Hey, Have You Got A Spare?

In my generation, some kids grew up wanting to be astronauts.  Others wanted to be actors, politicians or rock musicians.  I didn't share any of those dreams, except for the last one, and I achieved it, if peripherally:  I was part of a punk rock band that played in bars where patrons were too angry or drunk or stupid to know or care how awful we were.  As a "percussionist" (that's what I told people I was; in reality, it was a fancy way of saying "drummer") and backup singer (another euphemism), all I really had to do was bang and scream to songs--a few of which I wrote--with lyrics that are unprintable even in non-family publications and websites.

I say I achieved my dream "peripherally" not only because I was even worse than any of those booze-addled patrons may have thought I was. You see, I didn't want so much to be a musician as to bang and wail my way into a finale in which I smashed a guitar onstage and screamed, "Pete Townshend is bullshit!." It wasn't because  I hated The Who's string-plucker (although we all know he couldn't hold a Fender to Jimi Hendrix or even Eric Clapton); I just thought it would be a way of showing how much more angrily hip or fashionably angry I was than everybody else--which, in the internal and external worlds I inhabited, would have been saying something, if I didn't quite know to whom.

Anyway, I mention all of this to mention my real dreams:  to work on the Calypso with Jacques Cousteau (which I wanted to do even more than to be a marine biologist, which is what I told my parents, teachers and guidance counselors I wanted to do) and to win the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Tour de France.

About wearing the maillot jaune while flying down the Boulevard de Champs-Elysees:  Yes, I wanted that, but at that time it was about as realistic a dream for me, or any other American, as it was for a newly-freed female slave to become President.  I did, however, have a brief and inglorious racing career (no prize money, but a few prizes and a third-place trophy I still have somewhere) and, partly as a result of that part of my life, realized a related dream:  a Campagnolo-equipped bicycle.

As I rode, I realized that some parts--especially the hubs, bottom brackets and brakes--lived up to their reputations.  While none were substandard, a couple of pieces weren't quite what I expected. One was the Nuovo Record rear derailleur. Yes, it was well-made and nicely-finished.  It also shifted predictably, at least once you knew its, shall we say, quirks.  But when it was introduced, in 1967, it offered a better shift than almost anything else available.

Within a few years, other derailleurs that were developed at the same time offered easier, more accurate and more predictable shifts and cost less and others that were lighter, simpler or prettier, became widely available.  And all of them were less expensive than the Nuovo Record, let alone the Super Record. But Campagnolo equipment remained de rigueur in the peloton because of its head-start in establishing itself.  Teams gave their riders Campagnolo-equipped bikes--and folks like me saved our pennies or lived, ironically, on foods that wouldn't be allowed on any training table--because the spare wheels and parts in neutral-support vehicles were from Campagnolo, and the spare bikes had Campy equipment.  In other words, what we and they rode was dictated, in part, by interchangability.

I thought about that when reading about what Victor Campanaerts planned to ride in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the race that traditionally opens the season in his home country of Belgium.  His Ridley Noah fast was equipped with a Dura-Ace 12-speed system--with two twists: a single chainring in the front and a Classified Powershift two-speed rear hub.

The rear hub allows Campanaerts to ride a single chainring (62 teeth!), thus eliminating the need for a front derailleur.  That makes the bike somewhat more aerodynamic but, more important for the purposes of Omloops, reduces the chances of "dropping" a chain. Apparently, that has been a frequent occurrence during the race which includes cobblestones and is often seen as a kind of earlier, smaller version of Paris-Roubaix.

That setup means, of course, that if he were to have  a problem with the hub—or get a flat—he wouldn’t be able to ride one of the spare bikes and the neutral-support mechanics won't have a replacement wheel or parts for it.  (When racers get flats, the wheel is changed:  Fixing the flat would take too much time.) So...would he revert to a conventional system?

Turns out, he had another bike just like it.  Apparently, he didn’t need it.

An American Constructeur And The Champion He Married

When I first became aware of custom frame builders, I thought constructeur was just a French term for "builder", just as gruppo is Italian for "group."

In time, I would learn just what a fine art translation is.  "Gruppo" might indeed look like "group", but its real meaning, I believe, is more like like "ensemble".  Likewise, although we may talk about the "construction" of a frame made by a "builder", and we may talk about the "build" of something made by a constructeur, builders and constructeurs are not always the same folks.  Or, to be more exact, a constructeur is a builder but a builder may or may not be a constructeur. 

