Shifting Reversals

When someone displays a flag upside-down, it's usually a sign of protest.

Other emblems and objects are posted with their downsides up, it can be a signal of distress or surrender--or a message to someone who's "part of the club", so to speak.

So, what does it mean when a bicycle part--a derailleur, specifically--is made with its logo turned on its head?:

This "Vic" derailleur was made in China for Sugino during the mid-1990's.  It was designed for use with six-speed index systems.  That alone could be a reason for the upside-down logo:  By the '90's, only the cheapest department-store bikes came with six cogs in the rear. Perhaps Sugino, which has made many high-quality cranksets over the years (I ride four!) didn't want people to know they were "slumming" it in the low-end market!

(Ironically, the only other Sugino-branded derailleur was a real gem:  a rebadged SunTour Superbe Pro with an even nicer finish than the original, which is saying a lot!)

In contrast, the reversed logo on this next derailleur can be seen as an example of the many lapses in workmanship or quality control to be found in products manufactured in Soviet-era factories:

 

 To be fair, according to Michael Sweatman (author of the Disraeligears website), this Tectoron KS-01 derailleur is well-made:  strong and tight spring and pivots, smooth-spinning pulleys and no steel or plastic anywhere in sight. It's also only about 15 grams (about half an ounce) heavier than a current Campagnolo Record or Shimano Dura-Ace rear derailleur.  Most important, I would expect it to work reasonably well for a derailleur of its time (1978):  After all, its design is based almost entirely on the Campagnolo Nuovo Record derailleur of the same vintage.  Its only real fault is that it seems to have been finished in a way only Stalin (or, perhaps, Hoxha) could love. 

The next, and last, derailleur I'm going to show lacks the nasty charm (Is that an oxymoron)--and almost every other virtue--of the Tectoron:

Triplex, based in the Spanish Basque city of Eibar (also home to the--justly--better-known Zeus), Triplex made derailleurs and other components that, from three or four meters away, looked like Campagnolo's offerings.  Unlike their crosstown rivals--and other manufacturers of Campy knock-offs--Triplex never made anything that even remotely approached the quality or durability of the venerated Italian innovator.   I can say this, having seen a few Triplex changers--as well as those from many other Campagnolo imitators during the '70's and '80's--when I worked in bike shops.

Hmm,,,Would mounting a Triplex with the logo right-side up have improved the performance or durability?

 

This Bike Boom, This Time Around

It's been said that if you wore something the first time it was in fashion, you can't wear it when it comes back.

I am of two minds about that.  On one hand, growing up as a boy and living as a young man, I wished I could wear (in public) the print skirts, peasant tops and lace leggings that were en vogue.  At least, during the '80's, I could wear neon pink--Did you hear me?:  Pink!--even if only on my Italian cycle jerseys and jackets.  Still, I longed to rock the leather-and-lace look the way Madonna did (and her daughter would a quarter-century later) and to wear one of those female executive suits with a pencil skirt and a fitted jacket the way Sigourney Weaver did in Working Girl. 

On the other, I don't want to revive some of my more painful memories of those times, when I could speak to no one about my gender identity struggles and thus lived in a kind of social isolation that hindered my development in so many ways and still sometimes affects me.

So why am I talking about such things on a bike blog?, you ask.  Well, I sometimes see references to the "70's bike boom".  I just happened to have lived through it.  Actually, it started at roughly the same time I was entering puberty--my first puberty, to be exact.  (Make what you will of that.)  That was when I, like many other people, first rode the machines that, for many, are still synonymous with sport cycling: ten-speed bikes.  Whether on a department-store Murray or Huffy, a Schwinn Varsity or Continental from the shop passed down through three or four generations of family members who sold and fixed bikes kids got for Christmas, birthdays and other occasions-- or one of those newfangled Peugeots or Fujis or Raleigh Grand Prixes from new bike emporia that were cropping up---many of us discovered that bicycles could be faster, flashier and more temperamental than the so-called "English racer" three-speed, not to mention the baloon-tired Columbias some of our parents rode.

