A customer found this bike, an old Schwinn mixte, on Craigslist and bought it for his significant other. After bringing it to me to check for any obvious damage or misalignment he took the frame to a local paint shop and had it powder coated gloss black. Then he brought it back to me and we outfitted it with new components. I don’t know too much about Schwinn bikes except that there is enough history with that company to fill more than one book, but I don’t think this was a particularly high-end bike. But with new parts it rides surprisingly well and will make a nice commuter/day tripper.
She decided the Brooks B68s saddle was a keeper right out of the box. A 9 speed rear cassette and double chainrings provide a practical range of gears. The original bike had 27 inch wheels. The new wheels are 700c, a slightly smaller diameter, but work fine with the medium reach brake calipers.
The stem is the Nitto Technomic Deluxe 225. We could have got the bars as high or higher with the Nitto Dirt Drop stem but this was the aesthetically preferred solution. That actually is a huge cassette.
The Ahearne/Map handlebars have a slight rise and a nice ergonomic sweep and they look sportier than Albatross bars.
Dimension cork blend grips. The Tektro FL-750 levers are very clean and add a nice vintage look. The IRD XC-Pro 9 speed indexed top mount thumb shifters are a top of the line, modern version of a tried and true design.
Not counting what he paid for the bike, with parts and my labor, this build ran about $1275.00. Not cheap, in fact a new Long Haul Trucker can be had for the same price. But the end result is a unique, sporty, classic looking bike. It was fun to put together and the new owner loves it.
This is the final installment of our coverage of the 2012 North American Handmade Bicycle Show, and we have two,count em, two, interviews. First up is Deb Banks talking about her new saddle making venture; Rivet Cycleworks
Mitch Pryor made the trip down from Portland, OR with bikes he makes under the moniker MAP Bicycles. I have long appreciated his attention to detail and the way he can make simple look easy.
The Surly Moonlander
There is this dog sled race in Alaska. At some point somebody decided the same race could be done on bicycles. Riding in the snow on normal mountain bike tires was more than challenging though so some early innovators would weld two or three mountain bike rims side by side and mount tires on each rim in order to be able to float over the snow. Over the years wider rims and tires were developed and now there are a number of companies making so called “fatbikes”. Now Salsa Cycles has a fat bike in their lineup (Mukluk) as do a dozen or so other smaller builders. In Alaska, where the concept originated, two companies are making fatbikes. Chain Reaction Cycles sells the 9:Zero:7 and Speedway Cycles has the Fatback. And there are a few good blogs about the fat bike experience, notably Fat-Bike dot com and pugsley on patrol
Giving credit where credit is due here is a link to a little fatbike history.
Surly bikes entered the market with their Pugsley model and recently raised the bar with the Moonlander, designed from the ground up to go where the Pugsley can’t. The Moonlander takes 26 x 4.7 inch tires!
Designed from the ground up to go places the Pugsley can’t the Moonlander comes with 100 mm wide rims designed to fit 4.7 inch Big Fat Larry tires. To make these work Surly had to design and tool for the manufacture of some specialized components, notably the Mr. Whirly Offset Double crankset and the Clown Shoe rims. The left crank arm of the Mr. Whirly crankset gracefully matches the curve of the chainstays. The wide rim has cut outs for weight savings. That is the rim tape/liner bulging out of the cutouts.
The 4.7 inch wide Big Fat Larry tires (top) leave a very low impact footprint.
There are plenty of brazed on eyelets for mounting racks but the only rack that currently fits without modification is the Surly rear rack, and it only fits, without modification, on the rear. The front fork does have eyelets for the Salsa Anything Cage though, so a rear rack with panniers and a couple of Salsa Anything cages on the fork should be enough to carry gear for most adventures. Revelate Designs in Anchorage , Alaska specializes in building frame bags for these bikes too.
As the Bike Hermit makes his way back to the bike cave from Portland on Chief, Sky King thought it would be a good idea to provide a link to the updates on the Oregon Manifest Website. Some high quality photos and interviews with the builders and the judges.
