Bikes – Page 18 – CanooterValve

And Just Like That, Hydraulic Road Discs are Here

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Mar 072012

Get used to seeing the non-drive side profile of road bikes.

Thanks to Facebook, we have a pretty accurate idea of exactly when the next major change in cycling took place. Before Cyclingnews drove the point home, phone camera shots of Colnago’s C59 Disc had already begun to surface. Given the time difference between the U.S. and Taiwan, it was around 3:30am that my friend Chuck posted a few photos of the Formula hydraulic disc levers on the C59 and TRP’s Di2 hydraulic levers. So let’s call it: 3:30am Eastern, Wednesday, March 7th, 2012, disc brake road bikes arrived.

Volagi certainly called it, and they deserve a lot of credit for taking a risk and going off the front of the pack so early. It’s moves like that that give small companies a foothold and a chance to grow, and it certainly looks like Volagi has the wherewithal to welcome more and more companies aboard. Personally, I tend to think the Liscio frame design Volagi’s created is actually pretty unique even without the disc brakes and leaf-sprung top-tube/seat stay design Specialized liked so much. In some ways, the Liscio has more in common with “adventure” brands like Salsa than it does Colnago’s new C59–and that’s exactly why Taipei’s unveiling of hydraulic disc brakes on “pure” road bikes is so significant.

But what does it all mean? Should you panic? Rejoice? Hoard canned food? Here’re some things this will probably mean:

Electronic shifting will become standard equipment on all high-end bikes. Yes it will. You need the interior space of the hood for a hydraulic master cylinder and piston, leaving no room for the clock-like shifter mechanics we once knew and loved. Big Winners: Shimano. Big Losers: SRAM and Campy. (Campy made a valiant effort there, but everybody is going to design around the Shimano electronic shifting system.)
At least some crazy shit is bound to happen. Yeah, Tyler shouldn’t have been scrubbing his brakes so much on that descent, but the bottom line is that weird shit always happens when there’s a tectonic shift in the cycling industry, and there is a vague whiff of “let’s see what happens” out there regarding hydraulic discs on road bikes. Despite the best efforts of everyone involved, some small percentage of chaos will occur around this, likely including a whole lot of carbon fiber recycling. Despite all the amazing stress analysis and structural design programs out there, plenty of companies proved unable to build a basic ‘cross fork that didn’t howl like a banshee, and plenty of carbon fiber frameset manufacturers still find out the real durability of their stuff once the warranties start piling up. And let’s not even talk about wheels. Big Winners: Mayhem. Dentists. Big Losers: The unsuspecting.
“Road” techs are going to get their asses handed to them. Plenty of great mountain bike mechanics can’t set the angle on STIs or Ergos to save their lives, but I’ve met more than a few bike techs from highly regarded boutique road-specific shops whom I’d not let within a kilometer of my hydraulic brakes. Most of these guys are gifted bike techs who just happen to lack any mechanical aptitude whatsoever–meaning they can install the hairiest of power meter equipment and they never forget to unwind their torque wrenches after each use, but changing light bulbs around the house is a challenge, and they haven’t the slightest idea what makes an automobile go. With even the best instructions, there are just fundamental mechanical things you need to know in order to make hydraulic disc brakes work consistently, and genuine road bikes with hydraulic disc brakes are going to force the issue. Big Winners: UBI, Lennard Zinn. Big Losers: The unsuspecting.
Cyclocross bikes are going to be awesome. Seriously, electronic shifting with hydraulic disc brakes? A few possible cases of “rotor brand” aside, you’ll be able to tell the guys with the hydraulics, because they’ll be the ones riding one lap up on the field. At least until their bikes need serviced. In most ‘cross conditions, the differences will be dramatic. Big Winners: The 1%, sponsored athletes. Big Losers: Canti’s, “Suicide Levers,” people who race ‘cross in nice weather.

Now we sit back and watch each brand decide whether to adopt or not, and when. By this time next year, the road disc thing likely still won’t have sorted itself out completely, and we’ll be looking at the first waves of major 650b wheel size adopters. Sometimes, I’m happy not to be a product manager at a bike company.

The Bike Electric

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Mar 062012

Apple's Recent Patent Wires Your Bike

I like bicycles, sure, but I’m quite fond of fancy tech bullshit, too. Technology that uses your phone to give everybody in the room a copy of Photoshop, for instance, is cool. Combining technology and bicycles, however, doesn’t seem to agree with me. Maybe I’ve set up too many cycling computers (or, as customers tend to call them, “speedometers”), or maybe I’m just really old now, but I continue to think adding electronics to bicycles is weird.

