As Kucharik Goes, So Has The World Of Bicycling Gone

Steel to aluminum to carbon.

Hand-built wheels to boutique wheelsets.

Hubs and freewheels to freehubs and cassettes.

Quill stems to threadless; threaded headsets to threadless.

The "baselines" for bikes and components have changed so much in the past couple of decades.  While some of those changes are beneficial to some cyclists, too many simply added cost and complication for others.

Those changes have also brought innovators and investors with deeper pockets than the mom-and-pop operations that dominated cycling until the 1980s.  One way you can see what I mean is to look at the sponsors of riders and teams:  Jerseys in the 1960s and 1970s bore the names of local or regional enterprises like Molteni and the bikes and components were made by companies (or sometimes individuals) that were involved mainly, or solely, in the bike industry.  Now bike and component makers tend to be parts of larger conglomerates, and sponsors include them as well as large companies (like Coca-Cola) that have little or nothing to do with the design or manufacture of bikes or parts.

Like all changes, the ones I've mentioned have brought casualties, if you will.  Some once-revered bike, component and accessory makers no longer fabricate their wares in Europe, Japan or the United States--or might build one or two of their most expensive models in their home country while outsourcing the manufacture of their mass-market goods to low-wage countries.  Still others are no longer in the bike business--or in business at all.  

And then there are smaller (what might be called "niche" in other industries) enterprises that ended when the main or sole proprietor--or even employee--retired, died or simply wouldn't or couldn't change with the rest of the industry.  I think in particular of small-scale frame builders like Ron Cooper and Brian Bayliss who had small but devoted followings.

Another change came with the ones I've mentioned. When I first became a dedicated cyclist, nearly half a century ago, high-mileage cyclists almost always wore wool--year round.  Those black shorts you see on cyclists from the 70s were made from it; so were there jerseys.   That, of course, is why bike kit of that time wasn't as flashy as today's:  Since colors and patterns have to be knit into wool, it's much more difficult (if not impossible) to include some of the intricate (or busy) graphics and loud colors you see on the "billboard" jerseys and matching shorts (or bibs) of today.      

During the North American Bike Boom of the 1970s, some companies got into the business of making bike clothing.  Most are gone now--offhand, I can think of Protogs and Weyless.  And there were the European, mostly Italian, makers. One reason the American apparel makers--aside from one I'll mention--didn't last more than a few years was that many cyclists had an attitude expressed by one shop employee I encountered:  "Buy right, buy Italian."  Also, Weyless (which made some nice components) claimed their wool clothes wouldn't shrink.  Well, shrink they did, and it's said that the warranty claims torpedoed a business that was already sinking as the tide of the Bike Boom receded. 

And, honestly, most of the Italian clothes fit (at least folks like me in those days) better. But one American company, almost entirely unknown save to dedicated cyclists, made wool shorts, jerseys, arm and leg warmers and other apparel that were better-constructed with higher-quality wool.

That company was based, seemingly incongruously, in Southern California.  Well, that location seems incongruous to anyone who doesn't understand wool:  Because it wicks moisture, it helps to keep you cooler.  And it keeps more of its insulating qualities than other materials when wet.  That is why it's been worn by people who live in areas that experience both extreme heat and cold, as well as other kinds of harsh weather.

John Kucharik Jr. has been extolling those virtues for the past 50 years.  He's about to turn 69 and, he says, he promised his wife they would "travel and do some stuff." So, although his company's sales grew during the pandemic, he is about to close the business his father, who died at age 93 in 2008, founded 88 years ago. 

That anyone can keep a business going for that long, with the family's surname, while making products that changed little, if at all, is an achievement.  And he's done it with the same workforce--seven people--for the past thirty years.  That, I think, may be a reason why he's closing up rather than selling out:  They're "my family," he says.  "I tell people:  They don't work for me; I work for them."

It will be sad to lose one of the last companies to make bike apparel from wool, or any other natural material (e.g., cotton and leather in the gloves).  But the cycling world will lose something else:  a place that repairs bike bibs, shorts and other items.  "I don't make money on repairs," Kucharik explains,  "I just do it because I do it.  My dad did it; I did it."  Their repairs include replacing or re-sewing pads and fixing zippers.  "[T]hese guys pay $200, $250, $300 for a bib short. They ride it once and they can't ride it again.  A bike shop doesn't want it back."  He said his shop was averaging about 40 such items--none made by his company--a week.

The closing of Kucharik Bicycle Clothing company also is another change in the bike industry.  Call me a cynic, but the more expensive bike clothes (and other items) become, the less durable they are.  And the bike industry has become more like the fashion industry and others in that it seems more oriented to affluent cyclists who won't ride a jersey, a pair of shorts or bibs--or a bike--for more than a season.

