No Longer On Guard Against Chainguards

Until recently, chainguards were anathema to most "serious" cyclists.  I think it had to do with the fact that the first derailleur-equipped bikes most Americans saw, in the early days of this country's bike boom, lacked that amenity. 

Chain guard on 1975 Schwinn Varsity

Or, it had a disc--like the one in the above photo- that was about as good at keeping your clothes out of the chain as fishnet fenders would be at keeping you from getting sprayed during a monsoon.

More than a few cyclists and mechanics--including the late Tom Cuthbertson, author of Anybody's Bike Book--actually advised removing your chainguard and, if you rode with long pants, using cuffs or bands.

For more than three decades, I rode bikes without chainguards.  In fact, the idea of installing one on any of my bikes scarcely even crossed my mind. 

Then, about a decade ago, there was a cosmic convergence.  All right, maybe it wasn't quite cosmic, but it was unexpected and perhaps serendipitous for makers and sellers of chainguards.  Around that time, a demand for "practical" bikes--including Dutch-style, English three-speed and Parisian porteurs--emerged along with an interest in vintage bicycles.  Folks like Chris Kulczyki, the founder of Velo Orange started rummaging warehouses, first in North America, then in Europe, looking for beautiful old chain guards like this one:

Mercier chain guard

I love that one, and others that have cut-out patterns and such.  I equally love the ones that are simply shaped and finished to fit with the overall aesthetic of the bike, like the one on this 1958 Motobecane Pantin Ladies' bike:

Pantin is the community on the outskirts of Paris where, for decades, Motobecane made its bicycles and mopeds.  It seems fitting as a model name for a city bike that's elegant enough for the most urbane boulevardier.  Such a person probably would not dream of riding without a chainguard! 


 

Chains Of Light

When I was in fifth grade, my class took a trip from our school in Brooklyn to an exotic land on the other side of a frigid, turbid body of water:  the East River.  We, of course, went to Manhattan.

In that exotic isle, we visited the Metropolitan Opera House of the  Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which was then only a few years old.  I knew nothing about opera or classical music, but the place had me entranced in a way no amusement park ever could. 


 



What had me most enthralled were the chandeliers.  I'd never seen anything like them, and few things have ever fixated themselves in my mind as they did.  To this day, I don't know whether it showed that I had exquisite taste at an early age or that I was simply a magpie in a human body. Whatever the case, I simply could not take my eyes away from them.


 



I decided, then and there, that if I ever became rich, I would want such a fixture hanging over my dining room table.  

In the meantime, though, I might go for this:

Carolina Fontoura Alzaga constructed this masterpiece from  bicycle chains. Somehow it seems even more operatic and baroque than the ones in Lincoln Center.  I love it!

Vera Gets New Bags From Ely

Vera doesn't seem to have suffered any structural damage from the accident a few weeks ago.  I feel confident in saying that after doing some work on it.

In the course of doing some maintenance and repair, I decided to make a few changes.  One involved going to a slightly longer handlebar stem extension.  I took the opportunity to install one with a built-in cable hanger:

And, as you will notice, I did something to the stem.  Look at how the bell is attached.  Yes, I drilled a hole and tapped it so that the bell, which I unscrewed from its bracket, threaded in.

The bell, by the way, is Japanese.  I bought it from Velo Orange.  From what I understand, it's also available from Jitensha Studios.

One reason I decided to set up the stem that way was to de-clutter the front.  Also, having a cantilever brake means having a hanger, and whoever originally set up this bike didn't leave much room in the steering column for much besides the headset.  There was enough room for the hanger, but I wanted to put something else in there:

Yes, I made the plunge:  I'm using a decaleur, also from Velo Orange.  More to the point, I'm using it on a great piece of kit:  RuthWorks' Randonneur bag.   

I've written about his Brevet and wedge bags in other posts.  Ely Rodriguez makes RuthWorks bags and seems to have a great time doing it.  Not only does he offer canvas (and other materials) in all sorts of colors; he pays great attention to detail.  So, his bags are full of all sorts of thoughtful features as well as great workmanship.

I love the way the top flap opens.  I suspect that it provides greater protection against the elements, though I have not yet ridden with this bag in bad weather.  

It's hard to believe that in all of the years I've ridden, I've never before used a front bag like this one, much less a decaleur.  It seems that those things disappeared from the face of the Earth right around the time I got involved in cycling.  I didn't even see them in Europe:  It seems that all of the traditional manufacturers of bicycle luggage and the stuff you need to use them on bikes disappeared, or started to use synthetics where they once used cotton duck canvas and more modern methods of attaching the bags. 

