I Have Seen What He Sees, And I Don't Like It, Either

I wouldn't call myself a "retrogrouch."  Yes, I ride steel frames. None of my bikes have disc brakes, tubeless tires, clipless pedals. "brifters" or Ergo-levers, threadless or integrated headsets, press-fit bottom brackets, "anatomic" handlebars or any carbon-fiber parts. Heck, I even ride with full-size frame-fit pumps.  Three of my bikes, however, have indexed shifting (wit h downtube levers), three have dual-pivot brakes and four have modern low-profile cranksets.

Now, I am not opposed to all new innovations, even if they're resurrection of old ideas.  But I don't feel I need to have the newest and latest of everything. If it works for me, I'll continue to use it.  And I prefer things I can fix myself:  about the only kind of fix I won't do myself is a frame repair.

I think I found someone who thinks more or less the way I do in Eben Weiss.  He authored the "Bike Snob" blog and now writes columns for Outside magazine.  In his latest piece, "I Can See The Future of Bicycle Technology and I Don't Like It," he decries what I'll call the Apple-ization of the bicycle industry.

What he and I detest is what almost everybody hates about the company that gave us the iPhone. (Full disclosure:  I have one.)  If you use it, or one of the firm's computers or pads, you know that they consist of specialized parts and accessories that aren't compatible with their counterparts from other tech companies and can only be repaired by Apple-approved technicians working in authorized dealerships.  That is, if they can be repaired:  Too often, parts and even entire units are made to be disposable--or Apple makes it so expensive or logistically onerous to fix your phone or computer that you just give up and buy the newest, latest model.

Now, to be fair, Apple is engaging what other companies in other industries have been doing for decades. It's called planned obsolescence.  Unfortunately, it's come to the bicycle industry.  Worse, it sometimes seems that bicycle, component and accessory manufacturers are making their products more technologically complicated for its own sake--or to impress people who mistake complication for sophistication or refinement.  An example is electronic shifting systems or other systems that can be operated only with phone apps.

Oh, while I'm at it, I'll complain about another unfortunate trend that I encountered in reading Weiss' article:  a paywall.  That wasn't an issue for me, as I am an Outside subscriber.  But you are forewarned: about that and what's come and coming to a bike near you.

The Original Sports Technology?

Last week, many of us gave thanks for one thing or another on the American holiday dedicated to expressing gratitude by engorging one's self with food.

Some of us were grateful for family and friends; others, simply to be alive. Then there are those who were grateful to stores for opening an hour earlier than they did last year.  You know what they say:  Early bird gets the bargains.

Well, all right, I don't know who said that.  But a fellow named Tom Taylor and I both gave thanks for...you guessed it...the bicycle.  Of course, we are both happy that a thing that gives us so much pleasure was ever invented.  He, however, gives another really good reason to be happy that the Draisienne, or whatever you consider the first bicycle, was invented.

You see, Taylor is, a mountain biker and involved in other outdoor sports.  At least, that's what I gather from what he says.  And he lives in Moab, after all.

In his article, he said the bicycle was "the original sports tech."  What he means is that, as far as we know, cycling was the first sport or leisuretime activity based on a product that required a certain amount of industrial capacity to produce.

As he explains, you don't need shoes to run and, "a branch falls from a tree, you find a pebble on the ground, and now you can play some form of cricket, or hockey, or baseball or golf.  Yes, you can make a better golf club and ball, but you can play regardless."  

He has a point:  Some of the most accomplished players in the "ball sports" learned how to play with nothing that resembles proper equipment.  They might've just rolled up whatever they could find to make a "ball" and, if sticks or clubs were necessary, twigs, branches or 2x4s from the junkyard stood in.  Naturally, some such athletes played barefoot until they signed their first professional contracts.

It also goes almost without saying that they played in the absence of any formal leagues, or any other kinds of structure or rules. For that matter, they sometimes didn't play on anything resembling a playing field or court.