 

   

Barelli: Raising The Bar On The Hill

Throughout my life, I've read various books, poems and other works of literature that brought me into other worlds.  Among them are, of course, Shakespeare's plays and Charlotte Bronte's Villette (which I liked even better than Wuthering Heights). Currently, I'm reading Colson Whitehead's Nickel Boys, which brings me into yet another world I can scarcely imagine.

While it wasn't a work of great literature, in its own way the Palo Alto Bicycle catalogue did something similar for me.  Its pages were filled with images and descriptions of equipment even more exotic--and less affordable--than Campagnolo's.  At that time, I probably could've counted, on one hand, the number of Campy-equipped bikes ridden by people I actually knew.  So, in perusing the pages of PAB, I found myself imagining, not only the components themselves, but the folks who rode (or simply bought) them.

Among those parts were pedals that, to this day, I have not seen in "real life" but recently came across on eBay when I was looking for another part. In the mid-1970s, it seemed that every other cyclist with an engineering background, or simply a lathe, was trying to improve in one way or another in what they were spinning in races or club rides.  Among those folks were Bob Reedy, the folks at East Rochester Tool and Die--and Geoff Chapman.

A member of Cambridge (Town & County) Cycle Club in the UK, Chapman owned an engineering firm in nearby Bar Hill.   He would use a near-anagram of that name, with an Italian touch,  for the brand of his products:  Barelli.

At that time, the North American Bike Boom had crested.  Many of classic British builders were still producing their legendary frames, but the country's bike component industry was in steep decline, in part  because some manufacturers didn't update their designs or factory equipment.  As an example, Williams, which made some of those pencil-thin cottered cranksets found on classic British lightweights, finally produced a cotterless crankset--years after Campagnolo, Stronglight, Specialites TA and other companies introduced theirs.   And Sturmey-Archer, which was all but synonymous with internally-geared hubs, was losing not only because derailleurs had become more popular, but also because the quality of its products was slipping. (SA 3-speed hubs made from about the mid-80s until 2000, when the company went into receivership and was bought by SunRace, are all but unrideable.)  

So it was interesting, to say the least, that someone like Chapman would not only try to improve upon the design of what he was riding, but would also produce something worthy, quality-wise, of a Jack Taylor, Bob Jackson, Mercian, Hetchins or Ron Cooper frame.

Barelli Supreme

Barelli B-10

He seems to have produced two models: the Supreme and B10.  The former looks like an amalgam of platform pedals like the Lyotard Berthet and traditional quill pedals.  The latter took a shoe cleat that fit into the body and was secured with a traditional toe clip and strap.  (Shoe cleats of that time typically had a slot that fit onto the pedal cage.)  The B10, perhaps not surprisingly, seems to have had some following among track riders because it had such a secure hold which some described as "impossible to get out of."

That might be the reason why Barelli didn't share the same fate as Reedy and ERTD, whose designs were used by companies like SunTour. While Reedy and ERTD were really just lighter and more aerodynamic versions of traditional pedals (albeit with sealed bearings and a nicer finishes), Barellis--especially the B10--might have been just too radical.  Or the difficulty of dismounting B10s might have reminded them of the Cinelli M71, often nicknamed the "suicide" pedal.

So, while I'd like to see some Barellis in "real life," and might buy a pair if I were more of a collector (or simply had more money), it's probably a good thing I couldn't afford them when they appeared in the Palo Alto Bicycle catalogue.

A Symbol Of....?

I don't often talk about my attempts to draw or paint, and I won't now. But I think that some of them, at least, were better than this:

I mean, I could draw a better bicycle--if that's what it's supposed to be--about the time I could pick up a pencil.  I could just see some archaeologist a thousand years from now (if indeed there are still archaeologists and stuff like this for them to find) chancing upon this and wondering whether it was a symbol for a fertility goddess--or a sketch for some sort of device or weapon. Or, perhaps, this future Indiana Jones muses, it might have been an emblem for some secret society.

Now, since it's next to an anthropomorphic shadow-figure, and I'm writing about it in this blog, you know it's supposed to denote the cycling side of a bike-pedestrian lane.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the lane, which winds its way through Maidenhead, a market town about 50 kilometers west of Charing Cross, London, is as bad as the drawing itself.  I'll admit that my perceptions were influenced by that photo:  It looks like cyclists and pedestrians are sharing two meters of space, if that, at that bend.  But some comments confirm my impressions about the lane.

Heck, I probably could do a better job of designing a bike lane--and painting or drawing its markers!