NAHBS: Outliers

Some of my favorite bikes from this year’s NAHBS were items that clearly were not for sale. Don Walker has done a good job of courting companies that don’t seem the typical fit for the show, of which, most exhibitors have fewer than six people on staff. In encouraging both Serotta and Ritchey to attend Walker was able to embrace nostalgia in the show in the form of bikes that were built even before some of the builders present were born.

Ben Serotta got his start at Witcomb Cycles in England along with Richard Sachs and Peter Weigle. When Serotta first hung out his shingle he worked on his own, but he quickly followed a more traditional European model and began adding apprentices to work under him. Today, Serotta is lauded for straddling the worlds of production building with custom-fit frames.

The frame shown here is #164 and dates from the 1970s. Built before the terms “politically correct” and “female objectification” had entered the common lexicon of stuff not to do, the frame is a most unusual collaboration. Two sculptures, one adorning the head tube, the other wrapping around the bottom bracket were crafted by Serotta’s sister, Marcie. She also cut the lugs into their asymmetric feminine forms. Ben handled all the actual fabrication.

I’ve seen a great many bikes with lugs cut into unusual forms, but the combination of asymmetric designs paired with an unusual (and memorable) theme make this my single most favorite bike of the show. It shows a degree of creativity that would be fresh today, but was unheard-of for the 1970s.

I hope people can see beyond the two sculptures and into the greater celebration of the female form. I find a surprising harmony in it; I don’t really find the two sculptures titillating.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect to this bike was simply its appearance at the show. That it hasn’t been lost to the sands of time by being sold off to some collector is a great argument for why publicly funded art galleries should exist. I’d love to revisit this frame each year at NAHBS.

When I was a shop rat in the 1980s, I worked for the one and only Serotta dealer in Memphis, Tennessee. It was kinda like being the singer in the best band in Iuka, Mississippi, I suppose. Regardless, the Serotta Colorado was a bike I coveted the way a guy in a midlife crisis covets a Corvette. I couldn’t live without it, but had to. The swaged down tube that fit in a lug at top and was fillet-brazed over the lug points at the BB shell, the S-bend chainstays and the stellar paint had me dreaming about racing this bike over every road I could find. To me, the Colorado was the perfect marriage of superior design, impeccable performance and gorgeous appearance. It was Pamela Anderson in steel.

I’ve never owned one, though I’ve ridden a few and spent nearly a year riding its protege, an Atlanta, one of my all-time favorite steel bikes. Everything about the Colorado was class, right down to the sloping fork crown, pantographed with the word “Colorado” and the Serotta “S.”

I recall showing dozens of friends how the down tube grew in diameter so much that it fit over the socket for the down tube at the BB shell. It was my undeniable, irrefutable sales pitch for the superiority of the Colorado. You want stiff? This is stiffer than anything you’ve ridden.

Later, Dave Kirk, now of Kirk Frameworks, invented a rear suspension system. The DKS suspension was the only rear suspension for a road bike to go into serious production. Where the seatstays met the chainstays they were bolted together with the aid of a bearing. The curvature of the seatstays was designed to allow for a bit of vertical compliance. Kirk told me that for most riders, vertical travel was only about 1mm, but that single thumbnail was enough for most riders to sense and to recognize improved tracking on rough roads. To provide damping, two silicon bumpers ran along the seatstays. The bumpers were available in three densities and while folks at Serotta thought most riders would opt for the stiffest of the three bumpers, most riders who tried the system (including Davis Phinney and Ron Kiefel) preferred the light grey bumpers shown here, the softest bumpers, which allowed the greatest travel.

Though it’s no longer in production, the DKS suspension was a remarkable step forward. I’ll be interested to see what comes next.

This bike had to be the other real rock star of the show. Tom Ritchey built this frame in the 1970s for his father. Yes, his father. Sitting behind three other frames Ritchey built just for the show (a Swiss Cross and two mountain bikes), this one was rather easy to overlook. Despite its position at the back of the booth, it was, in my estimation the most interesting bike in Ritchey’s booth because it showcased Ritchey’s abilities in creative thought, mechanical wizardry and artistry.

You’ve already seen this shot and the incredibly filed and shaped lug. Be sure to notice the cap-less fork blades. The weep holes are situated at the very bottom of the fork blades to make sure water will drain should the rider (Dad) get caught in the rain.