So what is the difference?  Usually, frame builders (such as the classic British builders like Bob Jackson, Jack Taylor, Mercian and Ephgraves) built just the frame and perhaps one or two components, such as an integrated headset.  As often as not, people buy just the frame from the builder and build (or have a local shop build) the bike from it.  Some builders don't offer complete bikes; those that do will use high-quality components from manufacturers like Campagnolo, Mavic and Shimano to complete the bike.

On the other hand, a constructeur usually offers only complete bikes made to the customer's order.  While the constructeur might use, for example, Mavic rims and DT spokes, he might lace them to a hub he makes (or at least designs) himself.  And if he doesn't make or design those components, he may modify or treat them (as Herse famously did with Brooks saddles) to his specifications.

The term is French for a reason:  The idea of a frame-builder building the whole (or most of) the bicycle has had the most currency in France.  So, not surprisingly, most constructeurs are/were indeed French, or at least worked in France. 

Most, but not all.  A few British builders emulated the practices of French constructeurs.  Jack Taylor might be the most notable example:  He was often called "the most French" of English builders, in part because of his style of building frames, but also because he usually built the complete bike for the customer.  Part of the reason why he may have worked as he did was that many of his bikes (and, perhaps, the ones for which he was most noted) were touring and racing tandems, for which most commercially-available parts were not well-suited.

Believe it or not, at least one American bike-builder might be regarded as a constructeur in the manner of Herse or Singer.  Actually, the Yank in question could have put his French counterparts to shame in at least one way:  He actually made the tubing he used to build his bikes.  Herse, Singer and  other constructeurs usually worked with Reynolds or other high-quality tubing available from manufacturers.

So who is this master designer/craftsman/artisan?  Unless you are of a certain age and, unlike your peers, were a cyclist or bike enthusiast in your youth, you probably don't know about him.  I'll admit that I didn't, until recently.

George Omelenchuk (1920-1994) was a skilled machinist, tool and die maker and watch maker.  He was also a photographer who, while on active duty during World War II, developed his pictures in a small tent, using his helmet for a developer and stop bath.  (Would you try that at home?)  It was during the War that he started to build bicycles--for the US Army cycling team. 

Upon returning to civilian life, he continued to build bikes.  Some would say he was not a very prolific builder, having made only about 50 bikes during his lifetime.  But when you realize that in his shop, he used a proprietary extrusion process to  make his own frame tubing, spokes and rims--and that he cast and forged stems, fork crowns, dropouts, pedals hubs and bearing races, and even did his own chrome-plating--it almost seems a miracle that he made as many bikes as he did, while never abandoning his machining or tool-and-die- and watch-making work.

He made some of his bikes--like the 1960 track machine in the photos--for his wife Jeanne (nee Robinson, 1931-2008), the first woman to win national championships in two major sports:  cycling and speed skating.  She won her first cycling championship as a 20-year-old in 1952 and her final one twenty-eight years later, with three other national championships during that span.  In the meantime, she also skated on the first women's Olympic speed-skating team in 1960 and returned in 1968 and 1972, making her, to this day, the only woman to participate in three Olympiads as a speed skater. 

Jeanne (Robinson) Omelenchuk, (on left), 1951

She raced and skated at a time when female athletes, especially in the sports in which she competed, had far fewer opportunities and received much less recognition than their male counterparts.  Her husband was, in essence, a constructeur during a time and in a place when few adults rode bicycles and even fewer rode, let alone built, bikes like his.  In this sense, they might be seen as a pioneering couple in American cycling.

George and Jeanne, circa 1964.

Oh, and they lived and worked in Detroit.  Although it's still thought of as "Motor City", the "D" has long been one of America's cycling centers, with a disproportionate share of the nation's cycle industry as well as cyclists.  In fact, local racers such the Simeses  and Gene Porteusi did much to keep the cycling torch flickering, if not burning, during the Dark Ages of the 1950s.

I would love to see an Omelenchuk bike in person  .Better yet, I'd love to ride one!

(N.B.:  The bike photos were taken by Ken Denny, who now owns the bike, and are found on Fixed Gear Gallery.)

To Ryer Hesjedal And Michelle Dumaresq On Canada Day

It looks like I have a pretty fair number of readers in Canada.  So, dulce et decorum est...Sorry, wrong country.  I mean, it is sweet and proper to point out that today is Dominion Day, a.k.a. Canada Day.

We here in the US tend to compare other countries' greatest national holidays--like Bastille Day in France--to our Independence Day.  Truth is, Canada Day is as different from our 4th of July holiday as it is from the French grande fete.  

