A Conversion That Should Have Been 650B, Perhaps

Today I am going to recall another bike from a respected one-man builder.  Like my LandShark, it didn’t have his name on it. In fact, when I acquired the bike, it didn’t have any name on it at all.

After deciding that my Raleigh Competition was too big for me—and wanting a bike I could ride on paths without getting a mountain bike (At the time, mountain bikes were still clunky.)-- I ended up with an accidental conversion.

Frank, my old boss at Highland Park Cyclery, had a Ross Signature frame.  Now, you might ask, “Since when was Ross a one-man operation?”  Actually, it never was.  However, for a time, they contracted builder Tom Kellogg to build a series of bikes that would rival the best of any other builder.  Like Trek, Ross seemed to have designs on becoming the Great American Bike.

A Tom Kellogg bike.

In spite of its high quality and the sort of clientele to whom HPC catered, the frame gathered dust.  It may have had to do with having been painted a color (grayish-green) nobody wanted.   Also, the bike frame, which was built for touring, didn’t have braze-ons for cantilever brakes, racks or shift levers (or cable guides for bar-end shifters:  STI and Ergo were still a decade or so on the horizon).  It also had only one pair of braze-on mounts for a water bottle cage.

Frank sent the frame back and asked for braze-ons.  By that time, Kellogg was no longer working for Ross.  For all Frank or I knew, the bits may have been brazed by whoever welded Ross kids’ bikes.   The frame came back painted in a pewter color, which I rather liked, and with the requested braze-ons: for a rack, a water bottle cage and cantilever brakes.  The latter were exactly where they should have been on the frame—for a 26” mountain bike wheel.

The only problem was that the frame was built for 700 C wheels. So, the there was more vertical clearance between the seat stay bridge or the front fork crown and the tires than on just about any other bike I’ve ever seen.

That would have been great if it were possible to ride large studded tires.  However, that wasn’t possible because the clearance between the chainstays (at the bottom bracket) and the front fork blades was too narrow for a true off-road tire.  They could have accommodated, at most, a tire 38C (1.5 inches) wide, which was still wider than most touring cyclists (at least here in the US) were riding at the time.

 So I set up the bike with some of the earliest mountain bike “slicks” from, if I recall correctly, Tioga.   Later, when Avocet introduced their slicks with inverted treads, I switched to them:  They may have been the best city/commuter tires ever made.  And I installed fenders.  There was enough space between them and the tire treads to ride a Worksman Cycle through.

I used that bike as a commuter and on a couple of longer trips—including the one I took when I stormed out after an argument I had with Eva.  A lot of people gawked at it:  It was the bicycle equivalent of a platypus.  But I really enjoyed it:  Certainly, it turned out to be one of the more versatile bikes I’ve owned.  But, after about two years, it met its untimely demise at the rear end of a taxi behind Penn Station. (“And lead us not into Penn Station..”)

By now, you may be thinking what I’m thinking:  What if that bike had been a 650B conversion?  Given the state of bicycling and the bike business of that time (ca. 1986-88), I don’t think that whoever brazed on those cantilever brake bosses had even heard of such a size.  Rims and tires of that size were not available in the US at that time and were even, by that time, difficult to find in Europe. 

I tried to find a photo of that bike.  It really was like nothing else you’ve seen or ridden.

After I crashed it, I got the Miyata 912 I mentioned in an earlier post. Both of those bikes were worthy companions to my Colnago Arabesque.

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”?

When I Jumped A "Shark" Named Violette

I have "jumped the shark" many times.  Hundreds, in fact, if not thousands.

Of course, I didn't leap over Jaws or even accomplish the feat in the colloquial sense.  In fact, I didn't even "jump" my "shark":  I mounted it like a proper lady.

All right, I take that back. I mounted it in a way anyone who rides 20,000 km a year--as I was in those days--might.  But the ride could certainly be a "jump" sometimes.

My "shark", as you probably have figured, was a bike.  And it wasn't just any old bike:  It was the best (for me, anyway) racing machine I ever owned or rode.



Back in the '90's, Land Shark bicycles were extremely popular.  A few of my ride-mates rode them.   You could always tell one from pretty far off:  The lugless brazed joints were impeccable and the paint jobs ranged from the sublime to the unique to the bizarre to the hilarious.

