News

5/18 Giro d’Italia Fantasy League

This fabulous trophy goes to…

Those of you who are regulars know that we run fantasy league games that revolve around the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the Vuelta España.

The Giro is going on right now, we’re 16 stages into the race, and here’s the standings for our fantasy teams:

Ellen is looking as tough as Simon Yates. The time trial barely put a dent into his (and Ellen’s) dominance. Dave Macintosh looks like a sure podium position, but this week will be telling. Jaime managed to jump up in the standings thanks to some of her support riders, and Phil should have his fingers crossed that Simon Yates and Thibault Pinot continue having such a great race.

Ellen 543
Dave Mac. 470
Phil 456
Paul 445
Jaime 399
Kiel 384
Rick 381
Mike 363
Pieter 357
Simon 344
Dave E. 341
Gavin 309
Glenn 277
Sebastian 275
Ferris the cat 200

5/18

Bike To Work Day  May 18th

Ride to work or school

May is bike to work (or school) month.  A month not specific enough for you?  O.K. The 15th is bike to work day.  Now get out of your damn car and pedal to work.

We’ve heard all of the excuses why you can’t ride your bike.  For one day out of the year, let’s hear some excuses why you can’t possibly drive to work (or school).  I’ll start:

I can’t drive because it’s too expensive.

I can’t drive because parking is impossible.

I can’t drive because I’m getting out of shape.

I can’t drive because of the extra ferry wait.

I can’t drive because it’s too close to home

I can’t drive because it leaves me out of touch with the world around me.

I can’t drive because it’s dangerous, and I know someone who got hurt in a car crash.

I can’t drive because it’s hard on our infrastructure and bad for the environment.

Pick a couple of reasons not to drive this one day, and share them with us.  By the way, we want some pictures of everyone riding their bikes to work (or school).  Email a photo to us, or bring one in to the shop, and we’ll give you a new multi-tool or an inner tube for your effort.

If your job happens to be riding a bike (I’m talking about you, Kiel Reijnen), just ride your bike to the store.

4/18

Eroica California

Vintage bike, vintage grape vines

We have a lot of vintage bikes in the shop so it’s natural for people to wonder if we ever ride them.

We sure do. A few of our vintage bikes get dusted off and ridden around town, usually to a coffee shop and back, nothing spectacular. Sometimes a few lucky old bikes (and their riders) get to do a real ride, like the “Eroica” vintage bike ride that happened this month in Paso Robles, California.

The rules of the ride are simple: Bikes, clothing and component technology from 1985 or earlier (the mid ‘80’s is when Lycra, carbon fiber, ski-binding style pedals, mountain bikes and integrated brake/shift levers forever changed our sport). The ride is held in wine country, so naturally the route features rolling hills, some gravel roads, olive trees and most importantly: wine at the rest stops.

It was a great weekend. Keeping with the historic theme, my riding partner Don Schilling and I took the train to Paso Robles.

1978 Exxon Graftek

Gianni Motta

leather hairnet helmet

The bikes selected? I thumbed my nose at the spirit of the ride and selected an early carbon fiber bike to ride (1978 Exxon Graftec). Don rode his early ‘80’s Gianni Motta (coincidentally, so did our friend Jeb Thornberg). Bob Freeman, formerly of Davidson Cycles was there, but we failed to note whether he was riding an old Davidson or one of the vintage Jack Taylors from his collection. Bike historian (and vintage bike collector) Jeff didn’t attend, but he set up Eben Weiss (a.k.a. BikeSnobNYC) with a 1916 Mead bicycle, and Mark Petry rode a new Joe Sales custom steel bike that was outfitted and designed like it was built in 1965.

So how did the ride go? The weather was beautiful. A few hills had to be walked due to soft gravel, steepness of a climb or laziness of the rider. Hands cramped from pulling old brakes and dealing with old handlebar shapes. Modern gear range and shifter precision received renewed appreciation. Toe clips and straps were cursed for the foot discomfort and the clumsiness they instilled. Wool jerseys and leather hair-net style helmets? They were quite comfortable, thank you very much.

The weekend included much drooling over old top-end bicycles and components. We got to rub elbows (sometimes literally) with cycling celebrity (Andy Hampsten, Joe Breeze, David Lettieri, Eben Weiss). We Pacific Northwesterners got to exchange an extremely rainy weekend back home for some California sunshine. We drank a fair amount of wine.
Eroica California was a great way to experience a different era for cycling.

Bicycle coloring book

Get your crayons ready!

We didn’t commission this book, but we should have.

This is The Classic Bicycle Coloring Book by Taliah Lempert. It has racing bikes, balloon-tire bikes and track bikes in it for you to color and enjoy. It’s a great gift for the intermediate to advanced colorer, and if you haven’t colored in 30 years or so, it’s a great reintroduction to one of your favorite pastimes as a kid.

3/18

Paul gets his first mountain bike back!

With grandfather Johnson in 1988

See the photo? That’s me before the start of the 1988 Chequamegon 40 mountain bike race in Hayward, Wisconsin.

The distinguished gentleman standing to my left is my grandfather, Helmer “Blackie” Johnson.