I am no expert in these matters, but as I understand, Canada did not fight a war to gain "independence" from Britain.  Rather, Canada--which then consisted only of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick--gained autonomy under the auspices of the British Crown.  It sounds to me like Queen Victoria was saying, "Well, they're still a colony, kinda sorta"--if Her Majesty would have ever spoken in such a manner.  (Tsk, tsk!)

Canada's de facto national flag until 1965, when the familiar maple leaf banner was adopted.

Actually, "independence" happened gradually, over more than a century, rather than with an American-style revolution.  The Westminster Act of 1931 gave Canada autonomy over most of its affairs.  But it wasn't until 17 April 1982, when Queen Elizabeth II signed the Canada Act, that the country become fully autonomous.  Until that time, there were still actions, such as signing UN resolutions, that Canada could not do unilaterally.

(Interestingly, the Canada Act might have deepened the rift between the country's Anglophones and Francophones, as it was recorded as a statutory instrument in both French and English, cementing Canada's status as a bilingual country.  Some scholars have argued that if the Canada Act had not been ratified in both languages, it might not have been possible, for example, for Quebec to pass its language laws.)

Anyway...Canada is interesting, to say the least.  So are Canadians: They're not just Americans who live in a colder climate.  So, it's no surprise that the country has its own distinctive cycling history and, while a few, like Steve Bauer, rode for US-sponsored teams, they forged their own way in the racing world.

One example is Ryder Hesjedal, the first Canadian to win one of the major European Grand Tours:  the 2012 Giro d'Italia.  Two years earlier, he placed fifth overall int he Tour de France.

Ryder Hesjedal

An interesting--and, to me, somehow Canadian--aspect of his story is that he started off as a mountain bike racer and turned to road racing.  I say that it sounds Canadian to me because, among American cyclists, the trend has been the other way.  That may be a result of history:  the first professional mountain bikers from the US, and most of them started off as road riders because, well, that's what most racers were in those days.  On the other hand, Canada produced an impressive list of riders who started off--and, in some cases, remained--mountain bikers.  This is particularly true of female Canadian cyclists such as Michelle Dumaresq, of whom I've written in an earlier post.

Michelle Dumaresq

So, I am dedicating this post to her and Hesjedal, who are emblematic of their country's cycling history--and, I believe, its history, period.

The Racer's Edge: Dick Power

I am told very good tacos are made in this place:

I plan to return one day and find out.  

Recently I learned about something else that was made in this building, next door:

At first glance, it looks like just another storefront building on a block that gentrification hasn't yet found.   Its owners told me that sofas were once made within its walls.  However, they were unaware that something meant for a decidedly un-sedentary pursuit was also made inside its confines:

Dick Power track bike, 1963

About ten kilometers from my apartment is the hipster haven of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where there seems to be a bike boutique (next to a bar that serves only craft beers, or course!) on every block.  I can recall a time when the area more closely resembled the environs of the taco restaurant and its neighbor:  a place full of blue-collar residents and immigrants, where few, if any, adults ride bicycles. 

 The neighborhood around Santa Fe Taco---Sunnyside, Queens--might well be on its way to becoming like Williamsburg.  Only four kilometers, in another direction, from my apartment, it was long known, along with neighboring Woodside, for the Irish bars and German saloons that served the blue-collar immigrants and first-generation Irish- and German-Americans who lived in the area.   (Both neighborhoods still have large Irish populations but also have perhaps the greatest concentration of Filipinos east of California.)  Sunnyside and Woodside did not suffer the devastation other blue-collar neighborhoods (like Williamsburg) endured, but nevertheless have experienced changes that threaten to erase some of their heritage.

A part of that heritage that is unknown to almost everyone who lives in the neighborhood involves the bikes that were made and sold in that unprepossessing building next to a Taco restaurant.  

Dick Power in front of his shop--in the building next to the taco restaurant!--in 1939.

During the "Dark Ages" of cycling--roughly the two decades or so following World War II--there existed in a few American locales, including New York City, a small but tight-knit community of racers and other adult cyclists.  Shops such as Thomas Avenia's in East Harlem and Kopp's in Princeton catered to them.  And there was a small but dedicated group of framebuilders, some of whom also owned and operated retail shops, who catered to those riders.  

Dick Power was one of them.  From his shop and frameworks at 4710 47th Avenue in Sunnyside, he turned out some beautifully-crafted frames that are prized by riders as well as collectors.  Power, who died in 1973, plied his trade and served as a coach and trainer from the 1930s through the 1960s.  However, the loss of his son--executed for his role in a robbery gone wrong that resulted in the death of a police officer--propelled him onto a mission to recruit and mentor young people into cycling.  