I remember how some actual and wannabe pundits were predicting a cultural shift:  The "energy crisis" sent gasoline prices to a then-unheard-of dollar a gallon (which was still a third to a quarter of what Europeans and Japanese were paying) and some people discovered that not only was cycling to work or school cheaper than driving, it also was, for some, faster when one took into account the amount of time spent hunting for a parking space and doing the other things associated with driving or even taking mass transit.

For every one who saw bikes as "the way of the future," another saw the "boom" as a fad.  For nearly three decades, it seemed (to some people, anyway) that they were right.  Those U0-8s and S-10s'es and Competitions and Internationals gathered dusts in basements and attics--or, worse, ended up in landfills.  Some discovered they didn't like cycling as much as they expected; others were flustered the first time they got a flat or gears went out of adjustment.  And others simply moved on to other things.

Also, the price of gas held steady while other prices didn't.  The result was that during the presidencies of Reagan and Bush the Elder, driving was just about as cheap (at least in the US) as it was two decades earlier.

During the past decade or so, we've entered another bike boom, if you will.  Along stretches of the waterfront, the warrenlike streets of central Brooklyn, the steel-bound cobblestones of Bronx industrial areas and the rows of brick houses in Queens, I see steams and throngs of cyclists where, on any given day in years past, I might have been the only rider to have pedaled through in several weeks or even months.  There are lanes and bike shares; drivers talk about us as a group, if sometimes scornfully.  And it's easier than ever to find just about any kind of bike or equipment one likes or needs.

But it seems to me that no one has "re-discovered" cycling.  In other words, I get the impression that almost no one who bought a ten-speed back in the day is getting back into riding now.  There are a few of us who continued to ride though the intervening decades.  However, it seems that those who bought their Motobecane Mirages back in 1974 and stopped riding them by the time Meat Loaf got his fifteen weeks of fame are adhering, however unconsciously, to the "you can't do it when it comes back" dictum regarding fashion.

From lissa.net

Also, the current "boom", if you want to call it that, is definitely less cohesive than the one of my youth.  One great development, in my opinion, about the current interest in cycling is that more transportation-oriented bikes and equipment are being offered.  I sometimes think that those who just wanted to ride their bikes from home to work or school back in the '70's weren't too crazy about the downturned handlebars or narrow seats and tires of the "racing" ten-speeds they bought.  Also, most of those bikes didn't have fenders, racks or other things that make it more feasible to ride in whatever one might wear on the job or to carry the things needed to perform that job.  I'm guessing that more than a few people were discouraged by what they perceived as the inconveniences of cycling to work or the store.

On the other hand, this current boom has also made high-end racing bikes--some of which cost more than I earned in any of the first ten or twelve years I worked--into status symbols, or at least markers of "real" cyclists.  In my time, not many cyclists raced, or even pretended to.  Somehow, though, those of us who did (however briefly) weren't a separate class from the others.  Interestingly, I saw more diversity--in social, economic, cultural,racial and generational (though not gender) terms among high-mileage cyclists than I do now.  I rode with people who were old enough to be my grandparents or young enough for me to baby-sit; I pushed my pedals up hills alongside bankers and their children as well as people who borrowed a dollar or two from me (as poor as I was!) to get through the week.

Because we were not as fractured--we couldn't be--not only were our bikes not status symbols (though we admired, and aspired to own, frames built with Reynolds or Columbus tubing and outfitted with Campagnolo or the best Sun Tour components), we did not fetishize them.  Those of us who rode knew why we chose the gear we used:  Although we may not have known the intricacies, we knew that the way our bikes were built evolved out of practical experience, not a fantasy of something "vintage."  Sure, there were fads, but mainly in ephemerata like lug cut-out designs or paint schemes.  The main operating systems, if you will, were refined over time but weren't rendered obsolete by marketers.

I'm thinking now about something a famous pianist said about Mozart:  His music is scorned, or at least heard condescendingly, in some circles because conservatory students and young musicians don't understand the reasons for all of those movements they believe to be quaint and romantic.  I'm also thinking about the way architects in the middle of the 20th Century eschewed the pitched roofs and cornices of Victorian houses without understanding the practical purposes of them.  In a similar vein, a subset of cyclists wants "randonneur" bikes, parts and other accoutrements for exactly the same reason another group of riders simply would not be caught dead on anything that isn't made from carbon fiber:  They don't understand the reasons why "classic" bikes were, and are, made as they are any more than they understand the purposes of more modern designs.