As you can see, mine was fairly tame compared to most.  It looked like a purple lava lamp with green lava.  I saw another 'Shark in a similar pattern, but with different colors.  I asked for "something like it" in purple and green.

Most of the components came from the the Mondonico I rode for three years before ordering the 'Shark.  But the two bikes were very different.  For one thing, the 'Shark was a custom build--my first.  The Mondonico was supposed to be a criterium bike, but it almost shared the geometry of my Italian Bianchi Pista (not the Taiwan-made ones all the hipsters were buying a few years ago).  Since I was doing a lot of long-distance riding as well as racing, I decided on a more classical road geometery, with seat tube and head angles shallower (73.5 degrees each) than the ones on the Mondonico (74 head, 74.5 seat).  Also, I asked for something with a sligtly longer seat tube but a shorter top tube.  On my Italian bikes, it seemed that I was always choosing between one or the other:  If I got the longer seat tube, I also got the longer top tube, which meant that I rode a stem with a shorter extension and therefore sacrificed handling.  On the other hand, getting a bike with a shorter top tube meant a smaller seat tube, which made it harder to stretch my legs out. (A longer seat post just never felt the same to me.)

Also, my 'Shark was built from Reynolds 853 tubing, which was fairly new at the time. This made for a livelier ride than the frames with Columbus tubings, which, on some bikes, could feel stiff to the point of feeling dead (my complaint with the early Cannondale racing bike I had).  I could do a "century", or ride even more miles in a day without feeling battered:  whatever fatigue I felt was a result of sun, wind, or any other conditions I encountered while riding.

Although I rode the bike for a decade, I made few changes.  Of course, I replaced tires and such as needed.  But I made only minor deviations from the original Dura Ace/Ultegra combintion.  

The first came after  two years with the 'Shark, when  I started riding Mavic Helium and Cosmic wheels.  Heliums were probably the lightest road wheels available (in clincher, anyway) at the time, while the Cosmics had deep V-shaped rims and were stiffer but heavier than the Heliums.  About three years later, I sold those two sets of wheels and bought Mavic Ksyriums, which seemed to embody the best of both wheelsets.

I made the second change around the same time I got the Ksyriums:  I ordered a carbon-fiber fork--the first and only I ever owned--from Land Shark.   It certainly lightened the bike and absorbed some of the shock the straight-bladed steel fork transmitted.  The carbon fork came with a threadless steerer column, which meant changing my stem.  Fortunately, I was riding  a Chris King headset (which I ride on all of my Mercians), so I had to replace only the top part.

What I remember best about the 'Shark's ride is its climbing ability:  No other bike I've owned--and hardly any I've ridden-- was as nimble going up a hill.  It may have had to do with the oversized down- and top-tube.  If that's the case, then the bike's resilience is all the more remarkable: Oversized tubes are stiff, but often deliver a very harsh ride.

So why am I not riding it now?, you ask.  Well, a  little more than ten years after I took my first ride on the 'Shark--which I named Violette--it was stolen.  I thought about getting another, even thought the price of them had gone up considerably.  But I realized that my riding habits were changing, in part because of my age (I was nearing 50.) and the fact that my body was full of estrogen instead of testosterone.  Plus, by that time, I had ridden Hal Ruzal's Mercians and fell under their spell.  

I am sure that John Slawta, Land Shark's builder (and finisher) is doing work that's just as meticulous as what he did on my old bike.  But, from what I understand, he stopped building steel bikes several years ago and is working only in carbon fiber.  So, in spite of my fond memories of my Land Shark, if I buy another nice bike,  it will be a Mercian (as long as they are building in the traditional ways) or from other classic (or classically-inspired) builder of chrome-molybdenum or maganese-molybdenum steel frames.

P.S.  During the time I rode the 'Shark, I had several human companions.  However, these two remained constant:

Charlie I:  19 March 1991--16 October 2005; Adopted 25 May 1991

Charlie I preceded the "Charlie" whose passing I lamented in a post two years ago.  In fact, I adopted Charlie II just three months after Charlie I died.

Candice:  7 February 1992--17 January 2007; Adopted 5 January 1995.

Candice entered my life when she was three years old, four years after I adopted the two month- old Charlie I.