Bike Hugger 

Spotting locations for the photos – Photo: Dan Holtz Photography

After posting the latest D-Plus photos, reader Brian Fung asked

Diggin’ your new ride. Curious – besides, being a custom project, were you looking for certain ride qualities when you approached Davidson? You planning to rock it come this fall for CX season?

Yes, rock it! Also, now that I’ve got more time to write about the topic, the D-Plus is a pursuit of passion. It’s the result of a decade of thinking about modal/cross bikes by Mark V, with the work of a Bill Davidson and his crew.

Like the music a band plays, the influences are many and when you combine the talent of a master builder with someone who’s obsessed with the bike, good things happen. As another trusted source on the project said

Master Builder and OCD types were made for each other. Like Internet dating in 1989. If you were there, it was a guaranteed a match.

And the D-Plus is one hot date, in materials, and build. Check the annotated photo below with a full-rez version and more notes on Flickr.

Annoted with notes – click through for full size.

If you’ve followed us for a while, the D-Plus is a progression from the Modal and Hotspur. The Modal is an S&S coupled Ti bike with Paragon dropouts that toggles from fixed, single, geared, and internal. The Hotspur is a Ti racing bike made with Feathertec tubing and a Reynolds carbon rear. Both bikes were intended to prove Ti is a relevant material, in a market flooded with carbon.

We’ve been discussing a Cross version of the Hotspur with modes like the Modal since I got back into Cross 3 years ago. The D-Plus has even larger diameter Feathertec tubes and Paragon track tips with a derailleur hanger.

In an earlier post, I said the bike is built to fight.

It’s also has soul. It’s made here in Seattle, a city of makers and those that believe in what they do.

Front end

Busted latch

Not much confidence in the duct tape + rainbow strap fix, but all I could do in a hotel. The S & S cases have done well, but the hit that broke the latch happened when both cases came down the conveyor belt together. The second case slammed into to the first, against the metal wall of the luggage carousel. I watched it happen and winced.

Taped and strapped

Not opened

Our next flight was inter-island between Honolulu and Maui. But hey, isn’t the TSA just going to open the case, after that awesome tape job? Yup and I was concerned and prepared for a worst-case scenario of a bike strewn across the belly of the plane.

Maybe it was the holiday spirt or more likely the agent didn’t want to hassle with it, cause the case wasn’t opened! +1 for bike travel karma. Delta will replace or repair the case while we’re here and I’ll follow up on that a bit later.

Fly Bikes for Free

Ask and everyone has a tale of how a friend of theirs flew a bike for $5 blah, blah, blah…. Let me tell you, there was a period of time where I logged 100,000 frequent flier miles over two years. I know about flying with a bike … nothing beats the S&S system for flying a 700C wheeled bike. – Mark V

Except for the one-time when I flew with my race bike, I never get charged to fly a bike. That’s becaue I either travel with S and S-coupled bikes or folders like a Tern or Brompton. The reason that airlines charge so much for bikes is to discourage passengers from flying with them. It’s not personal and they’re not antibike. A bean counter in a cube somewhere inside of an office building noticed a spike in bike-related claims and issued new rules to lower that cost. It’s expensive to repair and/or replace bikes. If we still rode 35 pound, industructable steel bikes, we wouldn’t get charged and the ground crew could just toss them into the cargo hold. Lighter, faster bikes break and the but golf clubs fly for free argument is irrelevant. Golf clubs don’t break like a carbon bike does. That big hit that case took, didn’t harm the bike inside at all. It’s made of titanium.

So if you want to fly with a full-sized bike for free, you’re strongly encouraged to do so with an S and S bike. Andew had a Baron Whip made for his trip to ride L’Etape du Tour. Mark wrote about traveling with S and S in 09 and I covered the TSA last year.

At the ticket counter, I also suggest you use a Jedi Mind Trick blank stare that indicates “these are not the bikes you’re looking for.” When asked what’s inside those large, gray cases say

• Camera equipment
• Tradeshow gear
• Makeup
• Drums

or mumble something with a mushmouth.

Back to the busted case, this is what the inside looks like.

Packed

Read about Spatial Relationships and the Perfect Pack. I’m unpacking the case next and using my favorite tool to build the bike up.

Then we’re riding.

We’re back in Maui for our annual vacation and miles. Spent the morning achieving this perfect pack, including the dynohub and Lazer Helmet.

Posts and updates to follow when we get our travel bikes out of the cases, built up, and on the road.

I haven’t ridden a clincher all year on my bikes or those in on long-term test.