Obvious exceptions here include bikes with electric motors, lights, and power meters–things that are notoriously challenging to pull off sans electronics, but the most recent push to wire every aspect of our lives–including our bike–strikes me as slightly anti-bike.

Recently looking at the patents Shimano has in the works for taking Di2 and smearing it across every possible function of the bike, including suspension systems, might be what has me going just a little Luddite here, but the recent press about Apple’s “Smart Bike” is what really caught my attention.

In case you haven’t heard, Apple has filed for a patent that essentially wires up your bike, using sensors everywhere and wireless technology to basically record everything, including “speed, distance, time, altitude, elevation, incline, decline, heart rate, power, derailleur setting, cadence, wind speed, path completed, expected future path, heart rate, power, and pace.” Apparently, you could even use voice commands to control the iPhone at the heart of the system. Neato.

Already we’ve seen similar things from Nike, and it’s pretty common to use applications like Strava to track things like training rides and sort through your own data, and I can certainly understand the value of affordable performance tracking equipment for athletes, but beyond that, I’m missing the point. It’s always been the social aspects of these types of systems that puzzle me the most. While I admire anyone’s intense training schedule, I’ll take your word for it, thanks. My desire to know details about other people’s bicycle riding stats falls somewhere below the dietary requirements of zoo-bred lemurs and high fashion. Checking in on someone else’s shared social mileage and elevation gain combines all the joy of seeing photos of what people had for lunch with the pure glee of math. I really like to know people are out riding bikes, but a general sense is all I need to be happy about it. When it comes to detailed stats, my attention wanes. Sorry, but if I wasn’t with you, I just don’t give a shit that you rode your bike. Unless you captured some gnarly video, got hit by an antelope, or both.

My obvious concern, then, is that we let technology do for our bicycles what ubiquitous digital cameras and camcorders have done for our ability to actually see stuff. Once your ride is completely and utterly wired and you’re finally–gloriously–monitoring everything from incline to chamois moisture level to temperature in your Gu packets, will you still remember to enjoy riding your bike? Like taking a picture instead of looking, wiring something that’s inherently fun has the potential to make it a lot less fun.

Maybe once we have the technology to monitor the girl in a t-shirt blowing past your rigged out Starship Enterprise bike on her beat up single-speed and disappearing off into the distance, and convert that event into Siri’s haunting and faltering voice commanding you to “get your fat Fred ass up on the pedals,” I’ll start to understand the appeal.

High-tech DIY

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Mar 052012

Demon Frameworks' Co-winner of 'Best Road Bike' at NAHBS

While virtually the entire bike industry is on the way to Taiwan for the Taipei International Cycle Show, a very different group of guys capable of making bicycles all by themselves and growing considerably more interesting facial hair has just wrapped up another successful North American Handmade Bicycle Show. The contrast between the two shows is pretty striking and says something about the diversity of the bike industry. That seven dollar mass-produced kids’ bikes can exist under the same general umbrella as high-priced labors of love like Tom Warmerdam’s incredible Demon Frameworks bikes (above) seems somehow much more shocking than Bugattis and Dacias both being considered “cars.” We’re some diverse folk.

The trademark advantage of hand-built bikes over the big production brands is usually an emphasis on artistry and detail, unique aesthetic traits, while the big guys tend to own technology. Don’t get me wrong: Crumpton and company are doing some stunning things with carbon fiber, but the big guns naturally tend to be the innovators when it comes to materials and engineering. That’s because they’ve built companies geared toward selling enough product to raise capital that gets reinvested in new technology. While you can argue (convincingly) that they often waste that development money solving problems that don’t exist, or making all new problems, the big guys are driving the industry forward, and generally they get the job done and continue to improve bikes. Unfortunately, very little of this technological development goes on entirely within their walls.