I am talking about no less than Pele and Sammy Sosa.  Also, any number of hockey players used rocks or other things for "pucks" and anything that could be used to swat served as their hockey sticks.  I even read about one world-class player--I can't recall which, at the moment--who didn't even have skates until he joined a semi-professional league:  He and his friends would simply glide around on the ice on their most slippery shoes.

Now, we have often heard of champion cyclists who came from humble backgrounds, whether the family farm or a gritty indstrial town.  One could say that, for such reasons, a cyclist can't come from the same dire poverty as a football player from the favela because it takes more money to buy even the cheapest bicycle than it does to fashion a ball or stick.  Even if a budding young racer has to borrow a bike from a relative, friend or neighbor, simply having that kind of access signals less deprivation than not having a playing ball.

All of this might explain why no Grand Tour (or other major race) winner has come from an undeveloped country, while marathons and other running races are routinely won by competitors from places like Ethiopia and Jamaica.  This explanation makes sense, at least to me, when you realize that many European and American cyclists are also runners (and I'm not talking only about triathloners).  As Tom Taylor says, you can learn how to be a runner without shoes.  But it's pretty hard to learn how to ride a bike if, well, you don't have a bike.

Building in 3D

I guess we shouldn't be surprised.

On Friday, I wrote about a 3D printed airless tire.  When I learned about it, I knew that other 3D printed parts were being made somewhere. 

Turns out, I underestimated the speed of technological progress.  Now there's a 3D printed bicycle that looks like a sci-fi version of an urban commuter bike--and is said to be stronger than titanium.

The new machine was made by Arevo, a Silcon Valley (where else?) startup that specializes in "additive manufacturing" (tech-speak for engineering-level 3D printing).  The company is backed by the venture capital arm of the Central Intelligence Agency, which isn't surprising when you realize that the armed forces are the main drivers behind 3D's evolution from a novel way to make chintzy plastic figurines to a sophisticated technological process used to make weaponry.

(Few people realize that the Silicon Valley became, well, the Silicon Valley largely because of military contracts during the Cold War.  So, if you're going to thank a soldier or sailor for anything, make sure it's for making the iPhone possible, not for invading Iraq!)

The bicycle's frame was made first, as a single piece, and the other parts were made.  According to Arevo CEO Jim Miller (formerly of Google), it took about two weeks to make the bike.  

Knowing that answers the question folks like me ask about carbon fiber bicycles: "Why does something made of plastic cost so much?"  Well, carbon bike frames--whether of custom chassis from the likes of Land Shark or the Specialized items your local bike shop offers--are made by workers who lay, by hand, individual layers of carbon fiber impregnated with resin around a mold of a frame.  The frame is then baked in an oven to melt the resin and bind the carbon strips together.

Arevo takes workers out of the process.  It uses a "deposition head" on a robotic arm to print out the three-dimensional shape of the frame.  The head then lays down strands of carbon fiber and melts a thermoplastic material to bind the strands, all in one step.   The result is that Arevo can build a frame for $300, even in The Valley.  That is about what it currently costs to build a similar frame in Asia.

Of course, even though Miller is reportedly a cyclist, he doesn't see Arevo as the next Schwinn or Trek or Specialized:  The company is working on a head that can run along rails and print larger parts, avoiding the need of ovens in which to bake them.  "We can print as big as you want--the fuselage of an aircraft, the wing of an aircraft," he says.

Surely he knows the Wright Brothers started as bicycle builders...

Mature? Not Yet: Disc Brakes On Bicycles

In the mid-1970s, my high school acquired its first computer.  The father of one of my classmates, who worked in a nearby military base, in one of those jobs he couldn’t talk about, negotiated the purchase.  For $6000, my alma mater got a used machine, about half the size of a classroom—and with about half of the capacity of devices kids carry in their backpacks nowadays.

When I graduated the following year, one of my relatives gave me a new Texas Instruments Model 101 digital wristwatch.  With its red LED display and sleek goldtone band, it seemed like the epitome of elegance and slick high-tech, all rolled up into one.  No one else I knew had such a timepiece:  For the one and only time in my high-school years, I was the coolest kid in the class.  At least, that’s how I felt.

