Bike Hugger 

Joel Metz is a cyclesport historian and former Bay Area cyclocrosser. I stumbled upon his now-archived webpages documenting some of the early days of cyclocross in Europe, mostly through photographs scanned from vintage magazines. What’s most striking is how untamed those race courses were. Most of the lines seem to be inappropriate for walking, let alone riding. The bracket seems to have been cleared with indifference if at all. Consider that the machines of the 19020s and 30s were practically all single speed (often fixed gear) with caliper brakes (you ever try brakes from that era? does not inspire confidence), and tires certainly no wider than 35mm and perhaps less. It would be another 40 or 50 yrs before American balloon tire bikes would morph into something resembling the modern mountain bike. Run-ups were immense, descents might mean clambering down boulders, and riders might need to throw the bike onto the ledge of a ravine before scaling out of it themselves.

This weekend, the UCI Elite Cyclocross World Championships take place in Koksijde, Belgium. Racers may be wary of Koksijde’s deep sand, but like all modern cyclocross courses at the elite level, there is nothing that compares to the difficulty of yesteryear’s courses. After nearly a hundred years, the athletic competition is fiercer than ever, but courses have no teeth. Arguably, the sport’s success and tradition are the primary culprits, as accessibility and consistency make for more profitable events. Ironically Northern California may be one of the last bastions of these ridiculously wild and demanding cross courses. There near the birthplace of the mountain bike, race organizers catered their race profiles to tap into the fat tire demographic, and the resulting events were often called “jungle cross”. Yet even as cyclocross in America has become more popular, it has in part done so by enticing a broader demographic with less treacherous riding. Coupled with USA Cycling’s desire to produce elite athletes capable of competing in Europe, now organizers have emulated the modern European courses as much as the local topography allows. Even in California, jungle cross has become as rare as a wolf sighting in NYC’s Central Park.

As an incurable gearhead, I wonder how the cyclocross bikes of today would look had cyclocross courses remained as they are pictured here, without the UCI mandating tire width to the millimeter, and I am curious as to how the racing would suit me. Maybe today’s “short track” mountainbike racing holds the true spirit of those early cyclocrossers. I’m actually really curious about trying some mtb racing for the first time in 15 years; I think I’d like the taste of something a little less refined.

1932 Criterium International

Le Championnat de France Cross Cyclo-pédestre, 04 Mar 1923

Well that’s a first for us. Fan poster art and it was created by Danh Hoang for our Mobile Social SXSW. He’s plastering these around town. Guess we’re committed now. Flattered and blushing too.

Yup. We are coming to Austin.

In the earlier part of the previous decade, Italian water bottle & cage manufacturer Elite SRL introduced the Bajiji water bottle standard. Rather than the 74mm diameter bottle standard used since time immemorial, the Bajiji bottles were 66mm like a Coke can; the matching bottle Patao cage design was a stylish departure from their highly successful Ciussi cage. Rather than bent and welded rod aluminium or tubular steel, the Patao was made from a sheet of magnesium alloy.

Ostensibly, the slender, new bottles were more ergonomic and had better aerodynamics. They also carried less water, but a large number of Euro pro teams used them since Elite probably just gives them to the teams anyways. Long story short, the 66mm standard did not endure, and Elite eventually introduced a 74mm version of the Patao cage. It is still available today. Most of my bikes have Patao cages because the 74mm version has long mounting slots that alloy a 35mm range of positioning. The other great thing about these cages is that they are the most secure cage I’ve ever used; I’ve never lost a bottle from a Patao.

So in the future, the 66mm Bajiji bottle standard and Patao cage will just be an obscure footnote in the memories of shop staff…or maybe it will command top dollar on the eBay of tomorrow. Either way, I’m pretty disappointed. No, not about the 66mm thing. I’m disappointed in magnesium bicycle components. It turns out that magnesium alloys will not ignite unless you do something like expose them to burning gasoline for several minutes. Even grinding the Patao cage into filings and shavings to increase the surface area will not allow the alloy to ignite from a cold start. There goes my idea for a Pinarello Dogma-fueled bonfire to the gods. Why must all my dreams be ruined?

