. Keen has some of that (the lighter grayish area around the perimeter), but the darker spots on the heel and under the ball of the foot (right where it counts for pedaling) are good ol' fashioned rubbery rubber that grabs a pedal and hangs on tight, wet or dry. Not quite as "krazy glue" grabby as the Chrome Kursk, but plenty grabby for typical urban maneuvers. And although there's nothing bike-specific about these soles, they're still plenty stiff for a chubby middle-aged man to do a laughable quasi-sprint. The uppers are a hemp-ish fabric that does zilch for weather resistance but seems to breathe well and has held up quite nicely on the mean streets (and in the mean cubicles) of downtown Des Moines.

Downsides? Well, obviously, if you don't have a wide foot, these probably aren't for you. And while you can tell that they've kinda-sorta been inspired by the iconic Chuck, they still... well... how to say this nicely... look like Keens. Hey, I won't lie. That big ol' clown-shoe toe bumper is an acquired taste. I'm guessing it doesn't play well with toeclips either, though that was not part of my test protocol. Oh, and those dang eyelets are aluminum again. Can you tell I have some serious emotional issues when it comes to aluminum oxide schmutz on my socks?

In the great balancing act between comfort, cost, looks, and durability, though, these hit the happy spot for my feet, my ego, and my wallet... and despite my one little bit of Keen bitterness (it's still coming), I'll probably buy another pair when I finally kill these.

Okay, so the bitterness: A few years ago, Keen decided to get into the dedicated bike shoe (as in, "bolt cleats to 'em and clip in") business and introduced the Commuter sandal. And, having been a gigantic fanboy of the Newport H2 upon which said Commuter SEEMED to be based, I simply HAD to have a pair. But, dad-gummit, gol-durnit, and a dozen other angry Yosemite Sam-isms, those Keen keenuckleheads made the Commuter NARROW. Uh, what's the one defining characteristic of a Keen shoe or sandal? It's WIDE. And what's wrong with just about every bike shoe ever made? They're NARROW. So why on earth would you a) pass up the woefully under-served fat-footed cyclist demographic AND b) annoy the snot out of loyal Keen biker-customers who were just waiting for you to dip a big clown-shoe toe bumper into the bike shoe market?

I'm getting over it. Slowly. But Keen, if you're listening, you might be able to appease me by making a REAL Keen bike shoe (width: California King) and sending me a pair of size 10s to test. Just sayin' is all.

Tektro Brake Levers: A Love-Hate Relationship, Defined

2011-10-16T16:47:00.000-05:00

First, some history: In The Beginning, there was the first-generation Campagnolo Ergopower lever. It was fat. The top was flat. And it was good.

(I horked this image from here.)

These things were so stinkin' comfortable that I recall twisted tales of retro-grouches who would gut the shifting mechanisms just to be able to pair the ergonomics of the Campy brake lever with whatever antiquated shifting system the grouch in question preferred (usually a whittled stick twined to the top tube used to poke the chain from one cog to the next).

Since retro-grouches didn't (and don't) pay the bills at Campy World Headquarters, nobody said, "Hey, let's pre-gut these things and overcharge for them!" Instead, it took the more downmarket-minded folks at Tektro to see (and grab) an opportunity with their R200 levers:

(Thanks for the pic, Harris Cyclery.)

Not only were the R200s every bit as comfortable as the Campys, they also stole (er, "paid homage to") their Italian counterpart's quick-release button, allowing the rider to open the brake wide to get a fat tire out. And -- very much UNLIKE just about anything Campy -- the Tektros were (and are) cheap, cheap, cheap, like twenty bucks a pair. Of course, if you're the sort of rider who thinks that brand-name canned beans taste better than the ones from the can that just says "beans", you can pay more for the Cane Creek version with some lizards on the hoods and a bit of silk-screened prestige.

Now, Campy folks are not stupid. Eventually, they did come out with their pre-gutted version, but of course, it was made of carbon with the cremated remains of Fausto Coppi in the resin and thus cost two-hundred friggin' U.S. dollars. Yes, seriously. That's a BRAKE lever with NO shifting mechanism. Here, I'll prove it with an Amazon link, since I'm sure you're just itching to buy a pair and keep this blog in the black for a few years:

Okay, so the Tektros. Cheap, comfy, ideal for retro-grouchery, so you're wondering where the "hate" is in the love-hate relationship, right? Well, let's just say that I've had some issues with design and quality control that would lead me to believe there's a catch to the $20 price point.

First, the quality control: These are not the most precise bits of bicycle engineering you'll ever hold in your hand. They'll rattle a bit when installed. And it's kind of luck of the draw whether you'll get a pair with the value-added feature of PPM: Perpetual Pivot Migration. Basically, the pin that the lever turns on will back itself out of the lever just the tiniest bit every time you brake. But if this were the only downside, I'd just keep pushing that pivot back in, delete the "hate" from the relationship and make these bad boys a Hail to the Cheap award winner.

The real crushing flaw of these levers is under the skin. The cable path runs directly in front of the clamp bolt, making it a real bear to tighten these things on the bars with a cable installed. And -- even worse -- it's very easy for a klutzy mechanic (namely, yours truly) to get access to that bolt from a slight angle (working around the cable) and accidentally cross-thread the bolt into the clamp nut. Once you've done that, I hope you like the position of the lever on the bar, because it's now permanent. When you try to loosen the bolt, it will just spin the nut in the clamp. Swear all you want (believe me, I tried), but you're not getting that lever off the bars. The only fix i've found once you've made the fatal error is to a) Dremel (VERY GENTLY!) through the clamp without nicking your handlebars to free the lever from the bars, b) drill out the bolt/nut interface (without gouging yourself on the sharp edges of the Dremel-cut clamp band) to free the clamp from the lever body, and c) replace all that shredded hardware with a bolt/clamp from a donor lever. I'm ashamed to admit that, lacking in parts donors, I now have a couple clampless Tektro levers rattling around my parts box after being surgically removed from bars after a ham-fisted cross-threading.

So, alas, while cheap and almost ridiculously comfy, the Tektro lever is not for the rider who likes Swiss precision or the mechanic who likes to futz. When this blog makes its first bazillion, maybe I'll drop the coin on those Campys (or -- hint, hint -- maybe Campy wants to send me a review pair?) In the meantime, I'll just keep pushing pivots and wrenching with EXTREME caution.

Nocturnal Predator Ride Report

2011-10-12T19:24:00.000-05:00

Had a close encounter of the skunk variety on last night's ride -- luckily, I'd just turned on my headlight, which a) allowed me to see him in plenty of time, and b) spooked him off (I came to a dead stop and used the light to chase him out of my path from a very-safe distance). Not much else to say about it, but it did remind me of this oldie-but-an-oldie (circa ought-four) from my days of frequent posting to the iBOB retro-grouchery club. Translation: "I'm too lazy to write something new." (Attempt to) enjoy!

Went for my first night ride of the fall on Saturday,armed with LEDs front and rear. Was struck by howunusual my usual rail-trail could seem simply becauseof the darkness: Strange noises in the woods, pocketsof especially warm or cold air, odd intrusions oflight ("What's that green glow? Oh, a Mountain Dewvending machine on the golf course. Is thatlightning? No, strobe lights from the airport.")

As I cleared the light pollution of the city, Iclicked off all but the bare minimum candlepower toenjoy the stars. Whizzing along, I started to feellike I'd make a pretty bad-ass nocturnal predator...practically silent, fast, able to navigate on sound,instinct and the faint glow of a couple LEDs. Thatis, until I happened upon a family of five raccoons onthe trail.

There was a narrow line between the ringed tails andblack masks, and just enough reaction time for me topick it out. Unfortunately, no sooner did I see itand commit myself than my furry friends saw me andscattered. I'm more than a little glad that Icouldn't see what happened... between the angrychattering, the feeling of something being struck hardby my left pedal, something else hitting the rightside of my back wheel hard enough to knock it offline, and my little-girl shriek (so much for thebad-ass nocturnal predator), I'm sure it was an uglyscene. I flashed briefly on an image of me going downand being swarmed by pissed-off raccoons, but managedto keep everything upright. By the time I skidded toa halt, turned around, and fired up all my lights,they were gone. No sign of blood, which, combinedwith the fact that they were all able to skeedaddle, Itook as a good sign that I didn't inflict a mortalwound.

Moral: Just because you can ride fast in the darkdoesn't mean you should. And maybe one of thosewheel-driven bells that runs all the time would be agood idea...

The Daily Grind

2011-10-06T21:06:00.000-05:00

Had a close encounter of the vehicular kind this morning, though it was -- of all things -- a motorcycle. Thankfully, the only harm done (other than to my fragile psyche) was the ground-up pedal you see above. Those silver circles on the right side used to be three-dimensional cast traction pins, but they've been ground flush to the pedal body. The pedal reflector is pretty shredded, and the right side of the body lost a bit of paint for good measure. I was ready to just live with a slightly less grippy pedal, but the weird wobble underfoot on the homeward commute tells me that I bent the spindle pretty badly too. I could save it with some heroic measures, but they were $15 pedals to begin with (the humble VP-565, which you may know from such posts as Chapter 1 of my Hail to the Cheap series). Methinks they're recycling fodder now, the Viking funeral of bike parts.

My amateur CSI reconstruction of the near-accident scene? I was making a fast downhill left turn with a green turn arrow in my favor when Mr. Moto (in the stopped oncoming lane) decided he could make a right on red... thus, two bodies on two-wheeled vehicles were about to occupy the same little nook of the time/space continuum. What follows is pure conjecture, as I was running on instinct and adrenaline (with the blessing of a predictable bike underfoot), but I think I straightened the bike up a little so I could grab lots of brake without sliding out. That allowed me to (just) slip behind the moto, but my line through the curve was thrown WAY off, so I stuffed my outside pedal into the curb before I could get back on track. I'm sure the resulting grind of metal on concrete (which seemed to last for days) would have gotten me mad props (really, old man? mad props?) from the BMX set, though. How I rode out the other side of all that without tasting pavement is a mystery to me.

So, the moral? Two wheels aren't ALWAYS good. But when two wheels and two wheels meet at high speed and close proximity, the resulting four wheels are DEFINITELY bad.

Unexpected Elegance

2011-10-01T09:31:00.001-05:00

I was reminded the other night of one of my favorite things about cycling compared to other sports. I was driving to the store and came up behind a guy on a bike. Initially, I was kind of annoyed -- he was a classic cycle ninja, riding after dark in dark clothes with no lights, his spinning pedal reflectors the only obvious indication that he was there.

I was about to make a right turn, so I slowed down -- didn't want the bad karma of "pass followed by immediate right." And, being a bike nerd, I watched him while I waited. He was a college kid (sheesh, old man, people in college are now "kids"?) on an old ten-speed, sneakers without socks, long baggy basketball shorts, t-shirt, backpack. Built kind of like my dad... heavy-set, stumpy little legs, long torso. Nothing about this guy screamed "athlete" at me, let alone "cyclist."

But here's the thing: This guy had the smoothest, most elegant, most effortless looking pedal stroke I'd seen in a long time. He wasn't moving all that fast, but talk about making circles. I think the French word for it is "souplesse." It was a master class in turning pedals.

That, to me, is what makes cycling great. So many other sports have terribly high barriers to elegant entry. When I go running, it looks like I'm having a seizure in (very) slow motion. Swimming for me is a frantic exercise in not drowning. Combine me with pretty much any sport involving a ball or a stick and you'll get a laughable demonstration of just how uncoordinated the human body can be. I was quasi-decent in football as an offensive lineman when I just had to take a couple steps and run into someone, but if I had to pull and deliver a lead block on a sweep? Forget about it.

On a bike, however, just about anyone can give the impression that they know what they're doing. My dad -- whose genes are primarily responsible for the comedy of errors described above -- could do a cowboy-mount into clipless pedals that was like fat-man bicycle ballet. When I sprint through downtown and catch a glimpse of my reflection in the plate glass windows, I think, "geez, THAT guy looks good on a bike." My grandparents could handle a two-ton Schwinn tandem like they were of one mind. None of us were "taught" by experienced cyclists. We just rode a lot, and -- I suspect -- some of the elegance of the machine rubbed off.

Guest Reviewer: Found!

2011-09-25T22:25:00.000-05:00

After an exhaustive cross-country search filled with wacky, madcap adventures, I have finally found a new home (and a new reviewer) for those Chrome Kurks that simply refused to fit on my mutant flippers. The shoes are now WAY over on the Left Coast with one James Black, no doubt being exhaustively tested as we speak.

Since I know the reader(s) of this blogbabble are a highly refined and selective bunch, let's lay down Mr. Black's bona fides:

One, like myself, he's a long-time member of the Internet-BOB list, a cantankerous collection of bike geekery if ever there was one, and one of the few groups that passes the Groucho Marx Paradox, insofar as it will have me as a member yet I still want to be a part of it.
Two, the dude a-rides. 'Nuff said.
Three, he's the curator of one of the coolest Swift folding bikes I've seen in pixels. In fact, his Swift was in no small part responsible for me popping for my own tiny-wheeled bundle of fun.
Four, he has a wool cycling cap named after him. Do you have a wool cycling cap named after you? I didn't think so. (Pipe down back there, Mr. Kucharik.)
Five, he designed his own cargo bike and had it built. Yes, seriously.