If you are merely following a trend without understanding why the trend exists, you can't return to it when it returns:  You will have moved on to something else.  That, I think, is the reason why we're told not to wear a fashion "the second time around".  But if we understand what moves us to it--in other words, if we understand what attracted us to it then, and why it attracts us now--then we don't have to look or feel foolish; we can re-interpret it for ourselves.  I believe the same is true for cycling:  If you knew why you were doing it--and you loved it--back in the first "boom", you feel as "at home" (if slower) on your bike as you did back in the day.  And you're probably riding now--perhaps even with all of those young people in "retro" jerseys.



  

It Made Our Bikes Possible

We have all had our life-changing moments, for better and worse: the first kiss, finding out that a hero or role model was merely mortal, tasting an unfamiliar food and liking (or disliking) it more than we expected, or doubting something that had always been believed or assumed.

I'm not going to tell you that I've had such a life-changing moment today, or within the past week or month.  But I got to thinking about those revelations or epiphanies or whatever you want to call them in our cycling lives.

Some of us experience such a moment upon riding a bike with dropped bars or a hard leather saddle and discovering it is actually comfortable--or, at least, not as uncomfortable as we expected.  Or it can come when we try a new genre of riding or type of bike:  For example, I never expected to fall in love with fixed-gear riding.  Conversely, some of us might learn that we do not have the time, resources or talent to become the racers we hoped to be--or that age or other changes in our bodies might mandate changes in the way we ride.

And then there are the seemingly-smaller, but nonetheless influential experiences that cause us to see some aspect of our cycling in a different way.

If you came of age during the 1970's (as a cyclist, anyway), one such experience could have come after you'd spent some time riding a typical bike from that era, which came equipped with Huret or Simplex derailleur--or the Campagnolo Valentino or Gran Turismo. Perhaps the derailleur broke, wore out or rusted solid (a common occurrence with Huret derailleurs in rainy climates).  Or you got to ride a friend's bike, or test-ride one in a shop.

Your friend's bike, or the one you test-rode, might have been equipped with the same derailleur your shop mechanic installed (or recommended, if you did your own work) when your Simplex, Huret or Campy died.  That derailleur was the Sun Tour GT--or, later, the VGT.

Sun Tour V-T Luxe Derailleur, ca. 1974.  From Disraeli Gears

To this day, I don't think I've ever ridden any other bike part that seemed so far superior to its counterparts.  Some people have described feeling that way about using an Apple computer after years of working on machines equipped with Microsoft.  Since I haven't used Apple, I can't vouch for its superiority.  However, I can assure you that the difference between Sun Tour derailleurs and anything else made during the 1970's was at least as great.

From what I understand, Apple is influencing changes in the design of other computers and electronic devices and that, in the near future, I might be using something with their imprint whether or not it's my intention.  

In a similar fashion, even though SunTour went out of business around 1995 (though its name is still licensed for bike parts marketed in Europe and other parts of the world), nearly all of us are riding a SunTour derailleur, if you will.  If you're riding any derailleur that clicks when you shift it, the mechanism will have a geometry very similar to, if not exactly the same as, a SunTour V-series (V, VT, V-GT, Vx, Vx-GT) from the 1970's.  Yes, even arch-rival Shimano adopted it for all but its least expensive rear derailleurs.  

In fact, Shimano's first SIS series of integrated derailleurs, shifters, cogs and chains came out in 1985--the year after SunTour's 1964 patent on the slant-parallelogram derailleur expired.  Shimano had made earlier, unsuccessful attempts at creating an indexed ("click-shift") derailleur system.  Turns out, they needed Sun Tour's slant parallelogram to make it work.

Ironically, when SunTour made its own indexed system a couple of years later, it didn't work as well as Shimano's.  The same was true of Campagnolo's first attempt at such a system:  the Synchro, which some of us called the "Stinkro".  SunTour and Campy both made the same mistake:  They simply retro-fitted an indexed ring to shifters they already made and didn't integrate it with the other parts.   