Right now, the reality is that if you want bicycle technology, it’s impossible to avoid outsourcing production, especially to Taiwan or China, where bike manufacturing is–frankly–far more advanced and serious a business than it is in most other countries, including the U.S. More unfortunate is the fact that a small number of factories in Taiwan and China produce the majority of product like carbon fiber bicycle frames. Again, if they’re the best at it, more power to them but at some point (that most of you have no doubt noticed we’ve already reached) you begin to lose diversity from one mass-produced bike brand to another. For companies that haven’t even bothered to employ engineers and designers, you also cede design control, which means your marketing department can’t even distinguish your products from the competitions’ products. I know of multiple U.S. bike brands who are essentially shells for their respective Chinese factories, and it shows in their product bullet points. “High-modulus carbon fiber” is probably still the funniest, except for “ultra-high-modulus carbon fiber,” which is even funnier. There are bike companies in the U.S., for instance, that could not–for a million bucks–explain why their frames are shaped the way they are–I mean other than for “vertical compliance” and “torsional stiffness.”

I think it’d be really great if that wasn’t the case.

To be sure, some of the people at Handmade are choosing frame shapes based solely on what looks cool, which isn’t a particularly scientific approach, but at least the same person welding or bonding is the one making the call. And I think this has room to improve drastically over the next ten years.

Design and development innovations like 3D printing and Solidworks (which is surprisingly easy to use for thinking up designs and testing them, given how ridiculously powerful it is) are good signs, and suggest we might yet have a future in which, say, a small component manufacturer could design a viable suspension fork. Sure, the technology necessary to really empower more of us to make interesting and legitimate products is still probably a decade away (if it happens at all), but I’m hopeful. Given all the recent focus on the “new normal” American economy and the decline of the manufacturing jobs that created our middle-class, I think the best chance we have of becoming a leader in manufacturing in the future may come from high-tech DIY. We’re not there yet, and maybe we never will be, but how wonderful would it be to see a Hand Built show that included more complex technology? How great would it be for guys like Frank the Welder to be able to design and produce bikes using at least some of the same production technology as Specialized or Trek? Some interesting ideas tend to always find their way out into the world. The technology necessary to make that happen for bicycle is only getting better. What’s the future equivalent of Keith Bontrager’s dumpster diving? I’m hoping it’s out there.

Friday’s Bicycle BFFs

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Mar 022012

Engineering friends much smarter than I am contacted me about yesterday’s post, wherein I wondered what the hell was going on with Shimano holding patents on the 15QR system found on Fox forks. While I’d known that Shimano designed the QR axle on Fox forks (great, because Shimano makes the best quick-releases), and that Shimano and Fox generally partner any time ergonomics or handlebar-mounted controls and such are involved, what surprised me yesterday–and still makes no sense to me today–is why Shimano seems to be patenting so much suspension technology these days.

The questions I have aren’t technological; they’re about the two businesses. I counted eight suspension patents filed by Shimano between 2009 and 2011, most involving the integration of electronics into damping and spring systems, but some that seem pretty fundamental to damping adjusters. No big deal, right? Maybe Shimano has a deeper partnership with Fox than I’d thought and they’re actually involved in designing sophisticated fork innards for them. Shimano’s a bigger company, and they certainly have a vested interest in supporting a SRAM/Rockshox competitor, so maybe they’re lending a significant amount of mental horsepower to Fox’s suspension development.

Except this is Fox. We’re not talking about Crank Bros. here. All of the engineers at Fox tend to know their stuff, but Bob Fox himself is a genuine sleeves-up engineer who knows more about suspension systems than arguably anyone else in the industry. His name is on a whole lot of patents. All by themselves Fox seems to certainly know what they’re doing (you don’t see Shimano making suspension systems for off-road racing trucks). Sure, Shimano’s filed eight suspension patents since 2009, but I stopped counting at fourteen in the same time period for Fox. They’re smart.

Case in point, this May 2011 filing which–though I could certainly be wrong–seems to suggest some version of ProPedal, or “at least four spring curves,” is on the way for forks.

I get why Shimano has enlisted Fox, but why is Fox relying so much on Shimano? Focusing on damping systems and leaving the “bike interface” parts up to Shimano–and relying on the monster sourcing and manufacturing power of Shimano–makes sense to me, but not the part where Shimano is tinkering with valving and stuff, if that’s what they’re actually doing. They’re certainly doing it with electronics, though. I guess what I’m saying is that I can’t figure out where the line is here. If someone were to tell me Shimano owned Fox, for instance, all of this would make much more sense than it does now.

Bigger-picture-wise, two things are clear: whatever the business partnership between Shimano and Fox is, it’s much bigger than I’d thought, and, maybe more disturbingly, Shimano electronics are almost inevitably headed into your suspension in the future.