I first found it on this blog called Vintage Green Bike

Swiss model Julie Ordon looks quite fetching, but me thinks those tires are flat. I also found it strange that I didn’t see one Bianchi photo on that blog.

Egger’s Ego, I’d call this bike the Eggo

Bubbling this photo up from the +Bike Hugger page where the conversation continues. It’s also being discussed on Facebook and other blogs that have picked the photo up. This is Robert Egger’s Lunch Ride bike. He’s like the Johnny Ives of Specialized, their Creative Director. Lunch rides for cyclists are where the regular, working Joe’s thrown down. It’s a weekly championship where pride and ego are on the line.

Lunch Ride World Champ

Spesh’s Lunch Ride, like Novara and others, are legendary – this is a ride where only one can win. It’s like a group Thunderdome, on wheels, on the road.

Egger’s got something to prove

Photo: by Richard Masoner

So the story goes that Robert felt he needed an edge on the ride. Maybe he was off the pace a bit, so he took a high-end Time Trail bike – the Shiv – and converted it to a road bike with a drop bar. You’d normally see this bike with less of a juicy fruit paint job and aero bars in the Tour.

It’s ridiculous. I said on Twitter

Please keep 3 ft away from me, when the wind comes up, thanks and you better pull the whole time too.

That bike isn’t meant to ride next to anyone – it’s too squirrely in the wind.

It’s also brilliant.

Old guys, like me, who can’t win on fitness alone anymore (or even place) use all sorts of head games and dirty tricks. Like grizzly old stock car drivers who feign a mechanical to catch their breath or pit for the slightest reason. So Egger’s thinking, “guys won’t want to get next to me, yes!”

Intimidating your foes with a menacing bike is the wisdom of an old-guy at work v. the horsepower in the legs of the new guy. See more photos on G+.

Me, I’d take a Venge over this – there’s only so much painful position a Masters racer can take. Dr. Andy Pruitt is probably working on a saddle just for this bike, one that tucks your junk.

Lunch Rides

I haven’t ridden with Spesh on their Lunch Ride, but have Novara. Though, the hardest I rode last year was when I was chasing D’aluisio, got dropped, and caught back on with blood coming out of my eyes and snot flying everywhere. That was one of the hardest rides ever actually – the dude powerslides a bike like a moto. I’m sure Egger built this bike to destroy D’aluisio on his Tarmac.

I wrote about the Novara ride a few years ago and said then, “bring your good wheels” after their CTO showed up with his A-bike and race wheels.

So where’s your lunch ride? Who’s your nemesis?

This iPod Nano has a new, washed patina, a brushed screen, and buffed corners. It survived a washer/dryer cycle with our rain gear. A tough little mp3 player and now revived, it’ll get attached to a jersey for another ride, looking like it has a stone-washed denim affect on it with the rough-pastels filter too.

Kitchen Emergency Care Unit

To bring the little guy back from iPod Beyond, I plugged it in and let it sit there on the kitchen island. No need to put it in rice (done that to another iPod), cause it was bone dry. I periodically checked on it and first the screen came back with a ghosty-white blur. I touched and it immediately rebooted – saw a cool ROM boot screen that said snowbird. Then it rebooted again and I left it alone. 24 hours later, we had touchscreen! The first song played was Jack Parow’s Feite

Jo, di’s die original die vader van die Afrikaans rap – kak

translated to: Yo! I’m the original father of the Afrikaans rap - shit

or: I’m the Mac Daddy of South African Afrikaans rappers.

which was pretty funny, cause I thought, “Damn this lil’ playah got balls!” The volume didn’t work though; so, I left it alone again. A few hours later, the volume worked. Just synced it, updated to the latest OS, and we’re good!

Niner Bikes will love this story, ‘cause they gave the iPod Nano to me at PressCamp last year.

That’s K’naan shown on the screen in the photo. His music is always on shuffle.

I was typing away and heard this crazy ruckus going on. Look down and Cap’n the Pug dragged a box of water bottles over to me with her treat face on. Something in the box for her? No, but she knew that box would get my attention and then maybe I’d give her a treat.

She got my attention

So what’s in the box? Those are new Purist bottles with our logo on them. Clear, no taste, easy squeezy and they’ve got the hydroflow valve. These are my new fav bottle cause they don’t taste like whatever sugar you used last time.