Can’t forget the Ridley Double Flat Tastic though.

Double Flat Tastic

The other exception is the Modal in Fixed mode with Campy Moskva 80s and Michelin Pro Service Courses. The Pro is the version before Michelin started numbering them. I’m not one for retro or nostalgia and mostly into the new. However, that setup worked and rides so well, that I locked it in and made it fixed.

A big dose of bike geekery here

How I’ve been riding all year with no flats is with sealant. My tires are filled with the milky substance (not Propofol) and I carry a can of it with me. There has been a catastrophic failure and a sidewall tore in a race from a nasty pothole, but no flats.

In a long thread on G+, that started with me asking to get schooled in FMBs, we eventually got to sealant and Chandler Snyder decided he was going to blog again about the topic and disclosed a sealant secret

We made our own sealant for the shop and sold it. I feel safe giving out the “recipe” now that the shop has been sold to new owners and is a totally different place now. This stuff worked so good, people would come by it from the other side of town. Now, please don’t think I’m going to rewrite the book on anything here or blow your minds. Sometimes its the simple things that make a HUGE difference. With that in mind…here’s the recipe for the Secret Sealant:

Sealant of choice: Stans or Caffelatex

Glitter…that’s right Glitter: as fine as you can buy at your local craft store That’s it! Seriously. Glitter is great stuff! It helps to clog the holes faster, hence using less sealant and not allowing as much air to escape. Caffelatex wasn’t around then, but now that its here and doesn’t use Ammonia as its anticoagulant, which will degradate latex tubes over time. Instead they use CO2. Stans is great stuff, and my personal choice if asked, with the exception of the latex rule.

Take whatever amount you use for the tire setup, road, cross, mtb…etc and pour it in a cup before you put it into the injector. Pour in the glitter and give it a good mix, then put into the injector you’re using. Ive found that the syringes used by EMT’s/Firefighters that are full of saline and have a screw on/off needle tip, work the best. The only thing is, you have to have a tire/tube with a removable core. The Caffelatex injector doesn’t require removing the valve core, which for using sealant by itself works great. You can custom widen the opening/tip so that the glitter moves through easier. Then gently, and firmly press the injector on, make sure theres a good seal, and plunge away. This is where you’ll know if you found the smallest glitter possible. There’s super fine stuff out there, just ask your local club kid friends! Once its all in, give the injector a couple of pulls and pushes on the plunger so the sealant doesn’t backfire on you when you pull the end off. Wrapping the coupled valve and injector with a rag while pulling off helps to keep from making any mess as well.

Put glitter inside your tires? Go for it. That’s a good a tip as hacking Hed and Mavic wheels into a Hevic…

Just-built pair of Hevics

It’s that time of year when the sun sets fast and you may catch a bike shadow in the trees like this.

Then the rains come. I think I’ve written about riding in the rain as much as Tom Robbins describes it in his books.

“It was autumn, the springtime of death. Rain spattered the rotting leaves, and a wild wind wailed.”

I was riding the Parlee CX H in Lincoln Park when I took the photo. For this Fall, I’ve got the Modal in fixed mode with race blades and a Hugga Buddy Flap, of course.

Each time we travel with our folding or coupled bikes, I pack in anticipation of the TSA. What new rules and procedures are in place? Are they going to trash my pack? Packing the Modal, my travel bike, is a spatial puzzle. It goes in the case one way because of the wide rear dropouts that accommodate the custom sliders. After a dozen trips and Mark V’s master bike traveler tutelage, I’ve got it down to include a helmet and shoes.

For all the traveling we do, never had the TSA unpack my bike to swab it and then attempt to repack it (or seen it happen). LIH is a small airport so the agent did this in public view and I kept an eye on what he was doing. After carefully working with the parts and gear, he was struggling to get it back together and I signaled the supervisor and first asked if I can assist him. The supervisor agreed, as long as I didn’t touch anything. A few attempts later and making little progress with my boarding time approaching, I called the supervisor over again. I asked politely if I could repack it with them watching and they could swab the case again and swab me. The supervisor agreed and in a few minutes of stress, I repacked the case and got it closed.

A Quick Pack

That was the worst and quickest pack ever and won’t know until tonight how the bike survived. The TSA did not swab the case or me again. I told the supervisor I appreciated their assistance and proceeded to the security line. I later discovered I had bike grease all over me, including what looked like black war paint across my nose and face.

Advice from this trip is to not overpack the case or complicate it. When you’ve got a puzzle to pack, even a well-intentioned TSA agent just doing his job will not solve it. Anticipating case inspections, Mark V has created a pictogram for his case.