Those are my two bikes, a yellow 1987 Diamond Back Arrival (on the car) and a black & yellow splatter paint 1988 Diamond Back Arrival. These were on the cutting edge of mountain bike technology in the late ’80′s with aluminum frames and Shimano Deore XT components (but I didn’t like the oval Biopace chainrings though, so I changed those out.

It’s back (well, the same model, not the actual bike).

These bikes represented the first sponsorship deal I ever had, getting a deal on the bikes and my race entry fees paid by Erik’s Bike Shop.
The bikes were stolen out of our garage a month after the photo with my grandfather was taken. Thirty years later, with a little luck and some help from Ebay, I have a replacement for the yellow one. Couldn’t be happier. I still need to replace the Biopace chainrings to make it just right.

3/18

No Facebook.

We’re still social

In case anyone notices (or cares), we should update you on our Facebook status. We no longer “like” the social media platform, and we’ve taken down our page.

Recent privacy-violating-democracy-harming events aside, we’ve had issues with Facebook for years.

For every post that someone voluntarily views or likes on our page, a friend of the shop would likely receive at least three ads in their news feed from competing bike companies or bike sale ads. That’s business, but it’s not very “social”.

We take a lot of photos of old bicycle equipment. Sometimes people ask us if they can use those pictures for books, other websites and even television shows. We usually say yes to people who ask. In Facebook’s world, a lot of our photos end up being used without our permission (not just shared) and that just didn’t seem cool.

So from now on, if you feel like seeing what we’re up to, we’ll have to ask that you do it the classic ways: check in at our website, stop by the shop, or best yet, join us for a bike ride.

1/18

January 20th museum night

Gather ‘round for some old time bike racing stories

The theme for the January museum night will be “The Jazz Sport “.
We will showcase the racing bikes, the craftsmen, the atheletes and their stories from the early part of the last century.

Jeff has some great memorabilia from the six-day track racing era, and the bikes are intertwined with personal stories from the old racers.  Imagine Lance Armstrong’s bike on display and a story about the time that he overshot a corner and fell on a spectator along the roadside with that bike.  We have those kind of connections and anecdotes, but they involve riders with names like Frank Bartell or Joe Kopsky, not Lance Armstrong or Fabian Cancellara.

We’ll have bikes on display that were raced in Madison Square Garden to the cheers of capacity crowds, stories about depression-era working athletes, and a treasure trove of 1920’s technology.

Jigsaw Puzzles

Custom jigsaw puzzles

Take a look at the photo to the right.

Anyone want to guess why this might not be the best photo to use for a custom 1000 piece puzzle?

If you guessed that a black and white photo might not give you the most clues for selecting interlocking puzzle pieces, then you are smarter than I am.

This was a tough puzzle. It took a good month to finish, and there was a fair amount of cursing along the way.

If you feel like giving this one a try we have it at the shop. I might suggest the full color Eddy Merckx 1000 piece puzzle instead.

12/17

Museum Night Update

Ferris and his buddies say thanks

Hey, thanks to everyone who came to our ‘90’s themed museum night. You folks were really generous, and we’ll be handing $300 and a whole pile of food over to PAWS this week.

Schwinn:  The best present ever

The best present ever

Our friend Don Rauf has a present for anyone who loves old bikes.

Don wrote a fantastic new book about everything Schwinn. The stories are great, the photos and old advertisements look terrific.

The book has a pretty comprehensive history of the Schwinn family and company. There are some famous bikes like the one from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure or Eddie Munster’s monster Sting Ray. There are crowd favorite balloon-tire cruisers from the ‘50’s, Sting-Ray and Krate bikes from the ‘60’s and the road bike collection from the ‘70’s and 80’s.

Want a personal connection to this book? Come in to the shop, see and touch one of the dozen or so bikes whose pictures grace the pages! Yep, there’s a lot of our little museum in this book, even our Black Phantom bar stool.

A Classic taste

A Classic red

Those of you who have been to our store know that we’re about 100 feet away from the Harbor Square wine shop.
Well, one day after work Jaime and Paul stopped by the wine shop and did a little bit of tasting…

We like Washington wines (buy local!) and the wine shop proprietor Jeff brought out some great ones. From the St. Hilaire winery in West Richland we found a favorite. One thing led to another (as it often does when you are sampling multiple bottles of wine) and we found that we could adopt the blend and call it our own. So here it is: A classic 2016 vintage red wine.

A glass or two will be just the thing after a long ride on the Kitsap Peninsula. Celebrate a great day out on the road (or in the woods), or drown your sorrows after flatting a brand-new tubular tire.

This “Classic” wine is a medium-bodied blend that pairs well with pasta, we have tried it alongside a menu of lighter Spanish tapas and it was excellent with the wood-fired pizza from Bene (on Hildebrand Lane).
Combine a glass with Clif bars or to wash down Gu packets at your own discretion.

Open it with a Campagnolo corkscrew

How can a bike shop be selling wine? We can’t. We don’t have a liquor license, so you’ll have to walk down the sidewalk and make your purchase at the Harbor Square wine shop.

Enjoy with friends, neighbors, riding partners and local bike mechanics.

Makes a great gift for the bike rider who has everything. Also makes a great gift for the bike rider who wants everything that you can’t afford. Bottles are only $15.

10/16

A significant award!

