Our Beautiful Experiment

When Bryan Hollingsworth phoned to tell me that "our" frame was back from the painter's, I dropped what I was doing, grabbed my camera and was there within minutes. For weeks I had been nervously anticipating the results of my emphatic description of what I wanted this frame to look like - a description presented in an illustrated 3-page document, then further clarified in a tête-à-tête with the painter. He must have thought I was insane to wax lyrical about the precise shade of "stormy seas" I had in mind. But no matter, because it's done and it looks just as I had imagined!

So what exactly is this frame? I have mentioned before in passing that I am collaborating with Bryan of Royal H. Cycles on a classic randonneuring bicycle. I provided the geometry and tubing specs (don't worry, I had a lot of help), came up with the colour scheme, and specced the components. Bryan built the frame with his signature touches, and will be putting the bike together - including internally routed lighting. In other words, he did the real work while I talked, gesticulated, sent emails, and took pictures. It takes all kinds.

It's difficult to tell at the drawing board how a frame will really look once it is finished, but this is pretty much what we hoped it would look like. The Everest lugset and Grand Bois fork crown are just perfect together. The tubing is True Temper OX Platinum, with Kaisei Toei Special fork blades.

This is a classic randonneuring frame in the sense that it has low trail geometry and is built for 650B wheels with wide tires. Specifically, we will be using the Grand Bois Hetres, and you can see them fitted onto the "naked" frame here. The build will be fairly classic and high quality, but nothing too flashy. We are going to try to keep the weight down as well. The frame and fork themselves feel very light.

Bryan had just ordered these custom RHC (Royal H Cycles) end caps for seat stays, and this is the first frame that will have them. He also made the cantilever cable hanger.

Front derailleur hanger.

Zink-plated dropouts, eyelets for fenders and rear rack.

Bottom bracket, cable routing, stainless kickstand plate. There is much more to this frame, but I will save it for when the bicycle is finished!

Bryan has several options for decal designs that he uses, and I wanted the frame to have aspects from different ones. So the head tube insignia design is from one set, while the downtube insignia is from another, and I love the way it all came together here. I also really wanted this band around the seat-tube, which reminds me of a vintage candy wrapper.

The main frame colour is a slate-blue-green metallic paint with very fine pearlescent particles. I suspect that this is the same or a similar paint as what Mercian uses for their polychromatic colour family, which they describe as resembling "the underside of tin foil." While it's not for everyone, I am crazy about this finish, and the colour really does resemble a stormy sea. The lugwork is off-white with a similar metallic shimmer as the main frame colour, resulting in a sort of mirror finish effect. In person this creates an interesting illusion, where the lugs sometimes look white, and at other times resemble the main frame colour. The lugwork is subtly outlined in gold.

Before this bicycle is sent off to the customer, I will be test riding it for a few weeks and inviting a couple of more experienced cyclists to test ride it as well. Neither the framebuilder, nor the customer, nor myself have any idea what to expect from this bike and that is part of the excitement. We all wanted to try a classic randonneuring bicycle, and creating one ourselves was an interesting way to make that happen. I will post more about this bike once it is built up, and will most likely be writing about it for Bicycle Quarterly sometime later this year, so stay tuned. A big thank you to everyone who helped make this happen. It is a beautiful experiment, and I can't wait to find out how it rides!

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Riding the Pilen: a Multitude of Impressions

Since the Pilen give-away contest is happening before a final review will be published, I wanted to write up a separate post about its ride quality. It's funny that even though I should know better, I am still fooled into thinking that I "know" a bike based on the way it looks, and this was the case here. "A swan frame," I thought, "this will be just like my Austrian bike." But the Pilen is a completely different bicycle. Moreover, my impression of its ride quality differs from others' impressions, which apparently may be a factor of my size. But let me start from the beginning.

As described before, the bicycle is a 56/58cm frame with 700Cx50mm tires, which makes it a pretty large bicycle for a person my size. Since I am barely tall enough to ride it, I have the saddle almost all the way down. I also lowered the handlebars as much as I could. The bars are flared out quite a bit - almost placing the hands in a mountain bike style position - and having them set high felt unnatural. In the position shown, the saddle and handlebars feel more or less fine, though personally I prefer bars that are more swept back.