I'm going to shut up now, since I'm starting to convince myself that my guest reviewer is more qualified to write my blog than I am. But watch this space, since James will be putting the Kursks to the test and providing his thoughts. And James, as we like to say here in Iowa, wave the next time you fly over.

Don't Snooze! It's Shoes Reviews, Part 2s!

2011-09-18T15:08:00.002-05:00

Full disclosure: Somehow, the people at Chrome got the impression that I was actually a legitimate blogger, and I wound up on their PR person's mailing list. So when I started this crazy multi-shoe shootout, I dropped said PR person a line and said hey, could you comp me some shoes? (in a Bill Murray/Caddyshack "How about a little somethin', you know, for the effort?" voice). And I'll be danged if they didn't send me these Kursks, gratis:

Unfortunately, my mutant feet are going to prevent me from completing my full, rigorous "to-the-death" testing protocol on these, but as the slight sole-schmutz indicates, I did put some miles on them. I'm going to seek out a guest reviewer/guest blogger who'll fit them better (how very Cinderfella, no?) for a more complete abusing.

So, my wordy mini-review. First, the look: It's pretty obvious that these were meant to ape (and improve on) the iconic Converse Chuck Taylor. Same basic sneaker style, updated with different materials and a bit of Chrome hipster/skater/way-too-cool-for-old-fart-Iowa-bloggers aesthetic. I asked for something "subtle" (since I intended to wear them in a corporate cube) and got the Knight Rider colorway shown above -- not bad. There's also an all-black Darth Vader colorway, plus brown, grey, red, blue, green, and (gulp) pink. They're a little logo'ed out, but nowhere near the NASCAR-feet look of a full-blown cycling shoe.

As for the fit: The Chrome-folk suggested a 9.5 when I told them I wear a Converse 10, and that should have been a direct hit. Lay the soles of the 9.5 against my battered Chuck 10s, and it's a darn good match. The catch, though, is that a) I wear those wacky custom orthotics, and b) I have feet the width of shoeboxes. In cotton Converse, no biggie... they start out snug, but the canvas gives until they're molded to my flippers. The Cordura in the Chromes, while probably insanely tough, doesn't seem to want to mold. And the super-cushy insole (which way outclasses the Converse) is NOT orthotic or wide-foot friendly. It definitely eats up some of the shoe's already limited volume.

So I busted out my thinnest wool socks and set to work. With the stock insoles, the balls of my feet felt pretty crunched. Take 'em out, plenty of space -- but no support. Add the orthotics? Crazy squeaky plastic-on-plastic contact. So I ended up using some cheap over-the-counter foam orthotics to get some support without taking up too much space.

Out on the road (finally!) I was pretty darn impressed. The sole is crazy grippy right out of the box, to the point where moving my foot on the pinned pedal meant lifting it up and putting it back down where I wanted it. The Chromes also feel noticeably lighter than Chucks while providing comparable cushioning. I'm no weight weenie, but I do like the feel of a light shoe when I have to spin it around a few thousand times. And one more tiny happy detail -- the eyelets are made out of something (maybe stainless steel?) that doesn't leave black marks on your socks. The aglets (yeah, it's a real word -- now you actually learned something from this blog) are big and made of the same stuff, which led to one nit-pick: They make a RACKET against the shoe, your chainring, and anything else that happens to be nearby when you're spinning. Definitely double-knot those laces to keep the ends short.

Still, as much as I wanted to love these, after a week of short commutes and a couple longer rides, I had to admit to myself that they didn't fit. Even just tooling around town, I got the telltale hot spot under the ball of my foot that told me my way-wide forefoot was being squashed together. Drat.

So, to summarize: Nice materials, seemingly quality construction (though I obviously didn't pummel them enough to know for sure), but not for me until they come in Wide. Hopefully, my search for a guest reviewer will find a narrow-footed tester who can really give them a going-over and report back on the long-term value proposition. They are 2x the price of Chucks (at $70 MSRP) -- a lot for made-in-China sneakers, admittedly -- but if the nicer materials can double up the lifespan, it could be a good trade.

A Musical (Yet Vaguely Topical) Interlude

2011-09-14T20:30:00.000-05:00

Seeing as I haven't completed my rigorous testing protocol on the next victim... er, test subject in my shoe-shootout, I believe I'll wander off on a tangent.

Y'see, as I alluded in a recent post, I used to make vaguely musical noise on a variety of low-frequency, four-string devices. As a tyke, in fact, I was kinda good at it -- until I decided I was too good to practice, got passed by the kids who did practice, got discouraged, and gave it up (my sister, on the other hand, continued to clarinet her lips off, and now has dueling gigs as a real music teacher/working musician to show for it).

But recently, I got the bug to play again, so I popped into the local guitar shops and found some interesting (to me, at least) parallels to another shop world where I've spent way too much time, namely, the bike shop. To whit:

THEY DON'T MAKE 'EM HERE ANY MORE: Now, that isn't entirely true in either the bike or the guitar shop. You can get a Wisconsin-made Trek in one, and a California-made Fender in the other. But it would seem that the majority of the attainable instruments in either place (read: "the ones with a price tag that a hack like myself can justify") are coming from over the pond. So I pulled down a $350 made-in-China Squier P-bass (which at least wears its made-in-China-ness proudly, under the lacquer rather than on a cheesy and easily removed sticker), started plonking, and discovered...

THE CHEAP (or at least midrange) ONES ARE GETTING BETTER: Don't get me wrong... you'll find some really low-end stuff in both places that barely passes for a toy. But take the escalator up just one floor from the bargain basement and you'll get something pretty rideable/playable. The snobs will snub your Deore drivetrain, but it won't slow you down. Same with that Squier... there was a time I would have snorted at it as a kid's bass, but when I made horrible sounds with it (and believe me, I did), I couldn't blame the bass.

A GOOD SHOP MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE: Being a vaguely savvy shopper, I played the same bass at two different shops (one local/independent, one national chain, though I'd hesitate to make a generalization based on that). The big-box-bass felt like they'd just pulled the thing off the truck and hung it on the wall. At the local joint, even my ham-fists could tell that someone had taken the time to set the instrument up. It felt better in my hands and sounded better even before I plugged it in. Same thing happens at the bike shop... even a top-of-the-line bike will feel like a dog if it hasn't been set up by someone who knows what they're doing, and even a humble midrange ride can fly when it's properly prepped.

Okay, enough with the almost-serious parallels. How about some weird ones?

THE RETRO MARKETING GIMMICK RULES: Did I mention that the Squier I was so enamoured with happened to be a knockoff of a '50s Fender "tele-bass" Precision? A cheap copy, sure, nothing like the original, sure, but dang, the look had me reaching for my wallet before my brain could register what was happening. In the bike shop, see "every stinkin' Raleigh model designed to ape the vintage Frenchy stuff that's all the rage at the handbuilt bike shows these days."

BEWARE THE CTM: That's "Crap-Talking Male". You know the guy. Looks like he's never even SEEN a bike, much less pedaled one, but wants to tell you all about how back-in-the-day he had this all-Campy Colnago, used to race it, ya know, boy, those were the days... (cut to time-lapse of clock hands spinning) ... of course, we rode tubulars then, these kids now wouldn't know how to mount a tubular to save their lives, but what a sweet ride... (more clock hands spinning). Every bike shop's got one, and every bike shop employee learns to run at the sight of his car. And guess what? The guitar shop has 'em too... except (gasp, shudder) in the guitar shop, I'm the CTM. Yeah, started on upright, man, that's how you build hand strength, high action and a neck like a baseball bat (clock spinning) then had this gorgeous sunburst '62 Jazz reissue, tone that wouldn't quit, super-fast (clock spinning) but tough times, had to pawn the Jazz, yeah, sucks (clock spinning) so starting to play again, thinking maybe I like the nut width and fingerboard radius on that Precision...

It's funny, whenever I go back to that shop, the whole staff is busy doing inventory in the back room. Go figure.

The Great 2011 Sneaker Shootout, Part 1

2011-09-10T18:13:00.000-05:00

I'm lucky enough to have the stereotypical "IT guy" dress code at my day job, despite the fact that I'm just an IT guy wannabe. Combine that with a very short commute between The Cycle World Headquarters and the corporate Borg cube, and I'm fast becoming a real snob when it comes to biking-compatible sneakers. With the collection of aging-hipster-slacker-footwear growing at an embarrassing rate, I figured it was time for an EPIC SHOE REVIEW in MULTIPLE PARTS! (tah-dah!)

Some baseline information before I begin: All shoes are being tested on the budget VP platform pedals I raved about recently, mounted on the Swift folder I refuse to shut up about. The test protocol is "ride a short distance in the quasi-urban jungle of Des Moines, IA, do a desk job all day (with the occasional walking jaunts around the downtown Des Moines human ant farm/skywalk system), then hop back on the bike for the ride home." This is not a test of normal looking shoes that work with clipless pedals -- I feel astonishingly dumb using clipless for my around-town bike. It's just a side-by-side comparison of regular old sneakers (some made for biking, some not) as used on the bike.

One other bit of weirdness that will make this test far from useful for normal humans: I usually wear custom podiatrist-crafted orthotics in my shoes (one benefit of dating a podiatrist's daughter in a previous life), so the fact that most of these sneakers have ZERO support (and aren't supremely stiff) makes little difference to me. You could replicate these results with your own orthotics (our staff graphic designer likes SOLE footbeds). I also have mutant-wide feet, so your results may vary. You've been warned.

The benchmark sneaker that everyone knows is (of course) the Converse Chuck Taylor. I don't even have to provide a link. Fashion icon, been around since dirt was new (my DAD wore them in GRADE SCHOOL, for Pete's sake), freaking ubiquitous. Here's my last pair, at the end of their run as a test shoe:

Bias alert: I love these things. But as a daily commuter shoe, they are far from perfect in their current incarnation. The aluminum eyelets (while iconic) will leave black aluminum oxide schmutz on light-colored socks, and seem to let the laces loosen up a bit over time. The more damning criticism of Mr. Taylor, though, is in the sole. The old (U.S.-made) Chuck had a very soft, grippy sole compound right out of the box. The new (Chinese-made) sole has a plasticky "skin" over the rubber (not unlike what you'd find on overcooked pudding) that has next-to-zero grip in the dry and less-than-zero grip in the rain. My suspicion is that this is a layer of mold-release compound that keeps the sole from sticking to its mold in the factory. You have to wear these things on concrete for a while to scuff through that before they're really ideal for pedals.

The other issue that knocked Chuck down in my test protocol is the failure mode shown here:

See that little gap? That's the spot where repeated flex (combined with the insane width of my feet) opens up the connection between the sole and the upper. In its early stages, it just makes a little opening to let in (more) rain. Over time, it becomes a terminal condition. These haven't reached full-blowout failure yet, but they're headed there.

But I keep coming back to Chas for one simple reason: They feel good. Despite looking painfully narrow, my wide dogs love 'em. The cotton canvas (which, warning, does NOTHING to keep out weather) forms itself to the bizarre shape of my feet like nothing else. A worn-in pair of these is like socks with soles. Still, since this was a test shoe I bought with my own cash, I wish they lasted longer and cost less. Grumpy old man mode: I remember when the U.S.-made ones were $30. Now, suggested retail on the Chinese-made ones is something like $45 (though they can be had for as cheap as $25 if you do some hunting and can live with last year's colors -- which would indicate to me that they've become a fashion item rather than a functional shoe, thus answering the question of why they cost so much for so little durability).

Oh, one other upside (geez, I'm in a rambling state of mind today)... when these get dirty, you can throw them in the washing machine (but not the dryer, obviously). Not sure if this is manufacturer-recommended (or if it's contributing to a shortened lifespan), but it does help keep them compliant with a corporate-extra-casual dress code after a particularly messy ride.

Iced, To Go

2011-09-01T15:30:00.000-05:00

At long last, I've found the crossover point between my crippling bicycle addiction and my crippling coffee addiction:

The Great Convergence consists of:

An 18-ounce Kleen Kanteen water bottle, which you may know from such posts as The 12 6 Days of Festivus, Part 1.
A regular old neoprene can-insulator-cozy-thingie. Not an essential element of the Great Convergence, but nice to have. Keeps the bottle from rattling in your cage, if nothing else. Mine's from local convenience store chain and cyclist oasis Kum & Go (which has a corresponding immature rhyming nickname, but I'm trying to reclaim this place as a family blog after my potty-mouthedness earlier this week. If you figure it out, keep it to yourself.)
One packet of Starbucks Via instant iced coffee mix. Yes, I know, boo, hiss, Starbucks. Stay with me, fellow coffee snobs.