The National Bicycle Dealers Association used to hand out awards each year to bicycle stores, calling out the “Top 100 Dealers”.

Not wanting to sound like they were rewarding casino employees or gang members, they have since changed the name.  The award is now named something a little more self explanatory, and apparently we have just earned the distinction.

Classic Cycle is one of America’s Best Bike Shops.

Hat trick!  Now three years in a row! 2014, 2015 and 2016.

7/16

BikeSnobNYC visits B.I.

Back in June we were proud to be visited by one of the sharpest writers and funniest comedians in the two-wheeled world (a dubious distinction for certain).
Here in his own words and photos, we present to you BikeSnobNYC’s Bainbridge sojourn:

BSNYC Road Jernel Part IV: Classic Cycle!

8/15

Kiel is heading to the Show!

Kiel’s first publicity photo

Kiel Reijnen, one of the little goofballs in our cycling club, just got called up to the big leagues.

By signing a two year contract with Trek Factory Racing, Kiel will see the start line at the grand tours, all of the spring classics (not just Milan-San Remo, which he has raced twice now) and he will have a good shot at making the next Olympic team.

Kiel is a good sprinter, best suited to uphill finishes and smaller groups (he’s a similar rider to Peter Sagan, albeit with a little less horsepower).  Kiel will likely be given protected status on his team in smaller stage races, the Ardennes Classics, and transitional stages in the Gran Tours.  The rest of the time he’ll be tasked with making it into breakaways and running back and forth between the caravan and the peloton as a “bottle boy”.

Way to go Kiel, all of those rides up and over Baker hill finally paid off.

Them’s the brakes

It’s a thankless job…

Bicycle brakes don’t get much love.

You typically don’t gush to your riding buddies about being able to stop.  Instead, the latest shifting gizmos earn your praise.  You’ll boast about your wheels or talk about a new carbon fiber handlebar making the ride so enjoyable.  Mountain bikers love suspension, but would they ever thank disc brakes for making their suspension design possible?  Cyclocross riders might mention that their brakes are quiet, but will quickly change the subject to discuss the air pressure in their tires.

Bicycle brakes deserve our love and attention, they’ve always been there for us.  Let’s take a look at some great brakes from the past 100 years, and see how progress leaps forward in starts and stops.

Pull the handle and the spoon slows the wheel

The first bicycles came into existence before the invention of pneumatic tires.  Smooth solid rubber tires provided a nice even surface that early spoon-style brakes would press into and slow down your Penny-Farthing.  While early cyclists appreciated the ability to stop, they didn’t like the harsh ride of hard rubber tires.  As soon as squishy air-filled tires (with tread) became the norm, cyclists needed a stopper that didn’t touch the tires.

Coaster brakes, like we see today on children’s bikes and beach cruisers, haven’t changed much since their inception.  Packed into the rear hub shell, the mechanism stays away from the elements and provides solid stopping power activated by a simple change in pedaling direction.

Musselman brake add featuring George Chapman

Coaster brake designs usually employ wedge-shaped shoes or a series of plates that will drag on the hub shell, slowing the spinning wheel.  The problem with coaster brakes is heat.  A long downhill can make the hub red hot, liquefying the bearing grease and producing a cloud of smoke.  Obviously a smoking hot coaster hub won’t stop a bike very well, and cyclists encountering long downhills have to take frequent breaks to let their hubs cool down.  An old tip for touring cyclists with coaster brakes suggested that they drag pine boughs like anchors in order to keep their speed in check.

Drum brakes have been around as long as coasters, and they have similar strengths and weaknesses.  On the plus side, drum brake hub shells are generally bigger, which helps dissipate heat, and they are activated with a cable and hand lever, instead of pedal action.  The big minus is that they are tricky to incorporate into bicycle designs, as they require long torque arms that could stress lightweight frame and fork tubing.

Brakes that squeeze on the rim seem like a better way to go.  They’re lighter than hub brakes, most of the designs are quite simple to make, there’s no problem with heat build-up, and they make removing a wheel to fix a flat tire much easier.

1920′s bolt-on rim caliper

Rod brakes pull up on the underside of the rim

Rim brakes have come in many varieties over the years. A common design element in the 1920′s and ’30′s was to use cork or felted wool pads that would drag smoothly across lacquered wooden rims.  For heavy bikes with slippery chromed-steel rims, stout brake calipers had to be made that could crush into the hard steel.  Hard rubber pads slowed steel rims the best.

Rod-actuated calipers, which used thick metal rods instead of thin brake wires for actuation were typically found on heavy Dutch-style utility bikes that sit out in the weather. Rod brakes, while being pretty powerful, didn’t give bike riders much flexibility.  A simple change in handlebar height required one to completely rework the brake set-up. Rod brakes pull up into the rim instead of squeezing the sides, so these brakes are also in the way when you have to fix a flat.

GB Coureur 66 brakes

Engraved Campy Nuovo Record brakes

If you were a bike racer fifty years ago, the big debate amongst your friends would have been side-pull vs. center-pull calipers.  Center-pull calipers from Universal or GB stopped great (if you were looking for that feature in a brake), but they weren’t as light or sleek as side-pulls from Campagnolo.  Side-pull calipers omitted the center-pull’s hard-mounted cable stops on the frame and the extra straddle wire.