Just typing this I shudder at the memory of nine volt battery and little LED on a Pro-flex Smart Shock. Obviously the systems in the patent drawings look a hell of a lot better than that, and maybe they’ll only use it on hybrids and stuff, though that seems like a hell of a lot of technology for a user who travels to bike paths with his bike bungied upside down on top of the family sedan. Unlike previous attempts, these systems would probably even work correctly more than half the time, but still, this rough drawing of the proposed little gearboxes that’ll be fumbling with our future dampers is a little disconcerting.

At least the added space necessary for the drive motors and stuff will force pretty much everyone to increase fork rake.

Eventually, though, I do see us running out of places to put batteries on our bikes. Hopefully the economy will have fully recovered for most of us by then, so we can pay some riffraff rigid single-speeders to ride along with us, carrying all our extra batteries and maybe an extra water bottle or two.

Shimano vs. Fox?

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Mar 012012

Shimano Suspension Fork Through-axle System

Somewhere around my eighth cup of coffee this morning, I noticed Guitar Ted’s extremely interesting post, “Is Someone Waking the Sleeping Giant?”. The question he asks–is Shimano once again preparing to reassert its industry dominance?–is particularly intriguing, given the shape of today’s industry. Those of us who’ve been around long enough to remember Shimano’s last burst of innovative aggression in the ’90s know that the attack came with a violence and sense of scale normally reserved for military invasions. Suddenly, everything changed. When the market share needle at Shimano HQ finally dipped into the “unacceptable” range, quietly–with few flashing lights or screaming alarms–they struck. And when they did, your chi-chi wonderbike circa 1994, with its rasta anodized boutique mess of titanium chainrings and CNC machined everything, was basically vaporized where it stood, its fancy parts rendered quaint and technologically barren nearly overnight.

It was sort of breathtaking.

By the time they dropped those original “V-brakes” on us (with what turned out to be sort of piss-poor little wiggly, fast-wearing mini linkages), it was clear the Shimano tank had driven into our little DIY knife fight, and guys like Kooka and Grafton were going back to their day jobs.

This wasn’t necessarily a good thing. There’s a reason I referred to Shimano as “it” up there at the beginning of the post, whereas you tended to refer to companies like Cook Bros. and Paul Components as “they,” or even “he.” In a way I don’t think Shimano ever really understood that we liked our cobbled together, poorly shifting, fairly domestically-sourced mash-up bikes. A fair criticism of Shimano (that SRAM has done a great job avoiding) is that they’re out of touch with what we really like. But boy is Shimano good at giving us parts we need.

This is what mountain bikes looked like before "system integration."

When shit works–I mean works, like on a level never before witnessed or even imagined–and consistently, you can’t help but start to like it. Sometimes a big company has inferior products but a superior marketing budget or established power and rams garbage down our throats. Realistically, Shimano could have done that. They could have chosen to outspend these little guys–for whom the OE market wasn’t even a factor–and crushed them the standard issue, soul-less business way. To their infinite credit, Shimano actually innovated to the top. They built drastically better stuff. That’s an honorable way to win.

Which brings us to our current situation.

The catalyst for Guitar Ted’s ponderings would seem to be an article in Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, which I’ve clipped for your reading pleasure here. “Are you ready for an 11-speed internal-gear road bike with electric shifting and diss [sic] brakes?” the article begins. Diss brakes aside, the nature of the upcoming components described in the article does suggest the big wheels at Shimano are once again turning, and the giant cannon is once again emerging from Shimano’s base of operations within a hollowed out mountain somewhere. But where to aim it?

Gone are the scattered DIY insurgents Shimano obliterated last time. In their place stands the obvious competitor, SRAM. Though dwarfed by Shimano in terms of revenue, and seriously lacking a “fishing equipment” division, SRAM has seemed almost incapable of making a bad business decision over the past decade, carefully acquiring brands and rolling them up into a very legitimate powerhouse of a company. SRAM did a lot of the same things Shimano had done in the past, but also added a healthy dose of teenage instant-gratification. When Shimano was still saying, “No carbon fiber and go to bed by 10:00pm,” SRAM was busy giving us as much carbon shit as we could afford and letting us stay up all night if we wanted. Formidable stuff. Most notably SRAM took what had been a disadvantage–less ownership and control of their own supply chain and actual manufacturing processes–and turned it to their advantage. They seem to iterate like lightning, making Shimano, no slouch, seem ponderous by comparison. When it comes to mountain bikes in particular, SRAM absolutely out-innovated Shimano over the past five to ten years, thanks largely to listening to riders and being able to develop and bring to market products much more quickly.