Complete RenoveloThe Renovelo project is complete and delivered to the customer. The final steps were wrapping the handlebars and installing the SKS P45 fenders. The Fizik Micro-Tex tape has a really nice feel and appearance and I know it’s durable. The P-45 fenders are sized nominally for 700c wheels and tires, but the 650b Nifty Swiftys are close enough in overall diameter that the fenders fit quite well with just a little bit of tweaking. Bikes somehow look more complete with fenders Nice racing stripes on the SKS fenders. The Cane Creek brake levers have a shape that allows for a nice smooth, flat transition from the handlebar ramps. Good for comfort on those long days. A decent fender line with 650b tires requires nipping the ends off the fender stays for a little tighter radius.
Over the next week or so I will be putting together this:
RenoVelo, a Rivendell Sam Hillborne
This bike will be used for touring and this is an ideal frame with which to start. The steel tubing is of a gauge or thickness to contribute to the rigidity of the bike when loaded, and the geometry of the bike will make it solid and stable on the road. The 650b wheels with some nice cushy tires will make the ride super plush. In it’s first life it was a demo bike at Rivendell World Headquarters in Walnut Creek, CA and now it is reincarnated as the RenoVelo. Some other details that make it a good touring frame are:
135 mm between the dropouts accepts a "mountain" or touring hub. A wider bracing angle makes a stronger wheel than the 130 mm spacing on a standard "road" wheel, and it makes the frame rear triangle stiffer too.Lots of places to bolt racks and fenders.The head tube extends above the top of the top tube. Makes it easy to get the bike "riv'ed out"A place for a kickstand!Simple, durable square taper cartridge bottom bracket
Studs for cantilever brakes. Depending on the model, better stopping power and clearances than side pulls.
If you are interested in following the progress of this build, as you should be, check back here starting next week. More photos on our Flickr page too. (click the photo banner on the right)
The two-wheeled revolution won’t come on the saddle of a race bike or a specialty bike. The utility bike is the transportation mode of the future for millions of Americans who want to live healthier, more sustainable lives, but don’t think of themselves as “cyclists.” The key to realizing this future is thoughtful, innovative bike design that fills multiple needs and fits into their lives.
Stronger, lighter, simpler designs for bicycles and bike parts are not always the progeny of racing. In the early part of the last century, trials were held in France which rewarded lightweight designs capable of completing really difficult courses in a self supported way without breaking. The Oregon Manifest is resurrecting that tradition, and that can only lead to good things! Of course, the cynic within the Bike Hermit’s soul expects representatives from companies which shall not be named but whose initials are Trek, Gary Fisher, Specialized and Giant to be there in force to steel and deploy ideas from the best minds in bicycle design. Oh well, it’s not as if it’s a zero sum game. The more utility and transportation bikes the better I say.
Vintage!
The Oregon Manifest Field Test
The moment of truth in the 2011 Challenge will be the mandatory Oregon Manifest Field Test. This rigorous road trial will assess the real function of every bike in the challenge, in real world environments including hills, byways and off-road sections. It will include several on-road check points where mandatory features of each bike will be evaluated. The Field Test requires riders to keep a brisk pace that will stress their bikes to the limit, and demands a well-crafted, expertly assembled entry in order to complete the route in good time. Final evaluation and point tabulation will occur after all bikes have completed the Field Test.
Tim had this bike painted twice and still was not completely happy. Looked pretty good to me!
As promised, here is a pic of Tim O’Donell’s fillet brazed road bike. We are right next to YiPsan Bicycles‘ booth. Renold has some good ideas. Especially the porteur/low rider front rack. The two side platforms on the front rack come off and attach to the lower stays to support panniers. A really clever solution and one that I’m sure will be reproduced in a production way by somebody judging from the number of photos taken during the day. When you see it, know where it came from.
The YiPsan transformer rack. The right side of the platform has been removed and attached to the right stays to support a low rider pannier.The YiPsan transformer front rack.YiPsan transformer rack. This is the right side platform attached to the side for a front low rider pannier
80 degrees today in Austin. 34 with snow on the ground back home.