Roller-cam brakes

Mountain bike cantilevers

The rising popularity of mountain biking in the 1980′s provided the demand for newer, more powerful brake designs.  The first mass-production mountain bikes came with cantilevers (and motorcycle brake levers).  They stopped alright, but took a lot of hand strength.  Roller-cam brakes, first designed by mountain bike icon Charlie Cunningham, had more leverage than cantilevers but were tricky to set up.  Shimano came out with the U-brake, a U-shaped block of aluminum which bettered the stopping power of cantilevers as well, but they mounted under the chain stays where they would collect mud and grease.  These U-brakes were not bike-mechanic favorites, and were soon replaced by Shimano’s linear-pull V-brakes.  V-brakes (which resemble more of an “H”) provided even more power and the rear brake mounted back in the normal spot on top of the seat stays.

Campagnolo’s big and beautiful Delta Brakes

Hydraulic brakes, 1986

Hydraulic road brakes aren’t as new as SRAM would lead you to believe.  Washington-based Mathauser and the German Magura company developed hydraulic road calipers in the 1980′s.  The designs were powerful and they worked well, but without carbon fiber rims (and their irregular braking surface) driving demand for more powerful road brakes like we have today, these designs failed to find a market.  Instead, the ’80′s were all about aerodynamics and style (stopping power was secondary).  Campagnolo took great advantage of this atmosphere with their heavy and under-powered Delta brakes.  Deltas, with their sleek and shiny futuristic look heralded the modern age of bicycles.  While riders loved their Delta brakes and everyone talked them up, it was superficial.  We just loved them for their looks.

Mid-70s vintage Shimano hydraulic disc brakes

If any brake is feeling the love these days, it’s the disc brake.  Believe it or not, people have dabbled with discs brakes on bicycles since at least 1950.  Schwinn Manta-Rays had cable-actuated versions in 1971.   In the mid-1970′s, Shimano had a line of hydraulic brakes that ended up on utility bikes of the era.  These disc brakes added about 8 pounds to the weight of the bike, but they stopped pretty well and sure looked cool.  Earlier disc versions probably didn’t take off simply because we didn’t need them.  Caliper brakes rubbing on aluminum rims stopped bikes that were being ridden on the road just fine.

It took the advent of mountain biking, with steep off-road trail gradients to make us yearn for the power you could get from hydraulic discs.  Disc brakes also freed mountain bike suspension designers from the constraints that wire cable runs and cantilevers brake posts placed upon them.

Today we can stop with confidence thanks to refined designs, great materials and 100 years of dealing with brakes that didn’t work so well.

The next time someone asks you about your bike, make sure you give your brakes some praise.

Shifting Times

Ultegra Di2 electronic shifting

These days, modern engineering greets us every time we walk into a local bike shop. Steel tubing is a rare sight compared with the amount of carbon fiber littered about the showroom floor. Bikes utilize hydraulic fluid to activate disc brakes, and modern suspension keeps the tires on the trail. Once clunky mechanical contraptions, derailleurs are now sleek and smooth, some with battery-operated electronics controlling the action. These days you can get a couple dozen gear choices all operated by push buttons.  Ever wonder how we arrived at this point?  Let’s take a look at the technological progression bicycle derailleurs have made over the decades.

In the beginning, bikes were direct-drive and the only way to get a different gear ratio was to change the size of the wheels.  One gear dictated the action, but since the days of the high-wheeler it was obvious that a single gear was less than ideal when faced with big hills or stiff winds.

3 speeds and “quick release” wingnuts in the 1920′s

The earliest multiple-gear bicycles usually employed flip-flop hubs with two or three cogs, or internal gear boxes in the rear hub or the bottom bracket shell.  These designs still survive a hundred years later, but have never offered much gear range, and they sure don’t offer the visual fun that external derailleurs give us.

Devices we would recognize as derailleurs really started to appear in the 1930′s.  Two popular shifters were the Vittoria Margarita and the Osgear. The Osgear, fully known as the Constrictor Osgear Super Champion was named after the designer Oscar Egg, a famous Swiss-French cyclist from the era.  The system was light yet sturdy, and fairly simple to operate.  Fitted to the chainstay was a cable operated guide arm that moved the chain right or left across three sprockets.  A tension arm near the crankset took up the slack of the chain, and a guide-loop of metal on the tension pulley kept the chain from coming off.

Gino Bartali won the Tour de France in 1938 with the Vittoria Margerita

Constrictor Osgear Super Champion or simply “Osgear”

The Vittoria Margerita was a simple and wonderfully designed Italian system from the same era. In order to use the gears, the rider would simply reach down to the lever and move it forward, releasing some of the chain tension.  Next, he would back-pedal while pushing on the chain with his right hand.  The chain would jump to the next cog over, and then the rider would take the slack back out of the chain by moving the lever rearward again.

Early race organizers worried that wide variations in equipment would skew the results of their events.  Single-speed bikes were standard equipment at the Tour de France until 1937, when teams with derailleur systems were allowed to compete.