So here's the deal. You're out on a ride, and your energy's flagging. Dang, a little caffeine would just about do the trick right now. Luckily, you're carrying your water in an 18-ounce stainless steel bottle and you just happen to be packing one of those Starbucks packets. Pour one into the other (do I have to specify which way to pour, or can I trust you not to try to put 18 ounces of water into a packet the size of your thumb?), shake well, and chugalug. Instant cold energy. Even better, if you happen to be near one of those Kum & Go stores, pop in and hit them up for some ice. You're carrying an advertisement for them... how can they refuse?

Proponents of plastic bottles will no doubt let me know that there's nothing in this recipe that requires stainless steel... but I suspect that getting the coffee taste (and color) out of a plastic bottle could be a challenge. The Kleen Kanteens (as their name suggests) kleen up nicely post-coffee-portage. Thus, I recommend 'em over plastic in this application.

Is it the world's greatest, most wonderfullest coffee? Nah. But it's surprisingly tolerable for being a) instant, b) Starbucks, and c) instant Starbucks. Plus, the cold Via packets have some sugar in them, so there's the tiniest simple-carbs kick on top of the caffeine. All things considered, it makes for an easy and tasty mid-ride pick-me-up.

Novara's Near Miss

2011-08-31T15:30:00.000-05:00

As promised, here's that micro-review of the Novara Verita I fondled during a recent jaunt to the Minneapolis REI store.

The Verita fits into the category of "non-racy road bikes" -- fatter tires, fender capability, wider-range drivetrains, long-reach brakes, and a slightly more upright riding position. Back in the day, they'd be called sport-touring bikes, but nobody really uses that designation any more. The modern proto-non-racy-road-bike is probably the no-longer-made Rivendell Rambouillet (geez, don't ask me to pronounce it... I can barely spell it). Raleigh also has a nice-looking example (with fenders, even) in the Clubman. And if the rumor mill is to be believed, Surly finally wised up and reset the brake bridge/fork length on the Pacer for long-reach brakes in the 2012 model.

What I like about these bikes is that they offer the efficiency and -- let's face it -- flat-out fun of a drop-bar road bike without some of the tradeoffs that come from a one-trick-pony race bike. You can fender them up for wet days. They'll take fat rubber for rough roads (or heck, off-roading). In a pinch, you could probably rack them up for a spot of light touring. But all of this comes in a package that -- thanks to the caliper brakes -- doesn't stand out as terribly unusual at the weekly go-fast ride (assuming you have the motor for the weekly go-fast ride).

Novara's entry into this fray is pretty darn interesting. First up, you get the SRAM Apex drivetrain: a compact crank (50/34) with a crazy-wide cassette in the back (11-32). SRAM piles a lot of marketing hooey on this, but the core concept is cool... almost all the range of a triple without the hassles (and the derision of the guys -- always guys -- on that weekly go-fast ride) that a triple can bring. I've bodged together this kind of setup in the past, but for those who aren't comfortable with Frankenbikes, SRAM now has it in a "factory-approved" package.

Another good box ticked on the Verita is real Shimano calipers (a cheaper model, but real Shimano all the same). The Tektro equivalent would probably be cheaper (and look a little nicer), but I've done the side-by-side, and the Shimano will win on brake power. Those calipers (and the fact that their mounts are placed correctly) left plenty of air for fenders over the stock 700x28 Vittoria tires. Granted, those Vittorias are actually smaller than 28mm, but a good effort nonetheless.

So, you're saying, why is this bike a "near miss", Mister Critical? It's the aesthetics, of course! What else would someone with no aesthetic sense complain about? The "gold sand" color seems to be going for that retro-loving demographic, and Novara's gone for a lot of silver parts to match up with that. The catch is that SRAM only made that (previously raved about) Apex kit in black... which is kind of jarring, especially against the retro-style polished finish on the rims. The other aesthetic clunker? I know that short-and-shallow handlebars are all the rage right now, but they just look squashed and -- more importantly -- felt cramped. And bike company product managers, can we come to a little agreement? The diameter of a bike's handlebars should NOT be larger than the diameter of its top tube. I know 31.8mm is supposed to be the new standard, but it just looks bloated on a steel frame.

A couple theoretical haggles that may be unfair since the REI I visited didn't have my size, thus I couldn't really test ride... one, dang these things have steep seat tube angles. 73.5 in my size? 74 elsewhere in the range? Um, does that tri-bike come with aerobars? Mix that with the no-offset seatpost and you're gonna be living on the rivet. And two, I had to wonder about ride comfort, since the seatstays looked like kielbasa sausages. Maybe they're super-thinwall and thus absorb more shock than first impressions would indicate, but I'd bet against it.

Okay, before I become Novara persona non grata, here's how I'd do it differently. One, yes, the SRAM drivetrain is a cool selling point... but if you're trying to catch the eye of that retro demo, go Shimano instead. Silver Tiagra compact crank (still 50/34), derailleurs, STI, and a 12-27 cassette (not as wide as the SRAM, but hey, 34-27 is still pretty stump-pulling). Two, ditch that stem/bar combo and commission a cheap copy of the classic-bend Nitto 115 (in a non-oversized clamp diameter, natch). And finally, assuming the frame jigs are already set for those steep seat tube angles, at least switch out the no-offset seatpost for something that will put the rider a little further back. Then, by golly, you'd have something. Or if you want to bypass the retro crowd entirely, stick with the SRAM bits, go black with the rest of the parts (and I'll even let you keep the short-and-shallow bars if you make them black), make that seatpost swap (in black), and paint it something more classic-racy (my vote is red). Then you'd have something different, but by golly, it would still be something.

I Have The Giggles (Danger: Potty-Mouth Ahead)

2011-08-30T14:00:00.001-05:00

I try -- oh how I try -- to keep this establishment family-friendly. No cussin', no fightin', no drinkin', etc. But the postcard that our staff graphic design maven got for me from the folks (er, folk?) over at Power and Light Press gives me a serious case of the Beavis-and-Buttheads. Go buy something from them (er, her) so they (er, she) can keep making this stuff, okay?

It's going to be way down there below, in case you're reading at work and don't want naughty words popping up where your boss could see them.

So you've been warned. Scroll at your own risk.

I know it's making fun of me, since I tend to have strong (although not THAT strong) reactions to anything with a bike on it. Yet I can't look away.

(Aside to Tarik: There's also a mustache version. Methinks you need both, no? Or a specially-commissioned "Put a biker with a mustache on it..." version.)

Road Trip!

2011-08-29T13:36:00.000-05:00

Our intrepid staff just returned from a fact-finding mission to Iowa's Norse northern neighbor, Minne-SOH-tah. Fact: There are a lot of lakes up there. We weren't quite intrepid enough to determine if there were 10,000, though.

Nothing terribly bikey to report during our trip up yonder. I did hit a couple of the larger (and more dull) sources of bikestuff during some downtime, as those were the locales that I could manage with my pathetic navigational skills (to update one of my dad's favorite sayings, I couldn't find my arse with both hands and a smartphone). During said journey, I came away mildly/partially impressed by the REI house-brand Novara Verita, so I'll give that a mini "eyeball review" in another post.

One mini-plug to throw in: At a family get-together, I did get to sit and chat with cousin-in-law Banning, the owner and namesake of Banning's Bikes in Fullerton, CA. I've never set a physical foot into Banning's joint, but I keep a drool-shield on the abovementioned smartphone in anticipation of the shop photos he occasionally puts up on the Facebooks. This ain't your grandpa's Schwinn shop in the corner of a hardware store. Stunning, stunning stuff. And you can tell he's one of those shop owners who still gets little-kid excited over bikes. In fact, the dude was up at the crack-o-dawn putting in miles on a borrowed bike while yours truly was in an (ahem) "recovery phase" (translation: Zzzzzzzz...) So if any of my half-dozen readers find themselves in Fullerton, Banning will treat you right. If he doesn't, report back to me -- I have some pull with his cousin, and I have it on good authority that she will bite him if provoked.

Don Pardo, Tell Him What He's Won

2011-08-22T20:52:00.001-05:00

Congrats to loyal reader Scott of the Keystone State (or is that Keystone Commonwealth?) for completing the "Can Jason's Random Appearance As A Quasi-Extra In A Documentary Connect Him To Kevin Bacon?" quiz in record time and doing it by way of musicians in honor of the subject of the post that inspired it. Truly inspired work, my good man. Chapeau.

Of course, I didn't expect anyone to have an answer, so I had to frantically slap together this amazing prize package from the contents of my own stash:

I only had a six-month supply of Rice-a-Roni (and I'm saving that for the zombie apocalypse), so Scott will instead receive:

A lightly-used pair of Tektro cantilever/centerpull brake cable hangers in Grant Peterson-unapproved black, which he can use to either re-live the 90s halcyon days of boutique cable hangers or put on a set of vintage silver Mafac centerpulls to annoy Jan Heine.
An equally lightly used pair of Velox expanding rubber bar-end plugs, the only French component I've ever encountered that doesn't feature some bizarre non-standard dimension or reversed thread just for the sake of being contrary and annoying bike mechanics.
A stylish "I (Heart) Des Moines" rubber bracelet, which I totally dare him to wear until ten (yes, ten) people ask him, "Uh, dude, what the heck?"

But wait, there's more!

THE SUPER EXTRA BONUS GIFT, just for a) winning the contest with a musical entry, and b) admitting (off-blog) to being another member of the bass brotherhood: One autographed photo of yours truly, circa 1990, rockin' the bass guitar, a haircut somewhere between a Brian Bosworth flattop and a Mike Ditka mullet, what appears to be a sweater from the Fred Rogers collection, AND (look closely, you can just make it out) tight rolled jeans. Before the snark comes a'rollin' in, yes, I had a girlfriend at the time, and no, she was not from Canada.

Sorry, Scott, too late to withdraw your contest entry. This mind-blowing assortment of fabulosity is already on its way to you via the U.S. Postal Service. If that doesn't discourage people from taking me seriously when I invent these silly contests, I don't know what will.

How To Test A Front Fender

2011-08-21T20:50:00.000-05:00

You only need three things:
a. A bike with fenders (well, duh).
b. A cyclist with hairy legs.
c. A rainy day.

The test protocol is as follows:
1. Allow c to go on long enough to produce puddles on the road.
2. Install b on a.
3. Instruct b to go for a ride.
4. At the conclusion of said ride, inspect the leg hair of b.
(hey, nobody said science was pretty)

Is it just wet? That's just rain from above. Fender passes inspection.

Is it wet and (ee-yew) gritty? That's road schmutz that got past the fender. Fail.

You're welcome.

(Testing rear fenders involves the inspection of different anatomy, but as this is a family blog, I'll just leave it at that.)

Lead Guitar or Bass?

2011-08-19T21:27:00.002-05:00

Yet another tidbit of mundane trivia about yours truly: In a former life, lo those many years ago, I was something of a musician. Not trivial enough for you? Try this: When I was a mere teen, our pep band was selected to play at the Illinois State Basketball Tournament... the same year that the critically acclaimed documentary Hoop Dreams was shot at said tournament. So not only can I claim to have been part of a team that won (the chance to play music at) the Illinois State Basketball Championship, I was also a supporting actor (as in, I acted like I knew how to play the bass my hands were supporting) in an award-winning film. Any reader who can connect me to Kevin Bacon in six moves or less wins a prize. Seriously.

So what, says you, the exasperated reader, does any of this have to do with bicycles? I'm getting there, but you'll have to follow the digression rabbit a bit further down the hole. While I don't play nearly as much as I used to (in fact, i was axeless for the better part of 15 years), I do like to attend concerts -- which is sort of like a guy who never bikes but has every stage of the Giro on his DVR. And when I attend said concerts, I notice the following grotesque generalization:

Lead guitarists have a LOT of guitars. Bass players have one.

You've seen it too, right? The frantic roadies, scrambling to get set for Guitar Change #7, since, heaven forfend the lead slinger would have to play his solo on the BLUE Strat instead of the seemingly identical RED one... or even the OTHER blue one. Meanwhile, parked in the back next to the ride cymbal, the bass player is still thumping away on that same road-worn Precision for the whole dang show, and he'll thump away on it for the next show, and the next show, and the next show, until he finally just plays the frets off the thing and has to retire it.

So here's where we finally get to bikes, if you haven't dozed off already. My grotesque generalization (accurate or not) describes a type... and that type lives in the bike world too. You've got your lead guitar bikers, the ones who have a bike for dirt, a bike for gravel, a bike for asphalt, a bike for climbing, a bike for descending, a bike for riding to the store, a bike for riding to the coffee house, a bike for riding to work, a bike for racing, a bike for touring, blah blah blah blah blah. You know the guy... he's the two-wheeled Nigel Tufnel:

The biking Nigel probably even has a Campy Record bike that... you guessed it... goes to 11 (and no, I didn't write this post just to have an excuse to watch that clip and set up that joke).