And, it seemed that the world was forgetting about how to position bags. (I actually had a Specialites TA front bag that I never used because no one had any idea of where to find the hardware I'd need for it.)  One ironic result was that we were always complaining that our handlebar bags bounced:  All of the lore and science that would have told us that they were really meant to be front bags, not handlebar bags (which meant they'd mount lower on the bike , close to the wheel rather than high up on the handlebar) disappeared like the scrolls and books that burned in the Library of Alexandria.

What this means is that I wish I'd known about bags like this, and how to use them, when I took my European, New England and California-Nevada tours.  I would have been so much more comfortable about carrying the Honeywell Pentax I brought on those trips!  And, let's face it, with a bag like the one Ely made for me, I would have been riding in style.

My bag includes large velcro strips that wrap around the rails of a front rack.   It might be possible to use the bag with just those straps and no decaleur.  (Perhaps the bag could also be lashed to the rack's "tombstone".)  It's also possible to use it with something like the Nitto F15 handlebar support or the Rixen Kaul "Klick Fix" system.  Either of those supports, however, attach to the handlebars themselves and render the bag more like a traditional handlebar bag.

If you order one of these bags, you can ask Ely to make it without the loops for the handlebar rack or the Velcro straps.  You can also ask him to make other accommodations for whatever racks and attachment systems you use.  He's very willing to work with you on helping you get a bag you like.  He even makes "vegan" bags, without leather or other animal products.

Now, I grant that this is my first experience of using such a piece of bike luggage.  So I can't honestly compare it to other boxy Randonneur bags.  However, I can wholeheartedly recommend this piece of kit for its details, convenience features and Ely's workmanship.

And, oh, can you tell that I love the color?  It's called Nantucket Red, but it's really more like a salmon pink.  My other RuthWorks bags in that color are great on my other Mercians, with the purple/green "flip=flop" (#57) finish.  I was tempted to ask him to make a gray or black bag for Vera, but I think I like this color with the British Racing Green finish.  What do you think?

(You've noticed another bag on the rear of Vera.  I'll write about it soon.)

A Good Bike Mystery

While I was riding yesterday afternoon, this bike caught my eye:

If you've been following this blog, you know my favorite color is purple, followed by certain shades of green and certain shades of blue.  Well, that bike is one of those certain shades of green. But somehow I knew it wasn't the only reason to look at it.

Clarks of Harrow.  Hmm, I've never seen that name on a bike before.  Obviously, it wasn't made by them.  But a close-up look provided me with some possible clues:

 

 

 

The lamp bracket on the front fork is almost a dead-giveaway that the bike was made in Great Britain for the British market.  Another clue to the English nature is this:

Flat-plate wraparound seat stay caps were used almost exclusively by bike makers in Blighty.  After establishing with near-certainty that it is indeed a British bike, I wondered who might have built it.

One possible clue lies here:

The lug, while fairly simple, seems to have been scalloped to a point in the manner of another English maker:

This 1966 Witcomb L'Avenir shows a lug style it often used during the 1960's and '70's.  Then again, so did a number of other British builders, including Holdsworth and Claud Butler.  I don't think Mercian ever used such a lug shape, and I simply can't imagine Hetchins having employed it.

In brief, it was a pretty nice bike that caught my eye. About the only components that looked original were the seatpost (I couldn't see an identifying mark) and Campagnolo steel headset.  The rest of the parts included a Velo Orange crankset, new Dia Compe 610 brakes, Shimano Tiagra derailleurs and Tiagra hubs laced to Sun M-13 rims and shod with Continental Gatorskin tires.

The D.I.R.T. On This Derailleur

I've found a derailleur that not even Michael Sweatman, the author of Disraeligears, has.  At least it's not in the "A Riot of Colour" section of his website.

If I'd found the derailleur in the photo about fifteen years ago--when they were, most likely, last made--I might've installed it on my Voodoo Wazoo.  After all, that bike was orange and had a few green parts!

The Sachs D.I.R.T. derailleur series was, as its name indicates, intended for mountain bikes.  During the early 1980's, Sachs--a German company known mainly for its coaster brake- and internally geared-hubs--bought French derailleur maker Huret, along with Maillard, a Gallic concern that manufactured hubs (including the well-conceived but poorly-executed Helicomatic), freewheels, pedals and other components, sometimes under the "Normandy" and "Atom" brands.  Later in the decade, Sachs was absorbed into SRAM but continued to make its derailleurs in France under their own name.  