1947 Conloy Osgear derailleur

The cogs move sideways, the derailleur stays in place

The Osgear and the Margerita look exotic and still don’t seem that familiar to us.  The 1940′s saw the development of derailleurs like those from Simplex, Cyclo and Conloy, and in these systems we see steps toward modern parallelogram designs and controls that use a single shift wire.  These devices seem kind of similar to what we have today, but some like the Conloy only had a single pulley, so the total gear difference could only be about six teeth.

The Paris Roubaix shifter. Sometimes known as the suicide shifter

The double lever Cambio-Corsa shifter

In the middle of the last century there were a few missteps as well as leaps forward.  One of the goofier ideas was the Trivelox shifter, a derailleur that operated by pulling the freewheel cogs side-to-side under a stationary derailleur. If you can imagine holding a pen over a piece of paper, and writing by moving the paper underneath it, you can understand the limitations of this system.  The more gears the Trivelox was asked to shift between, the wider and heavier the rear wheel had to become.  Campagnolo also had the bike world take a technological step backward in the late 1940′s with their Cambio Corsa and Paris-Roubaix “suicide shifters”.  To use these shifters, you flipped a lever on the seat stay that disconnected the rear wheel (while the bike was moving).  The chain was then pushed onto the next cog over with a guide lever, and then the rider would re-tighten the lever to secure the rear wheel. The first version, the Cambio Corsa, had two levers managing this action, and care had to be taken not to lose the wheel out of the dropouts.  The later Paris-Roubaix version operated everything with a single lever, and some refinements made this system slightly safer.  In both of these systems, long serrated dropouts would keep the rear wheel aligned while the shift was being completed, and rearward force on the wheel would keep the chain tensioned.  To anyone who has dropped a chain while shifting their modern bike, it is understandable that these systems required quite a bit of finesse to operate.

Simplex Touriste

Benelux rod shifter

Derailleurs that came out in the 1950′s look pretty close to what we see today.  Some popular ones, like the Simplex Touriste, had two cables to operate the derailleur.  On this derailleur you’ll see a steel pull chain (like on a 3-speed hub) actuating a telescoping pulley arm.  A second cable rotates the pulley arm, fine-tuning the chain tension.  Derailleur pulleys were still smooth and round in the ’50′s, and didn’t acquire their toothed profiles until the 1960′s.  Typically derailleurs like the Simplex could handle 4 or 5 cogs on the back wheel with a 12 tooth spread.  Rod-actuated front shifters (reach down the seat tube by your water bottle to operate them) managed chainrings with a range of just a few teeth.

Campagnolo Gran Sport

Campagnolo Nuovo Record derailleurs

The 1950′s and 60′s brought us Campagnolo’s Gran Sport and Nuovo Record derailleurs.  Popular for decades due to their smooth shifts, good durability and light weight, Campagnolo’s beautiful derailleurs have become icons in our sport.  It’s easy to know these were hits, as typing “Campy derailleur tattoo” into an image search engine will yield lots of results.  Reliable shifting systems like these also meant that road bikes became known as “10 Speed bikes” in popular vernacular during the ’60′s and ’70′s as gear capacity expanded.

Dura-Ace STI levers

A top-tube mounted Positron shifter

Positron indexed shifting came out in the ’70′s.  The predecessor to Shimano’s Indexed Shifting (SIS) system of the late eighties, it was the first good “click” shifter.  Shimano built the freewheeling mechanism into the crankset, so you could shift gears anytime the bike was moving, not only while you pedaled.  This feature made Positron pretty heavy, and use was limited to lower-level utility and sport bikes, not racers.

In the 1980s, Shimano took over the bike world with click shifting and Shimano Total Integration (STI) levers, which moved the shifters up to the handlebars where we could reach them.  This idea kept a rider’s hands on the bars, and was a stroke of genius that made road cycling safer, more fun and certainly faster.

Push button shifters and a battery in the bar

Mavic Zap electronic derailleur

Mavic unveiled the first commercially viable electronic derailleur in the ’90′s with their Zap system.  The Zap derailleur received signals from battery-powered buttons on the handlebar, but the spinning upper derailleur pulley generated the juice to move the chain.  When Zap worked, it worked perfectly.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t protected from water and vibration all that well. Today’s electronic shifting builds upon Mavic’s foundation.  Shimano’s Di2 and Campagnolo’s EPS derailleurs add automated front derailleurs and give us push button, customizable gear shifts across a wide range of gear ratios.

In the early days, a cyclist was lucky to get more than three gears. The difference between a low and a high gear could mean only a few teeth on a chain ring. Today you can get a bike with 30 “speeds”. We have electronic derailleurs from Japanese and Italian companies as well as”infinite” ratio hub shifting systems and computer-controlled automatic shifting. We take indexed shifting for granted, and demand that controls are placed right at our fingertips. All of this precision is expected today, along with knee-friendly gear ratios spanning dozens of chainring teeth.  Times, and gears, change.

Cyclocross tire choices

Different kinds of bike nerds obsess about different things these days.  Road riders can talk about their wattage for hours.  Mountain bikers can’t seem to shut up about wheel size.  Cyclocross riders, having settled the disc brake discussion now give their full attention to their other favorite topic: Tires.

Forget carbon fiber.  The real miracle material for cross bikes is rubber.  Pick the right tires, and your bike will hook up in corners and shed sticky mud.  Choose poorly and you’ll slide through that same corner or get bogged down by mud-packed tread.