Thanks to Ritchey’s way-before-its-time seat mast design the brake cable is perfectly centered as it enters the top tube just ahead of the seat lug and then exits what would otherwise be the bottom of the seat lug. It makes for a very stealthy look.

This has to be the single smallest cable guide I’ve ever seen.

The integration of the seat post into the seat is very cool looking and was no doubt really light for its day, but perhaps what is most surprising is that Ritchey had to have the fit absolutely dialed for while the saddle could be raised and lowered, fore and aft adjustment was not possible, nor was tilt. You got one shot to get it right.

These are the elusive Cinelli clipless pedals. They required sliding the cleat into the pedal and then locking the cleat into place by sliding the lever at the front of the pedal. All the sets I’ve ever seen were in display cases of one form or another. Even if they had been ridden, the fact that they were so hard to use without near constant crashing meant that after what were often fairly expensive (for those days) efforts to secure the pedals, no one wanted to get rid of them. They remained cool even in the face of near suicidally poor operation.

 

Coming Soon: 2011 North American Handmade Bicycle Show

The handmade bicycle is enjoying a resurgence in popularity. The last time high-end hand-built frames were this popular … they were all that was available.

Don Walker’s North American Handmade Bicycle Show is the grand daddy of the growing number of shows. It’s still the biggest and best of them, and this year will be the biggest yet. Just today Don announced that the 2011 show, which will be held from February 25-27 in Austin, Texas, boasts an incredible 160 exhibitors, and there’s still some space left. It probably helped that Don selected a city to hold the event that resonates with cyclists.

With the fall-off in A-list exhibitors at Interbike (a trend that frustrates me but that I sincerely hope the organizers turn around), NAHBS this year will be the show I most anticipate attending.

I’ll be posting daily at the event, but much of the work I’ll be doing while there will be on behalf of peloton magazine. There will a bigger announcement on that coming soon.

As of this post, the following companies and builders will be displaying at NAHBS.