But those with an ownership of their supply chain and manufacturing processes are starting to dominate again across all sectors. Apple, the kings of proprietary products and supply chain control, is a company now valued at nearly a half a trillion dollars. With a serious manufacturing advantage, Shimano is uniquely positioned to disrupt the industry yet again, but the real question is will they once again out-innovate everyone?

The biggest question for me–and something at the heart of all of this–is what about Fox? Check the Shimano patent drawing at the top of the post. Since 2009 alone, Shimano has applied for over a half dozen patents just in suspension systems–and these aren’t your Sunday-driver patents. They deal with electronic suspension monitoring and, more telling still, stuff like through-axles.

I included the drawing above because it raises the most interesting question of all: is Shimano about to turn on Fox? They’ve collaborated in the past, and Fox would certainly be a prime acquisition for Shimano, but Fox is no half-ass operation. They have interests and assets outside of the bicycle industry and a long history of independence. As the mountain bike world increasingly breaks down into game of SRAM vs. Shimano+Fox, you have to wonder what the through-axle patents Shimano is displaying say about their current relationship with Fox.

For one thing, that patent drawing looks a hell of a lot like a Fox 15QR system, but some of the embodiments (Shimano offers several within this patent) are even more like the Fox system. I’ll leave you today with those images, and you can ask yourself if we’re about to see a major partnership, or if Shimano’s about to eat Fox’s lunch. If they can.

The Shaft

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Feb 292012

I’d rather try to lick a passing bus than read most of what passes for content on the Internet these days, and professional “content marketers” are one of the main reasons. Times are tough, and under tough circumstances no doubt some people are looking down at their degrees, noticing the words “English Writing” on there, and panicking. I’ve been there, and any job is at least a job, but make no mistake: writing bullshit copy for search engine spiders makes you no friend of mankind. You better hope the future robot overlords keep you around for energy generation and amusement, because humans are getting sick of your shit. Churning out high volumes of disinformation is making our world worse.

Let me put this in terms English majors can understand: you know how Tolkien’s Orcs were apparently Elves all physically twisted and morally perverted by dark magic or some such shit? That’s you.

Probably the only honorable thing you can do if you find yourself writing “Ten Ways I Love to Use My Shamwow!” articles is to bake in some self-deprecating humor and definitely avoid taking your job seriously. You’re writing keyword love letters to web crawling bots for crissake! Do you really think your boss even reads this shit? And if the clients contracting you to write it actually had legitimate products, would they really be trusting you to write about them?

We last met content marketers when I mentioned those rad Jeep bikes, and in that case, too, the most disturbing aspect of the article with the contrived sense of “expertise.” These are essentially people writing without any background in or ever cursory understanding of, the subject of their article. Probably the worst thing you can do in that situation is pretend to know something.

Which brings me to the Dynamic Bicycles Tempo Cross 8 “review.”

Right out of the chute, we get this:

In the world of bicycles, innovations are generally small things – changes in the aerodynamics and the like – so when something as interesting as a “chainless” bicycle comes my way, I’m more than happy to get on board.”

In bullshit Internet marketing terms, this is the “introduction.” Establish that you “know something,” preferably by dropping a “term” like “aerodynamics” that you discovered in a ten second Google search. Presto! Street cred: established! Sad little “innovations” like suspension forks, oversized axles, carbon fiber, and disc brakes are going to have to ride in the back seat today, because you don’t even know they exist, and yet you’re doing to be our tour guide to the world of bicycles today, and just what is it that’s so magical about the Dynamic Bicycles Tempo Cross 8 (besides the name)?

It has no chain.

That’s right! We’re talking some shaft drive! The most skin-crawling aspect of these posts is the faux-authoritative tone, and that’s in rare form as we move into the meat of the mighty Tempo Cross 8.

While there have been different chainless bikes throughout the ages (heck, the first bicycle the “penny-farthing” actually had no chain), Dynamic Bicycles has put together a bicycle that works tremendously. From the elegantly refined color scheme, to the quiet gear box, the Tempo Cross 8 was literally everything I could have asked for in a bicycle.”