What I like best about the Pilen is its remarkable stability. Traditional Dutch bikes tend to have a light front end, which can make the steering feel difficult to control for those who are not used to it. Though I love the ride quality of Dutch bikes, I too remember being taken aback by the light steering when I first tried them. In comparison, the Pilen is extremely well balanced. It is a very easy bike to control and it handles predictably. I keep switching between the Pilen and my vintage Gazelle, and the Gazelle always feels shaky after the Pilen.

The wide, cushy Schwalbe Big Apple tires offer another advantage. Potholes or road shock of any kind are a non-issue; the bike just rolls over uneven terrain and I don't feel a thing.

The surprising downside for me when riding the Pilen, is my experience with speed and acceleration. I am finding this hard to put into words, but let me try: When I attempt to ride the bike at the speed I am accustomed to, it is as if I feel a resistance. I have to push harder in order to keep it going fast, and this puts a strain on my legs. My first thought was that the gearing must be too high, because it feels better to start it in 1st gear, whereas on my other 3-speeds I am fine starting in 2nd. However, as soon as I accelerate, not only do I quickly find it necessary to switch into 2nd, then 3rd gear, but I also soon begin to max out the 3rd gear. This makes no sense, because the Shimano hub used on the Pilen is not spaced any closer than the 3-speed hubs I use on my other bikes; I should not be running out of gears. Even more odd is that I feel the strain in my legs regardless of what gear I am in and how fast I am going. According to the Co-Habitant's computer, I did manage to get the Pilen up to 17mph. But this was more effortful than on my other upright 3-speed bikes.

I shared these impressions with Todd of Clever Cycles - who is one of the North American retailers stocking these bikes and therefore has experience with them. Todd suggested it was possible that the bike is "overbuilt" for me - meaning that the tubing and the wheels are specced with a rider larger and heavier than me in mind. Though I have heard the "overbuilt" theory before (mainly when it comes to Surly bikes - which also seem to be best enjoyed by heavier riders), to be honest I found the idea improbable. I thought it was more likely that I needed to keep playing with the saddle and handlebar positions, or change the rear cog after all.

Then something happened to suggest that Todd may be on to something: A woman who is taller and heavier than me was over for a visit, and she wanted to try the Pilen. She did, and she absolutely loved it. She called it zippy and fast. She asked me what I thought of the bike, and I told her my honest impressions, but her impressions were totally different. She is not a stronger cyclist than I am. But the Pilens's size seemed just right for her and she looked a lot more natural on the bike than I do. She has tried a lot of other bikes at this point, including several Dutch bikes and the Rivendell Betty Foy, so she does have a solid basis for comparison. She preferred the Pilen's ride quality to all of these.

Now I was seriously intrigued. I asked the Co-Habitant to ride the Pilen. He is just over 6' tall and weighs over 200lb. He raised the saddle and took the bike for a spin. He loved it and wanted to keep riding it. He thought it was nimble and a bit faster than his Pashley Roadster. He loved the cushy tires. He could not relate to my feedback at all and did not sense anything odd about the gearing.

Next I took the Pilen over to "cycler," of Biking in Heels. She and I are roughly the same height and weight. She loved the looks of the bike (as do I), but found the ride quality odd. Without my having said anything in advance, she had similar things to say about the gearing feeling too closely spaced as I have expressed above. She also found the "cockpit" configuration to feel unnatural compared to her own upright bikes (a Raleigh Sports and several DL-1s).

At this point, I am not sure what to conclude, or whether it is even appropriate to make any conclusions. I've tried to describe things as they are. It seems likely that the bike is indeed built with taller and heavier riders in mind, and that it handles differently for those riders. I cannot say via direct experience, as I can't magically enlarge myself and try it both ways. The two heavier persons who have test-ridden the Pilen in my presence were enthusiastic with their feedback, and witnessing this makes it clear that sometimes it is a matter of matching up the right bike with the right owner. Your thoughts on this are welcome. Have you felt that some bikes were overbuilt or underbuilt for your body type?

