A New Bike-Packer—Or A ‘90’s Mountain Bike?

Because I am in, ahem, midlife, I am old enough to have owned and ridden a mountain bike made around the time Rock Shox, Marzocchi, Manitou and a few other hitherto-unknown companies were bringing internally-sprung front forks to the general public.  A few bike-makers were developing frames with suspension in the rear triangle. But that feature, and suspension (what Brits called “telescoping”) front forks were still extra-cost options or modifications.

At that time, in the early-to-mid-1990s, mountain bike frames like my Jamis Dakota typically had 71 degree head angles, which are a bit more slack than road frames (73-74 degrees) but more aggressive than ‘80’s machines that, like the balloon-tired bikes from which they evolved—and many of today’s “hauler” and “rough stuff” bikes—had angles ranging from 69 all the way down to 66 degrees.

Bikes like my old Dakota, I believe, were attempts to inject some road-bike responsiveness into mountain bikes, some of which were, frankly, sluggish. But those bikes from three decades ago were comfortable and stable enough that they were often used for loaded touring (sometimes after switching the flat handlebars for dropped bars), as Trek and other bike-makers stopped making dedicated touring bikes around 1988.

Well, someone at the Dutch bike company Van Nicholas seems to have ridden—or simply recalls—one of those mountain bikes. Their new Nootau, billed as “the ultimate bike-packing machine,” is built around a titanium frame with a geometry nearly identical to a just-before-suspension off-road bike.

Of course, the Nootau’s componentry has almost nothing in common with what was in use around the time “Smells Like Teen Spirit” blasted across the airwaves. Like most of today’s new bikes, it has a threadless headset and stem, which were available but not standard.  But, unlike the cantilever brakes on vintage mountain bikes, disc brakes stop the Nootau.  Discs enjoyed brief popularity, mainly on tandems, during the late 1970s and have been revamped during the past few years.

Perhaps the most striking difference, however, between the Nootau’s equipment and that of vintage mountain bikes is in the drivetrain: the Nootau has no derailleurs. Instead, its single-sprocket crankset is mated to a Rohloff rear hub with 14 internal gears. (I’m trying to wrap my head around that: I’ve had Sturmey Archer and Shimano three- and five-soeed internally-geared hubs.

I may not have the opportunity to ride a Van Nicholas Nootau. I must say that I like its look—and relish the irony of how much its design resembles that of my old Jamis Dakota.

Making (S)Trax In The Snow

In 1995, I gave myself a holiday gift of sorts:  a Bontrager Race Lite mountain bike frame.  I just happened to get a really good deal on it and transferred the upgraded parts from my Jamis Dakota. I still had most of the Dakota's original parts, which I re-installed before gifting that bike to someone who was even poorer than I was.

Anyway, just after the New Year, I took the Race Lite on a ride Keith Bontrager, from his base in Santa Cruz, California, may not have envisioned.  One of the biggest snowstorms in the history of New York City dumped about two feet of the white stuff.  A state of emergency was declared, which meant that the only motorized vehicles on the streets were pushing plows or spreading salt.  But, as happens in such storms, the streets filled with snow, it seemed, seconds after they were plowed.  

The Race Lite--or, more precisely, the tires--made tracks along deserted Flatbush Avenue to Prospect Park which turned into, if you'll pardon the cliche, a winter wonderland. I giggled as I twisted, turned and tumbled--sometimes on purpose--into still-pristine beds of snow.

I can remember only a couple of snowstorms to rival that one here in the Big Apple.  So, unless I move to some place where such snowfalls are normal--and where the ground is therefore covered with snow for longer periods of time--I probably won't have use for something I'm about to describe.

The Austrian company FasterBikes has just released the S-Trax Snowbike Conversion Kit.  Included is, not surprisingly, a ski that replaces the front wheel.  It's paired with "crawler" unit that replaces the rear wheel. Not surprisingly, that "crawler" has snowmobile-like lugged rubber track and rollers.  It also has some new "twists":  a mechanical disc brake and an Enviolo Extreme hub-incorporated stepless gear system.  One chain runs from the bicycle's existing crankset to that hub on the drivetrain side, while another chain runs from the hub down to the track on the non-drivetrain side.

In some ways, this setup is similar to another made by Canadian manufacturer Envo.  The main difference is that, unlike the Envo setup, S-Trax doesn't come with a motor.  So, if you don't have an electric mountain bike with a mid-mount motor, you will be propelling your snowbike the way I rode my Race Lite:  on the power of your legs.

Oh, and FasterBikes doesn't recommend using the kit with a carbon-fiber frame 

Suspension Of Disbelief

I've never owned a full-suspension bike.  My Jamis Dakota and Bontrager Race Lite mountain bikes had telescoping front forks, but no suspension built into the frame.  Perhaps if I had kept with mountain biking longer than I did (I stopped about 15 years ago), I might have such a setup now.

These days, my suspension consists of the sprung saddle on my Fuji commuter/beater--and my joints.