But then there are the rare few bike-folk who take the bass player's approach: One trusty (and probably rusty) axe that goes to ALL the gigs. You know that guy too. The one who always seems to have brought the knife to the gunfight (commuting on a race bike? off-roading a hybrid? knobby tires on asphalt?) yet he does just fine and has a great time doing it. While others go to the bike shop to drool and melt their credit cards on the latest and greatest, he's there to pick up some spare tubes and a random drivetrain part to replace something that's been worn to a nub. He's got The One, and he doesn't need another.

As a musician, I was a bass player -- literally and figuratively. As a cyclist... well, let's say that I'm a recovering lead guitarist.

See The Tiny Car Eat The Tiny Bike!

2011-08-10T20:17:00.000-05:00

In honor of the Iowa State Fair, I thought it was time for a bit of a carnival sideshow slideshow.

First up, the victim, dangerously close to this small but vicious garage predator:

Next, the beast, his jaw agape:

Alas, the beast has unhinged its fangs like a snake preparing to swallow an egg. Stare deep into this black maw if you dare:

All hope of escape is lost:

The interior view, artfully composed by our staff designer:

And finally, my equally artsy self-portrait reflected in the devourer, with the remains of the doomed prey still visible inside:

So there you have it. Honda Fit eats Xootr Swift (fully assembled, no fold required) for breakfast while still leaving room for two human passengers and a lot of luggage. Not a bad little trick... and, I confess, one I've taken advantage of a few times already in the short time we've had the Fit when I was too lazy/weather-wimpy to ride.

Floppy Fender Fixed Fabulously

2011-08-07T18:54:00.000-05:00

Quick follow-up for those who were on the edge of their seats waiting to hear if my Xootr Swift/Planet Bike fender conundrum was all better (sidenote to those people: good grief, get a life): Yup. See above.

As I said I would (because I meant what I said and I said what I meant, an elephant's faithful one hundred percent), I drilled out the rivets holding the fender bracket in place, drilled new (and crooked -- the charm of handmade) holes down where the bracket should have actually been installed in the first place, used nuts/bolts to secure the bracket down there, and taped over the old holes. Result? Rock-solid fenderage. No flop, flutter, or flaccidity. If you look close, it has the unmistakable style of what my straw-hatted and black-bumpered ancestors called "Mennonite Maintenance", but considering all the stuff those Mennonites could fix with string, spit and duct tape, I'll take that as a compliment.

The resulting fenders work as well as any plastic fenders I've used. Their length around the tiny wheels provides absolutely outstanding coverage, keeping road slime off the drivetrain in the front and curing the soaked sphincter issue I was getting from my old clip-on rear fender. It's a good thing.

Hail To The Cheap: VP-565 Pedals

2011-08-06T10:24:00.000-05:00

I have a terrible weakness for contact points, especially pedals and handlebars (I go through intense saddle searches from time to time but tend to find a winner and -- like Potsie -- just sit on it). In the non-clipless pedal arena, though, I think I've found a winner, and it fits my ever-increasing category of "very cheap things that work surprisingly well": the VP-565 BMX/platform pedal.

I bought some 565s after breaking my leg, when I was in a "very wary of clipless" phase. I think they were all of fifteen bucks tops -- cheap enough for an experiment (Googling turns them up for ten Canadian bucks, which -- at current exchange rates -- is three chickens and a goat, as the U.S. economy heads toward a feudal barter system). They have kinda heavy aluminum bodies, not the nicest steel spindles, cast pins (whereas nicer BMX pedals will have screw-in replaceable ones) and some not-terribly-smooth cup and cone bearings. But again, $10 Canadian bucks/three chickens and a goat, so whaddya want?

As I grew more attached to these pedals you don't attach to, I started to give in to the all-too-common fallacy in cycling: If you spend more, you'll be happier. Thus, I popped for the much-pricier Wellgo MG-1: shockingly light magnesium bodies for their size, screw-in replaceable pins, swanky chromoly spindles, and buttery smooth cartridge bearings. And if you actually followed my links and compared them to the photo above, I think you can deduce the results. Yep, that's the humble, cheap 565 actually mounted on a bike while the swanktacular MG-1 looks up enviously from the garage floor, enjoying a tantalizing moment near a bike before going back to the depths of the parts boxes.

I wish I could explain it. By all rational means of comparison, the MG-1 absolutely kills the 565. But when I put my fat foot down, I want a 565 under it. Something about the shape of the body and the way those cheap cast pins interfaces with my shoes is just heaven underfoot. The MG-1 is good, don't get me wrong, but it's not perfect. I have to think about keeping my foot on it (even in dry conditions), whereas the 565 just sticks, come rain or come shine. It even comes with reflectors -- which, I admit, are dorky, but the next time you're following a cyclist at night who happens to have pedal reflectors, try to ignore them. I bet you can't. Someday when I'm feeling extra-bored, I'll open them up and load them with grease to see if I can smooth them out, but the wattage I'm losing to bearing drag is so miniscule compared to what it takes to move my corpulent arse through the air, I doubt I'll notice a difference.

In a nutshell, happy feet. I've got those happy feet. Anybody want to buy some really expensive, lightly used BMX pedals?

Some Assembly Required

2011-08-04T21:32:00.000-05:00

When I was a youngster, my sister and I shared what may have been the most amazing toy imaginable. We had a huge, hard-side suitcase absolutely FILLED with LEGOs. And yes, before the pedants pounce, I know that LEGO is a brand and thus should be used as an adjective, as in "LEGO-brand plasticky stick-together building block toystuffs." My only homage to the brand (because it was such a killer toy of my childhood) will be the use of all-caps. That should also quiet the compulsive copyeditor within, too.

Okay, digression boy, so that suitcase full of LEGOs. First, to digress again, that sound... talk about sense memory. Pounds of plastic blocks clattering around in a vintage suitcase. Just thinking about it gives me shakes of joy. Sifting through that multicolored madness was pleasure-center overload to the nth degree.

The best thing, though, was the process. You'd get a brand new set that the crazed Danish geniuses (Trivia: LEGO comes from the Danish "leg godt", "play well." Thank you Internets.) had designed to build into a car or a plane or something. You follow the instructions, build the car or plane or thing, and then you get to play with that thing. Awesome, right? But it gets better! You get bored with the car or the plane or the thing and dig into your suitcase to customize it. Pretty soon, your plane has four wings or your car has rocket engines... and you get to play with your customized thing. Awesome squared. Finally, in phase 3, you get bored with your customized car or plane or thing, totally disassemble it, and toss the parts into your suitcase... to be reassembled into something entirely new and different. Too awesome for words.

As I think this through, I realize that everything I ever learned about being a bike mechanic, I learned elbow-deep in that suitcase of LEGOs. Obviously, since my kid sister was also elbow-deep in that thing, I had to learn how to cooperate and share. Think that's not a bike mechanic skill? Try working in a shop with three other grease monkeys all using a limited number of tools. But more importantly, LEGOs taught me to appreciate the creative process. Sure, you can start with a box-stock bike, and you'll have fun with that for a while. But what do you do when you get bored? Go to the suitcase! Tweak the gears! Change the contact points! Add a squeaky horn! Knobby tires! Four wings! Rocket engines! And eventually, you'll get bored enough to make it a parts bike, a.k.a. suitcase fodder for the next amazing creation.

I know some bike-folks think it's silly to spend time in the garage that could be spent out riding the bikes. Not me. That's my play time. Leg godt, indeed.

Public Service Announcement for Fellow Addicts

2011-07-20T20:47:00.000-05:00

It dawned on me this morning that even though my little micro-bio over there makes a point of mentioning my crippling addiction to bean-based liquid caffeine delivery systems, I hardly blather on about it at all here on the meat of the page. Makes sense, I guess. A blog post about "I like coffee" would be about as noteworthy as one called "I prefer breathing air."

However, with temps and humidity so high here in the nation's beer belly that even the thought of exertion makes my toenails sweat, I thought I'd share a survival tactic for those of you who -- like me -- develop detox shakes without that life-giving beany nectar. Normally, I don't let the heat kill my habit. I'll drink a steamy cup'o'crack while wearing a parka in a sauna. But when I go straight from my scalding morning barrel of coffee to a Dagobah-esque bike commute to a cubicle, I'm often stricken with the dreaded PCFS: Post-Coffee Flop Sweat.

I don't know how to beat the flop sweat (for me, it appears to be a genetic curse), but I can replace that scalding barrel with something just as deliciously addictive sans the steam: Cold press. I got hooked on the stuff at the chain coffee store with the moose-based logo and figured there was some strange device in the back room (tended by mysterious, cloaked Druids) that squeezed out this astonishing creation. But no! All you need is one of these:

Obligatory disclaimer: Buy one from Amazon, and (theoretically) I'm supposed to get paid. But you don't have to get one from Amazon -- any ol' French press from any ol' place will do. This just happens to be the one I have.

The only magic that turns a French press into a cold press is time and a fridge. Put some scoops of your favorite bean in the bottom (ground a bit on the coarse side so as not to clog up the filter), fill with cold water, stir, put the top on (without pressing) and stick the works in the fridge for about 12 hours (I set mine up after dinner so it's brewed for the AM wakeup). Roll out of bed, rub the sleepy bits from your eyes, depress the pressing part of de press, and ta-dah! Cold press coffee.

Maybe true coffee snobs knew all this before, but it was a revelation to me -- and my cubicle neighbors appreciate the reduced flop sweat, too. Obligatory passing reference to bike stuff: It makes a darn refreshing mid-ride energy drink, too, as long as you're willing to overlook that pesky dehydration thing (note, however, that I am NOT a doctor, NOR do I play one on TV, so I take no responsibility if you're found unconscious on the side of the road like a shriveled raisin, still clutching your water bottle of cold press...)

Flaccid Fender Frustrates Former Fan

2011-07-14T18:53:00.002-05:00

I am many things, but a math whiz is not one of them. Still, even though I haven't seen the inside of a geometry textbook since the days of tight-rolled jeans, I know just enough about triangles to know that something's wrong with this picture:

Yes, it's sideways. And yes, that looks like the wheel of a kid's bike. But look again. Spot the design flaw hinted at in my alliterative title? Look at where the fender stays attach to the fender itself. Based on a (very) rough measurement, there's about 12 inches of fender and mudflap hanging out beyond the stays... which is about half of the total length of the fender. That's half a fender with no support. The result? Every little bump sets off an oscillation in that dangly end, causing the thing to rattle like a neglected Huffy.

The worst part is, the purveyors of this fender aren't dumb people. This is a Planet Bike, supposedly designed specifically for the Swift Folder (it lacks the cheesier -- ATMO -- hardware of the PB Recumbent fenders, so I don't think it's just one of those repurposed... although, dangitall, that cheesy hardware would have made it much easier to fix this problem now that I look at it). I have two other sets of Planet Bike fenders in the fleet in different diameters: 26-inchers on the tandem and 700c-ers on the tourer. Both have about 7" of unsupported length on about 28" of total fender... which is to say 25% dangle-factor rather than 50% (Yes, I fudged my measurements a little to make the math easier. I'm an English major.) And both can tackle washboard without sounding like I'm playing the washboard (danger, noisy link to a band I'm obsessed with).

When I feel motivated, I'm probably going to drill out the rivets, move the bracket down near the end where it belongs, and plug up the remaining holes. But I shouldn't have to.

(Just to soften the blow: The rear fender installed quite nicely and is rattle-free, since it has three equally-spaced support points around its diameter. And although I resisted the instructions telling me to just zip-tie the chainstay bridge mounting point, I have to admit that they were right -- my attempt at a no-zip-tie kludge was much less elegant, so I gave in to the Zen of Zip.)

Book Review: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do

2011-07-09T10:28:00.001-05:00

Dual disclaimer: First, author Amy Snyder was kind enough to provide li'l ol' me with a review copy of the above-linked book for nothing other than the promise of a review -- which won't influence the review, but there you have it. Second, as with any other Amazon link you find spamming up these pages, when you go to Amazon from here and buy stuff, I get a minor penance in return. There. I've said my Hail Marys.

Hell on Two Wheels is the kind of book that makes me mad as a writer. Why? Because I'm annoyed I didn't think to write it first. It comes ready-made with all the elements you need to tell a ripping yarn: a compressed timeline (with plenty of flashback/exposition opportunities), a cast of fascinating characters, and a litany of physical/emotional challenges designed to push those characters beyond the breaking point. When I was in my graduate writing program, this is the sort of story that you had to call dibs on lest someone else in the tiny literary shark tank grab it first.

HoTW is the story of the Race Across America, a.k.a. RAAM. This mildly insane competition starts a group of foolhardy souls and their almost-equally-nuts crews on the west coast of the U.S. and tells them to get to the other coast as fast as possible, sleep and common sense be damned. The fastest riders do this in about nine days (see "compressed timeline" above). Think about that. Nine days from coast to coast on a bicycle. Hell, think about doing that in a car. Along the way, they encounter hallucinations from sleep deprivation, saddle sores that would make mortals weep, and neck muscles exhausted to the point that they literally can no longer hold up the weight of the rider's head -- a horror-movie-worthy condition called Shermer's Neck after the first poor bastard unlucky enough to suffer it on RAAM.