Campagnolo survived its mistake only because its more traditional Record (the Nuovo, Super and C- series) were still widely used in elite pelotons such as those of le Tour, il Giro and la Vuelta.  As good as SunTour's earlier equipment was, it was still almost unknown in those circles and, costing much less than Campy's stuff, didn't have snob appeal.  

People who started riding during the mid-90's or later have probably never heard of SunTour. But that once-proud derailleur maker made the bikes most of them ride possible--and changed our cycling world.

Convincing Me Otherwise

Every once in a while, I think about repainting Vera. The finish is pretty scraped up, though actually not bad for a bike its age.  Also, I think about having shifter bosses brazed on and having the cable tunnels near the top of the down tube removed, as I use a down tube shifter.

Of course, one thing that deters me from doing so is money: It hasn't been abundant for me lately.  But seeing this bike may also keep me from altering and refinishing Vera:

It's a Holdsworth from, I'd guess the 1970's.  At least, the style of the lugs and paint as well as the Campagnolo Record gruppo (with a Nuovo Record rear derailleur) lead me to believe it's from that era.

All of the Campagnolo equipment--including the large-flange hubs--seems to be original.  About the only deviations I could see were the replacement brake blocks (Mathauser Kool Stop) and a non-Campagnolo headset I could not identify.  The latter component might have been a British-made TDC headset, which was often supplied with English frames.

Even though the paint was worn away on some parts of the frame, I didn't feel that it was battered or decrepit.  Of course, the fact that someone is using it makes it seem contemporary and relevant. But there's just something about high-quality lugged steel bikes--particularly the British ones, in my opinion--that seems to age well.

Of course, they also give sweet rides!

A Franken-Barracuda

Spend enough time in New York City, and you're sure to see some "Frankenbikes".  Such machines have been modified to serve some purpose for which they weren't built.  So, an old racer becomes someone's "pedal taxi" by changing the dropped bars and clipless pedals to flat versions of both, wider tires and, in some cases, clip-on fenders and lights.  Sometimes such bikes, which could have originally had anywhere from 10 to 20 speeds, are converted to single-speed or fixed-gear use.

Old mountain bikes might undergo similar treatment.  The difference is that these bikes' tires are often swapped for narrower ones or slicks (rather than the knobbier treads found on mountain bikes).  

Other "Frankenbikes" include ones in which one frame is stacked on top of the other, or "parts bin specials", in which a bike is assembled, basically, from whatever is lying around.

Today I spotted an interesting version of the latter kind of bike:

I wish I could have gotten a better angle on it.  At first glance, it didn't seem so unusual.  However, in passing it, I noticed this:

It's not the first time I've seen side-pull caliper brakes on a bike made, as most mountain bikes were until a few years ago, for cantilever or V-brakes.  Still, they look pretty strange (a least to me) on a front fork with suspension.  It was then that I realized that 700 C (road diameter) wheels were substituted for the original 26" mountain bike wheels.  The brake would not have been long enough to reach the rim of the smaller-diameter mountain bike wheel:

The same thing was done on the rear.  As I looked closer, I saw that the crankset had also been changed. 

What's interesting is that the crankset and brakes more than likely came from the same bike, most likely a mid-to-upper level Japanese road bike of the late 1970's or early 1980's.  The brakes were Gran Compes, which were a Japanese near-copy of Campagnolo's Record brakes.  And the crankset was forged by Sakae Ringyo, known in bike circles as SR.  

That they ended up on what appears to be a Barracuda A2B from 1995 or thereabouts is a story I'd like to follow.  Moreover, they ended up on that bike with a current Quando wheelset, yet the rear derailleur is a Shimano of later vintage than the bike.

Barracuda bikes had a meteoric "career", if you will. Two lifelong friends from Grand Rapids, MI founded the brand in 1992 in the mountain biking hotbed of Durango, CO.  After the business and its race team were well-established, manufacturing was moved to Taiwan, as was typical at that time.