Folks like Jan Heine will tell you that you don't need suspension if you ride the right tires.  He's right:

When I Took A Shot, I Mean, A Ride

Have you ever ridden a Sling Shot bicycle?

1995 model--like Stelios' bike

These days, SS is producing a line of bicycles with conventional tubing dimensions and geometry.  At the same time, they have continued their signature frame design:  the one with the cable in place of the downtube.

If you haven't ridden one of those bikes, you may have seen one.  In place of the downtube, a thick steel cable is attached to the bike with a spring.  Early versions of the frame, from the 1980s, actually had two cables, and the springs were hooked onto the bottom bracket.  On later models, the spring is found at the top tube.  And, on nearly all Sling Shots, there is a hinge on the top tube just before it meets the seat tube.

Stelios Tapanakis, who worked in several New York City bike shops during the '80's and '90's and co-owned Park Slope shop Rock'n'Road with Stella Buckwalter in the late '90's, was a big fan of Sling Shots.  He owned and rode both a road and a mountain model, each equipped with typical components (mostly Ultegra on the road bike and XT on the mountain bike) of the day.  He allowed me to try his bikes on a few occasions. 

The hinge

I didn't dislike either bike.  If anything, I found them rather unremarkable.  I don't mean that in a negative way:  They both reminded me of other bikes I'd ridden and, in some cases, enjoyed. 

1990 model.  I rather like this one.

In particular the road bike reminded me of at least a few Columbus SL frames I'd ridden (and a couple I owned).  Perhaps it had to do with the shocks which, Stelios explained, were the stiffest ones Sling Shot was offering.  (The bikes could be purchased with softer springs.)  I didn't notice any major difference in shock absorption from conventional steel bikes I'd ridden.  Nor did I notice a significant difference in acceleration or responsiveness.

What really surprised me, though, was that the Sling Shot seemed noticeably heavier than the Mondonico Criterium I was riding at the time, even though both bikes had very similar components and wheels and had the same tires.  (I didn't weigh either bike; my impression came from lifting both bikes.)  Even in those days, I wasn't a weight weenie; still, I couldn't help but notice the difference.

I also felt a difference--though less noticeable--in weight between his mountain Sling Shot and the off-road bike I rode at the time:  a Jamis Dakota.  In a way, that surprised me even more than the difference between the road bikes, as the Jamis was a mid-level bike.  Although I upgraded a few of the parts, the overall package was not on the same tier as the equipment Stelios was riding on his mountain Sling Shot.

As for that bike:  I noticed a bit more of a difference in the ride between it and the Jamis than I did between his road bike and mine.  The Sling Shot actually did feel as if it were absorbing more shock than my Jamis, on which I  had a Rock Shox Mag 21 fork, if I recall correctly. (When I bought the Jamis, mountain bikes still weren't sold with shock absorbing front forks; they were still considered an after-market item.) But the Sling Shot also felt less stable going down a hill, as if the bike had a loose head tube.  Stelios used to say that it allowed him more control of the bike.  I suppose that if I'd done more downhill rides, I'd have felt the same way.

So, while neither bike had a disagreeable (to me, anyway) ride,  I could see no reason to sell the bikes I had and "upgrade" to a Sling Shot frame, which cost about twice as much as my Mondonico and who-knows-how-much more than the Jamis.

I got to thinking about Sling Shots when I saw this photo on Memphis Cyclist:

I tried, unsuccessfully, to find more information about that bike.  Is it my imagination, or does it look like it--like the Sling Shot--has a cable instead of a down tube?

The top tube looks like someone crossed a truss and a camelback frame.  What if Sling Shot were to make a frame like that?

Turns out, they did--sort of:

Now I'm going to reiterate something I've said in earlier posts:  In my nearly four decades of cycling, nearly every "new" idea I've seen was indeed new--twenty, fifty or even a hundred years earlier!
 

The Real Pista

In an earlier post, I recounted my misadventure with my first "fixie" conversion:  a Peugeot U-08 on which I tried to lock down a fixed cog and lockring to the stock Normandy hub by the force of my youthful hormones.

Before that, I wrote about what might have been the wildest bike I've ever owned:  a KHS Aero Track.   Since then, you've read about my many adventures on Tosca, the fixed-gear Mercian I now ride.

While Tosca's frame has track geometry, more or less, I never intended it as an NJS-approved (or -approvable) velodrome bike.  Instead, I think of it as a cross between a track bike and the British "club" machines from the 1930s through the 1950s:  Something I can ride for a couple of hours, or more rather than the minutes or seconds it takes to sprint around banked curves.

And, yes, it has a "flip-flop hub" (as those club bikes often had) brakes (!) and water bottle braze-ons (!!)--and bags, even.  

But I once had a track bike that had  none of those things. It wasn't even drilled for brakes. (The KHS was.) It had a "flip-flop" hub--for fixed gears on both sides. The bike I'm going to write about was intended as a track machine, pure and simple.

