I Raced On This Bike: Colnago Arabesque

After reading some of my other posts, some might argue that the bike of which I'm going to write in this post is the best racing machine I ever owned or rode.

In future posts, I'll tell you why it wasn't--at least, not for me--and which bike was.  Still, it was a great bike and I sold it to buy my next racing bike (Mondonico) only because I thought it might be a better fit.

If I do say myself, though, it's hard to deny that my Colnago Arabesque was pretty, or at least had an interesting style. If nothing else, it didn't look just like other Italian racing bikes of its time.  Although it was essentially the same in geometry as the Colnago "Master", the Arabesque had a few nice touches the Master lacked:

Like my Mondonico, my Colnago Arabesque was constructed from Columbus SL tubing:  the lightest available from the company at that time.  Many other riders I knew, and rode against, at the time were convinced that bikes built from Columbus were stiffer than those made from Reynolds, Ishiwata, Tange or Vitus tubings.  That may well have been true, but I found that bikes with short wheelbases constructed from Columbus SL tubing gave a harsh enough ride that I might not have ridden as fast as I might have on, say, a Reynolds 531 or 753 bike. (853 wasn't yet available).

Plus, I have to say that while the bike's workmanship and finish were pretty good, they weren't quite up to the standards one might expect from other top-flight bikes. Given that the Colnago was my first elite-level Italian bike, I was surprised at how easily the paint chipped.

Still, I must say that the Colnago Arabesque was a fast bike and its harshness was mitigated at least somewhat by the tubular (sew-up) tires I usually rode on them.  Most high-pressure racing clinchers of the time rode harshly; tubulars were more resilient.  I used one of Vittoria's less expensive models for training rides on Mavic GP4 rims; for races and other fast rides, I rode some nice French Wolber "Course" or Czech Barum tires on Mavic GEL 330 rims.

Now, given the criticisms I've made of this bike, I still can't say that it's not the reason I wasn't a better racer!

I sold it to a guy who called himself Joneszy.  He was a bike mechanic who claimed that chrome-moly tubing was actually aluminum and called cogs "clogs".  Still, he knew enough to know that the Arabesque was a good fit for him, as he had a longer torso than mine.

I didn't see him again.  I didn't see the Arabesque for a few years until Tammy and I were walking along Flatbush Avenue near the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  A middle-aged black man stopped for a traffic light; his bike caught my eye.  Yes, it was my old Arabesque.

"You bought that from Joneszy, didn't you?"

"Yeah...How did you know?"

"I sold it to him."

Of course, he wanted to know how I knew it was the same bike. I pointed to a decal I placed on the downtube, just behind the head tube lug.  The paint chipped there; the silver and black decal--which came with someone's Huret Success titanium derailleur--was at least tasteful, and just big enough to cover the chip.

What were the chances of anyone else having a Colnago Arabesque with a Huret Success decal in the exact same spot?

Another Schwinn Criss-Crosses My Life

A couple of days ago, I wrote about my first Bianchi, a.k.a. The Bike I Lost At CBGB.

As I mentioned, it had become my commuter during my first year of graduate school.  Now I'm going to tell you about the bike that replaced it--as my commuter, anyway.

As old-school English three-speeds were out of production, and European (or European-style) city bikes were unavailable in the US, the bike I bought was probably about as suited to urban commuting as any new bike one could buy at the time.

The 1992 Schwinn Criss-Cross, in its own way, was brilliant.  It came with a good-quality lugged chrome-moly steel frame. That made it a tough little bike that was still fairly nimble. While it wouldn't handle like a racing bike with sew-up tires (I owned and raced on one at the time; a post on it is coming.), I had little trouble dodging and weaving through traffic on it, even when it was loaded.  

The components that came with them weren't fancy, but they weren't junk, either:  They all functioned as well as I needed and stood up to the thrashing they took on a daily basis.  (Being young and full of testosterone, I was harder on bikes than I am now.)  The only parts I changed were the tires and tubes.  The original tires were 700C knobby tires, which I rode through the winter. However, as the bike saw most of its miles on pavement, the noise and added resistance of the tires could be annoying when there was no snow or ice. So, in the spring, I replaced them with a pair of the best urban commuting and touring tires ever made: the Avocet Cross.