Among those he encouraged, and for whom he built bikes, were several female cyclists.  In the 1950s, the world of cycling, including racing, was even more of a male preserve than it is now.  Power's mentorship of those young women was seen as radical in his time.

I must say, though, that it must have been interesting, to say the least, for a young woman to be coached by a man with a name like "Dick Power".  Than again, those times were more innocent, I imagine!  

Raleigh Super Tourer: It Didn't Sell In 1974. But Everyone Wanted One In 2014.

A few days ago, I recounted a chance meeting with a fellow named George in Greenwich.  He complimented Arielle, my Mercian Audax, and showed me photos of his very nice Raleigh Competition GS, on which he converted the drop bars to uprights and made a couple of other changes.

George's 1978 Raleigh Competition GS

His "conversion" is nothing unusual these days (except that his is nicer than most):  Lots of people are taking nice (and sometimes not-so-nice) vintage ten-speeds and turning them into city or country bikes, upright tourers or stylish commuters.

In a comment on my post, George said he was trying to replicate a Raleigh Super Tourer.  It's a bike one rarely finds:  I've seen only  four or five of them.  And I don't recall seeing one on eBay, Craigslist or any of the sites that list used and vintage bikes.  (Then again, I check those sites only occasionally.  Really! ;-))

One reason why it's so rare is that not many were made--at least, in comparison to other Raleigh bikes. As best as I can determine, it was made during four model years:  1974 through 1977.  Another reason is that not many Super Tourers were exported to the US, and even fewer sold.  The few American shops that ordered Super Tourers, as often as not, got "stuck" with them for years.  I would suspect that more than one Super Tourer owner came by his or her steed the way George encountered his Competition GS:  A bike shop had it in the back room (or on the showroom floor) a few years after production ceased.

This parallel between George's experience and the possible scenario I have envisioned is not coincidental:  In essence, the Super Tourer and the Competition (the original as well as the GS) were the same bike.  Well, more or less, just about, anyway.  

Raleigh Super Tourer, ten-speed version 1975

Both iterations of the Competition and the Super Tourer had frames constructed of double-butted Reynolds 531 tubing with quality lugs and dropouts.  As a matter of fact, the original competition and the Super Tourer even had the same geometry.

Much of the componentry was the same: mainly high-end French stuff.  The pre-GS Competition had Normandy "Luxe" hubs and Huret Jubliee derailleurs; so did the Super Tourer.  The short-cage Jubilee--which came on both bikes--shared an interesting trait with other European derailleurs of the time:  It could wrap up miles and miles of chain, even though it wasn't made to handle a rear cog larger than 26 or 28 teeth (depending on your dropout's configuration).  Thus, it could handle triple and wide-range double front chainrings. That is one reason it was often used on randonneuses from the constructeurs.

1974 Super Tourer, 5-speed version (saddle not original)

The Specialites TA three-arm crank graced the pre-GS Competition. Interestingly, the first GS version had the three-arm Campagnolo Gran Sport crankset--with a chainguard! 

Now here's where things started to get weird:  The Super Tourer was made in ten- and five-speed versions.  The ten-speed had what seemed to be a triple version of the Stronglight 93 crankset, with a guard (very pretty, actually) where the outer chainring would have been. The five-speed sported a Specialites TA "Criterium" chainset:  essentially, a a Pro-Vis 5 (a.k.a. Cyclotouriste) with one chainring, and a chainguard..  

For some more weirdness, the Competition GS came with Weinmann "Vainqueur" centerpull brakes while the first year's production of the Super Tourer had Weinmann's short-lived "Dynamic" brakes--sidepulls.  In those days, sidepull brakes came only on bikes at the very top and bottom of the price spectrum; almost everything in between came with Weinmann, Mafac, Dia Compe or Universal center-pulls. The high-end sidepulls like Campagnolo's were ridden mostly by racers.  Most cyclists never saw them:  The only sidepulls they saw were the lower-end models found on cheaper bikes. As an example, the Schwinn Continental was equipped with centerpulls, but the Varsity came with sidepulls. 

So, some people assumed the Competition was a "better" bike because it had centerpulls.  Or, if they knew how good the Super Tourer frame was, they wondered what sidepulls were doing on it.  Unfortunately, they had good reason to wonder--about those sidepulls, anyway.   A few years earlier, Altenberger made the "Synchron", an early version of dual-pivot brakes.  Like most of the company's offerings, it was cheap and crudely finished, intended for lower-end bikes.  Weinmann tried to clean it up a bit. The stopping power was OK, at least in the beginning, and with the levers that came with the Super Tourer. But, in time, the pivots worked loose and, as we used to joke, the Dynamic would devolve into a brake with the worst features of centerpulls and sidepulls.