We’re going to give the bottles in the box away to the first dozen orders of our new kit.

Purist bottle with our logo

We’ll have those in soon.

Here’s a photo of the valve. See more photos.

Watergate valve

Self-sealing Heart Valve. The water flows when you pull with your mouth and seals tight when you don’t.

At first I was like, DAMN! Rack mounts on a custom carbon bike! HOT.

But then I was all, Parlee Rain Bike with fenders! Face-meltingly awesome, like that one time I saw Judas Priest in concert.

Posted a photo and the comments flowed in. They range from sexual arousal, to disgust, to envy, to noticing no buddy flaps.

I have the weirdest boner right now – Marcus Santiago

the 1% – Mike Blahut

Masters Of The Universe don’t need no stinkin’ buddy flaps – Matthew Hill

TAKE ALL MY MONEY. – Chan Gent Ho

woah!… Woah!!…WOAH!!! – Patrick Knight

If you agree that a commuter bike isn’t limited to something old and Dutch or a 70s 3-speed rescued from the garage, also see my Museeuw.

It’s like a human-powered Segway!

Cebu Vintage Bicycle Club

Getting back to aero frames that I saw at the trade shows last fall, Wilier Treisitina had a time trial bike that was a magnet for for both interest and skepticism. The Twin Foil’s frame clearly followed the Kamm foil approach to the UCI 3:1 aspect rule by having shapes that were basically deep foil sections with the tails cropped off. In that respect the Twin Foil shares similarities to any number of road and time trial bikes like the Trek Speed Concept and Felt Foil. Make what really made the Wilier Treistina stand out was its fork that had 2 foil shapes running parallel up from the fork crown to an integrated stem that spanned the foils as well as the top of the steerer. A handful of people glommed onto the display bike, while another group stood back wondering what improvement the foils could make to the airflow that would justify the increase in frontal area.

Close at hand was Wilier’s Claudio Salomoni (at right in photo with Lance Larrabee of TRP ), who has worked with both TRP and FSA to develop components for the Italian bike company. TRP contributed the integrated brakes to the Twin Foil bike. The brakes themselves are very short arm, liner pull cantilever brakes, and there bear a slight family resemblance to TRP’s well-received linear pull cyclocross brakes. On the fork, the brake is mounted at the trailing edge of the fork blade and continues the blade’s contour aft. On the frame, the brake is hidden behind the bottom bracket and blended into the lower portion of the chainstay. Brakes like these are also featured on several other manufacturer’s bikes as well.

Salomoni was also a driving force behind the BB386EVO standard for cranksets. Workin with FSA, Wilier’s designer basically took the best part of BB86 and BB30, and came up with a crankset that would fit a maximum variety of frames. To explain, BB86 was one of the first new bottom bracket standards. It uses 24mm ID bearings mounted into plastic cups and press fit into a non threaded frame. The outside faces of the bearings are 86mm apart, just as if the bearings were external bearing BB cups threaded into a traditional 68mm BSC shell. This allowed the frame to be made lighter with no need for threaded metal inserts, and a full 86mm of room for chain stays and down tube for a very stiff carbon frame. BB30 and later PressFit BB30 (sometimes PF30) use large 30mm ID bearings that alloy for very stiff alloy spindles that actually weight quite a bit less than 24mm steel spindles, but the BB30 shell prevents designers from making the frame wider than the 68mm of the shell. BB386EVO takes the 86mm wide frame dimension from BB86 and bores it up to fit the alloy spindle and big bearings from BB30; in fact, it uses actually PF30 BB cups. BB386EVO cranks have the same Q-factor as BB30 cranks, but the spindle is longer. Before you storm out of the room screaming in response to yet another BB standard, let me tell you that this particular combination of dimensions means that BB386EVO cranks can fit frames designed on the same standard as well as BB30, PF30, and even 68mm BSC (the last with threaded 30mm ID external bearing cup BB). And the BB386EVO frames can fit 24mm spindle cranks (Hollowtech II, GXP, FSA) as well as the BB386EVO cranks. Not quite a universal fit, but pretty good.