In cyclocross, you’ll be obsessing about tire choices all the time.  Most likely, you’ll have multiple sets of tires.  You’ll have tires for dry, hard-packed courses.  Tires for soft, muddy conditions. Puncture-resistant road tires for doing the work-week commute. There’s a lot of nuance to all of this, so here’s a little guide for all of your considerations:

Foldable tires use Kevlar thread instead of steel wire in the bead

Clincher tires are where we’ll start.  When viewed from head on, clinchers are shaped like a “U” and have wire or Kevlar edges (called “beads”) that hook under the edge of the rim and hold the tire in place with an inner tube inside.  The easiest tire choice here has to do with those beads.  A tire that comes folded up in a box has lightweight Kevlar beads, and a tire that holds its round shape on the showroom wall has beads made from steel wire.  Pick a folding tire instead of the cheaper steel beaded version and you can typically save a half pound of weight.  For cyclocross, standard clincher tires give you the widest price and performance range, but have some big drawbacks.  Clinchers are usually the heaviest option.  They require you to run the highest air pressure of all the different tire styles (which makes traction not so good).  Lastly, clinchers can suffer the most flats (inner tube pinches, tube cuts from exposed spoke eyelets, punctures from debris in the tread).

The same tire, set up tubeless (with sealant) or with an inner tube.

Tubeless tire sealant bubbles around the edge, sealing the air in.

If you’re comfortable with the idea of clinchers, then tubeless clinchers should be easy to wrap your brain around.  Tubeless tires are possible when tires, rims, and rim strips (the tape that protects the inner tube from the spoke holes) are made to exacting tolerances that eliminate the need for an inner tube to keep the air inside.  Liquid sealant is used to keep these types of tires from seeping minute amounts of air, but impermeable tire casing and rim strips do most of the work here.  Switch from regular clinchers to a tubeless set-up and you can typically reduce your air pressure by 5 to 10 p.s.i. (with no tube to get pinched), which will increase your traction significantly.  The tubeless liquid sealant will also work to seal up small thorn and glass punctures.  Seems like tubeless tires would be lighter than a standard clincher, but they’re not.  Liquid sealant weight replaces the weight of an inner tube, and tubeless-ready tires and rim strips usually weigh slightly more than their conventional counterparts.

Tubular (Sew-Up) tire and a tubular rim

Tubular tires and sew-up tires are different names for the same thing.  The oldest type of pneumatic tire, sew-ups are typically made with the casing actually sewn together around an inner tube (except for the Tufo brand, which makes their sew-ups hold air without using an inner tube).  This all-in-one tubular tire is then glued onto a tubular specific rim.  Tubular tires have the best ride “feel” because the sidewalls are usually more supple and squish around conforming to the ground more readily than clinchers.  By eliminating the need for wire or Kevlar beads and the hooked clincher rim walls, tubular tires and wheels will be your lightest option.  If you run sew-ups you can also run the lowest tire pressures, usually 20 p.s.i. lower than a comparable clincher.  Tubular tires and rims aren’t always the most expensive option, but they usually are.  If you are going to spend the money for carbon fiber wheels, the smart choice is to get them Tubular style so you get the lightest weight for your money, and have the best durability during mishaps (if you suffer a flat, the tire will stay in place and won’t expose rim edges to damage while you try to stop).  The biggest drawbacks to running tubulars are added expense (get a flat and you’re replacing a whole tire, not just a tube), and added work (properly gluing a sew-up takes time and can be messy).

Tire styles aside, remember that air pressure dictates how your tires perform (rim width can be a consideration too, but no time for that today).  Go too low with your air pressure and your bike will wash out in turns, or bottom out on bumps causing rim damage and flats.  Tire pressure that’s too high will keep you bouncing off the ground, losing traction instead of digging in.

File tread, dry condtion knobby, multi condition, mud tire.

Lastly, you’ve got tread design to consider.  File tread tires (most with shallow, tightly-packed diamond-shaped bumps) are typically the choice for hard packed dirt and dry grassy cyclocross conditions.  You can expect slightly taller knobs along the edge of these treads to keep you from sliding out in corners.  If off-road conditions are a little softer and you need better traction than file treads, a good multi-purpose tire will have small knobs placed tightly together (sometimes nearly continuous down the center of the tire).  These tires work great under most conditions, but become nearly unrideable in sticky mud.  A good mud tire will have tall widely-spaced knobs that will dig into the soft surface but will (at least in theory) shed the mud from between its knobs as the tire rotates.  My advice: if you feel limited by your handling skills and traction, go with more aggressive tread.  If you have great balance and handling but still feel slow, go with shallower tread and lighter-weight options.

If you get this tire thing all figured out, don’t worry.  You can still be a cyclocross nerd.  You’ll just have to start obsessing about Belgian beer.

American Pickers Television Show

Jeff’s Schwinn Black Phantom on “American Pickers”

So, there’s this show on the History Channel called “American Pickers”.

The show surprisingly has nothing to do with farming.  It’s actually about two guys who collect inventory for their antique store by rummaging through basements and garages of pack rats around the country.