The bikes had a loyal "cult" following, like many iconic mountain bike and component makers of the 1990's.  But those companies--often started, like Barracuda, by a couple of guys who liked to ride or a twenty-something in California whose father had a lathe and a drill press--often were run on unsound business practices.  In an odd way, this story parallels the dot-com boom and bust that followed it by a few years.  

Also, some smaller mountain bike and component makers of that time were done in by warranty claims or, in a few cases, litigation when a product was faulty.   It only took one or a few such cases to sink some of the smaller manufacturers, especially the ones that were operating out of someone's father's garage.

Late in 1995, in spite of positive reviews of their bikes, Barracuda was hemorrhaging money.  At the end of that year, Ross Bicycles bought the company. While they didn't change that year's models considerably, the ones that rolled off the assembly lines in the brand's later years bore almost no resemblance to the ones that had become virtual legends among a small group of mountain bikers.  By the end of the decade, Barracuda production had stopped.

Ironically, Ross--which was headquartered in Rockaway Beach, Queens--actually made a bike called the "Barracuda" during the 1960's and 1970's.  It was a small-wheeled bike with a stick shifter on the frame, similar in many ways to the Raleigh "Chopper" or the Schwinn "Krate" series.  So, one might say that the "Barracuda" I saw today was a Frankenbike even before anybody altered it!

 

A Shopper On Campus

Today, in one of the college's bike racks, I saw something interesting:

I apologize that I couldn't get take a better photo.  But, as you can see, it's a small-wheeled bike that doesn't have a folding or collapsible frame.  It seems like a variant on the "Shopper" bike, which Bobbin and a few other companies have re-introduced during the last couple of years.

The medium-wide semi-slick tires are what one might expect to see on a city bike.  And the bike's low profile makes for quick mounting and dismounting.  Those features were common on the "shopper" bikes Raleigh and a few other English companies made during the 1960's and 1970's.  Those bikes were very popular in Albion, but didn't seem to find much of an audience anywhere else.  I think one reason may be that, in the US at any rate, people equated the small wheels with folding or children's bikes.

The bike in the photo differs slightly from those bikes, and from the Bobbin "shopper" I saw at Adeline's and in last year's New Amsterdam bike show.  For one thing, the Bobbin, like the classic "shopper," comes with an internally-geared hub, while the bike in the photo has a rear derailleur with six speeds.  Also, the Bobbin and the older bikes had fenders, chainguards and lights:  They looked rather like  classic three-speeds with smaller wheels and a somewhat tighter geometry.  

Also, the bike in the photo has white(!) rims and chain.  Could the maker (I could find only a "C" logo) be trying to appeal to hipsters?  Even if that's the intent, I think it's an interesting bike.  I was surprised to see it parked at the college.  Then again, it might be just the right bike for a lot of student commuters or for students on residential campuses.  In other words, it just might become a "collegiate" bike.

 

Bicycles Are Beautiful. Bill Cosby Says So.

If you see a picture of people riding one of these and smiling, don't believe it.  They're probably gritting their teeth.

"One of these" refers to the "boneshaker".  Who made that trenchant observation about navigating one of those wood wheeled wonders?

Why, it was none other than everybody's favorite dad--in the 1980's, anyway.  I'm talking, of course, about Bill Cosby.

He uttered those immortal lines in "Bicycles Are Beautiful", a safety program he made during the 1970's "bike boom".  It's charming, even quaint, for a number of reasons.  One, of course, is seeing a younger Cosby.  But it's also interesting to see bikes, cars and the California landscape of that time.  Also, only one cyclist is wearing a helmet. Ironically, that cyclist got "doored" in the program.  And his helmet looked more like something a motocross or dirt-bike racer might wear. Given that the only alternative to that kind of helmet was the "leather hairnet" (which offered about as much protection against head injuries as the rhythm method offers against unplanned pregnancy), it's understandable that no one else was wearing helmets.

However, to his credit, Cosby dispelled some widely- (and wrongly-) held notions, such as the one that cyclists should ride against traffic.  Also, in watching the program, Cosby was not only admonishing cyclists to be vigilant and obey rules; he was also--as he has so often--promoting respect and civility.  I don't know whether or not he was an active cyclist, but the title of the program seems to reflect his attitude about bicycles and cyclists.