Neither the computer nor my watch made it past my sophomore year of college.  The big box (“It’s just an oversized, overpriced file cabinet!” one parent exclaimed upon learning what it cost) assigned classes like “Sports Heroes” to honors students who signed up for the Shakespeare seminar.  (I know.  I was one of those students.) And that was the least of the computer’s malfunctions. Worst of all, nobody seemed to know how to fix them.

And nobody seemed to know how to fix my watch.  One shop claimed that displays of numbers that had nothing to do with the time of day were a result of “water damage” –only moments after I took that watch out of its box.  (I have since learned that technicians and reps say “water damage” when your electronic device is acting up or not working and  they can’t figure out why.)

Less than a decade after I graduated high school, the Yankees were giving away digital watches (with the team’s logo, of course) as promotional items on Fan Appreciation Day. My graduation gift, in contrast, sold for more (in non-inflation adjusted dollars) than most smartphones or laptops cost today.  And the watches the Yankees gave away were more reliable (water resistant to 100 meters, and shock resistant) than the one I got on Graduation Day.   

I was thinking about the computer and watch as I read an article in the most recent Bicycle Quarterly.

In “Are Disc Brakes Mature Technology? “, Jan Heine recounts his and other BQ editors’ experiences with both mechanical and hydraulic disc brakes on road, mountain and city bikes.  While the brakes on one bike offered the power and modulation of good caliper brakes, their performance was hampered by their incompatibility with the levers that came on the bike.  The brakes on the other bike were not as good as road calipers and, worse, there were a couple of potentially serious failures. 

Heine seems to think that disc brakes have potential, but there are issues that need to be worked out.  Braking power is still determined mainly by the size of the disc.  A larger disc is heavier and could necessitate larger forks—both of which are anathema to racers and other performance-oriented cyclists.  More important, though, is that while larger discs offer more power, they seem to offer less modulation.  From what Heine and others say, it seems that larger rotors give the brakes the “all or nothing” feel that V-brakes (at least the ones I’ve used) always seem to have.

Avid BB7 disc brake on Look X85 cyclo-cross bike

The flip-side is, of course, that smaller rotors offer less power.  And, if there isn’t enough power, whatever modulation the brakes offer is all but irrelevant.

Another problem, as Heine points out, is that on disc brakes, the pad grabs the disc on the rear.  On a front fork, that means the wheel is pulled away from the dropout (or fork end).  When you’re barreling down a hill—or sluicing through traffic—few things are more dangerous than a front wheel popping out of a fork. 

Most modern quick release levers, Heine says, aren’t secure enough for bikes with powerful disc brakes.   Through-axles, like the ones found on downhill bikes, might be a solution.  But even with them, the fork blades on most non-suspension (telescoping) forks wouldn’t be stiff enough to counter the forces the brakes would put on them.  So, Heine says, a dedicated suspension fork might be the best kind to use with disc brakes.

 (In contrast, rim brakes pull the wheel slightly upward, into the dropout.  And their forces are concentrated in or near the stiffest and strongest part of the fork:  the crown.  That is the reason why properly-installed wheels don’t fall out of forks equipped with rim brakes or no brakes.)

I myself don’t plan to start using disc brakes any time soon:  I have never had trouble getting the braking power and modulation I need from rim brakes, as long as I use good cables and pads and keep everything properly adjusted.  Plus, there is something to be said for the simplicity, not to mention the lighter weight, of such brakes.  So, I hope that disc brakes don’t become the only option on new bikes or that component manufacturers stop making rim brakes and parts.

On the other hand, I am not against some bikes coming with disc brakes, or for such brakes to be offered on bikes where they might make sense.  Most of all, I hope they don’t become a de facto standard—or the only option—before they are a “mature” technology.  At least, when my digital watch failed, I still had the mechanical watch another relative gave me for a birthday—my 12^th or 13^th, if I remember correctly.  And plenty of others were available.