If You Want The "Perfect" Bike

Today you can walk or ride down Franklin Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and see twenty-something bro's with beards even longer than those of the Hasidic men who live only a few blocks away. 

Those same young men are, as likely as not, to be washing down their "artisanal" food with "craft" beer--while tapping away at iPads pulled out of their handmade bags.

If you've been following this blog, you know about my bikes and bags.  So I am not one to criticize someone for buying things that are made by hand or in small batches.  But for much of human history, the wish not have things that aren't made by machines would have seemed ridiculous.  One of the goals of almost every technological revolution--including the Industrial Revolution of two centuries ago and today's Digital Revolution--is to have fewer, or no, humans involved in the creation and production of everything from screwdrivers to software.

Indeed, I can recall companies boasting that their products were "untouched by human hands" before you picked them up from the shelf to buy them.  To those early industrialists in Manchester, St. Etienne, Chemnitz and Paterson, the idea that someone would willingly pay more for an item made by hand would have been blasphemous.  While profit was surely a major, if not the primary, motive for automation, those engineers and entrepreneurs were also guided by the belief that "perfecting" their products meant having fewer and fewer people involved in making it, and they saw a "perfect" product as a goal.  The reason, expressed by someone explaining his move from human workers to robots, is that the inanimate laborers "don't get sick, don't have bad moods, don't talk back and don't make mistakes."

(Fun fact:  Czech writer Karel Capek introduced the word "robot" to the world's lexicon with his play R.U.R., or Rossum's Universal Robots. He created the term from an old Church Slavonic word, robota, which means "forced labor," "servitude" or "drudgery.")

So the idea that some of us would actually spend money on a handbuilt bicycle frame or wheels would seem ludicrous to the initiators of those technological seismic shifts.  Even those who could afford handcrafted objects (once they became more expensive as mass-produced goods got cheaper) and could appreciate fine workmanship would have scoffed at the idea of buying something that could have been "corrupted" by human imperfection.

Such folks, if they were cyclists (or simply liked the idea of having a "perfect" bicycle) would surely have been drawn to Festka bicycles.  Co-founded 10 years ago by Michael Mourecek, Festka makes "perfect bikes," in his words.

Now, of course, most of us have different ideas as to what constitutes a "perfect bike," if we indeed have such a concept.  But Mourecek is not referring to a bike that can "do everything."  Nor does he mean the machine that's most efficient at converting human effort into speed.  And he isn't talking about a bike that doesn't experience mechanical breakdowns.

Rather, Mourecek means "perfect" in the sense of quality control in industrial production.  Given his clientele, it's no surprise that Festka produces carbon composite frames.  (They have also made steel and titanium-composite bikes, but most customers opt for carbon fiber.) In that sense, they're no different from other high-performance, high-cost current production bikes.  Most such bikes are made in China, not by engineers or scientists, as he points out, but by semi-skilled workers.  Those laborers, most of whom are women (because they're considered more dexterous than men), use blowers to stick computer-cut carbon fiber sheets called "pre-preg" (fabric impregnated with resin) onto frame-like shapes.  This process is time-intensive, which is probably the main reason why carbon fiber frames, even those made in China and other low-wage countries, are more expensive than frames made from other materials.

Another consequence of such a process is, as Mourecek points out, is the possibility of human error.  On the other hand,  "The robots are very precise; they are always in the same mood, they don't have family issues or go out to wild parties," he jokes.  "Every day, they produce the perfect job for us."

What's more, the process can be adapted to create any sort of frame geometry or aesthetic the customer desires.  As an example, Czech illustrator Michal Bacak blended Portuguese Azulejo and English Churchill Blue Willow patterns to create a pattern that makes a bike ordered by Thai bicycle collector Suratchaj Chenyavanij look as if it belongs in a china closet or curio cabinet.  Oh, and that bike's finish (which, I admit, is lovely) was embellished by 24-karat gold leaf.  

In an irony that the denizens of Franklin Street can only strain for (If you're trying to achieve it, it isn't irony!), part of the appeal of Festka bikes is, as Mourecek concedes, the perception that they're hand-made.  The fact that they cost more than most handmade machines (The "porcelain" bike set Chenyavanij back about $35,000) only helps to reinforce that feeling.

Oh, and those bikes are made in the Czech Republic: an irony that surely would not be lost on Karel Capek.

Bamboo Or Carbon Fiber: Are Those The Choices?

Bicycles are made either from carbon fiber or bamboo.

At least, if I didn't know any better, that's what I would think after reading an article on The Huffington Post website.

It's one thing for a journalist to be ignorant about a subject before writing about it.  But Tom Levitt, the author of the article in question, seems to have committed a cardinal sin (Well, at least I've always thought it was a cardinal sin!) for a journalist:  not doing his research.

Also, he seems not to know what he is trying to tell his readers.  It would have been fine if he'd stuck to writing a feature piece about the London club whose workshop teaches people how to build frames from bamboo.  That part of the article is interesting enough, at least to me.  I wouldn't even have minded if he'd written about the environmental damage caused by the manufacture or disposal of carbon fiber, or of bicycles generally.  