So given this literary/journalistic goldmine, I'm not the least bit surprised that Amy Snyder has produced a fascinating book. It starts a bit slow as she takes great pains to contextualize RAAM for a general, non-bike-nerd audience. In the early chapters, I found myself saying, "Okay, okay, we get it, RAAM is way harder than the Tour de France." That may be my own biases popping up, though -- if one more person asks me, "So, you ride a bike... what do you think of this whole Lance Armstrong doping thing?" I may have to garotte that person with a LiveStrong bracelet.

Once the race starts, Snyder finishes trying to put into perspective something that really can't be put into any sane perspective, and things really start moving. There are no domestiques here, no forgotten pack fodder; sure, there's an epic (copyright Rapha) battle at the front between Jure Robic and Dani Wyss for the eventual win, but everyone on the course gets the respect they deserve whether they struggle in days later or DNF in agony. It's the story of the race in its entirety, not the winners. As the contest spread out across the country, my respect for Snyder's work only grew. After all, she's covering a story that never stops moving and spans a large chunk of a continent, while most likely running on empty in the sleep-tank herself. Quite a feat on a chessboard that big with that many pieces. Heck, I'd be interested to read a book about the writing of this book -- although that could be my postmodern, meta-literature geekiness showing.

So, Amy Snyder, I tip my protective styrofoam yarmulke to you, and award you the coveted "Things That Don't Suck" keyword. I may not be able to imagine riding RAAM or even trying to follow it, but after reading Hell on Two Wheels, I don't have to (thank goodness). I feel like I've been there already.

Ofana'eem, Part 3: Random Oddities

2011-07-04T18:02:00.000-05:00

The DBS (Department of Blogular Services) is threatening to put The Cycle in blog foster care and arrest me for Blogular Neglect if I don't get posting ASAP. So it's time for the freak show I promised in my last post, lo those many weeks ago.

First up, since I got a request for a cargo bike, and since I'm nothing if not a serial audience panderer, here you go:

I have no idea what's going on here. I just managed to catch this from across the street before the rider saddled up and headed off. And yes, I know, that's not a cargo bike... it's a bike towing a trailer. Think of it as an ancestral Xtracycle... or the B.O.B. trailer as reimagined by C.H.U.N.K. 666. (whoa, just used up a week's supply of periods...)

I think the towing bike is a rat-rodded chopper model that I saw elsewhere and coveted greatly. Here's an example (lacking the bespoke trailer) outside the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv:

These look like kids' bikes (like the Schwinn choppers you can get in the States), but all the ones I saw were piloted by adults. The thought of rolling up to my office astride one of these bad boys is almost too delicious to ponder.

And now (mental drum roll), the image that (apparently) no one was waiting for... it's the CAMEL ON A TANDEM! And, if that's not enough, he's with his friend, the FROG ON A BICYCLE! Be amazed! Be astounded! Or at the very least, be bemused:

I wish I could tell you what this was all about. We just happened to walk into some kind of street festival/live music thing in Zion Square, Jerusalem after a long day of wandering the city. The pilot/wrangler of these beasties just rolled them around the area attracting attention. The camel also featured a huge, homebrewed two-legged kickstand to keep things upright while at rest. I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe, just maybe, a captain could get in there behind the camel's neck, poke his head out of a hatch, and actually ride the thing... or maybe I just wanted to believe it so badly that it felt possible. The frog has clearly usurped a rider's hope of climbing aboard and riding away.

Looking through ye olde picture-taker, I still have electric rental bikes, a real bike shop in a mall, and -- my personal favorite -- the Little Black Basket, every Israeli cycler's must-have accessory. I'll get those written up, queued up, and out to the adoring masses just as soon as my little fingers can tap them out.

Ofana'eem, Part 2: In Which Bicycles Actually Appear

2011-06-21T22:05:00.000-05:00

Drat, another hiatus. I would say this one isn't my fault, but it turns out my supposedly terrible internet service was actually traced to my own faulty grunge-era power strip that was causing the modem to have a fit. Live and learn.

So, on to the Bicycles of the Holy Land! Here, peering from the foliage near our host's home in Jerusalem, is what I believe to be the ubiquitous bike of at least the urban areas we visited:

Be still my beating heart, it's a Bicycle-Shaped Object with 26" (a.k.a. 559mm bead-seat diameter) wheels. These things were all over the place, just like they are in pretty much any other city I've visited from New York to the mean streets of Cedar Rapids. It could pass in just about any dash-mart (Wal-, K-, Mega-) store in the U.S. without causing the slightest kerfuffle among the Huffies and Magnas. My guess is that it speaks Chinese just like they do, so there wouldn't even be a language barrier.

As a fan of model names, however, the Jaguar brand shown was one of my favorites. It seems like their strategy was to pick random names of U.S. states to identify their models. Shown here is an Oregon, but I also saw Texas, Colorado, and -- I think -- Wyoming. Even under close inspection, I couldn't see what made the different states any different. They all seemed to feature the same cheap Shimano parts and low-budget front suspension. Maybe the model names just denoted different paint jobs. Or maybe the really nice models were the states I never saw. I'm sure the Iowa is a fine specimen of mountain bikery.

As long as I'm on the name theme, here's another favorite brand that was almost as ubiquitous as Jaguar:

Too bad their English translator chose the noun over the verb, or they could go after Charlie Sheen for trademark infringement. I never determined if these bikes had any relation to the equally ubiquitous "Winner!" stands where you could buy lottery tickets -- recognizable by their freaky grimacing lottery ball mascots:

Being vaguely serious for a moment, as someone who's hopelessly stuck in the 90s, it warmed the cockles of my spleen to see that there is still a place where the 26" wheel reigns supreme. Even the "serious" bikers I saw on non-BSOs I saw were rolling on the five-five-nine, astride hardtails that I would have coveted greatly back in the aforementioned grunge era. 700c was way underrepresented in both its roadie and 29er incarnations, and I think I saw MAYBE two bikes that I'd consider hipsterish fixies over the course of ten days.

So what slotted in behind the 559 hardtail as the runner-up bike configuration? The folder, of course!

Methinks the Dahon patent has expired (or those crafty Dahonites are rebadging like maniacs), because I saw more bikes built around some generation/variation of the Dahon hinge than I ever thought possible. Your folder pilot was typically what I call a "person on a bike" rather than a "biker" -- he/she was obviously just a regular dude/dudette getting somewhere in the most efficient way possible, not a person trying to being seen on a lifestyle accessory.

Anywho, those were the ordinary (or quasi-ordinary) bikes our intrepid staff spotted on our pilgrimage through Israel. Next up will be the freaks -- cargo-hauling choppers, rental e-bikes, and (brace yourself) a camel on a tandem. Yes, you read that right.

Ofana'eem, Part 1: Entirely Lacking Bicycle Content

2011-06-12T09:14:00.000-05:00

For those not fluent in the language of the Chosen Folks, that's a transliteration of the Hebrew word for bicycle -- which will serve as a flag for all posts about our staff's recent trip to the other side of the planet.

However, since my teaser post started with scooter flash mobs, I'll follow my own random self-imposed order and start out with a post entirely lacking in ofana'eem content. Here in the States, the cyclist may be the renegade scofflaw of the streets, but in Israel (or at least on the streets of Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv) that role seems to be taken by the scooter driver/pilot/psycho.

These bleating little buggers were EVERYWHERE. Solo dudes, solo women, mixed doubles (as pictured), two guys, laden with cargo, whatever... and always running with the throttle wide open, slipping through gaps in traffic with inches to spare.When I thought about the "scooter culture" (quotes intentional) back home -- which seems to be made up of aging hipsters pretending to be bad-ass mod kids from the 50s -- I had to laugh. In Israel, your average takeout delivery guy pulled stuff that would make our scooteur poseurs soil their vintage denim.

Note also the paradoxical approach to safety... the full-on motorcycle helmets paired with bare legs and -- yes -- flip-flops. You're seeing one at rest, but the flip-flop dangling inches from the pavement seemed to be a default pose whether the vehicle was still or traveling at 50 miles per hour (er, 80 kilometers per hour). I guess these guys don't hang out with the recumbent bike crowd and learn about leg suck.

The unspoken rule of the road pertaining to scooters seemed to be "if it can fit there, it can go there" -- which meant you had to sidestep impromptu scooter parking lots on sidewalks all over the place. Case in point, here's what appears to be the employee parking for some kind of delivery service:

Now, I've ridden a loaded touring bike, and I've seen some cargo bikes in my day, but THAT is some epic portage. I hope these guys deliver styrofoam packing peanuts or something -- otherwise, their scooters would tip over backwards whenever they stepped off. The John Deere racing stripes on the cargo boxes are a nice touch, too.

Finally, there's the phenomenon I mentioned in my teaser, the scooter flash mob. Sadly, I was unable to capture this ballet of the streets on film (er, in pixels), so I'll have to use my words. Imagine you're riding in a taxi through a major metropolitan area. You arrive at a red light, first in the line of stopped cars. Curious as to the time, you glance down at your watch -- and when you look up, a crowd of six scooter ninjas has magically coalesced in front of your cab. The light turns green, and as quickly as they appeared, they're gone, with only the whine of their two-stroke hamster-wheel motors fading in the distance to indicate they'd ever been there in the first place.

As far as I can tell, it is accepted practice on a scooter to simply lane-split your way to the front of an intersection during a red light, meet up there with your other scooter buddies, and tear off when the light turns green. Cars seem oblivious to this little dance -- rightfully so, as it doesn't impede traffic in any way. But man, imagine if you tried to pull something like that here in the States. On a scooter, maybe you'd have half a chance to escape. On a bike, you'd be run down (literally) in a half a block by some arrogant, "how dare you get in front of me?" driver. But on the streets of the Israeli cities I visited, drivers took this behavior as normal and didn't give it a second thought. It was an interesting study in how the shared social space of the road is constructed... sure, there are the written rules, but we also have huge amounts of unspoken cultural expectations. Play along and you'll do fine. Bring the wrong social toolkit to the road (like I would have if I'd tried to bike or drive in Israel) and you'll have trouble.

The Big Tease

2011-06-05T20:22:00.000-05:00

Dang, now THAT was a hiatus.

Sincere apologies, dear reader(s). The intrepid staff here at The Cycle just got back from a big trip to Israel. Couldn't quite get that whole Middle East peace thing worked out in only ten days, but as a consolation prize, I did collect all sorts of material (and my usual crappy photography) for impending blog posts once the jetlag wears off. Scooter flash mobs, the ubiquitous Israeli front bicycle basket, the Land that 29ers and Hipster Fixies Forgot, a real bike shop in a mall, crazed sidewalk cyclers, weird lowrider cargo bikes, you name it. In short, there should be a quasi-decent payoff for the long dry spell, assuming you think my blather is a payoff rather than a punishment.

As a double-super-extra bonus, there's one of our world-famous book reviews in the queue as soon as the jetlag wears off enough that I can actually read the book. Author Amy Snyder was kind enough to send along a review copy of her Race Across America chronicle Hell on Two Wheels. As fans of my Advertising and Review Policy know (c'mon, admit it, you know you love administrative minutiae), I don't review stuff I haven't read and/or used, so that splash of link juice is just a thank-ye-kindly to Ms. Snyder for sending the book. You'll get my real review once enough synapses are firing again.

Wilson Says: "New Bike Good"

2011-05-15T15:55:00.000-05:00

Man, that kid only just turned four (and it still seems like not so long ago that he was about the size of a big burrito), but he does know how to sum it all up.

With apologies for those who can't tolerate self-indulgent photo essays of cute kids they aren't related to, I'm all mush-headed after spending the weekend with the World's Greatest Nephews and other assorted relations. The highlight for Uncle Jason and Aunt Carla was giving newly-four Wilson his first "big boy bike."

Despite Uncle Jason's fears that the kid might turn out to be a (shudder!) runner, he took to his wheels right away, testing them out on the indoor velodrome that is usually reserved for plastic tricycles:

Eat my dust, Nana!

Little brother could hardly stand the excitement, so after insisting that he needed his helmet too (which was more about "big brother's doing it" than safety, methinks), he got in on the action:

Insert your favorite Phil Liggett commentary here.

It was a challenge to get them to stop for cake. Heck, the helmet didn't even come off for the blowing out of the candles:

Totally protected against cake-plants.

Despite threatening skies, we then took the fun outside, where the newly-minted (and now sugar-fueled) cyclist continued to tear up the track:

Test that kid for cake-doping.

Even rain couldn't stop the fun -- once Mom sent out the appropriate gear:

Yes, I'm jealous of the snazzy rain jacket.

And -- again -- little brother crosses the line a close second:

But I'm in the malliot jaune!