Anyhow, they stumbled across a Schwinn Black Phantom in a recent episode, and needed some pictures of a restored Phantom to give viewers an idea of what they had just uncovered.  We got a call requesting permission to use some of our photos, and so there you go:  Classic Cycle as a bicycle reference library.

You can watch the episode here or in reruns on the History Channel:

http://www.history.com/shows/american-pickers/videos/american-pickers-white-knuckles

Tristan steps into a time machine

Tristan at L’Eroica

So, there’s this race…

That’s how we started our pitch, and we managed to persuade our friend Tristan into racing the L’Eroica event in Colorado.

The L’Eroica is a 100 mile race from Grand Junction to Glenwood Springs and back, commemorating an event that took place between 1885 and 1915.  You get extra points the older your bike is, so we set up Tristan on a 1916 Mead Ranger.  He channeled his forefathers, and did the ride in wool knickers, his best Sunday shoes and shirt.

The race was an adventure.  In Tristan’s own words…

Way to go, Tristan!  You did us proud.

Fixing a Flat Tire

Drat! A flat!

If you ride a bike, flats happen.

There are plenty of little mistakes to make while fixing a flat tire (believe me, I’ve made most of them), so let’s start from the moment that you feel that softening tire, and see if we can’t do things the right way.

First of all, if you’re going to fix your tire while out on the road, you need some supplies:  A spare tube, tire levers to pry the tire off of the rim, and a pump or CO2 inflator.  If you don’t have all three items, then carry a cell phone and make sure you have a friend you can reach who happens to owe you a favor.

Notice that I didn’t mention a patch kit?  Patch kits are for mending your tube in the comfort of your own home (you can use that patched tube as your spare next time out).  If you commonly get multiple flats on a ride (and need a patch kit) it means that your tires stink, that you failed to find out what caused the original flat (or failed to fix it) or that you need to find a new route to work.

When you first sense that you have a flat, keep some things in mind:  First, if you need to, you can ride on a flat tire for quite a ways without doing significant damage to your bike.  Sure, you may ruin a tire or scrape up your rim, but that sure beats getting mugged or run over if you stop to change your flat in an inappropriate place.  Second, when you do pull over, make sure you have a decent place to work.  Don’t stop where you’ll be working in tall weeds, or other spots where you’re likely to loose the contents of your seat bag in the process.  Try not to stop in front of a “Beware of Dog” sign, or on the edge of a busy roadway where you’re impeding traffic.  Everyone with me?

Now, before flipping your bike upside down in the ditch and getting to work, close your waterbottle tops.  A flat sucks, but running out of water in the wrong place on a hot day can be hazardous to your health.

I assume that you know how to work a quick release lever to get your wheels off.  If this isn’t the case, try taking your wheels off a few times at home.  Learning a new skill when you’re hungry, have cold fingers, or when it is too dark to see isn’t ideal.

Rim shoulders and a deep center trench

Now, before grabbing the tire levers, go to the valve and let all of the remaining air out of the tube.  If just a little air lingers in your tube, this job will be quite a bit tougher.  After letting the air out, go around the wheel and squeeze the sides of the tire together.  This will push the tire bead off of the rim shoulders, and down into the channel that runs around the center of the rim.  This little trick will give you enough slack that some tires will nearly fall off of the rim, and some impossibly tough tires will become a bit more manageable.

O.K.  Now put one of your tire levers (using the spoon side) under the bead of the tire.  This works best away from the valve area of the tire where there is more room.  Pry the lever over and use the little hook end to secure it to a spoke.  Take a second lever, and stick the spoon end under the tire bead right next to the first one.  Pry the tire edge up and to the side just a little.  See the tire bead come off the rim just a bit?  The key to getting a stubborn tire off is to pry the bead just a tiny bit, then slide the lever sideways on the rim just a half-inch and pry at it again, repeating this action until it gets easy to slide the tool all the way around the rim.

Pry off just a little bit at a time

Once one side of the tire is off, pull the tube out from under the tire, leaving the valve sticking through the rim.  Take your pump, or use just a little bit of your CO2 cartridge, and inflate the tube enough so that you can hear or feel where the air is leaking out.  Since the valve is still in the rim, you can check out the tire in the area of the leak for the cause of the flat.  If you find a piece of glass or other debris, run your fingers around the tire and check for other bits.  Check the rim tape, and make sure that all of the spoke holes are all covered up.

If you have a cut in your tire bigger than a pencil point, you’ll need to put a “boot” or patch on the inside of the tire to keep the fresh innertube from pushing through the cut.  A folded-up dollar bill or an energy gel packet will work pretty well as a tire boot.

Before you install the new tube, inflate it just enough so that the folds and creases disappear.  Put the tube valve through the rim hole, and start tucking the innertube into the tire.  Go all the way around the tire, tucking the tube into place, and then pulling the tire and tube over the top of the rim.  Now you should be ready to pull the edge of the tire back up onto the rim.  This is a job for your fingers alone.  If you try using your tire lever to pry the tire back up onto the rim, you’ll just put a hole in your new tube.  Just take it inch by inch, squeezing the tire up and onto the rim.  If you work in small enough bites, even the toughest tire should cooperate.