Back in those days, Cyclo-Cross bikes were almost as rare as Dutch-style city bikes in the US.  So, when the tire in question came out--and, for the matter, the bike about which I'm writing--most American cyclists understood "cross" to mean a hybrid bike, or anything related to it.

The Avocet Cross tires, like the Schwinn Criss-Cross bike, suited that kind of riding very well.  What made the Avocet Cross one of the most innovative tires ever made was its "inverted" tread.  In other words, it was a grooved rather than a ribbed or studded tire. Therefore, it offered traction that was almost as good as a studded tire but with a lot less rolling resistance.  Even more important, at least for urban commuting, its rounded edges offered the kind of cornering afforded by good road tires.  

Plus, they seemed to be more resistant to punctures than other tires I've ridden.  It may have been because the tread area was thicker, so that the grooves could be cut into it.  Others suggested that the tread pattern kept at least some debris from working its way into the tread.  

Anyway, the bike served me nicely as a commuter for a bit more than a year.  Then, one day, I was running an errand in Midtown when I stopped at a traffic light near Grand Central Station. An Australian tourist came up to me and complimented the bike.   He said that a magazine--I don't recall whether it was Bicycling! or some other--reviewed it very favorably, and he wanted one to bring back with him.  However, none of the shops he checked had it. 


I took the subway home that day.  However, after paying my fare, I was left with the cost of the bike, the accessories, the tires and another $50.  Considering that I'd ridden the bike for a year, that wasn't half-bad, I thought.

Bontrager Race Lite: Reminiscing About Heidi After A Blizzard

Well, the blizzard wasn't quite as bad here as it was on Long Island, or in Connecticut or Massachusetts.  Still, we had around 10 inches (25 cm) of snow in my neighborhood.

The ephemerally alabaster landscape surrounding me got me to thinking about Heidi.

I'm not referring to  Johanna Spyri's novel or the movies made from it.  I'm also not reminiscing about an Alpine romance from my youth.

Rather, I am going to talk about this Heidi:

That is what I named her.  She was one of the first of my bikes I named.  And, being a true mountain bike, the name fit her.

She was built around a Bontrager Race Lite frame. Before Trek bought him out, Keith Bontrager was building Race Lites in California from a combination of butted chrome-moly tubings.

The way he built those frames was all but unique: Instead of brazing frame tubes into lugs or fillets, he TIG-welded them with gussets.  While not as elegant as lugged or fillet-brazed frames, they were about as strong as any joints could be with thin chrome-moly steel tubing.  

That construction, and the frame's geometry, made for what might have been the sweetest ride anyone ever achieved on a hardtail steel mountain bike.  I never knew that a mountain bike could be so responsive until I mounted the Race Lite.  It had that resilient, even smooth, ride associated with some of the best steel road frames.

Keith Bontrager was a Physics major in college, and he said he never took aesthetics into consideration when designing or building his bikes or components.  Still, I always felt that Heidi was attractive, in a very rugged sort of way.  As much as I love purple and green, I liked her look even better after this makeover:

When I changed the fork, I changed the decals (Bontrager made replacements readily available) as well as some of the accessories.  The bike's original build, which you see in the first photo, consisted of parts that came off Heidi's predecessor:  a Jamis Dakota I upgraded as I wore out the original parts.

Mind you, I liked the Dakota and rode the heck out of it.  I might not have bought another mountain bike had I not gotten such a good deal on the Race Lite frame.  I gave the Dakota frame to someone who, I think, sold it for a "fix".

Anyway, I rode Heidi for five years.  Then, I drifted away from off-road riding and (reluctantly) sold her to someone out west who promised to ride her in the hills, where she belonged.  I simply could not bear the thought of turning her into a "beater" or utility bike.