(And you thought Shimano invented dual-pivot brakes in the early 1990s!)

The Super Tourer also suffered because of another notion novice American cyclists developed during the Bike Boom.  It's a notion I admit I had for a long time:  A "serious" bike had dropped handlebars and a narrow saddle--usually leather Brooks or Ideale, though Italian-style plastic-and-foam saddles were starting to make their appearance.  Shift levers were mounted on the down tube, and such a bike didn't have fenders.

You guessed it:  the Super Tourer had fenders.  The ten-speed version had some pretty neat-looking Bluemels Classiques, which were black plastic with a ribbed chrome stripe down the middle, a white mud flap on the front and a white-framed reflector on the rear.  The five-speed sported silver plastic fenders--which, I believe, were also Bluemels Classiques.  

Fenders?  Fenders!  And upright handlebars.  (I think they were North Road, or some similar bend, from GB.)  And...and...stem shifters!!

Oh...and the first year's production of Super Tourers (the ones with the Synchron brakes) came with mattress saddles. Yes, you read that right:  a seat even thicker than one of Dagwood's sandwiches--with springs!  Vertical springs!  Horizontal springs!  And bag loops that looked like they could carry the biggest offerings from Carradice, Karrimor, Chossy and all of the other classic cycle luggage makers, all at once.

In 1975, the Brooks B66 replaced the mattress saddle.  It had springs but at least it was a...Brooks.  Tensioned leather.  But the bike still had those bars.  And fenders!

You simply couldn't show up on a club ride, let alone ride in a pack of wannabe racers, in the mid-1970's with a bike like that unless you were 90 years old and accompanied by your grandparents--even if that bike had a hand-brazed Reynolds 531 frame, Huret Jubilee derailleurs, Stronglight or TA cranks, etc.   You could just as well have shown up in a petticoat or a chain of mail.

I actually prefer this brown finish--with silver "sable" panels and headtube--of the five-speed model to the green on the ten-speed version!

Now, you're thinking that it's very, very ironic that George and other people are turning classic road machines into bikes like the Super Tourer--forty years after you could have bought such a bike, stock, off a showroom floor--or asked a Raleigh dealer to order it for you.  (Vera, my green Mercian mixte, is really just a female version of such a bike--which is what I wanted it to be.)   Perhaps it's even more ironic that there are new bikes that are, at least conceptually, modern versions of the Super Tourer.  (One could argue that some  Rivendell and Velo Orange bikes are, at least to some degree, updated versions of the Super Tourer.)  A lot of people want sprightly but comfortable rides: something that's relatively quick but will allow them to ride the same clothes and shoes they wear to work or to shop, date or simply hang out.  Or, age and other things have caught up with them and they're not as flexible as they used to be--or simply have lost their pretentions to racing.

What if Raleigh were to introduce that bike today?  They wouldn't have to change much, really:  perhaps only the shifters, which would move to the handlebars from the stem, and would be indexed to accommodate contemporary derailleurs and cassettes. (I have always liked the Jubilee, but I don't imagine it would work very well with handlebar shifters or more than seven sprockets in the rear.)  And, of course, the 27" wheels and tires would have to be replaced with 700Cs.  Otherwise, Raleigh could re-introduce the bike "as is", I think.

Finally, if you think it's ironic that people are seeking out bikes like the Super Tourer--or are converting other bikes into versions of the ST--you'll appreciate (or perhaps wince at) this story.  Near my undergraduate university campus, there was a bike shop that seemed to be there for even longer than the university itself.  Its owner was ready to move to Florida, or any place with warmer winters than New Brunswick, New Jersey.  Nobody wanted to buy the shop, mainly because of its location on what was then the town's Skid Row.  So, he had to sell off his inventory, which--you guessed it--included a Sports Tourer he'd stocked several years earlier.

And, yes, he did sell it--after swapping the upright bars for dropped bars, the mattress saddle for a Brooks B17 and the Synchron brakes for Weinmann centerpulls.  And he took off the fenders.  In essence, he turned the Sport Tourer into a Competition.

Still, he took a loss on that bike.  I wonder whether the person who bought it still has it.  Wouldn't it be funny if he or she--or whoever has it now--"converted" it to an upright commuter or tourer?