Partially inflate the tire.  Notice any wobbles or bulges in the tire?  No?  Go ahead and inflate it all of the way up, taking care not to break the valve in the midst of your athletic pumping.  By pumping only part-way at the beginning, you have the chance to catch a mistake before full tire pressure pops the whole thing off of the rim and you have to start over.

Re-installing the wheel should be no problem if you paid attention when you initially removed it.  Check to make sure the brakes work, and spin the pedals to get the chain and gears sorted out.

When you’re ready to get back on the road, take one last look around the ditch, and don’t ride off without grabbing all the stuff that you left scattered about.

Equipment tips:  Choosing a saddle

Finding the perfect saddle isn’t always easy.  Everyone who has ridden a bike for more than an hour has experienced some degree of discomfort, and the seat on the bike is often to blame.  There are a lot of choices out there in bike saddles, and here are a few tips to help select a winner from all of the possibilities.

While the saddle itself is important, remember that it works in the context of a system.  The type of bike you ride, your position on the bike, your body (pelvic shape, flexibility, weight), the clothing that you wear while riding, how hard you ride (pressure on the pedals), and the saddle are all elements in this system.

Saddles come in a variety of widths, densities, shapes and materials. There is no one saddle that is the best, or the most comfortable for every body.  A friend may have a bike seat that they love, but in no way does this mean that the same saddle will work for you.

Saddles with the cutout on the top have received a lot of attention in the past decade.  In our experience, the correct width saddle, positioned correctly, is the goal.  Generally, the cutout is not helpful, and can actually make things worse.  Sizing is the key.  You can use one of the saddle measurement tools in the store (we call them ass-ometers) to figure out which width your riding position and pelvic shape needs.

These old saddles turned custom to their rider

Old-style leather saddles like Brooks use natural leather, and they conform to you, becoming “custom” over time.  They can be extremely comfortable, but plan ahead, as there is a considerable break-in time for these saddles.

Inexpensive padded saddles use foam rubber for the padding.  They feel plush to the thumb, but while riding, the foam can bottom out, leaving the rider sitting on the hard shell.  Better saddles use gel.  They provide more support than foam.

High-end saddles that use carbon fiber and titanium in the construction are more than just light.  The high-tech materials can flex dramatically and absorb shock while maintaining the same strength and durability as more cheaply constructed saddles.

Here are a few generalizations that may make good starting points:

The pelvis is somewhat triangular in shape, and tips to a narrower portion as you bend over.  The more stretched out that you are, the narrower the saddle that you want.

A saddle needs to be level to work right.  Tipping the nose way down only puts your weight on your hands, and is generally an indication that the seat position is too high, or the bike fits poorly.  Before you throw out an uncomfortable seat, you may want to consider getting your bike fit to you.

Your feet, hands, and rear end are the contact points on the bike.  The more weight that is on your feet (how hard you’re pedaling), the less weight is supported by your hands and rear end.  The little racing saddle that feels fine on hard weekend training rides will become unbearable when you slow down to ride with the kids.

Saddle width is critical to riding comfort.  If the saddle is too narrow, the sit bones will be over the edge, and put too much pressure on sensitive areas.  The correct width will perch the rider on top of the saddle so pressure is evenly distributed.  A saddle that is too wide will make you straddle too much material, and it may cause chafing.

Also, don’t underestimate the power of a good pair of cycling shorts.  Or chamois cream.

Hope these guidelines will help you to find the mythical “Perfect Bicycle Saddle”.

Bike Appraisals

Have an old bike that you’d like to get appraised?

We can help, but we have a few guidelines that we’d like you to understand.

First, we have no idea what your bike is worth without seeing it. We’re just not that smart. Don’t call us and try to describe it over the phone. Serial numbers do not help. Instead, you can send us an email with some pictures attached or bring your bike in to the store.

Take a photo from the “drive side” in front of a neutral background

To make the appraisal more accurate, prepare the bike and take photos like you would if you were going to sell it. Clean the bike, remove any broken or rough-looking accessories and put some air in the tires.
Take pictures straight on in front of a blank background, and take close-up photos of areas that may generate interest (or confusion).

There is no “Blue Book” value for bicycles. Bikes are simply worth what someone else is willing to pay for them. Bicycle values tend to be highest when the weather is warm, in places where it’s pleasant to ride, and wherever there are a lot of people who like bikes.

Badges or labels on the tubes help with identification

Close-ups of the parts tell a lot about your bike

You know more about your bike than we do. If you just bought a bike for $50, you have just established the value of the bicycle (and you are not likely to be able to sell it for $2000 to somebody else). You know when you bought it, so you have a good idea of the age, and you know if it was a high-end racing model or a basic bike from Walmart.

Rarity rarely helps determine value. If you have a one-of-a-kind bicycle, it may mean that no one has ever heard of it and/or nobody is looking for one.

Popularity is no indicator either. Bikes that were sold in large numbers could fall into one of two camps. You could have a bike that will never sell (Schwinn Varsity) because there are still thousands of them out there, or you could have a bike that will cause a bidding war (Bridgestone MB-1) because people rode them into the ground and they want another one.

If what you’re really after is to get rid of an old bike, keep us in mind. While we don’t buy bikes outright, we’ll likely take your old bike as a trade-in for something new….