Still, I can't get over the fact that he pronounces "bicycle" as "buy-sigh-kle".

Celeste, Rescued: My First Bianchi

Yesterday I wrote about a "rescued" bike.  Today I'm going to tell you about another one.  The difference is that the one I'm going to describe today is one I rescued.

It's also the first of four Bianchis I've owned in my life.  This is an old-fashioned made-in-Italy bike.  I'm not sure of the exact model, but I know that it was probably made in the 1970's or early 1980's, as the frame was made of Columbus "Aelle" tubing.  If I recall correctly, the dropouts, headset and seatpost were all made by Gipiemme, an Italian company that was influenced by, or copied outright, Campagnolo's desgins.  The name, interestingly, is the phonetic Italian pronunciation of GPM which, if I'm not mistaken, was the monogram of the company's founder.

The headset and seatpost were the only items that were on the frame when I got it from Toga Bicycle Shop near LIncoln Center.  I was friendly with one of the mechanics, a salesperson and with the owner, Len Preheim, to the extent that one could be friendly with him.  They were cleaning out the store's basement and unearthed the frame, which I got in a trade for, let's just say, something non-bike related.

I was glad that the seatpost came with the bike, as it was one of those non-standard diameter.  The headset worked after an overhaul; even if it hadn't, it wouldn't have been difficult to replace.  

Anyway, this became a "parts-bin bike."  By the time I got the frame, I had a pretty fair-sized trove of parts, most of which I stripped from bikes I had at one time or another.  

In its original iteration, the bike was intended as an entry-to-mid-level road bike.  Being made of Aelle tubing, the least expensive frame material Columbus made at the time, It was a bit heavier than the higher-level Bianchi road bikes.  So, perhaps, it wasn't quite as quick as a Columbus SL frame (of which I've owned two:  the Trek 930 and a bike I'll write about in the near future).  However, it gave a pretty stable and fairly nimble ride.

As you can see, I fitted a rear carrier to the BIanchi.  I rode the bike to and from work, and to classes during my first year and a half of graduate school.  I also took it on a couple of weekend trips in which I packed a change of clothes, a book or two, my camera and a couple of other items.

Although I rather liked the bike, it was too big for me: I think it was a 58 cm (about 23.5") frame, as measured from the center of the bottom bracket to the center of the top tube.  I normally ride a 55-56 cm, depending on the design of the frame.  

It size exacerbated another problem I had with that bike, and other road bikes I rode before I went for a custom bike: The top tube was pretty long.  That meant using a stem with a shorter extension than I might have otherwise used, which blunted the bike's handling. Later, I would try to solve the problem by going to smaller frame sizes (53-54 cm) and using a longer seat post.  When I did that, I missed the stability and the fullness of pedal stroke I could achieve with the slightly larger frames.

Anyway, I apologize for not having a better photo of the bike.  When I got it, the paint was in rough shape, though still unmistakably "Celeste".  

Because of its less-than-ideal fit, I was going to sell the bike.  However, someone got it for free when I parked it outside CBGB.  Hmm, maybe if I'd told Joey Ramone, he'd've done a song about it.

What They Didn't Have

From Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid

More than three decades ago, Hal Ruzal, the Mercian maven and mechanic par excellence of Bicycle Habitat, rode his bicycle across the United States for the first (!) time.  

A friend who accompanied him had several flats and was down to his last inner tubes when they were in Kansas.   Now, I've never been to Kansas, but I don't imagine that, even today, it's as easy to find some bike items there as it is in, say, Portland, Minneapolis or Boston.  However, in those days, according to Hal, "there wasn't a single Presta valve tube in the entire state of Kansas."

He can tell a good story, but I don't think he was exaggerating. I don't think the very first shop in which I worked--in New Jersey--had Presta valve tubes, either. For that matter, I wouldn't be surprised to know that most shops in the Garden State circa 1975 didn't have them.