A class in the Bamboo Bicycle Club's workshop.

But the premise of his article seems to be that teaching people how to make their own bamboo bicycles is a way to mitigate the environmental damage caused by disposing of bicycles.  That, itself, would have been all right if he hadn't conflated the making or recycling of carbon fiber bikes with the making or recycling of bikes generally. 

What's all the more perplexing is that the article includes this photo of share bikes dumped in Shanghai, China.  Again, exposing the environmental damage and sheer waste of such a practice would have been valid.  With my knowledge of bicycles, however, I would say that few, if any, of those bikes are carbon fiber.  Most, I would reckon, are mild to mid-grade steel.  

Why is that important?  Well, steel can be recycled many times without losing strength or other qualities that make it a good structural material.  That is one reason why it's the most-recycled metal.  Not far behind steel in that category is--you guessed it--aluminum.  If any of the bikes in that photo aren't made of steel, they're probably aluminum, which loses little when it's re-used.

On the other hand, carbon fiber is recycled by chopping it to bits and burning off the plastic resin that holds the fibers--which lose significant amounts of their strength in the process--together.  Of course the loss of strength is a concern to bike-makers, but it's even more of a problem in the aerospace industry, where use of carbon fiber has expanded even more than in it has in the bicycle industry.

Carbon fiber use is also expanding more rapidly in the automotive industry, which also might not want to use materials weakened by recycling.  And, for all of the carbon fiber bicycles, boats, gliders, tennis rackets and such available to consumers, the military is still, by far, the biggest user of carbon fiber composites.   Let's just say that the armed forces aren't noted for their concern about the environment, much less recycling.  Moreover, armed forces are willing and able to spend whatever is necessary to obtain the most advanced composites, so they wouldn't be interested in recycled materials.

So...If Tom Levitt had stuck to one topic--bike-building classes, bamboo bikes or the environmental hazards of carbon fiber--he might have written a lucid and enlightening article.  Instead, he has revealed his ignorance or laziness. 

A New Weave?

Carbon fiber bikes first appeared about four decades ago.  For two decades, they were mainly curiosities or status symbols; they were ridden (if they were ridden) mainly for record attempts or by those who simply had to have the latest equipment.

When Trek and other companies started to make carbon fiber bikes priced within range of the best steel and aluminum bikes, parts and accessories with the "carbon weave" pattern became as fashionable as snakeskin or leopard often are among the haute couture crowd. I remember seeing handlebar tape, saddles and even tires with the "carbon basket", as some of us called it.

Well, it turns out that carbon fiber isn't the only material that's woven when used in bicycle frames.  Interestingly, this material has many of the same qualities that doomed the early carbon fiber frames but make them attractive (not just in visual ways) to many cyclists today:  It is strong but still flexible, which allows it to be shaped in a variety of ways.  But it is also brittle, and--like early carbon fiber materials--needs to be supported by other materials.

The material in question is bamboo.  Industrial designer Lance Rake (You've gotta love that name!) realized that to make bamboo stiff enough, he had to cut it into thin strips, weave it and  laminate it to another material.  This is more or less how early carbon fiber frames were made:  They fibers were wrapped around, and bonded to another material, usually aluminum. 

Now, you're never going to believe what Rake is laminating his bamboo fiber to.  Wait for it:  carbon fiber.  In another interesting parallel with early carbon fiber-frames, Rake's bamboo-laminate tubes are joined into carbon fiber lugs.  Most of the early carbon-fiber frames were bonded into aluminum lugs.  

The bike Rake is holding in his hands is fitted with mid-level components and weighs about 19 pounds--more or less what a similarly-equipped carbon fiber bike would weigh.

Will the new "must have" bike accessories have a bamboo-weave pattern?  Depending on the accessory, it might actually look good.  

KISS My Carbon Fiber

If you read this blog regularly, chances are that you won't buy the bike that is the subject of this post.

So why am I writing about it?  Well, it was licensed by a band you've all heard.  In fact, if you came of age when I did, you probably bought one of their albums and attended one of their concerts.  You might have even gone through a stage when you dressed like them.

The band in question is KISS.  They, like the Ramones, is one of the most important--and, depending on your preferences, best--bands to come out of the New York City borough of Queens, where I live.

Now, if you remember them from back in the day, you recall their makeup, costumes and their wild antics as well as their frentic music.  So it's hard to imagine their name and logo on, say, a classic British builder's or French constructeur's frame.  It's even difficult to picture their likeness on one of those flashy Italian bikes, let alone anything from a Japanese craftsperson or American custom builder of that era.

Really, the only kind of bicycle that could have ever been licensed to KISS is one made from carbon fiber.  And that is what has just become available from a company called Sciacallo.

I have to admit that I had never heard of Sciacallo up until now.  Then again, I don't pay much attention to carbon bikes.  And that is all that Sciacallo offers.  