• ALCHEMY BICYCLE CO.
• ALLIANCE BICYCLES, LLC
• ANDERSON CUSTOM BICYCLES
• ANT BICYCLES
• ANVIL BIKEWORKS
• APRES VELO
• ARUNDEL BICYCLE COMPANY
• BAILEY WORKS
• BAMBOOSERO
• BASSO
• BICYCLE FABRICATIONS
• BICYCLE FOREST
• BICYCLE TIMES MAGAZINE
• BILENKY CYCLE WORKS
• BISHOP BIKES
• BLACK CAT BICYCLES
• BLACK SHEEP FABRICATION, INC
• BOO BICYCLES
• BROAKLAND BIKES
• BROMPTON BICYCLE
• BRONTO MTB CO
• BROOKS
• BURRO BAGS
• C.C.P.
• CALETTI CYCLES
• CALFEE DESIGN
• CANTITOE ROAD
• CHERUBIM BY SHIN-ICHI KONNO
• CHRIS KING PRECISION COMPONENTS
• CINELLI
• CO-MOTION CYCLES
• COLUMBUS
• CONTINENTAL
• CRUMPTON CYCLES
• CURT GOODRICH BICYCLES
• CYCLE DESIGN
• CYCLE MONKEY
• CYFAC INTERNATIONAL
• DALTEX HANDMADE BICYCLES
• DARIO PEGORETTI
• DEAN TITANIUM BIKES
• DEFEET INTERNATIONAL
• DELLA SANTA CYCLES
• DESALVO CUSTOM CYCLES
• DINUCCI CYCLES
• DIRT RAG MAGAZINE
• DOMINGUEZ CYCLES
• DON WALKER CYCLES
• DROMARTI
• ELLIS CYCLES
• ENGIN CYCLES
• ENVE COMPOSITES
• FI’ZI:K
• FIXED GEAR GALLERY/HELL-YES CLOTHING
• FORM CYCLES
• FULL SPEED AHEAD
• FUNK CYCLES
• GALLUS CYCLES
• GAULZETTI CICLI
• GEEKHOUSE BIKES
• GIORDANA
• GJERTSEN TECHNOLOGIES
• GROOVY CYCLEWORKS
• GURU CYCLES
• HAMPSTEN CYCLES
• HED WHEELS
• HELM CYCLES
• HENRY JAMES BICYCLES & TRUE TEMPER SPORTS
• IGLEHEART CUSTOM FRAMES & FORKS
• INDEPENDENT FABRICATION
• IRA RYAN CYCLES
• KENT ERIKSEN CYCLES
• KIMORI CO, LTD
• KIRK FRAMEWORKS
• KIRKLEE BICYCLES
• KISH FABRICATION
• KVA STAINLESS
• LEGOR CICLI
• MAIETTA HANDBUILT BICYCLES
• MAVIC
• MOMENTUM MAGAZINE
• MOOTS
• MOSAIC CYCLES
• MOUNTAIN FLYER MAGAZINE
• NAKED BICYCLES
• NOVA CYCLES SUPPLY INC
• NUVINCI
• PAC DESIGNS
• PARAGON MACHINE WORKS
• PARLEE CYCLES
• PAUL COMPONENT ENGINEERING
• PEACOCK GROOVE
• PELOTON MAGAZINE
• PHILOSOPHY BAG CO.
• PRIORITY CYCLES
• QUIRING CYCLES, LLC
• RAPHA
• RETROTEC & INGLIS CYCLES
• REYNOLDS TECHNOLOGY LTD
• RICHARD SACHS CYCLES
• RITCHEY DESIGN
• ROLF PRIMA
• ROULEUR MAGAZINE
• RPS NIPC
• SAMURAI CYCLE WORKS
• SCREEN SPECIALTY SHOP, INC
• SCRUB COMPONENTS
• SELLE ITALIA
• SEROTTA BICYCLES
• SHAMROCK CYCLES
• SHEILA MOON ATHLETIC APPAREL
• SIGNAL CYCLES
• SIX-ELEVEN BICYCLE CO.
• SOTHERLAND CUSTOM BICYCLES
• SPEEDHOUND BIKES
• SPUTNIK TOOL
• STRONG FRAMES
• SUNRACE STURMEY ARCHER
• SYCIP DESIGNS
• SYLVAN CYCLES
• TERRA NOVA CYCLES, LLC
• THOMSON
• TI CYCLES FABRICATION
• TOMMASINI BICYCLES
• TRUE FABRICATION BICYCLES
• TWIN SIX
• UNITED BICYCLE INSTITUTE
• VANILLA WORKSHOP
• VENDETTA CYCLES
• VERTIGO CYCLES
• VICTORIA CYCLES
• VP COMPONENTS
• VULTURE CYCLES
• WATSON CYCLES
• WHEEL FANATYK
• WHITE BROTHERS SUSPENSION
• WHITE INDUSTRIES
• WINTER BICYCLES
• WOUND UP COMPOSITE CYCLES
• YIPSAN BICYCLES
• ZANCONATO CUSTOM CYCLES
• ZIPP
• ZULLO

• 2011 NEW BUILDER TABLE EXHIBITORS:
• APPLEMAN BICYCLES
• DEMON FRAMEWORKS
• DORNBOX PERFORMANCE BICYCLES
• FORESTA FRAMES
• LITTLEFORD BICYCLES
• MAGNOLIA CYCLES
• MILLS BROTHERS BICYCLE COMPANY
• PITZ
• RICH PHILLIPS CYCLES
• ROSENE HANDBUILT BICYCLES
• VANLOOZEN BROTHERS BICYCLES
• VIOLET CROWN CYCLES

Friday Group Ride #53

The Cinelli Best Of

I often have friends and co-workers approach me for advice on buying a new bicycle. This is a little bit like approaching Buzz Aldrin for advice on space travel. So much of what I say to them makes no sense, because our contexts are starkly different. I come from Planet Bicycle. They come from Planet Earth.

The Flandria Competition

Once I’m done issuing forth with a quick discursive on componentry and frame materials, which sounds to them like, “bloop, blorg, bleep,” I end up saying what I really believe, which is, “You should buy the bike that you think looks the best.” The truth, in my opinion, is that for non-bicycle people, most bikes are just the same. This is certainly true at the lower price points they are usually considering. The materials and components on offer are so similar that choosing among them becomes awfully difficult unless you’re willing to abandon yourself to aesthetics.