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Tail Lights and Auto Settings

What do you think of using bicycle lighting with automatic sensory settings? Several of our bikes are equipped with lighting systems that allow for this, but I have mixed feelings about the auto-mode.

Last week the Co-Habitant installed the Spanniga Pixeo tail light on his bike (very thorough review of this light here) and set it on auto. Cycling together later that evening, I switched my own lights on when dusk fell. As I rode behind him, his Pixeo tail light would switch on and off in response to slight changes in lighting conditions. For example, as we entered a stretch of road with fewer trees, it would switch off; then on again when the trees became more dense. Not only did I find this annoying while cycling behind someone, but I was also surprised that the light did not "think" it was dark enough to just stay on the entire time. It wasn't quite pitch black, but getting there. I wonder how the settings are configured, and whether they can be adjusted.

I have an auto ("senso") feature on my Busch & Mueller dynamo lighting as well, that I sometimes use and sometimes do not. Because this system includes a headlight, I can tell whether the auto mode is performing the way I want it to. If it gets dark but my headlight does not automatically turn on (which means the tail light is not on either), I will just switch it to the permanent "on" position. With a battery-operated tail light like the Pixeo and others, there is no way to get this feedback. Since you can't see you own tail light while cycling, you have to be confident that its "idea" of when's dark enough is the same as yours. For me that is not always the case with the lighting I've tried, which is why I am not that crazy about auto settings. What has been your experience?

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Putting Your Foot Down

Enough people have asked me about this now that I thought it worth writing about: How do I put a toe down in traffic while remaining on the saddle, and also manage to get full leg extension on the downstroke? I will try to explain.

First off, let me clarify that I get "more or less" full leg extension, and obviously my leg would be even straighter if I had the saddle higher. So there is a bit of give and take to it. But the idea that your leg needs to be arrow-straight on the downstroke with the toe on the pedal and the heel raised, is not one that everyone subscribes to - especially not cyclists in cities where riding a bike for transportation is common. In Vienna, I would say that about half the cyclists I saw had their saddles adjusted so that they could touch the ground with a toe. Based on the pictures here, this seems to be the case in Copenhagen as well. When riding in cities with frequent intersections and stop signs, it can be tedious to get on and off the bike every 3 minutes. Being able to put a toe down makes things easier.

Another point, is that some bicycles' geometries work better for this than others: Typically, Dutch-style city bicycles have very relaxed seat tube angles, which increases the distance between the saddle and the pedals while keeping the saddle height constant. A lower bottom bracket helps as well, though not as much as a slack seat tube. You can watch this video of Dottie starting and stopping on her bike to get a better idea of how this works on a Dutch bike.

Finally, this may not be sufficiently noticeable in pictures, but I lean my bike to the side in order to reach the ground with a toe. I also keep my other foot on the pedal for balance. I cannot reach the ground with both toes, and I cannot even really reach with one toe unless I lean. This is something that becomes instinctive if you do it often enough. Alternatively, you could set the saddle lower. I've basically raised mine as far as I possibly can, while still managing to reach with one tip-toe while leaning.

Adjusting your saddle so that you can stop with a toe down is mainly about convenience. Some cyclists prefer this method, while others feel that not having their leg 100% straight on the downstroke robs them of power. How do you stop in traffic when cycling for transportation? And is it the method you've always used, or did you develop it after some trial and error?

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Fizik Microtex Handlebar Tape

Last week we replaced the cloth tape on the Co-Habitant's Surly with Fizik Microtec tape. He wanted something that would not get dirty, did not require shellacking, and was not as heavily padded as cork tape. I've been using this tape in red for the past several weeks, so I suggested he try it. We both purchased it at Harris Cyclery, but it's available in many bike shops.

Fizik Microtec bar tape is a synthetic tape with about half the padding of typical cork tape. The perforated surface is smooth, but not slippery. It lies down flat, the edges resist fraying, and the surface stays clean. I know some complain that cloth and cork tape tend to get dirty and frayed, so if you want a bright handlebar tape that is durable and retains its colour, this could be it. Mine looks and feels the same after 300+ miles of sweaty gripping as it did when first installed. But more importantly, this tape could work for those who find cork tape too soft and cloth tape too hard - it is sort of the happy medium.