The D.I.R.T. series, along with the company's Quartz and Success road changers, were among the last derailleurs produced on French soil.  (According to Frank Berto in The Dancing Chain, the Mavic Mektronic was probably the last.)  They, and other Sachs derailleurs, were actually well-designed and -made.  But Sachs never developed an integrated drive train group and thus never competed with the Shimano juggernaut.

Now that I think of it, the derailleur in the photos wouldn't look bad on the bike I wrote about yesterday!

Riding A Bend

Back when I was racing, I, like many of my peers in the peloton (and other cyclists who had racing fantasies) judged bikes and components mainly on one trait: stiffness.

This was especially true of frames and, specifically, the rear triangle.  Any flexing, we thought, wasted our energies and robbed us of precious seconds.  

Of course, a bike that rides like a jackhammer can subvert one's ambitions just as much as a "wet noodle".  After all, if you're getting bounced around, all of that vibration can wear on you, no matter how tightly-put together you are.  

I was thinking about that when I came across a bike none of us would have gotten anywhere near:

A completely-bendable frame.  It makes me think of a joke I heard about an all-rubber suspension bridge.  If nothing else, the bike solves the problem of how to lock up both wheels when you're parked in a high-theft area.

The frame flops loose with the flick of a lever.  I wonder whether there's any way to accidentally jar the lever while riding.  I take that back:  If I were riding the bike, I don't think I'd want to find out!

Even Creepier Than A Thief In The Night

The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

So are we warned in Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians.

A thief in the night is certainly cause for worry.  After all, I'm sure I'm not the only cyclists who's lost his or her steed to one.  I've also lost parts on bikes I've parked overnight in the path of some random crook.

As poignant as Paul's metaphor is, I have to wonder what he'd have said about another nocturnal perp.

The guy, who was caught on video, was walking around the Times Square area with a bag of feces.  (Back in the day, shadowy characters prowled the area with bags full of other things, some of which they sold to passerby!)  In the wee hours of one morning last week, he smeared the contents of his sack over the seats of Citibikes parked in the dock across the street from the Al Hirschfeld theatre, where "Kinky Boots" has been playing.

Worst of all, some people actually took the bikes without checking the seats.

This incident gives new meaning to the decals that have been applied to some of the city's rental bikes:

When I heard about the perp, who hasn't been caught, I imagined a(n) (over)zealous police officer stopping him and ordering him to open the contents of his bag! 
 

Shifting

These days, shift levers are curved pieces of metal with cylinders at one end.  The shapes vary somewhat, and the ones attached to brake levers (e.g., Campagnolo Ergo and Shimano STI) are longer.  But, for the most part, they don't call attention to themselves. 

Probably the most elegant shifters ever made were the "teardrop" retrofriction levers Simplex made during the 1970's and '80's:

Next in my beauty contest are the Superbe Pro levers SunTour produced during the 1980's"

Some might say they look even better with the gum-rubber hoods SunTour offered for a time:

I'd probably want those hoods if I were going to install the levers on Vera, my British Racing Green Miss Mercian.

Campagnolo Record levers of that era also had a fairly understated design:

unless some bike maker decided to re-fashion them:

Now, some would argue that an Olmo of that era simply wouldn't be an Olmo without those shifters.  I wouldn't disagree, though I've never owned an Olmo.

I've never owned a Schwinn Sting-Ray, either.  That's probably a good thing, considering the shifter that came with it:

I can't help but to wonder whether it has something to do with the decline in birth rates.   Supposedly, the shifter "clicked" or "indexed".  It's hard to imagine how that was accomplished with the derailleur that came with the bike:  a Schwinn-branded ("Schwinn Approved") Huret Allvit.

In a way, though, I can understand why that shifter was used on Sting-Rays:  the bike's designer was invoking the spirit (or something) of "muscle cars" from that time.  I guess some kid could push or pull that lever and imagine himself on the track at Daytona or something.

But there's no such excuse for this lever, which was made for adult bikes:

If you think somebody cannibalized a Simplex "Prestige" derailleur and glued parts of it to the tops of these lever, you'd be right--sort of. After all, these levers were made by Simplex around the same time they were making all-plastic derailleurs.

And then there are these levers that dare not speak their name:

The "333" on the sticker means that Shimano made them, probably during the 1960's or early 1970's.  SunTour's components were sub-branded "888".  How these companies came up with those numerical designations, I don't know.

One way you can tell it's from that period is the red adjuster knobs and trim.  Both Shimano and SunTour--as well as a couple of other less well-known Japanese manufacturers--made derailleurs and other components with red trim or even small parts. That practice seems to have lasted only a few years, and no one seems to know what inspired it.  The "rising sun" of the Japanese flag, perhaps.