The Ritte Bosberg

It might seem as though I don’t take their requests very seriously, but quite to the contrary, what I really, really wish for is to convert this unsuspecting earthling into a bike person. I want them to fall in love with their bike and with cycling, and become one of us.

And like any love, it starts with attraction. The paint is as crucial as the cranks. Believe it.

And so this week’s Group Ride is about the bikes that we think look best. I’ve posted some of my favorites here. What are yours?

Interbike: Day 3

Multiply one guy by three days by more than 100 exhibitors who rank somewhere between curious and fascinating and the result is a negative number. The show really can’t be fully digested that way. When I left the floor of Interbike Friday afternoon, I had more questions than when I entered. The list of products I am dying to ride is too long to prioritize.

The number of companies that didn’t display on any level was much greater than I previously understood. I had assumed that Ochsner Imports, an importer with a number of interesting lines, would be present, but they had no booth. More than a few companies had smaller booths than in previous years.

The question of the relevance of the show was further called into question by the number of exhibitors taking orders at the show. I spoke with but one exhibitor who had taken orders in meetings with retailers.

One of the biggest trends illustrated at Interbike was the number of European companies that now own their American distributorship as a subsidiary. Sidi  has formed a new U.S. distributorship, as has the German bike manufacturer Focus, whose Izalco was one of the freshest takes on bike design I saw all week. Despite occupying a distant corner of the show floor, the Focus booth enjoyed an ongoing stream of visitors.

The Quill Stem

I’m not a Luddite. I need to say that as a prelude to the defense I am about to mount for a technology that has been abandoned as thoroughly as the Conestoga wagon. I’ve missed the quill stem for years now for rather selfish reasons. Every time I’m involved in a photo shoot for a bicycle frame with fork, I wish that I was shooting a fork with a cut steerer finished with a beautiful headset, say one from Campy or Chris King. The results from those shoots are so much more satisfying when there’s not six inches of carbon fiber steerer extending from the top of the head tube.

Deep breath … that’s a problem that almost no one else has.

I also miss the quill stem when I pack a bike for travel. Whether I’m packing one of my bikes in a travel case or even a cardboard box, I’ve always appreciated how I could loosen a bolt that was always 6mm, give a tap from a hammer and the stem would slide free. Simple and consistent.

Unfortunately, the needs of the traveling cyclist have been answered with a variety of travel products, some more enjoyable than others. And the way the airline bike charges are going, bike cases and cardboard boxes will cease to enter cargo holds altogether with.

But those are relatively minor annoyances when compared with the loss of handlebar height adjustability. The combination of a quill stem with a two- or four-bolt faceplate offers an incredible degree of adjustability. It’s easy to say that you can just leave several centimeters of steerer and place spacers above or below the stem, but that’s becoming less and less the case. New steerers from several manufacturers won’t permit more than 3cm of spacers between the stem and the top bearing of the headset and not more than 1cm of spacer above the stem due to the expander plug’s ability to fracture unsupported steerer.

I’ve been working on some reviews of bikes that will be running here shortly and have struggled to achieve the right combination of bar height and reach to allow me to hit that sweet spot of handling. It’s been 10 years (give or take) since most manufacturers offered bikes with quill stems; the benefits touted with threadless stems included lower weight and a reduced likelihood of misalignment between the handlebar and front wheel in the event of a crash.

Reduced weight isn’t a bad thing, but I don’t understand why this particular idea caught on to the degree that it did. I’ve seen plenty of crashed bikes that suffered a sheered steerer at the stem or upper headset bearing. No upside to that.

In bicycle fitting there was a simple calculus that all the bike fitters I knew kept in mind. I knew that for every 3cm up or down I moved the bar I needed to change the stem length by 1cm, longer if the bar came up, shorter if the bar moved down.

Does anyone still recall that you used to be able to order Cinelli stems in 5mm increments?

It’s too much to hope that the industry will resume using quill stems; it would be smarter to hold out hope that we’ll have free universal wi-fi available worldwide by the end of the year. Yeah, I thought you might laugh. However, is it asking too much to want more choices in stem angle? I know we all think that a stem with a positive rise (more than 90 degrees from the steering axis) looks silly, wouldn’t it make sense to offer stems in at least three angles, say 80, 84 and 88 degrees?