Wow. That’s a pretty strong endorsement from a random stranger with no discernible bicycle knowledge who cut his reviewer’s teeth on video games.”. Helpful tip for consumers: if the author of a bike review is talking about the “color scheme,” and we’re not reviewing the freaky rubberized texture coat of an Ibis frame or some new “Predator” technology that renders your Spring Classics bike invisible for final kilometer sneak attacks, you’re in the wrong place.

Roll up those pantlegs, though. We’re about to pimp some shaft. Here’s why the triple-named Tempo Cross 8 smokes a “so-called normal bicycle”:

A chain can break. A chain “pop off” of the teeth on the gears. A chain can seriously screw up your ability to have a good ride should damn well anything go wrong – top that off with the fact that fixing it will often be a very dirty job, and you can see why people would look for another solution.”

Yes, chains have clearly proven to be highly unreliable in their continued dominant use over the past kajillion years. But I’m familiar with nicer gearbox technologies and haven’t heard of this strange budget-oriented bike’s clearly revolutionary and car-like transmission. Please tell me more.

Yes, you pump a bit of grease into the gearbox every now and then (in truth, they say every hundred miles – or about once every three years for most people), but even that it cleaner than the grubby chain grease you see. On top of that, there’s no worry of a gear randomly flying off (like a chain might) – making the mechanical side of this bike virtually maintenance free (perfect for someone lazy like me).”

I’m leaving in all the typos, by the way. That’s just a part of all things web content these days, sad as it is, and my interest here is the actual content, or lack thereof. One of my favorite examples of “anti-content” is the implied high maintenance and inherent–apparently explosion-related–danger of a conventional chain. Clearly someone who rides less than 100 miles every three years would have chain wear issues with a regular bike, whereas one with a proprietary transmission few self-respecting bike shops would touch is perfect for such grueling Fred conditions, under which a bike usually receives most of its wear and tear while in the garage.

But our author clearly has serious cyclists in his crosshairs as well, slinging the hardcore lingo. “Sometimes when you’re driving a normal chained bicycle,” he tells us, “you can get a ‘clunk’ when the chain gets pushed by the derailleur, but nothing like that here”–no doubt a result of his superior ability to drive a bicycle. And he goes out of a limb when it comes to the saddle. “I’ve tested out a good number of other high end bicycles,” he asks us to believe, “and one of my biggest complaints has always been that some companies charge you over a grand for a bike, but give you the equivalent of a rock to sit on. Not so with the Tempo Cross 8 – I’m not sure but I think that the seat that comes standard could be the most comfortable bicycle seat I have ever sat upon. It is completely comfortable to sit on, and the bumps on the road pretty much feel like nothing at all while riding on it.”

At this point, I don’t know about you, but I’m sold. But wait a minute . . . the Tempo Cross 8 sounds a little too perfect. Surely there was something this author can tell us he didn’t like–you know, like to gain our trust and seem sort of objective.

The only real complaint I can register on the bike is that just like other high end bikes, the Tempo Cross 8 doesn’t have a standard kick stand. I’m not sure why companies don’t feel like putting kick stands on their bikes, but it’s irritating to have to go and pick one up – especially if you’re dropping close to a grand on a bike hoping for a complete package.”

Here, he has a point. I mean really. What is it with high-end bikes and their persistent, infuriating lack of kickstands? And to think the Tempo Cross 8 was this close to a perfect five star rating!

Taking it With You

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Feb 282012

I’m at that stage of my life when I ponder the big questions, like, “Why can’t my cat fit into a platypus costume?” and “How can I take plants with me when I ride my bike?” The former being hopeless (believe me), I’ve recently been given fresh hope for the latter by this article about bike-friendly plant holders.

Admittedly, these little Knog-like weed pockets are pretty amazing, but they don’t really satisfy my desire to travel extensively with a few rhododendrons or a three foot square section of corn field, forcing me to wonder, just how much stuff could I pedal around on a bicycle?

Yes, one trip to Portland, and I find myself thinking a lot about bikes as genuine car replacements. The technology is closer than you think, and it’s super awesome.

By now everyone knows that nearly every parent in places fat, geographically-challenged Americans traditionally think of as cold and dreary is transporting kids to school by bicycle. The barrier for me hasn’t always been the elevation gain involved in ferrying my kids around by bike, so much as the general inability of most bike transport methods to sufficiently terrify them. But the Dutch Taga bike finally has me covered.