I wonder whether it will work with Campagnolo cassettes. ;-)





 

Cat's Cradle--Or Chainring

I promised myself not to make every other post about chainrings with elegant or unusual designs.  And I'm keeping my promise:  I've written three other posts since the one about the Liberia chainring.

So I don't feel guilty about writing another post about a sprocket, especially this one:

 

Its maker, Bespoke Chainrings of Australia, is producing this ring based on the design of one made by French manufacturer Solida around 1910.  

If you bought an entry- (or even mid-) level Peugeot, Motobecane, Gitane or other French cycle during the '70's Bike Boom, there's a good chance it had a Solida cottered crankset.  Some later bikes came with low-priced Solida melt-forged cotterless cranksets; apparently, Solida never made a high-quality forged cotterless crankset. However, at the time the original "cat" chainring was produced, Solida had a reputation that reflected its name: They were solid and sturdy, if not as light or refined as their counterparts from makers like Stronglight, Specialites TA or even Zeus or Nervar.  

That chainring certainly is charming and a temptation.  For now, Bespoke is making it only to fit cranksets with the 50.4mm bolt circle diameter.  Those cranks include the Specialites TA Pro-5-Vis (a.k.a. Cyclo Touriste) and Stronglight 49D, as well as other vintage models from Sugino and Nervar--and, of course, modern near-replicas from Velo Orange.

However, I'm not about to spring for another crankset.  Bespoke plans to make chainrings for cranks with other bolt patterns, including 110 and 130 mm.  If they can  replicate the cat pattern in 110, I'd go for it!

They also make "drillium" chainrings that mimic the ones of the '70's and early '80's and replacement dust caps for vintage Stronglight cranksets.  The rings are made to be used with multiple as well as single gears.

Memory, In This Light

Have you ever tried to describe something you owned or used in your past and, no matter how hard you try, nobody has any idea of what you're talking about?

It seems that the ones who might have owned or used it have no memory of it, and younger people can't imagine it or think you're making it up.  Or, if you're about my age, they think you're just "losing it".

That happened to me a while back.  On my way home from a ride, I stopped in a shop I'd never visited before.  I got to chatting with the owner, who showed me some parts and accessories he accumulated over the years.  They were commonplace when they came his way; now they're considered vintage.

Among those wares was a Japanese generator headlight from, probably, the 1960's.   It was shaped something like the "bullet" lamps that are becoming popular once again.  What was really interesting about it, though, was that it had two differently-sized bulbs and a switch at the top.  He explained that as you built up speed, you powered the smaller "low beam" and, when you got up to your "cruising speed", you flipped the switch to the larger "high beam" light.

That light triggered a memory from my childhood.  The old Royce-Union three-speed my grandfather bought for me about three years before I was tall enough to ride it (and, sadly, only a few months before he died) had a very similar generator headlamp.  Mine also had two lights, I explained, but the larger one was a fluorescent tube.  At slow speeds, you rode by the light of the smaller incandescent bulb, but as you got up to your "cruising altitude", if you will, you flicked the switch for the fluorescent light.

The shop's owner, who's older than I am, says he never saw such a thing and couldn't imagine it.  Still, I couldn't get it out of my mind.  So, I tried Googling all sorts of search terms, including "fluorescent bicycle light", "dual bicycle lights",  "bicycle generator light made in Japan",  "bicycle lights 1960's" and "bicycle lights 1970's", but came up empty.

I actually started to wonder whether I imagined it--or whether some shadowy operative implanted a fabricated memory into my mind to drive me crazy. (No, I'm not a conspiracy theorist; I just know that the world is against me! ;-)) Then a name started to float through my mind:  Kaddomax.  Could that have been the brand name?  I tried several permutations of the spelling, including "cadomax", "kadamax" and, finally, "Kadomax."  I hit paydirt with that last one:

Someone in Greece is selling a pristine set that includes the headlamp, generator and taillight--just as I remember them--in a box that seems only slightly shopworn.    The asking price:  $200, plus $35 for shipping from the Hellenic Republic.

I'd love to know how the seller got his/her hands on that set, and where it was kept for the past four decades.

Of course, were I to buy such a set--or even if I found one in less virginal condition--I would not use it on my daily commuter.  Today's LED lights are lighter in weight, and less complicated and finicky, than the older lights.  I know that LEDs can be made to work with generators, but if I wanted a generator for my daily rider, I'd go with a modern one, as it would be more efficient.

But if I had some restoration project, or simply wanted to put together something unique, I'd buy the Kadomax. Heck, it's tempting, just for the memories it would evoke and preserve.