And, really, if they were going to "front", if you will, for any band, what other band could it be?  The Eagles?  Chicago? Would you want anything licensed by those guys?

If You're Under 50, You've Probably Never Heard Of It. Why?

Unless you are, um, of a certain age, you've probably never heard of this bike brand.  If you are familiar with the name, you probably know it from another field of endeavor, to which the early history of bicycling is more closely connected than most people might expect.    It also was one of the pioneers in  one of the major technological changes that has transformed bicycles, especially the ones ridden in the peloton.


I have never owned or used a gun, but I would guess that anybody who has would know about the company started in Connecticut by Swedish immigrant Oscar F. Mossberg, who previously worked for bicycle manufacturer Iver-Johnson.  By the time he got his operation going, in 1919, bicycle sales, particularly to adults, were fading.  That is probably the reason he turned his attentions to revolvers and such.

Very little information is available about the bikes.  It seems that some time in the 1950s or '60's, kids' bikes, especially of the "muscle" variety, were being sold under the Mossberg name in department stores.  Like most bikes sold in such outlets at the time, they were made by American manufacturers like AMF and Huffy, but not Schwinn.  Another thing they had in common with such bikes is that they were heavy, with the frames and all of their parts--including one-piece craks--made of mild steel.

Their foray into the adult bicycle market began, not suprisingly, around 1970, early in the Bike Boom .  At first, Mossberg ten-speeds were made by the companies I've mentioned and gradually found their way into bike shops. Later, the company offered lighter Japanese bikes much like other entry- to mid-level ten speeds of the time. Those bikes featured   SunTour and Shimano derailleurs and swaged cotterless cranksets from Sugino, SR and Takagi on carbon steel, or straight gauge Chromoly, frames. 

Mossberg carbon bikes.  From the Fairwheels Bikes site.

In 1972, Mossberg building experimental carbon frames.  One of those would, I imagine, be very collectible, as the special facility built to make it burned down only a year or so into production.  Perhaps the most interesting feature of the company's track frame was adopted by a few bike makers, such as GT, for at least some models:  a third set of rear stays, in addition to the seat and chain stays.  Given the state of carbon bikes at that time, I imagine that those stays would have been necessary to strengthen and stiffen the bikes.

From what little I could find, I surmised that Mossberg ended their venture in the bike business some time around 1980.  Around that time, production of other early carbon fiber frames such as the Graftek also ceased. The then still-primitive state of carbon fiber technology and techniques for using it led to failure of many frames built with the material; bike-builders and manufacturers would not re-discover the material for another decade or so.

Although its presence in the bicycle world was short-lived, it's puzzling that Mossberg bicycles aren't better-known, given the history (however checkered) I've described as well its connection to one of the world's leading firearms manufacturers.

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.

B.C. (Before Carbon)

In my previous post about my old Land Shark, I mentioned that John Slawta, who builds and paints all LS bikes, is constructing his frames only from carbon fiber.

I am sure he’s still doing the great work he’s always done.  However, in the end any carbon-fiber frame is still plastic.  Yes, it has strands of fiber woven into it, but it’s plastic that holds them together.

To be fair, those bikes are stronger—and probably lighter—than earlier plastic bikes.  I’m not talking only about earlier carbon-fiber bikes, such as the Graf-Tek (Exxon’s only foray into the bicycle industry) during the mid-to-late 1970’s or the first high-production CF bikes made by Trek and other companies a quarter-century ago.  I am talking about bikes made only from the resin.

"The Original Plastic Bike"

A few years before the Graf-Tek came out, a company named The Original Plastic Bike claimed to have built a plastic bike that weighed about half of what racing bikes of the time weighed.  It was offered in primary colors (red, yellow and blue) and black, if I recall correctly.

I don’t know how many people actually bought or rode them.  Apparently, there was some sort of scandal surrounding them and investors lost out.  Also, as it turned out, some parts, such as the chain and spokes were made of steel.  Of course, 99.99 percent of bikes ever made have such parts, if at varying levels of quality.  Even the most technologically advanced of today’s CF bikes will have a steel chain and, most likely, spokes.  

Perhaps the day will come, in my lifetime, when all frames are made from carbon fiber.  I hope it doesn’t.    

Yes, carbon-fiber bikes are light and fast (when they’re designed well).  But I sill have to wonder how long they’ll hold up.  I recently saw an early Trek CF bike.  Its owner admitted that it had been sitting in a garage for about twenty years.  Perhaps they’re stronger than anyone realizes.  And, certainly, rust and other kinds of corrosion are not issues, as they are with steel and other metals.  But one still has to wonder how well they take repeated, prolonged stress.

But the other reason why I hope that we don’t have an all-carbon bike world is that the materials are derived completely from fossil fuels.  Perhaps someone will figure out how to make carbon-fiber tubing from other materials, or another material may supplant it altogether.  Still, I have always felt good that by cycling instead of driving, I have reduced my “carbon footprint,” however incrementally.  

Can you see an ad of the future:  “Carbon without the footprint”?