What did work was toe-strapping the frame and big parts together, but I’d not use a net because that’ll just cause them to dig around more.

When I posted the TSA agent photo to our Facebook page, a reader wrote that the TSA dumped his backpack S&S case out and refused to let him repack it. His bike got trashed.

Have you had this happen to you? How have you faired traveling with your bike?

Update

The inside of the travel case looked like Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked it to Jens Voigt who ran over it with his bike. Then David Banner opened it, got angry, and turned into the Hulk while packing it, but there was NO DAMAGE!

That proves Pam’s method of packing is better. She just tosses everything into the case and closes the lid in about half the time.

“Going like 4, but will tell everyone we did 12 mph.”

This Huggacast is video from a tough climb up Waimea Canyon in Kauai. 4 thousand feet, 18 miles with 8 - 12% grade up into a rainstorm that pelted us and stung our faces on the fast descent.

The ride ended with a rainbow all the way across the sky.

Watch now on YouTube or download and sync to iTunes, your iPod, iPhone. Subscribe to the Huggacast Feed for more episodes.

Note: no helmet during the 100% humidity, 12% grade part of the climb. This road has no switchbacks.

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p> WOW, that’s a really cool fixie that you can travel with! Wallpaper* (don’t forget the asterisk) deserves a lot of credit for their vision. Kinda makes me wish I had thought of that….

Wait, a minute…I did think of that…7 fucking years ago.

And since S&S didn’t even remotely develop their excellent “torque couplings” with Wallpaper* (don’t forget the asterisk) or me personally in mind, I guarantee you that someone else did it before me.

Wallpaper…*……does offer a beautiful and doubtlessly expensive leather bag to pack your bike in. That way you can look quite spiff struggling with your fixie in a bag through every airport…’cause unlike S&S’ well-proven hardcase, their leather bag has NO WHEELS. The smirk on my face while I watch you attempting to carry that bike along with your ridiculous Louis Vuitton bags shan’t be modest. My only loss will be not seeing your grief-stricken face at your final destination after you see what baggage handlers can do to a bike in a soft case.

But proper credit where due, the bike as pictured does have the correct hubs for the job. Phil Wood track hubs are smooth and durable, but they also have the crucial bolt-in axles. Otherwise, the width of solid “bolt-on” axles would affect packing density. Also, the choice of a powdercoat finish is smart, as it is usually less prone to chipping than wet-application paint finishes. Still, anyone frequently traveling with a bike ought get used to blems on the kit, unavoidable as it is.

Of course, no one is really asking for my opinion. The fact that I’ve flown over 120,000 miles, made a couple dozen train trips, and 3 European bus tours with an S&S bike as well as designed (and I don’t mean paint design) a series of S&S bikes with the “Modular concept” (interchangeable kits to rapidly optimize the bike for different uses) pales in the face of professional photography and oooooh! leather.

Sigh, at least the bike is quality craftsmanship. It’s just not versatile, well-thought out, inexpensive, or original.

On Fridays I like to ride my Fixie in different Seattle neighborhoods. Yesterday was Phinney Ridge, where a nice bike lane passes by the local pubs and shops.

I spotted some interesting bikes.

Masi Chupacabra

Outside a burrito joint.

‘lil Sister

Saw this ride by earlier and the dude was like 250 pounds.

Dutch Bike

That’s a Workcycles Kruisframe Step-through, from Dutch Bike Seattle with all sorts of options and noseup saddle.

Also noticed:

• Self-condimenting Hot Dog
• Well-worn Workmans Trike at the Zoo
• PBR Art Truck

Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

Those of us that travel with bikes know it’s an arms race with the airlines – how much they charge came up earlier this year when Pam and I got popped $175.00 per-bike-one-way by Northwest Airlines. As Mark wrote in response to our trip

Ask about and everyone has a tale of how a friend of theirs flew a bike for $5 blah, blah, blah…. Let me tell you, there was a period of time where I logged 100,000 frequent flier miles over two years. I know about flying with a bike … nothing beats the S&S system for flying a 700C wheeled bike

We know how to fly with bikes too and got charged on that trip because we flew with Scicon cases that say, “bicycle” and are in the shape of a bicycle. Normally we fly with S&S and also with Bromptons and Dahons. The advantage of all of those folders is that they either go into a case that squeaks under the airline surcharge for oversize baggage – pack it light to keep it under weight – or go right into the overhead.

Until recently that is.