If they didn't have Presta valves,  it meant they didn't have sew-up tires, and probably didn't have the high-pressure clinchers (like the Michelin Elan) that were just starting to become available around then--or the new rims Mavic and Rigida were making for use with them.  

If you were in a rural area, it could even be difficult to find things like toe clips and straps. (The only clipless pedal available then was the Cinelli M-71, a.k.a. "The Suicide Pedal.) Around that time, John Rakowski, who rode his bicycle around the world, ordered the Karrimor panniers and handlebar bags he used directly from the manufacturer in England:  Very few shops carried good touring gear, and supplies were sporadic, to put it mildly.

Those times were probably the heyday of mail-order shops.  Sometimes the shops' proprietors (who were almost invariably the buyers, if their wives weren't) didn't even know where to find high-quality bike items.  Or, if they could find a source, the prices would be exorbitant because they were ordering only one, and paying the full shipping costs.

The lightest bike sold in the first shop in which I worked was the Raleigh Super Course.  

Raleigh Super Course, in the 1975 catalogue.

It was a pretty bike, I thought, especially in that shade of candy-apple red. (The green wasn't bad, either.)  But I would soon find myself riding a bike that, in almost every way, exceeded that one.  I didn't get it in that first shop in which I worked.  I couldn't have.

Pivotal Brakes

Sometimes, when I surf the web, I am swept into a stream of flotsam from bikes past.

Here is an example of what I mean:

Photo by berangberang

If you ride road bikes, something about this brake may seem familiar to you.  And well it should.

It was made by Altenberger in the German Federal Republic (West Germany to us Americans) during the 1970's.  I started working in bike shops during that time, and some bikes--mainly lower-priced ones with upright handlebars--came with that brake.

It's the ancestor of brakes found on nearly every road bike built since the mid-1990's.  Why?  Take a look at those bolts with the red nylon washers.  They make it a dual-pivot brake.  While they may not have been the original of the genre, they were the first dual-pivots to appear on any significant numbers of bikes.

They were supposed to provide the simplicity and light weight of sidepulls but the "symmetry" and modulation of centerpulls.  Unfortunately, Altenberger's brake didn't exhibit any of those qualities.  I think that it had to do with the fact that the arm with the cable anchor bolt usually overlapped the pivot on the other arm, as you see in the photo.  That eliminated whatever "symmetry" the brake may have been designed to have, and made for very uneven braking.

Perhaps even more to the point, the brake was not of very good quality.  The metal used in the arms was pretty flexy. (The fact that the arms were long didn't help matters.)  The rather flimsy spring would lose its springiness fairly quickly, which further diminished the brake's power and modulation.

After Altenberger stopped making this brake (or went out of business altogether:  I don't recall seeing very many of the company's brakes after the early '80's or so), Weinmann produced a similar model, which they called the "Synchron".  Its quality and aesthetics were better than those of the Altenberger, but, like its predecessor, the Synchron never synchronized very well and got worse over time.

So, when Shimano came out with their own version of the dual-pivot brakes, I cringed.  Younger cyclists didn't have memories of the earlier dual-pivot brakes, so they were enthusiastic about this new "innovation".  I refrained from them for a few years until someone with whom I shared, at that time, a similar riding style and whose ideas I respected convinced me to try a pair of the Shimano 600/Ultegra dual-pivots.  Although I was, at first, put off by their gray epoxy finish as I was by the fact they were dual-pivots, I became a convert.  Shimano figured out how to actually make the arms work in harmony and used better quality materials than the ones found in the Altenberger or Synchron.  Even the lower-priced Tektros, not to mention the higher-end Mavic and Campagnolo Record and Chorus 

dual-pivot brakes, are worlds better than those early attempts to combine the advantages and eliminate the weaknesses of center- and side-pull brakes found on ten-speeds of the 1970's and earlier.

A Bike That Could Have Been An April Fool's Joke

"To save weight, they used drilled-out tires and water bottles."


Yes, that is a joke.  But it was about a real bicycle.


Actually, the bike itself was a rather noble attempt to offer something unique.  Lambert bicycles were first built in England during the 1970's.  Apparently, someone bought the old Viking Cycle factory in South London and decided to make some high-quality bikes.