Although visually the perforations resemble leather tape, there are no tactile similarities. The Fizik tape is stiffer than leather, and it feels distinctly synthetic to the touch. While I would not describe the surface as slick, I can see how some might find it too smooth - especially if riding without gloves. My preferred handlebar wrap is cloth tape, but on some handlebars - particularly on modern ones that have channels for cables - I feel that I need more padding. The Fizik Microtex tape is durable, easy to wrap, provides just enough padding, and is available in a variety of colours.

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Understanding Rest and Recovery

For the past month I've been cycling about 120 miles per week, not counting transportation. And as someone who is completely new to the concept of "training" (i.e. cycling with the goal to become faster, better uphill, and so on) I've been struggling with how to structure my rides. Last year the very notion of structure would have seemed completely ridiculous: I would simply go off on my bike whenever I had the time. But last year I never cycled the way I do now, never exerted myself to such an extent repeatedly. Now everything is different, and I feel completely lost in this new territory.

One thing I've realised, is that if I do strenuous rides for more than two days in a row, on the third day my performance starts to get worse rather than better. Even if I don't think that I feel tired, it's as if my legs stop working properly. If you're an athlete, you are probably thinking "well, duh!" but to me this was a novel discovery. The idea of needing to rest and recover in order to improve did not have meaning until I physically experienced it.

What I am trying to figure out now is, what exactly does resting and recovering entail? Some advise that on days off, you absolutely must do "recovery rides" - 15-20 mile rides at an easy pace on fairly flat terrain - and that not doing them will result in stiff muscles and make it even more difficult to ride the next day. Others advise that on days off, you need to stay off the bicycle completely and just basically lounge around and eat so that your system can fully recover. Unless I am misinterpreting (which is entirely possible), these two points of view seem at odds with one another. So which is applicable under which circumstances?

Having tried both methods, I am still not sure which works better. I am also not sure whether transportation cycling (on an upright bike) is considered a type of recovery ride, or whether it's considered not cycling at all. Given that it activates a different set of muscles I suspect the latter, but I could be wrong. None of this stuff is intuitive for me, which makes it both frustrating and fascinating.

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Skirt Police

[image via New Amsterdam Bicycle Show]

Yesterday there seemed to be an unusual number of disconcerting bicycle stories floating around. Among the more bizarre were the news that a woman was stopped by the NYPD for wearing a skirt on her bike. Says a representative of the New Amsterdam Bicycle Show:

Our friend Jasmijn was stopped in SOHO by NYPD for riding in a skirt! The officer said she could distract drivers and cause an accident...and should go home and put pants on.

Cycling in a skirt is, of course, perfectly legal. So when this sort of thing happens, one has to wonder how best to respond to it. After all, it has been shown that just because the officer is technically in the wrong, does not mean that the cyclist will not be ticketed, or even arrested and tried.

But what's more, is that when this story was posted on twitter other women replied that they too have been stopped by police while cycling dressed up - seemingly for no particular reason other than for the officer to comment on their appearance. It happened to me last summer as well. A policeman gestured for me to pull over, only to ask some random question about my bike. When I politely replied, he proceeded to comment on my outfit. Nervously, I kept wondering what law I broke and when he was going to get to the point. Was I required to chat with him? Was there some protocol to treat me as hostile if I didn't? When I finally asked "Excuse me, but can I go now?" He seemed hurt and simply said, "Yeah, sure..." adding "Be careful out there!" half-heartedly. For a while I kept going over the incident in my mind and trying to make sense of it, but it seems he stopped me without any legal purpose what so ever.

On a bicycle we are more noticeable than we are inside a car, and at the same time we can be legitimately pulled over as vehicles. Does us cycling make it easier for the police to abuse their power by supplying them with a reason to pull us over? That's an uncomfortable thought.

How would you respond if a police officer stopped you to comment on your appearance, or to tell you that you can't ride a bike dressed as you are?

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