It's a name you've all seen, but in an iteration you haven't seen unless you probably haven't seen unless you've been cycling for a couple of decades.

It's---drumroll--a Bianchi Pista.  But not the one that all of the hipsters in Williamsburg were riding around 2005.  That, while probably a decent bike, is a Chinese knockoff of the Pista I rode for about five years.

This BIanchi Pista was made in Italy, in the same factory as their other racing bikes.  Its tubes were Columbus Cro Mor, which were said to be stiffer than the SL tubes of my Colnago.  

Actually, given that and the tight track geometry, the Pista wasn't quite as stiff or harsh as I expected it to be.  Mind you, it's not what I'd ride on a hilly century, but I found I could put in an hour or two without feeling that my dental work was going to fall out.

Then again, I very rarely rode it on anything rough.  Most of my rides on the Pista were in Prospect Park, only a couple of blocks from where I was living (in Park Slope, Brooklyn) during the time I rode it.  For laps starting in Grand Army Plaza, the Pista was great.

But, eventually, I got tired of that and, if I recall correctly, needed some cash for some harebrained venture I came up with.  The guy who bought it from me had aspirations of actually becoming a professional racer. (I don't think he did, but that says nothing about the bike, really.)  He talked me down a bit in price because he didn't like the color (which, of course, I loved) but still preferred it to "Crest toothpaste green", as he called BIanchi's Celeste finish.

When I first got the Pista, I had my Mondonico--my first purple bike--and, by the time I sold it, I was riding my Land Shark--my first purple-and-green, and my first custom, frame. Also, at the time I bought the Pista, I was just starting to do some fairly serious off-road riding on a Jamis Dakota and, later, my Bontrager Race Lite.

The Year Of The Bird Or The Year Of The Snake?

A few of my New Years have included resolutions to ride more.  At least a couple of times--when I was young--I kept them.  It was easier then.

Other times, I've made resolutions regarding skills or equipment. One year, I resolved to learn how to fix my bike.  That's when I got my copy of Tom Cuthbertson's Anybody's Bike Book.   

(Years later, when I first heard of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, I found myself thinking of Tom Cuthbertson's book.  If Zinn were a cyclist, he'd've been Cuthbertson's kindred spirit.   But I digress.)

Another year, I decided to learn how to build wheels.  Not long after, I came across an article Sheldon Brown--this was the first time I'd heard of him--wrote about it in Bicycle World, if I remember correctly.

And then there was the time I resolved to get myself a track bike.  No more silly fixed-gear conversions, I told myself.  Some time in the middle of that winter, I got a good deal on the Bianchi Pista (a real, made-in-Italy one), about which I'll write a post on some snowy (or rainy) day.

For all the times I've made resolutions (I don't make them anymore), there were others when I thought the year would start off on a good note with a book (whether or not it was bicycle-related) or some nice new piece of equipment--say, a jersey or an accessory.

Bicycling! magazine promotes that sort of thing.  It's a good way to launch new products, especially those you don't actually need but could enhance your cycling pleasure.  I thought this one, from last year, was cute:

Made by Portland Design Works

It's called, naturally, a "Bird Cage".  If I were to get one, I'd have to forget about the name:  One reason why I have never had, and don't want, a bird for a pet is that I can't think of any living thing as a pet if I have to keep it in a cage.  (Did someone mention boyfriends? ;=) )

It made me think of a bottle cage I had years ago.  I think I gave it to myself as a Christmas or New Year's gift:

I installed it on my Jamis Dakota.  I think I transferred it later on to my Bontrager Race Lite.  I liked it, actually:  It held the bottle securely, even when I rode over rocks and such.  If I recall correctly, it was made in Arizona or Utah or some Western state that's not Colorado or California by a company called Innovations that made some other cool bike accessories.

So...The year of the Bird?  Or the year of the Snake?  All right, I know I'm butchering Chinese cosmology here, so I'll stop and wish you a Happy New Year!

Broken Threads

While perusing the web, I came across a blog that featured photos like this one:

 There hasn't been a new post on "Busted Carbon" in nearly two years.  However, its author found enough material to keep it going for three years.

Here's another choice shot:

Imagine going more than 70 KPH and, suddenly, your bike's frame splits behind the head tube.  Your handlebars and wheels fly out from under you.  

No mention was made of what happened to that bike's rider.  I hope he or she fared better than this one:

In previous posts, I mentioned that I resisted the "tri-spoke" wheel fad of about two decades ago.  Although I tried a set and liked the ride (for fast rides, anyway), I didn't buy a set after seeing one fail like this:

One of the few carbon-fiber components I've ever owned was a pair of mountain bike handlebars I--in one of my more misguided moments--installed on my Jamis Dakota.  I don't remember what brand the bars were.  But I distinctly recall how they failed when I jumped a creek in Vermont because they ended up like this:

Those strands are as sharp and jagged as shards of broken glass.  After my bars failed that way, I was so glad that I never had a carbon fiber seat post!

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.