Hershey's, Naked

If I offered you something "naked" with a name you would normally associate with chocolate, would you:

• grin
• take out your camera, or
• report me?

Well, someone once offered me just what I've described.  I was younger and in better shape than I'm in now.  Perhaps that was the reason I was offered said item for free.

Now, one of the first things I teach young people is that if something is free, you should take it and figure out what to do with it later.  And, back when I was made an offer I couldn't refuse (well, I could've, but it would've taken more self-discipline than I had), I took it.  So if you are one of the young people to whom I've offered said advice, at least you know now that I'm not a hypocrite!

Anyway...nakedness and chocolate.  Believe it or not, those two qualities are associated with a bicycle component--which is what I was offered, and took! 

(Was this your idea of "bike porn"?)

That bike part was made by Hershey. If you are like me, when you hear that name, you probably think of the maker of Kisses and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (and, in the US, of Kit-Kats).  Or, perhaps, an actress who, for a time, was known as Barbara Seagull might come to mind.  Unless you were cycling during the '90's (when else?), however, you might not associate the name with componentry.

The decade was actually wonderful in all sorts of ways.  In the world of bike--especially mountain bike--parts, though, it was absolutely whacky.  As I've mentioned in other posts, it seemed that as if every 20-year-old in California whose father had a lathe was making bike parts and anodizing them in never-before-seen colors with names that made the ones given to shades of Opi nail polish seem like RGB codes.  I mean, Kooka and Topline cranks broke at inopportune moments (Does anything ever break at an opportune moment?) but you had to love the fact that you could ask for either with a 3D Ultra-Violet finish.

Now, I don't know whether Hershey Naked hubs were as fragile as those cranks.  Although I accepted the one I got for free, I never built or used it:  I traded it, I think--whether for something bike-related or not, I forget.  For one thing, I didn't need another wheel (especially a front) at the time.  For another, I was riding a set of wheels with similarly-constructed hubs from another maker and had a problem with them.

All of Hershey's hubs, including the Naked, were constructed with flanges bonded or pressed to a shaft.  In contrast, hubs from Campagnolo, Mavic, Shimano and other more traditional manufacturers are made with forged one-piece shells.  The Hershey Naked hub's shaft was made from some sort of clear plastic material that wasn't called plastic.  I guess it was supposed to save weight.  It did, of course, allow you to see the inner workings of the hub, just as the clear face of a "skeleton" watch reveals the gears and wheels behind the "hands" and numerals.

At the time I was gifted with the Hershey Naked hub, I was riding wheels with Nuke Proof hubs that, like the Hershey, consisted of aluminum flanges attached to  shafts.   The shafts on my Nuke Proofs were carbon fiber; they--like the Hersheys--were also available with titanium or alloy shafts. (To my knowledge, NP never offered a clear shaft.)

As I related in another post, the flanges of my Nuke Proofs actually detached from their shafts and collapsed toward the center of the hub.  Other cyclists I knew had similar experiences with those hubs, and others that were similarly constructed.  Now, for all I know, a Hershey hub--even a Nude version--might have fared better.  But I didn't want to take a chance.

I haven't thought about that Hershey hub in a long time.  Now I wonder whether the person who got it from me ever built it.  Since it was the '90's, I can imagine him--or someone--building it with "rainbow" spokes, and Velocity rims and alloy spoke nipples in colors (anti-freeze green, anyone?) that clashed with the 3D Ultra Violet finish of the hub flanges! 

The Life Of Carbon

Yesterday, I paid a visit to Bicycle Habitat in Soho.  Hal Ruzal is one of the mechanics I go to when I don’t have the time or tools—or am too lazy—to build or fix something.  As he was fixing another customer’s bike, I noticed a bike in his work station.

 

“Wow! That’s a really early Trek carbon fiber bike.”

He nodded.  “It’s hardly been ridden at all,” he said.

The bike certainly didn’t look any older than it did the day it rolled out of the showroom in 1990 or thereabouts.  That’s not to say it’s timeless:  While it looked new, it was certainly dated.