The Dutch are a forward-looking people, breaking new ground not only in child transportation, but in the potentially far more lucrative children-as-airbags market. Still, I think the really untapped potential here has to be infant jousting, particularly if the Dutch can manufacturer suits of armor as tiny as they apparently can helmets. Seriously, is that the same helmet the woman is wearing, only freakishly Photoshopped down to scale for the baby, or can you really get stylish, visored helmets for six-month-old babies somewhere? Here it is again, from a slightly more suspicious angle.

That can’t be a real helmet. Or a real baby. And why does this woman look so much like my friend Jeff? I find all of this very suspicious, and a little off-putting, but still, the ability to strap one of my kids to the front of a bike and charge out into the world has genuine appeal. Nothing in the article says you shouldn’t take your Taga bike off sweet jumps.

NPR just mentioned the huge percentage of tech sector companies competing to be more and more bike-friendly, and there’s really a quality of life thing going on there. For a lot of people, getting to ride a bike to and from work almost means never having a bad day at work–or at least being able to leave it at work.

At any rate, I’m having a tough time forgetting you, Portland. The next time I get back, I need to be on a bike.

Personality Tests

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Feb 272012

In my recurring theme of form versus function, I noticed these images from Paris designer Juri Zaech, which I think of as a kind of inkblot test. If you think the image above is generally pretty cool, you might tend to prioritize form over function. If, on the other hand, looking at that “bike” is the visual equivalent of listening to Nickleback for you, then you must have the same visual compulsive disorder that I do. I don’t necessarily “dislike” the image above. It’s more accurate to say it “bugs shit out of me.” I believe the technical term is “gives me the willies.” Disturbing. I don’t know why, but something about completely disconnected bike tubes floating around really bothers me. Would it have been so tough to maybe add paint to the frame and fill in those structurally missing sections? It might make these “word bikes” less “whimsical,” but at least I wouldn’t want to hunt down the artist and force him to weld something.

Here’s another one. Check out this photo:

Fashionable young woman on a fashionable bicycle, or pre-sparkling hippie Nosferatu for a new HBO “True Blood/Sex in the City” crossover project? It just so happens you’re looking at the first bicycle by fashion house Dolce and Gabbana. You’re welcome. Clearly nothing stood in the way of Yo Gabbana Bana’s pursuit of fashion on this bike, including taste and what I can only describe as “bike-ness.” If ever there was a bike for people who frequently get shit caught in their chains, this is it. According to the author of the article, the Editor/Test Rider was quoted as saying, “This bike is absolutely gorgeous! I’m totally besotted! I want one!”

Besotted, indeed.

Quick tip for you fashionistas out there who just have to have it, but can’t pony up the suspected $1000k premium upcharge for a bike made by people who specialize in making sunglasses for muppets: go to Wal-Mart, buy a bicycle for under $100 and some sweet leopard print yoga pants. Everybody knows DIY is the new black, and exactly nothing is more DIY than artisanally resewn animal print yoga pant bicycle tubing covers. So much cheaper than the custom paint applied to this garbage scow of a bike, plus you might be able to find florescent green leopard print (the “Holy Grail of leopard prints). Sure, the Dolt Cabana mobile can technically “function” as a bicycle, but it’s the form here that will clearly be moving units, so to speak.

Finally, ponder your own feelings about this device, which takes the raw functionality of a bicycle and a desk and, in combining them, renders both completely useless.

That’s sort of a brilliant triumph in the particular strain of fashion known as “function deconstructionism.” Not since the combination bathtub-meat locker have two otherwise distinct things commingled so successfully. Still, I’m holding out for the IKEA model, which I hear is translucent green acrylic and filled with live fish.

If I seem a little snarky and function-obsessed this week, it could be that I spent the last few days in Portland, which, compared to most places I’ve been, seems genuinely designed to accomplish stuff. Not only are Chris King and Zen–two of the only places still producing quantities of bicycle components and frames in the U.S.–based here, but so are an endless stream of small builders and blue collar entrepreneurs doing things to make money without first securing a round of VC funding. If you build stuff or want to, Portland really is a little like an amusement park disguised as a city.

Good meetings there, too.

Maybe best of all, I got to endure the company of my old friend, Jason, who was kind enough to put me up during my stay and show me around, and who once again casually dropped a piece of wisdom so profound that I’m still processing its full implications. Cruising through the “Bizarre/Mystical” section of venerable bookstore, Powell’s, Jason went out on a limb and declared, “Hitler ruined high boots for men.” Fashion isn’t often discussed in a city where many women choose not to wear makeup and “business casual” works five days a week, but when it is, it’s pretty good.