Warning, extra cute coming: When we finally had to leave for home, the little dude gave me a sad hug and very quietly asked, "Uncle Jason, can you leave the new bike at my house please?" I guess he thought it was going home with me. Once I convinced him that yes, it was his now, and it was staying at his house, the smile was back -- and he wanted to go out and ride some more.

After watching all this, I'm convinced that the best way to adjust your attitude about riding is to watch a kid do it. You will never see quite so much joy crammed into a tiny face. I'm going to remember that look the next time I hop on my own big boy bike.

Happy Endings

2011-04-21T13:23:00.003-05:00

I had an angry post sitting in the on-deck circle thanks to this recent bike (er, trike) theft story from local CBS affiliate KCCI about a man with multiple sclerosis whose recumbent trike was stolen off his porch.

Then I watched the news last night and had to delete that pissed-off post, because Joe already has his replacement trike.

Now, it's easy to play the old "we Midwesterners are just so gosh darn nice" card. I'm not going to do that. I know we have jerks here who rival the jerkiness of any jerk from anywhere -- if we didn't, Joe's trike never would have been stolen in the first place. But sometimes we live up to our stereotypes in the best possible way.

Thank you, Iowa folks, for the donations that put Joe's wife on a new trike. Thank you, Barr Bike, for serving as the conduit between the community and someone who needed a hand. And special thanks to you, Connie Hewitt. Having lost my father (an avid cyclist) at a too-young age, I understand the strength and kindness it took to give up a cherished reminder of your loved one. If I see Joe and his new red trike out on the trails -- and I hope I do -- I'll think of you, of your husband, and of my Dad. And I'll smile.

Weird Science

2011-04-20T10:00:00.003-05:00

Multimedia day here at The Cycle... install your pocket protectors and check out this video on bicycle handling from NPR's Science Friday:

(Can't see it? You can get to a non-Flash version on the Science Friday site.)

Now, the true geeks of bicycle design are all atwitter (probably even on The Twitters) about this one. Me, not so much. For as much as I get excited about the dullest minutiae of bicycles, front-end geometry leaves me cold. I geek out on many things, but as long as a bike goes in a straight line when I want it to and turns when I want it to, I'm happy. Everything in my stable does that a little differently, but that's all part of the fun.

My favorite takeaway from the video, however, is that the various "inventors" of the bicycle have brought us (through years of trial and error) to something pretty darn wonderful, even if science doesn't know exactly how or why it works. I'm probably taking this way too far, but I see a weird analogue to spiritual faith in that. The bike does what it's supposed to do. We can't explain how. It just does. My usual geeky insistence on knowing the "why" of everything should hate that, but for whatever reason, I find it comforting.

On Caffeine, Cycles, And Complexity

2011-04-19T09:08:00.002-05:00

While my blurb over there to the right cites my crippling addiction to coffee, it's not often that my sickness makes its way over here to the meat of the page. However, this recent addition to the test kitchen here at The Cycle has me pondering:

That, dear readers, is a coffee cup which (thanks to the little spinner thing in the bottom driven by a motor and a couple batteries in the base) actually stirs your coffee for you at the push of a button. Yes, you heard that right. And if you order today, you get a second Ronco Self-Stirring Mug FREE! Just send $19.95 plus shipping and handling to...

Sorry, got off track there. I'm happy to say that we did not actually PURCHASE this device for the test kitchen -- dear spouse/Genius of All Things Graphically Designed got it as work-schwag. And while I'm usually a sucker for all things gadget-y and coffee-related, this one leaves me as cold as an iced latte. Here's why:

Was stirring a cup of coffee that big of a challenge in the first place? I mean, stick something in the cup (spoon, stick, pinky) and swirl it around. Task accomplished.
In exchange for the magic of self-stirring, I get one more thing in my house that needs batteries. Awesome.
Thanks to the batteries and the motor, this thing has to be hand-washed, which -- if the other hand-wash-only items in the test kitchen are any indication -- means it will get used once and sit dirty in the sink for several weeks until someone gets annoyed enough to wash it.

The two people who come here for bike-related ranting have probably dozed off by now, but I do actually have a bikey point to make with all this. I see this slightly-silly coffee indulgence device as a metaphor for some of the more annoying tendencies of the bike business these days. The cheap and easy target, of course, is electronic shifting (which I have never used, but hey, when has that stopped me from spouting off?)

The supposed perks of electronic shifting include:

No more cables to stretch, break, or get gunked up.
Improved ergonomics, since you can stick a shift button just about anywhere.
Quicker and easier shifts since the button is easier to reach and doesn't require you to push against the derailleur springs.
Uh, what else? Anybody?

To the first point -- I'll grant that the mechanical cable system has its drawbacks. Still, a good cable will work through all its stretch in the first few shifts. Tweak that once with the barrel adjuster and you're good for years. The ergonomic possibilities are interesting, only insofar as they would address my clamp diameter rant. Quicker shifting? Red herring. Your fancy electronic system still has to move a mechanical derailleur that has to move a chain across cogs, so how much quicker can it be? And when I'm too tired to push a mechanical shifter with my finger, well, it's time for me to pull over and take a nap.

In exchange for these snazzy features, you get the added complexity of an electrical system overlaid on the mechanical one... and if electrical systems were 100% foolproof, pal Steve K. would be out of a job. Plus, just like the coffee cup, you get one more thing in your house that needs a battery, and one more battery that can fail on you, leaving you with either a) unstirred coffee, or b) a singlespeed-by-default. If my coffee cup fails, I can stick my finger in there and get the job done. Not so sure with an electronic shifter.

I'm not so Luddite as to suggest that all advances in shifting technology are stupid and -- like stirring coffee -- you can get by with your finger or a stick (I'll leave finger/stick shifting to Grant Petersen). I like indexing, for example. And cogs/chains shaped to help shifts. But at what point does a convenience become an inconvenience? When does the system get too complex for its own good? If my mechanical shifter fails, I can get it going again with some basic knowledge and a couple cheap parts. If my electronic shifter failed, it would probably languish in the garage for a few weeks (like a hand-wash coffee cup) until I got annoyed and took it to a factory-trained technician. And where's the enjoyment in that?

This One's For You, Kent

2011-04-15T17:00:00.001-05:00

One more poster? Sure, why not? As a reminder, this image appears courtesy of Green Patriot Posters. Of the ones I was sent, this is my favorite. I am loving the retro vibe.

I can't see this without thinking of my pal Kent P. who makes blog over at the creatively named Kent's Bike Blog. Read some of Kent's writing and I think you'll get what I mean. Just don't hold it against him that he was one of the inspirations for the drivel you see on this site.

In honor of this poster and Kent (and because I was looking for an excuse to futz around in the garage), I just put the finishing touches on my Simple Swift... the folder is now a plain-Jane singlespeed with flat bars and flat pedals. Okay, so it has some quasi-essential toys (basic lighting, fenders, a bottle cage, and a bare-bones tool kit), but the whole point was to put together a "just get on and ride somewhere" bike, sort of like Kent's tiny Dahon. (I just noticed that Kent mentioned li'l ol' me in the linked post. I haven't been this excited since the day the new phone books arrived and I learned I was somebody.)

If I start feeling extra-fancy (because this student of the Tao of Kent still has much to learn), I might make it a dinglespeed. The current setup is 52x16 (not nearly as manly as it sounds thanks to the 20" wheels) for about a 61" gear -- a good street cruising ratio. Adding a 48x20 (four less in the front, four more in the back, so chain length doesn't change -- see how that works?) would make for a nice off-road/snowbike gear of 45".

Or, I might just Be The Kent and ride the darn thing.

Oh, Canada!

2011-04-14T14:46:00.000-05:00

More spy-shots from the Skunk Works shop here at The Cycle (or at least that's my excuse for the lousy photo quality):

My photo wouldn't be so blurry if the darn pannier would sit still.

That, dear reader, is NAFTA at work. One Jandd Mini Mountain pannier, proudly made in the Yoo Ess of Ay (and discussed ad nauseum in one of my many bike bag reviews), to which I have grafted to an Arkel Cam-Lock hook kit made by our friendly, maple-leafy neighbors to the north. There's a twin to this bag with the same mutation, but you get the idea.

My one knock on the Jandds has always been their touring-biased hardware. The OEM parts required you to get a hand in behind the bag (between your rack and wheel) to snug up a fixing strap. Once snug, it would take a small nuclear device to knock them off (hence, awesome for a touring kit that stays on the bike for months at a time), but that snugging and un-snugging process made the bags a real hassle for daily commuting.

Our bilingual buddies above the border have fixed all that, though. The Arkel retrofit kit replaces the original hardware with cams that retract when you pull up on the pannier handle. No fiddling, no futzing... on the rack, they grip like an angry Rottweiler on a cyclist's calf, but when you get to your destination, just pull the handles and go. Double bonus, the Arkel hooks are plastic-lined aluminum, so they're tough without chewing up the finish on your racks. If only Rottweilers had quick-release handles and non-marking jaws...

Downsides are minor, but they do exist:

This is not an inexpensive kit. $48 'murican dollars could buy you a cheap set of panniers instead of just pannier hardware. But you're talking about astonishingly well-made stuff from the Polite Provinces here, not sweatshop junque from over the ocean. If my experience with a previous generation of Arkel bag/hardware (see that old bag review again) is any indication, these hooks will likely outlast the panniers I've grafted them on, at which point I'll just graft them to something else.
The fairly specific mounting points on the aluminum tracks may require you to drill extra holes in the backing plates on your panniers and poke extra holes in the pannier fabric -- they wouldn't line up exactly on my bag's original holes. That can leave behind a lot of (ahem) "pannier ventilation" (a gentle way of saying, "great, now my underwear's going to get wet when I commute in the rain.") Some high-test black duct tape (visible in the upper left corner on the photo) seems to be doing the trick for now, but not everyone aspires to such heights of style.
The hooks have to be positioned carefully on the tracks so the cams can go through their full range of motion. If a cam hits a vertical rack strut before it reaches the rack's top rail, it's effectively being held in the open position by the rack -- something you might not notice until the first pothole. The hooks are incredibly easy to move with just a small hex wrench, so no biggie here.
If your pannier already has handles, the new kit makes them redundant. Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix, though (NOTE! Cut the OLD HANDLES on your BAG, not the NEW HANDLES on the HOOK KIT, lest you render the hook kit useless. You've been warned.) And those seemingly-handy D-rings for shoulder straps that are integrated into the Arkel hardware? Mine rattle on the rails of my rack. Haven't taken the scissors to them yet, but I'm thinking about it.

I will continue to abuse these Bags of Two Nations (humming "It's A Small World After All" the entire time) with my daily commute load and report back on any other quibbles. On first impressions, though, they get a "Things That Don't Suck" rating -- high praise considering the normal levels of cynicism and snark around these parts.

I'm A Real Blogger Now!

2011-04-10T13:29:00.003-05:00

How do I know? Because I have my first upset reader!

"Disappointed in PA" writes:

It's taken me a while to write, but I have to tell you how disappointed I am with your Feb. 10th article titled "The Compulsive Mechanic's Best Friend". Back in PA, the attached picture was your best friend. I didn't think becoming a big-time blogger would change you, but I guess I was wrong.

(Worst eBay auction EVER.)

Now, for those of you who aren't well-versed in the ways of homemade tools, what "Disappointed" is holding there (in a hand that looks suspiciously like it belongs to my friend Bill) is my old poker-scraper, and no self-respecting bike mechanic should be without one. It's made by taking an old spoke (I used straight-gauge here, disregarding the advice of Jobst "I'm Smarter Than You, And Taller Too" Brandt), twisting a loop in the middle for pegboard hanging, grinding one end to a sharp point, and pounding the other end flat.

So what the heck does one do with a poker-scraper? Glad you asked. The flat end is great for scraping gunk out of small crevices and picking stuff out from between cassette cogs. It can double as a tiny flat-blade screwdriver in a pinch, too. The pointy end is perfect for opening up the smooshed liner of brake and derailleur cable housing after it's been cut. It's also useful for poking other mechanics in the shop -- not that I would ever do such a thing, of course.

Now, I don't want to pull a Gary Fisher here... I did NOT (repeat NOT) "invent" the poker-scraper. I was first introduced to the idea by head mechanic Paul at the shop where I worked in Iowa City. So Park Tools, if you're just salivating at the thought of slapping a blue handle on this puppy and making tens -- nay, dozens -- of dollars, write the royalty checks to Paul, not me.

Of course, "Disappointed" is right that becoming a big-time blogger has changed me since the days when I wielded this humble homemade poker-scraper. Now, I have a team of interns dedicated to flossing my cassettes clean, hand-filing the cut ends of my cable housings, and poking anyone I deem poke-worthy. Still, I like to keep a poker-scraper around for old times' sake. You never know when you might need to poke and/or scrape something.

So, Bill... er, "Disappointed in PA", sorry I disappointed yunz. Next time I'm out that way, I owe you a round of Yuenglings (wow, that sounds vaguely dirty now that I read it back...)