Although I was never tempted to buy one, I rather admired them back in the day.  They were sleek, almost elegant, in a high-tech sort of way, with purple lettering and graphics on a graphite-grey frame.
 

Aside from the color combination, the bike had an almost-classic look because its frame tubes were more or less the same diameter as those on steel frames.  Also, it had the slender joints found on classic frames, although it didn’t have the nice lugwork one finds on the best European and Japanese frames—or even the bikes Trek was building before they started making carbon frames.  

At least the frame, unlike too many of today’s frames, didn’t seem to have been built my melting frame tubes together in a microwave oven.  Then again, the way the bike is built might be the reason why so few of them are seen today—or that the one I saw  has survived as long as it has only because it hasn’t been ridden very much.

Hal reiterated something he and others “in the know” have said before:  Carbon-fiber bikes aren’t made to last.  Then again, the same thing can be said about most super-light aftermarket equipment:  something I learned from experience.  As I mentioned in another post, a hub with aluminum flanges bonded to a carbon fiber body collapsed one day while I was riding a smooth road.  I also broke a carbon fiber handlebar, and other riders I knew destroyed expensive lightweight CNC-machined parts as well as stuff made from carbon fiber.

Yet there are people who will—as I did in my youth—ride, or simply buy, such stuff “because the pros use it”.  While those carbon-fiber bars or magnesium wheels (or, ahem, non-round chainrings) might actually give some racer an edge in a World Cup event, said racer doesn’t have to buy, install, fix or replace it.  These days, the stuff sponsors give to top-level pros is intended only for one season; the following year, they get new bikes and parts.  And their teams’ mechanics keep everything running for them.

(Now I am thinking about Miguel Indurain, who won the Tour de France five times during the 1990s.  After he retired, he went shopping for a bike.  He all but fell over when he saw the price tag on a machine like the one he rode: During his two decades as a professional cyclist, he never had to buy a bike or any of the kit he wore.)

From what Hal and others have told me, things haven’t changed.  Yes, today’s bikes are lighter, and probably stiffer (if not stronger) than those of the past.  But carbon fiber frames and parts don’t last any longer than they did in those days—unless, like the Trek I saw the other day, it isn’t ridden.

Crankin' Up The Insanity

Back in the good ol' days--the '90's--it seemed as if every twenty-something dude in California whose father had a lathe in his garage was making bike parts. Most of them were intended for mountain bikes, but a few were made for road and fixed-gear bikes, which were just in the process of being discovered by the hipster-equivalents of that time.

A few, like Chris King and the makers of Paul components, still make superb, if pricey, stuff.  However, a number of would-be challengers to Shimano (and, later, SRAM) fell by the wayside--some deservedly so.  It seems that some of the more notable and spectacular casualties are those who tried to make the lightest cranksets they could.

One such misguided attempt was the original Kooka crank.  Back in my off-road riding days, I knew a number of riders who rode--and broke--them.  But, hey, they were the hippest and lightest things available.  And they were available in all sorts of color combinations, including some that were conceived by folks who smoked things not made by RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris:

and some of them weren't even Rastafarians:

(My dear Bob Marley, I mean no disrespect to you or any other Rasta!)

These cranks had an alarming habit of breaking on where the spider attached to it, or around the square axle mounts or the holes into which pedals are installed.  The latter makes sense, as those are the weaker areas of the cranks.  But the for a spider to separate from an arm means that--well, it wasn't attached very firmly in the first place.  In the case of those early Kooka cranks, only a set screw held them together.

I mean, it had been known for much of the history of cycling that a crankset is stiffer and stronger when the spider arms are integral with the drive-side crank arms.  On the best cranks, they are cold-forged; on less-expensive but still-serviceable cranks, they are melt-forged.  On still less expensive cranks the spider is swaged (pressed) to the arm.  Still, I know of many people who rode the latter kind of crank, as I did, for many miles without any problems.