Friday’s Vaporware Update

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Feb 242012

Some readers have let me know I’ve accidentally released images of my next project, the pedal-powered AT-AT microbus in this post. To that all I can say is “shit!”–if you’re seeing that accidentally leaked image above, please cover your eyes and disregard it until the patent comes through. But yes, it is pretty bitchin’.

In fact, here’s the rough sketch of what should be the final version of my suspension system. Ain’t much, but all the bones are in there–all the key pivot locations and shock orientation.

And here, in no particular order, are the priorities behind the design:

Both rockers as short as possible while still being able to fit decent sized bearings
Shape of each rocker is as simple as possible
No wasted material and the shortest distances between points everywhere possible
Clean, open design with many fabrication possibilities–no structural gymnastics that inevitably mean “heavier”
Potential for cartoonishly low standover–that drawing would be of a size “Large,” and the smaller models should allow the seat tube to be lower than the rear tire
Stupid short chainstays without excessive chain growth during compression (it’s an axle path that took three years to develop)
Sensible and flexible options for front derailleur mounting
Bottom bracket system options (leaning toward Press-fit 30 or something proprietary that doesn’t work with anything–kidding!)
A “shit-ton” of mud clearance
Tight and simple rear triangle
Absolutely perfect shock location–out of the way for low standover and decent water bottle placement
Optimized stress points–points on a frame that always need beefed up anyway handle all the load, meaning no super-heavy straight gauge downtube necessary because a shock is t-boning it, and no extra struts and beams just to orient the shock or rocker

That’s it for now. Next step is, hopefully, a prototype.

Acronymonious

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Feb 232012

Like starting a band, the only real reason to start a bike company is that you get to name stuff. And the best thing about creating a full-suspension frame is that you get to come up with acronyms. Acronyms, otherwise known as “those abbreviation things like M.A.S.H.,” are key to marketing a suspension system because they take something somebody spent years figuring out, working and reworking, and distill that thought and energy down into a few “hot” letters people seem to like. You should really try to have an “X” in there, if possible, and “Z” and “V” are also pretty cool. Riding a mountain bike is still pretty male-dominated, so bonus points if, like “XTR” it sounds vaguely related to extending something.

Acronyms are in the back of my mind right now, which is probably the best time to be thinking of them. When you need to come up with a name in a hurry, things usually go wrong. But for now I don’t yet have a real bike company, so this is all just Dead Milkmen naming, and that’s the best way to do it.

So feel free to send me suggestions for acronyms for this suspension system. If I really like one–and it turns out we made a bike company after all–I’ll owe you something bitchin’ like a sweet t-shirt with an animal on it or something. The company is also going to need a potent and ferocious mascot, or several.

While I’m hoping as many of you as possible will just wing it and e-mail me crazy-ass names, taking this seriously and offering serious acronym suggestions is also acceptable. To that end, I figured I should mention some of what the suspension system is designed to actually do, and some of what makes it unique, just in case that sort of thing inspires anybody. There’s actually a lot going on here, so I’ll only focus on a few details.

One of the key features I was going for in designing the lower rocker was mechanical efficiency, and in my head I could see this weird scenario where the tension of the chain–the force that’s trying to pull your rear wheel forward into your crankset–helps cancel out any bobbing, but without compromising small bump response. (Damn, I’ve always wanted to type “compromising small bump response”–also a great band name.)

Explaining this gets a bit hairy, but here goes: because my swingarm attaches to my rocker at the front of the rocker (opposite everyone else’s design I’ve ever seen, except Yeti’s new one), chain forces want to keep the rocker stretched out and horizontal with the ground–basically as extended as possible. This slight underside shot might help clarify, but probably not:

Basically pedaling the bike makes the lower rocker want to stay horizontal, and when it stays horizontal, you don’t bob.

So that’s how that part of the system is supposed to work. If I can get a prototype made, and it works, suddenly all of this matters a lot more, and I’m definitely going to need an acronym, or several. Remember, great marketing acronyms seem to need the letters “X” and “V” and it helps to have an “S” or “T” in there, too, but right now, I’m leaning toward “N.I.B.,” which has nothing to do with the suspension system, but is a pretty kickass song.

Hope to have a little sketch of the new shock orientation tomorrow.

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