The Amateur Art Critic Returns

2011-04-09T16:40:00.001-05:00

With the U.S. government shutdown narrowly averted, let's try this poster on for size. And as a reminder, this comes from the Green Patriot Posters project that I talk more about in Part 1 of my poster prattle series.

For some reason, I read this one as French. Sure, I know the stripes are red, white and blue while the French flag goes bleu, blanc, rouge (that plus merde, mon dieu, Des Moines and soup du jour is about the sum total of my French), but there's just something Euro about it. Maybe I just have a hard time putting together the phrase "bike-friendly U.S. cities" in my mind. The aforementioned Des Moines (French for "The Moines") does pretty well, I'd say. We're no Portland, but I've biked in plenty of places that were much, much worse (cough cough, Columbus Ohio, cough cough).

I'm coming up on my favorite poster in the series, so stay tuned...

How A Tandem Captain Says "I Love You"

2011-04-05T20:00:00.000-05:00

Goodbye, cheap OEM "suspension" seatpost (quotes intentional, as the only thing it was suspending -- and just barely at that -- was disbelief), hello Buster of Thuds:

Costs a little more, sure, but a stoker with a happy butt? Priceless.

And no, that's not a terrible, blurry, amateur photo... the all-black tandem with all-black components actually uses stealth technology, so it's quite difficult to capture on film.

Poster-palooza, Part 2

2011-04-04T18:51:00.001-05:00

Ooh, getting a little more political today...

As a copywriter, I find this poster to be one of the more succinct arguments for steel bikes yet. After all, "possibly delaminating from ultraviolet exposure and/or becoming susceptible to catastrophic cracks due to unseen stress risers in your garage" just isn't as tight. Neil Young knows best... lots of things never sleep, but at least rust has the decency to scan well while doing it.

What's the deal with the posters, you ask? I guess you weren't paying attention to yesterday's post. I'll let it slide this time.

I Don't Know Art, But...

2011-04-03T13:28:00.002-05:00

One of the nice things about writing an obscure blog about an obscure obsession for a (relatively) obscure subject is that other people with similar obsessions are often kind enough to drop subject material into your lap. The folks at The Canary Project recently did just that, calling my attention to their new project called Green Patriot Posters.

Regular readers (or even the slightly irregular ones) may know that I have some mixed feelings about "bike advocacy" in general. However, I am a major sucker for a) books about bikes, and b) art incorporating bikes. So, seeing as how I've been suffering Blogger's Block as of late, I'm more than happy to use my whiny pulpit to showcase some of the (very nifty) work being done as part of this project. To whit:

Very cool, no?

I don't know if I have any readers in New York City (shoot, some days I don't even know if I have any readers outside my immediate family), but if for some reason you find yourself there (in NYC, not outside my immediate family) on April 26, there's an AIGA panel discussion on "designing activism" featuring Michael Bierut. I don't know what half the words in that sentence mean, but our Creative Director/Spouse here at The Cycle (who happens to be an AIGA member) informs me that the presence of Mr. Bierut is, in fact, a Big, Fat, Hairy Deal.

DISCLAIMER: I have asked the publisher for a copy of the Green Patriot Posters book in exchange for space in this rarely-coveted tube of the Internets, but -- showing a remarkable lack of business acumen -- I'll show and talk about the posters whether I get one or not because I think they're snazzy. And if I don't get a freebie book, I'll probably buy one. Can you tell I got an MFA instead of an MBA?

Great Bicycle Moments In Film

2011-04-02T09:39:00.000-05:00

Watched the criminally-unknown Bill Murray/Geena Davis/Randy Quaid comedy Quick Change the other night, and was reminded of this snippet of bicycle cinema:

"It's just a couple guys sorting out some things."

Outstanding.

Classing Up The Joint

2011-03-27T16:18:00.001-05:00

Most of my wrenching time is spent taking stuff off my own bikes and putting it back on. They're like Lego blocks for (quasi) grownups. But today, I was lucky enough to put wrench to a friend's quite-snazzy ride:

Yup, that's a little Trek fitty-something-hundred, carbon fiber (gasp!), very much like the one some Texas dude used to win a bunch of yellow shirts in France.

But like that Texas dude's book, this post is Not About the Bike. It's about the special steps one must take as a mechanic when working on equipment of this caliber. This is not the stuff of pipe wrenches, bigger hammers, and even bigger hammers. One must proceed with the proper mindset, a delicate touch, and precision instrumentation.

First, always maintain a clean, well-organized workbench:

A place for everything, and everything in its place... at least before the tornado hit.

Next, make sure you're wearing the appropriate attire:

Park Tools Mechanic's Sneakers (MS-1), in (what else?) Park Tool Blue.

The uppers use fiber with aluminum inserts for lateral stiffness, while the dual-density elastomer lowers provide vertical compliance.

Need to make a run to the bike shop for parts and it's too far to ride? You can't just use any sort of vehicle:

Park Tools Internal Combustion Bike Transport (ICBT-1), in (what else?) Park Tool Blue.

Finally, make sure to wear gloves. You're doing surgery here, not banging pots and pans together:

The proctologist will see you now, Mr. Dura Ace.

Aside to my retro-Luddite pals... yup, that's a last-generation square taper Dura Ace crankset with matching bottom bracket (not shown). And yup, I called dibs on it if it's ever for sale. And nope, you can't have my friend's phone number to try to get it first.

For those who haven't dozed off from snark overload, my mission was to put one of those new two-piece/hollow spindle Shimano compact cranksets on this little pre-Madone. I won't bore you further on how to do that (just go to the Park Tool website like I did -- that link plus a BBT-9 and you're golden), but I will say that it was a) shockingly easy, and b) seemed like a nice bit of kit. I can't warm up to the new Shimano crank aesthetic (which looks like a kid's drawing of an elephant to me, especially when you compare it to the classic lines on that nifty Dura Ace above), but on fit and function, I'm impressed.

Okay, class dismissed. I gotta go get that carbon out of my garage before all the steel in there rejects it like a bad organ transplant.

The Groucho Marx Test

2011-03-18T09:06:00.001-05:00

I am not a joiner. Don't ask why, because I don't know. But most group activities have me scrambling for the exit (which probably explains my raging internet addiction). Even cycling -- which can often be a pretty social endeavor -- is usually my excuse to act out my loner leanings. Plus, when you ride alone, you don't get dropped.

With all that said, however, I have discovered ONE bike club that I have no problem joining -- the Tarik Saleh Bike Club, founded by co-blogster (and partial inspiration for this blogular endeavor) Tarik of Moscaline. The welcome packet tells you just about everything you need to know about TSBC:

Drat, hope that extra button wasn't a co-blogger bro deal not available to all.

If you decide to join based on this post, please don't bug Tarik for more buttons.

The dude has a family to feed.

Two simple rules: Ride bikes, and try not to be an ass. Note that it isn't "don't be an ass." Benevolent Clubmeister Tarik recognizes human failings and only entreats joiners to TRY not to be an ass. I can manage that.

I splurged for the extra-fancy silver button because I'm a human magpie. Plus, it looks extra-stylin' on my woolen bike chapeau:

My "middle-management flunky on the Death Star" look is now complete -- appropriate, as the Darth Vader performance review ("He is as clumsy as he is stupid!") often applies.

So there you have it: I found a club that would have me as a member, but I joined it anyway. Gracias, Tarik. I shall fly your flag of attempted non-ass bike riding proudly in the middle of Iowa and beyond.

THIS JUST IN: Apparently, Tarik has also accepted fivetoedsloth's membership application too. I leave it to you, discerning reader, to decide if that makes you want to join up or back away slowly.

Lance Is My Hero... No, Not THAT Lance

2011-03-11T17:00:00.003-06:00

Thanks to Local Pal Steve (the Guru of Gravel) for calling my attention to this story about a seriously tough and/or nuts Iowa cyclist via the Facebooks.

Let me see if I understand this... guy goes down, breaks leg, and GETS BACK ON THE BIKE. And then a couple hundred miles later (a couple hundred miles of RIDING ACROSS ALASKA WITH A BROKEN LEG), he goes down again, breaks his arm, and GETS BACK ON THE BIKE. Quote: "The pain was only bad, not severe."

Just to offer some limited perspective: I once crashed my bike and broke my leg. In the middle of Des Moines, Iowa. In the Spring. And what did I do? Why, whipped out my cell phone, called 911, and sat on the trail whimpering like a little girl until the ambulance showed up, of course. Quote: "Scale of 1 to 10? Are you kidding me? Just start the friggin' morphine drip!"

Lance Andre, you are one hard-arsed and/or bat-feces-crazy dude. I doff my helmet to you.

Just Ended My Off-Season!

2011-03-10T17:42:00.000-06:00

I believe the correct response is "woo hoo!" Or maybe "boo-yah!"

Worked from home all day, kicked back in the recliner like a corpulent slug. Sun popped out in the late afternoon, and it dawned on me that hey, maybe I could get a ride in before dinner. The bike is still wearing studded tires (those things are a bee-yatch to change), so it was 11 miles of bubble-wrap crackle (hello, rolling resistance!)

But, doggone it, I got out there after a long, dark winter of my discontent.

Weather forecast is calling for 60s next week. Methinks (knocking wood) it might be time to wrestle those studded tires off.

Bike Industry: Fix This, Please

2011-03-06T15:58:00.000-06:00

There are two clamp diameter standards for brake levers and shifters: 23.8mm for "road" (i.e. drop, but also bullhorn) handlebars and 22.2mm for "mountain" (i.e. flat or riser) handlebars.

Why? Couldn't we just pick one?

Or at least make all brake levers/shifters in the larger size and provide a (cheap and easy) shim to adapt to the smaller size. Oh, and the expander plugs for bar-end brake levers and shifters should be the smallest size possible with shims to fatten them out to larger bars.

Here's why: How frickin' cool would it be to be able to swap bars and brakes and shifters around willy-nilly, building your own bizarro Frankenstein's monster, then rebuilding it into something else? Flat bars with bar-end shifters sticking out the ends? Why not? Drop bars with hydraulic MTB levers up on the flats and GripShift down on the ends? Sure! The whole world of bike cockpits would become a giant box of Legos to be torn down and stuck back together however you want. I'd be SO into that.

I imagine that the "tuner" market isn't big enough to justify the chaos of switching to one standard. After all, how many cyclists know a 22.2mm clamp from a 23.8mm? Or even know that two different sizes exist? But still, a fella's gotta dream.

(Don't get me started on 25.4mm vs. 26.0mm vs. 26.4mm vs. 31.8mm stem clamp diameters, either...)

Trekking For A Tiny Trek

2011-03-05T16:02:00.001-06:00

Lest there be any doubt that Aunt Carla and Uncle Jason are the BEST aunt and uncle ever:

Took a little road trip down to Winterset today (birthplace of John Wayne and county seat of Madison County, which -- in case you hadn't heard -- has some bridges) to pick up this little Craigslist score for Wilson the Elder Nephew's upcoming birthday. I feel somewhat safe posting it here since a) the ancient laptop he's been given to bang around on has no Web connectivity, and b) even if it did, he can't read.

Don't get me wrong -- I like supporting bike shops when I can. But when it comes to kids' bikes, used is the way to go, especially in these itty-bitty sizes. One, kids grow so fast that they get in and out of the little bikes before they can do much damage to 'em. And two, if you're talking about a reputable bike-shop brand (like this micro-Trek), they're probably built like tanks to begin with and should last through an entire Brady Bunch of kids before they're used up. Since Elder Nephew has Bam-Bam the Younger Nephew waiting in the wings just two years behind him, that's a Good Thing.

I like Tiny Trek here because it has real bearings at all of its turning points unlike the plastic sleeve bushings on crappy department store bikes. Everything felt well-adjusted during my cursory Craigslist-sale tire-kicking, but even if it isn't, an actual cup/cone bearing (even a not-terribly-expensive one) can be adjusted. Once a plastic bushing wears, you're stuck with clunkiness unless you can source a new one. Pretty much all I need to do to this little blue bugger to make it ready to rock is replace the beat-up grips, polish it up a little, add a bell, and hang the new helmet (thanks, Grandma!) from the handlebars.

I also like Tiny Trek because it will start the gradual indoctrination of Young Nephew into his uncle's demented world. First, it's his first "real bike" (although he's hell on wheels on his plastic Big Wheel-esque trike). Second, it has FAT TIRES AND FENDERS! Woo hoo! Look out, Fuller... I'm training a youngster for a future of gravel! Look for him at Trans-Iowa 2028.

What's In A Name?

2011-03-02T20:52:00.000-06:00

Yes, I'm still out here. Insomniacs rejoice!

To re-fire my creative juices, I'm wracking my brain to come up with a list of the best and worst bike brand/model names of all time. Here's what I have so far on my "best" list:

GIANT IGUANA: Okay, so Giant cheats by using an adjective as its brand name, thus making any noun that follows it into de facto hilarity. But in my book, the Giant Iguana towers above them all. I never worked for a Giant dealership, but even in non-Giant shops, much goof-ball-itude ensued whenever someone brought a Giant Iguana in for repair. Running in circles, flailing arms, faux badly dubbed Godzilla movie dialogue, etc.