But, oddly enough (Well, was anything really odd when it came to these cranks?), axle-mount failures usually came on the non-drive side, where there is supposed to be less stress.  The reason, it seems, is that the spider was actually designed to reinforce the drive-side arm, which was otherwise identical to the non-drive-side arm.

Even though I would have loved to get the "ultra violet" finish, I had my doubts about their strength even before some of my old riding buddies trashed theirs.  I'm glad I listened to those misgivings.

Kooka later redesigned their cranks in a more traditional way, but the damage to their reputation was done.

Another example of how, in spite of what Robert Browning wrote in Andrea del Sarto, less is not always more, can be found in the Topline cranks of that era.  To be fair, the few people I knew who rode them on the road had no problems with them.  But some off-roaders had failures similar to those on the Kooka cranks--though, again to be fair, they weren't just riding the local trails.  

Like Kookas, Toplines were redesigned after a few years and became part of the Cook (no, not Koch) Brothers' line of components. That is probably what kept them in the marketplace, as CB had by that time established a reputation for sound, reliable design.

 Oh, but I love that purple.  I really do.  But not enough to pay $350 on eBay.  Believe it or not, people are actually paying even more for the original Kookas!

 

 

Old Glory, The Union Jack Or Le Bleu, Blanc Et Rouge

Three years ago, I wrote about red, white and blue bicycles--and someone who had a red, a white and a blue Cannondale.

Now I'm going to show you some red-white-and-blue (or bleu, blanc et rouge) components and accessories. 

Ironically, one of greatest pieces of Americana kitsch--in bicycle components, anyway--was made in France:

When SRAM took over Sachs--which, in turn, had swallowed up some French component manufacturers such as Huret, Maillard and Sedis--they continued to manufacture components in the old French plants for a few years before moving their production to Taiwan (except for the chains, which are made in Portugal).

In a way, it makes sense that the "Betsy" derailleur appeared when it did , circa 1997.  That's when the craze for mountain bike parts anodized in a rainbow of colors hit its peak.  In some ways, it was a reaction against the gray uniformity (literal as well as metaphorical) of what Shimano was producing at the time.  Yes, their stuff worked fine (except for the early Rapid Fire shifters).  But a bike equipped with them had all the personality of, well, a Gateway computer with Windows 98 (which, I admit, I used for nearly a decade).  

Another offspring of that craze was the Paul Powerglide derailleur:

In addition to the red-white(well, silver)-and-blue combination shown here, it was also available in a "rasta" finish as well as purple, green, blue, red and other standard anodized colors. Whatever you chose--even plain silver or black (Now why would you do that if you were spending $280 on a derailleur?) your derailleur was emblazoned with the stars and stripes.

Here's another tricolore derailleur from around the same time:

Although branded "Stronglight", it was most likely made in the same factory as "Betsy" in the first photo.  Also, once the colors and badges are removed, it's pretty much identical to a Sachs "Success" or "Quartz" from that period.

Now here's a tricolore acessory that gets me misty-eyed:

This Zefal "Competition" pump is the predecessor of the HP series.  In fact, if you take away the thumb-lock valve fitting and the handle that switches between "HP" 9for pumping" and "X" (to mount it on your bike), you have a "Comoetition",

I used a "Competition" for years, on several bikes.  I had a SIlca Impero, which was about 60 grams lighter, for my racing bike, but for every other kind of riding, I used my Competition.  It worked better and was more durable than the Silca, and its color scheme reminded me about "liberte, egalite et fraternite."  Why I wanted to be reminded of those things, I don't know, but I don't think I'm any the worse for being reminded of them.

I'm sure there have been other components and accessories in red, white and blue or bleu, blanc et rouge.  Now all we need are bike parts that play "The Star Spangled Banner" or
 "La Marseillaise" (or, perhaps, "God Save The Queen") when you need a boost of energy.

Happy Fourth Of July.  Wish me a happy birthday.  (Yes, it's today!)

 

In Suspension, In The '90's

According to Justine's Law of Retrospectivity, you can't have nostalgia for a decade in the decade that immediately follows it.

So, for example, the mania for the Fifties had to wait until the early '70's--1973, to be exact--when American Graffiti showed up in theatres.