We are in Austin for the 2011 North American Handmade Bicycle Show. Framebuilder Don Walker had the brainstorm for this show and produced the first one in 2005 in Houston, TX. The show has grown over the years but still showcases only those bikes made by hand, in the exhibitor’s shop. Today Dario Pegoretti, Ben Serotta and other icons could be seen helping to build their own booth displays. Still a pretty hands on and down to earth bunch, or so it would seem.
Tim from Shamrock Cycles – “Handbuilt Frames From The Mountains of Indiana” was kind enough to let us use one of his fillet brazed road bikes in the Zimbale booth to help display our products. I saw the bike today and it is sweet. Stay tuned for photos of that bike and maybe some others too!
I remember riding through downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada on my first self supported bike tour with homemade rear panniers which, when the bike hit a rough patch, bounced around and came un-hooked from the rack. Luckily they didn’t fall completely off because the gang of homeless men accosting me from a vacant lot as I rode past would have been happy to relieve me from my load and probably my bike if I had stopped. Needless to say, since that tour I am a little more finicky about my equipment.
On my up-coming tour I am using front and rear racks made by Nitto in Tokyo, Japan. These are made of nickel plated, tubular Chrome-moly steel with simple and solid attachment hardware.
The Nitto Campee front rack sans the low rider attachments.Highly adjustable aluminum struts allow for a custom fit.The lower leg of the Campee rack has an integral spacer to clear the fork blade.Daruma bolt Daruma bolt attached to rack and strut.
The Nitto Campee front rack comes with detachable low-rider panels for attaching panniers. I have removed those, because I don’t have low rider panniers. The panniers and bags I willbe using are the subject of another post. The aluminum struts attaching the rack to the fork eyelets in these photos are sold as separate accessories. The struts which come with the rack are made to attach to cantilever brake posts.
This seems like as good a time as any to look at a couple different fork blade/eyelet/brake combinations. Eyelets are the small, threaded holes drilled into the sides of the fork or into tabs which are then welded onto the dropout (the piece on the end of the fork blade…where the wheel axle attaches). Some bikes have one eyelet on the fork dropout and some have two. There is only one on each dropout on my bike, so the rack and the fender strut clamps will share the same hole. A bike with two dropout eyelets allows a little more flexibility in attaching racks and fenders.
A fork blade dropout(from a Surly Long Haul Trucker) with two eyelets
Not all bikes have eyelets on the forks. What? How can that be? Well, some people don’t want to carry stuff on their bikes, believe it or not. For the person who actually uses their bike, however, the more eyelets the better. OK so how about the mid-fork eyelets? On most touring bikes these are located to facilitate “low rider” racks such as the Tubus Tara or the Tubus Duo. And on really well designed touring bikes, like Surly’s Long Haul Trucker, there are two mid-fork eyelets on each fork blade…one on the outside and one on the inside. The Tubus Duo was actually made with that bike in mind. On some bikes, like my Rivendell, the eyelets are located higher on the fork, and these will not work with low-rider only racks. Bikes such as Rivendell, with higher fork mount braze-on eyelets seem to work best with the Nitto type hardware and designs.
The fork on the left has inner and outer eyelets in the fork blade. The other fork blade has braze-on eyelets mounted higher.
Many touring bikes will also be designed for cantilever style brakes. These brakes are mounted on special posts which are welded on to the fork blades. Some racks like Old Man Mountain brand Cold Springs and Ultimate Low Rider models attach directly to these posts with provided replacement bolts. Others, like some Nitto models attach to these posts with a special, double ended brake bolt or stud.
The fork in the foreground has posts for cantilever style brakes. The brakes on the other fork are center mount, sidepulls. The Nitto Campee rack on a bike with cantilever brakes. The struts would bolt on to a stud (pictured below) which replaces the brake bolt.This is the stud which replaces the cantilever brake bolt.The struts are adjusted to line up with the brake bolt, which would be replaced with the double ended stud.
I got a little carried away and off topic with this post, but it felt like a good time to get into some rack details. Hopefully it might give you, good readers, some things on which to cogitate. In the next post I talk about my dual Schmidt E6 headlight setup, about which I am unnaturally excited.