The frames were actually rather nice:  lugged and built from Cro-Moly aircraft tubing .  Later, after Yamaha (as in the motorcycle maker) bought the company, the frames were filet-brazed.  That is the same construction method used by the best tandem-builders and a few builders of single bikes. Still later production came from Japan, and then Taiwan (when the latter country was still making the worst bikes that weren't from India).  


The frames had a rather lively feel to them.  Unfortunately, they were paired with aluminum forks. Today that's not so unusual; however, at that time, I don't think anyone knew how to build aluminum forks.  The result is that several cracked and Lambert had to make a massive world-wide recall.  


Some of the parts weren't a whole lot better than the fork.  The original models had a rear derailleur that looked like a copy of the Huret Svelto and didn't shift as well.  (That's a bit like saying that some sandwich is a copy of a Big Mac but isn't as healthy.)  The front derailleur was like a Campagnolo Valentino--which had been an outdated design for at least a decade--and didn't shift as well.  Then there was the crankset, which looked like a TA Cyclotouriste but had more bolts, which meant that chainrings were not interchangable between the two brands.  Those cranks were attached to an axle that didn't have a taper:  Only a circlip separated the inside of the crank arm from the bottom bracket shell.


Probably the most interesting thing Lambert did, though, was to make a limited run of 100 bikes with an unusual finish.  It was gold.  Yes, that kind of gold, as in 24 karat plated.  Back in 1972-73, the complete bike, with alloy parts and sew-up tires and rims, sold for $259.95.

I can remember seeing this ad in Bicycling! and other bicycle magazines during my formative years.  

Before Nashbar

Ou sont les neiges d'antan?

If you've seen "The Glass Menagerie," you might recall seeing "Ou sont les neiges" projected on the stage.  It's comes from a line in Francois Villon's Ballade des Temps du Temps Jadis (A Ballad of Ladies of Times Past), which is part of his Testament.

When you're around anything long enough, you might start to wonder where its "snows of yesteryear" have gone.  There is the bike on which you took a particularly memorable or important ride, or some part or accessory you liked but hasn't been available in ages.  

Also, as in any other endeavor, some cyclists miss the old catalogues and brochures.  Sometimes people think everything was better in the "good ol' days"; the truth is, the forgettable stuff is mainly, well, forgotten.  But it's hard to deny that some things had a style that simply can't be emulated (without seeming to be a parody, anyway) today.

A while back, Bike Snob wrote a post in which he said, in essence, that even if the world were to end and you were in an underground bunker, a Nashbar catalogue will find its way to you. Of course, he was being his snarky self, but we all know that snark works only when there's at least an element of truth in it.

Believe it or not, I can remember a time when Bike Nashbar catalogues weren't as difficult to evade as bill collectors or Inspector Javert.  In fact, in those days, the catalogues, and the company itself were very different.

For one thing, it was called Bike Warehouse.

They indeed offered some of the lowest prices on bike-related stuff, as they do now. However, in those days, they sold mainly current-model, high- (or higher-) end equipment, such as Campagnolo Nuovo Record components, SunTour Cyclone derailleurs and rims from Super Champion, Mavic and others.  

If I recall correctly, Bike Warehouse was the first mail-order company from which I purchased any cycling equipment.   I had just begun reading Bicycling! magazine on a regular basis, and Bike Warehouse advertised in it. Like many other people, I was drawn in by their selection and prices.  

Plus, believe it or not, they had a particular kind of quirky charm that you don't see today. 

 This page comes from one of their 1976 catalogues.  By then, they'd been in business a couple of years.  Even if I didn't give you a year, you probably could have guessed the era from which it came by its graphics. Actually, those graphics were even a bit dated by that time.

There is one aspect of that catalogue that added to its quirky charms but which, alas, I cannot render on this site.  You see, those early Bike Warehouse catalogues were printed on newsprint.  Almost no newspapers in those days had color, as the technology was prohibitively expensive.  So those early Bike Warehouse catalogues had all of the black-and-white glory of a pre-WWII film.

As the saying goes:  Ils ne font pas comme eux pas plus.