In the past year or so, I've seen '90's-themed concerts, dances and other events cropping up in local venues.  It's one thing to have a Lisa Loeb concert.  But, seriously, do you really want to see anyone do the macarena again?  For that matter, can you say the word "indie" without rolling up your eyes?

You've got to admit, though, there were some really good bikes and some really cool stuff being made for them.  I mean, a cyclist's life is not complete unless he or she has ridden something with elastomers in it.  And nothing will strengthen your legs more than detaching your foot from an Onza pedal on a sub-freezing day.

But my favorite '90's mountain bike part is one that I haven't seen in ages:  the Softride suspension stem.

Yes, believe it or not, there was a time when grown men and women actually believed that flexible stems were a better idea than telescopic forks.  They're certainly less expensive.  And, hey, if you get one today, you'll be the coolest kid on the block.

I hear that those stems are going to be made again.  In the old Murray bicycle factory.  By unionized American workers.

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!

 

This Medici Won't Fade Away

Just when I thought neon fades had been consigned to the dustbin of history, I saw this:

Now, as you well know, I have nothing against purple and green standing side by side.  In fact, it's my favorite color combination. But not in this shade of green.

Too bad it's on such a good bike:  a Medici.  About 30 years ago, Gian Simonetti and Mike Howard left Masi USA to start the brand.   Not surprisingly, Medicis were very similar in design and in finishing details to the USA-made Masis which, according to some purists snobs, weren't quite as nice as the bikes Signor Masi built when he was in Italy.

I knew people who had both US- and Italian-made Masis, as well as Medicis.  Truthfully, nobody could quite explain what the differences were between them, and I couldn't tell by riding them.  Then again, those people might argue that I didn't spend enough time riding those bikes.

I'd be curious about the one in the photo, though.  The early Medicis--including the ones I rode--were made from Columbus SL tubing.  On the other hand, the frame in the photo was made from Tange Prestige tubing, which means that it was probably made in the early or mid-1990's.

As far as I can tell, the Medici marquee no longer exists.  i guess the Medicis, like all dynasties, had to end some time!  

Over The Rainbow

Whenever you see neon- or Easter egg-colored "deep V" rims on some hipseter's or messenger's fixie, console yourself with the thought that things have been much, much weirder.

From Bike Snob NYC

You see, all of the rainbow boys and girls are merely aping a trend of the 1890's.  Yes, they really had Velocity Deep V rims in "antifreeze green" in the days of the penny-farthing. I know:  I was there.

All right, so now you know I was pulling your crank--I mean, your leg.  But I can tell you that cyclists actually wore tweed in those days!

When we see images of cyclists and their mounts from the 1890's, they usually seem quaint.  I don't think that a century hence, people will see velo-images of the 1990's in the same way.  

Now, that was a time of some really weird bike parts.  First of all, mountain biking took off in the late '80's.  Around 1990 or so, mountain bikes and components appeared that were not derivatives of their road and touring counterparts.  (That's also when the first frames with suspension were built.)  By the mid-1990's, it seemed that every other twenty-something in California who had access to his father's machines was making derailleurs, brakes, seat posts, cranks and almost every other part.  Some were actually quite good and were improvements over what had been available.  On the other hand, some stuff was merely what we used to call "ELS", or Expensive Lightweight S**t.

In the latter category were nearly all cranksets made by those one-man cottage industries.  I knew riders who weren't built like NFL linebackers and still managed to break Kooka, Topline and some of those other over-machined, over-priced crank arms.  And then there is specimen:  a Cucamonga crank:

Whoever made these cranks seemed determined to incorporate every whacky idea and trend in bike components from the previous three decades or so.  On one hand, the holes are from the '70's, while the shape suggests the '80's mania for aerodynamics, or the pretense thereof.  And the pink anodizing is right out of the '90's.

I don't know anyone who actually rode those cranks.  Perhaps they were made to be "collectibles".  What will some future anthropologist surmise about '90's cycling and cyclists from them?