GIANT BUTTE: Yes, I'm that immature. But c'mon... the adjective Giant and a word that's one letter away from butt? That's comedy gold. I think Giant saw the error of their ways after this one, shifting to a model naming scheme that relied on gibberish letters and numbers (although there is some mild South Park pseudo-comedy in attempting to phonetically pronounce the Giant FCR -- try it and see!) A tip, though: If you happen to find one of these at a used bike sale that would be good for your significant other, do NOT text the following to that person with your iPhone: "I saw a Giant Butte and thought of you!" Auto-correct will have you sleeping on the couch every time.

IBIS HAKKALUGI: See a trend here? Put a childish joke in your name and I'm all over it. A green cyclocross bike named after a phlegmatic onomatopoeia? I am all up in that. Extra credit to Ibis for mocking overblown tubing names with its "Moron" tubing, featuring "more on the ends." Well played, gentlemen. Well played.

GARY FISHER HOO KOO E KOO: Regular readers know that I have issues with Gary Fisher. But man, there's just something fun about yelling "HOO KOO E KOO!" at the top of your lungs. Don't believe me? Try to do it without smiling. And then go apologize to your neighbors. Fisher tried to re-bottle the lightning with the Wahoo, but it just wasn't the same.

So what's on my lame list? Pretty much any brand that cops out with meaningless numbers or letters (an exception is granted for the Peugeot PX10, though). Ooh, a Trek 830? Yawn. Yes, there's a Cannondale MT800 in my garage, but at least the black-on-black decals hide its exceedingly lame factory-applied moniker. Also on the lame list: Any model named after a race won by the dude whose name is the brand -- I'm lookin' at you, brand-turned-pariah Greg Lemond. Call the bike Alpe d'Huez if you want, but it still ain't gonna get my lard arse over a hill any bigger than a freeway overpass. And finally, while I like a good (okay, stupid) joke, don't try too hard to be cute (cough, RIVENDELL, snort, SURLY!)

I'm going to think of more at 3 a.m. (because that's how my brain works), but I'll leave it to you for now. Nominees? Greatest hits? Greatest misses? Bring it.

The Compulsive Mechanic's Best Friend

2011-02-10T20:46:00.001-06:00

I have one very small Puritanical streak, and it has to do with cables. I don't like to see naked cable ends. Brake, derailleur, whatever... cover up those frayed, wanton strands! Nobody needs to see that!

That's why this is the best thing I ever added to my home workshop:

Mine are a different brand, but a cable end is a cable end is a cable end. They all work the same. And at under ten bucks for 500, how can you go wrong? That's... (counts on fingers)... less than two pennies each. You can even get them in anodized colors (for more money) if you want to get fancy and/or re-live the anodized excesses of your early-90s mountain biking youth (guilty). Note that they supposedly come in "derailleur" (skinny) or "brake" (fatter, with a rim around the open end making them look like tiny hats), but I've found that when applied carefully, the sleeker "derailleur" style fits just fine on brake cables too.

Here's why I love the paradoxically overindulgent-yet-trivial jar of 500 cable ends enough to waste this many words on it. You're working on a project. It's Sunday night, and you plan to ride the bike the next day. All the shops are closed, obviously. You just put on some fresh cables, snipped the ends, and now there they are, hanging out bare, just waiting to fray into a hundred little finger-poking strands (which are guaranteed to break off under the skin and annoy you for weeks before they finally work their way out). So now what?

Before I had the Big Jar, I'd have to scrounge around my parts drawer and/or the floor just hoping that maybe I'd dropped a cable end somewhere along the way. With the Big Jar, I don't worry. I know I have enough to last me until the end of days. There are hacks (from hot glue to solder to spoke nipples to duct tape) but it just feels right to reach into the jar, pull out a shiny new cable end, and gently crimp it over that fresh cut. Perfection. A shop wrench I used to work with actually crimped a pattern into the ends on bikes he assembled so he could tell "his" bikes when they came back for tuneups. I'm not going to admit to being that nuts, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't cross my mind with every crimp.

I'm almost tempted to stick a few of these little buggers in my seat bag and cover up the naked cables I find on other people's bikes around town. Is that wrong?

(The only thing that would make these better is if they were knarps, just because I really like that word. Unfortunately, that's a cable doo-dad for an entirely different purpose. Knarps. Knarps. It should be an onomatopoeia for something... the sound of a spoke breaking? Or that noise when you flick your finger against a tire to see how much air it has? I dunno. If anyone has a good idea, I'll use it and see if we can make it "happen" through the Power of Blog.)

Broooooooooooooooce!

2011-02-07T17:00:00.001-06:00

Bias alert: I am a Bruce Gordon fanboy. It started way back in 1995 when I was getting ready to do some self-supported touring. I had a perfectly serviceable Cannondale, but THE touring bike to own was one of Bruce's. Didn't help when I crossed paths with a kitted-out Rock 'n' Road Tour while on an organized ride. But as a poor college student, I put my lustful thoughts aside and tried to move on.

Years later, I was lucky enough to stumble into a used BG frameset in my size via the vast world of the Internets. I've since ridden that sucker over hill, dale, and whatnot, changed its configuration about a dozen times, scraped off a large percentage of original paint, had a fresh coat applied, and just generally loved the dickens out of it. So I was crazy-happy to see that Bruce and crew have posted a video history of the Rock 'n' Road family on their blog. With apologies to the Vimeo-haters out there (you know who you are), here it is:

A Brief History of the Rock 'n Road from Bruce Gordon Cycles on Vimeo.

Even as a Bruce fanboy, I learnt something from this video. F'rinstance, I had no idea why mine was just a Rock 'n' Road (like the white one in the video) when all the others I'd seen were Rock 'n' Road Tours. Now I know! And how cool is it to see Rock 'n' Road #1, in lugs, with Bruce's signature (gorgeous) seat cluster treatment? And a titanium, Rock Shox-equipped R'n'R with custom-machined fork crown and brace? Wicked!

I think I'm going to watch that again.

Riding and Respect

2011-02-06T13:27:00.000-06:00

Proving yet again that nobody has a research staff that reads as much (or has less to do) than The Cycle, one of our crack Interweb end-seekers recently directed me to this blog post about "the relationship between bicyclists and cemeteries."

I'm not 100% sure where I land on this issue. I can completely understand that if you're in a cemetery paying respects to a loved one, the last thing you want to see is some fat, middle-aged Lance-wannabe doing sprint intervals in Lycra and tossing aside spent carbo-goo packets. But I think there are some compatibilities between cemeteries and cycling that need to be recognized and respected. Both are opportunities for quiet contemplation. Both can remind us of our small place in the world. And both -- for better or worse -- can remind us of our own mortality.

Several of the regular routes I used to ride with my dad featured spins through our small-town cemetery. In fact, I have vague, fuzzy memories of being towed among the tombstones when I was a toddler in a trailer behind his bike. We were never there to ponder the great mysteries of mortality... it was just a quiet, safe, car-free place to enjoy the world from two wheels, take in a view of the river valley, and stitch together the city streets on one side with the open country roads on the other. I had family there, under stones he would point out as we coasted past, the clicking of our freewheels lost in the buzz of cicadas. When I was old enough, he told me there were spaces among those stones for my grandparents and yes, even my parents. And long before I felt old enough, I laid him to rest among those stones.

So is it disrespectful to ride a bike in a cemetery? I don't know. Probably, in some situations. But when I visit Dad, it feels disrespectful to do it any other way.

Humble Rims For Your Humble Tires

2011-01-29T08:42:00.000-06:00

One of the most-pummeled entries on this site happens to be my review of the gentle, unassuming, ever-humble Michelin Dynamic tire (see, I just made you look at it, thus making it even more pummeled). I'm not entirely sure why, but when it comes to pandering to what my reader(s) want, who am I to argue? Thus, Chapter 2 of the "humble stuff" series brings you the equally-unassuming Sun CR18 rim, dedicated life-partner to my Dynamics:

So what the heck makes the CR18 such a fine bit of extruded aluminum?

See those three chambers? Nice design. Sort of a honeycomb between the inner and outer rim walls for strength. Mavic's double-eyeletted rims accomplish the same thing (and are probably lighter) but cost a bunch more.
That's supposed to be a single stainless steel eyelet on the inner wall. The online fora can (and will) debate endlessly about the causes of rim cracks, but in my fleet, it's been the no-eyelet rims that have cracked around the spoke holes, not the eyeletted ones. So on my rides, eyelets are good.
Building on a budget? CR18 is your friend. The Amazon spam (Spamazon?) price above looks to be about $30, though some careful hunting can find them for as little as $23 a rim. You can barely buy a Mavic sticker for that much.
These things are tried and tested. I bought my first set of CR18s in 1994, and I don't think it was a new model in the lineup even then. I suspect that the longevity contributes to the price, since the tooling must have been paid off while I was still a pimply-faced adolescent.
The width is right around 23mm, so they can take tires from 28mm up to massive. Narrower than 28mm, you probably want a racier rim, but if you're equipping a real-world bike for surfaces that aren't glass-smooth, you're golden. My old mountain bike (the one that got CR18s back in the 90s) rolled on 26x2.2 (Panaracer Smoke/Dart, baby! old school fatties!) with no ill effects.
It doesn't matter what freaky wheel size or hole drilling your bike needs... there's a CR18 for it. From dinky little recumbent wheels up to 27" (a.k.a. 630mm BSD) and just about every stop in between is covered. Need just a few holes? Or maybe a whole lot of holes for a tandem? Got 'em. Even that freaky 650B aberration (a.k.a. 584mm BSD) is in there, though there are rumors that Sun may have missed spec on the large side with those.
If you're a magpie, there's a CR18 with a polished finish in addition to matte silver and black. Looks pretty decent on a classic/retro bike once you peel off the (not terribly obtrusive to begin with) stickers.
Some models have what the marketing monkeys call ABT: Advanced Brake Track. In human-speak, they just sand off the anodizing that would normally get sanded off by your brake pads, so you get better braking right away instead of after a break-in/brake-in period.

Now lest this sound like a pure Sun love-fest, the CR18 isn't quite the perfect rim. As mentioned above, if you're running skinny tires or building a superlight hill-climb bike, you'll probably want something racier. Better wheelbuilders than yours truly (which would include just about all wheelbuilders) report that some CR18s can be slightly wonky out of the box, making them more challenging to tension and true. Also, I've ridden some with fairly pronounced seams that pulse under braking. But for their price, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better all-purpose rim.

Discs On The Road? Disc-uss

2011-01-25T19:03:00.000-06:00

If you're consistently bored enough to have read this blog for a year or more, you know that the deepest, darkest months of winter are when I start casting covetous eyes on other bikes that I have neither the space nor the money to procure. Luckily, the winter of 2010-2011 has been no different.

This year's "Thou Shalt Not Covet" award goes to the Salsa Vaya:

Now, I should disclaim right away that I haven't ridden a Vaya, and the folks at Salsa offered no bribes for a mention of their bike here. It's just an abstract longing of mine... nice, clean-looking road-biased do-everything bike, fat tire clearance, drop bars. Pretty much an off-the-shelf answer to my weird mountain/road mutt-bike cravings.

The discs give me pause, though. This is not the knee-jerk whining of a Luddite (for a change) -- I was still doing shop work when discs really hit the scene, and I got pretty comfortable servicing them. And I know the theoretical pros behind discs:

Riding in the grime? Your braking surface stays clean.
Wheel gone wonky? Your brakes don't care.
Braking surface on your rims? Don't need it.

The problem on a road bike, though, is that no one's making (yet) an off-the-shelf drop-bar brake lever that can actuate a hydraulic disc. And in my extremely limited experience (just a little more than "squeezing levers on the shop floor"), I've been underwhelmed by cable-actuated road discs. Now maybe they just aren't set up right at the shops I visit (for shame, shops!) or maybe it's the "good squishy" that comes from a really powerful brake (the kind of squish that comes from all that power smashing the flexier parts of the system). Dunno. But I remain unimpressed by the feel and power compared to a good high-profile cantilever or even a basic Shimano V-brake. I'm also not 100% thrilled with the thought of a dished front wheel, but that could just be the paranoid ramblings of a lunatic.

I know I have readers who palp/run/rock discs on drop-bar bikes (lookin' at you, Local Steve) -- so convince me. Are they really all that and/or a bag of chips? Or are we looking at Biopace 2.0 here? And please phrase your answer in the form of a justification for me to get a Vaya if at all possible... because one brown bike in the garage is unusual, but two is a theme (or the smallest UPS fleet in the world).

You Know You're A Bike Geek When...

2011-01-23T13:23:00.000-06:00

... the legs on your kitchen table remind you of fork blades:

Who's with me? Sure, the lug-licking Francophiles will scream, "Not enough rake! Too much trail! Ugly dogleg bend!" But c'mon... those are fork blades, no?

Or maybe winter's getting to me.