As the industry moves further and further from custom sized bikes on the high end, riders need more options to achieve proper sizing through component selection. Multiple setback seatposts are necessary just as multiple angle stems and multiple reach and drop bars are must-haves. It used to be that when I encountered a rider whose bike didn’t handle well I thought there was a problem first with the wheels, second with the bike. Today, I’m convinced that most of the time if there’s a problem with a bike’s handling, that problem is rooted in fit. Move the saddle, move the bar and you can usually solve the problem and in the end, that makes more sense to me as a means to help most riders; as much as I love custom bikes, what we really need more of is flexibility in component selection.

Zipp VumaQuad Crankset

When I was initiated into proper roadiedom, I was taught that if you were serious about doing things the right way, the Euro way, then you did things a certain way. The quickest way to show others you knew what you were doing was to show up on a Campagnolo-equipped bike with a Cinelli bar, stem and seatpost. Your saddle was Italian and your tape was the same color as your decals or the accent color in the windows of your lugs.

That mindset, though it created some gorgeous bikes that served well for tens of thousands of miles, squashed some great ideas over the years. I’m reminded of a Pasadena company, Sweet Parts, that made cranks and stems from steel of surprising stiffness and low weight. Alas, in the mid-1990s it was hard to get a rider to break rank with those suites of parts used in the gruppo or other componentry. After all, if your bar, stem and seatpost were supposed to match, what did you pair an oddball stem to?

Times change, and so do bikes. And while sometimes too much emphasis is placed on weight, it is tough to argue that today’s bikes aren’t noticeably superior in almost every performance aspect: Lower weight makes them easier to accelerate and speeds climbing; increased frame stiffness improves power transmission and more sophisticated componentry has improved shifting, given us more gears and increased brake modulation.

The proliferation of aftermarket components—everything from bars to brakes—means that we’re more accustomed to seeing bikes with parts that may not match. Zipp helped lead the way into this fray some years back. In fact, carbon fiber has been the company’s bread and butter for close to 15 years. Fortunately, the 3k weave used in many carbon fiber parts makes them more similar than not, even if the decals don’t match.

Zipp’s latest crankset for road (as opposed to TT/Tri) use is the VumaQuad. It uses a four-arm spider (the crankarm is one of the four arms of the spider) and is available in two different chainring configurations, either 53/39t or 50/34t; interestingly, both configurations use a 110mm bolt-circle diameter, so you can change chainrings out depending on the conditions or your fitness. The crankset is available in four lengths: 170, 172.5, 175 or 180mm. The spindle is oversized and machined from aluminum to the new BB30 standard; it is integrated into the non-drive arm and secures to the drive-side arm with a self-extracting bolt. And because Zipp is predicated on making you faster, the bottom bracket is offered with ceramic bearings (as well as precision steel); the cups are available in either English or Italian threads. All this in a sub-600g package.

My review setup was 50/34 rings with 175mm arms and ceramic bearings. I tried the cranks first on a bike that previously had a set of carbon fiber cranks that had some detectable flex. I immediately noticed the increased stiffness as well as a weight reduction. The easier spin of the bearings was noticeable (if not hugely apparent) when I sat down and shifted to a small gear for a hill; I felt like I was turning out an extra 10 watts or so.

Next, I swapped the crank over to my preferred ride. This frame is stiffer at the bottom bracket and I was curious to see how much of an improvement I’d feel over the Super Record Ultra-Torque crankset (a review of the Super Record will be coming). The change I felt was comparable to my first ride on the Dura-Ace 7800 crankset—I was stunned by the seamless transmission of power. I had the sense that the bike itself was stiffer at the bottom bracket, even though I knew that wasn’t the case.

Ten years ago I had concerns about parts not matching on my bike. Five years ago I had concerns about the durability of carbon fiber cranks. Last year I started wondering if you could even tell whether your bike had ceramic bearings anywhere other than the wheels. The VumaQuad has super-hero-like powers to alleviate me of anxiety and improve my performance. Of course, all this performance will cost you; $1250 (with ceramic bearings) is a weekend getaway at a swanky resort, but there’s no question in my mind this crankset is superior to every crank I have tried from Campagnolo, Shimano, Specialized and FSA. Honestly though, for that kind of money, you shouldn’t be left wondering if it was worth it.