A Velominatus' labor of love: working on a bike

Each of us remembers how they became a Velominatus. For me, it was at Grimpeur Wielersport, in Zevenaar, The Netherlands. Its the perfect place: a small shop, on a small street, in a small town, in a small country, run by a Giant of the Sport, Herman van Meegen. I haven’t been back in years, not since my mentor and original owner was forced to retire due to a nagging back injury.

Despite it’s diminutive appearance, inside this small shop existed a world vast beyond my wildest imagination. The owner spoke with the soft ‘G’ – typical of the Dutch dialect in the region.  Former head mechanic at Helvetia – La Suisse, and later for Team 7-Eleven, he had previously wielded a wrench at the world’s major events including Le Tour before opening this shop. He knew everyone. Pros strolled into his shop on a regular basis. Imagine the awe of a thirteen-year-old Velominatus Novus as Erik Breukink wandered into the shop and dallied about for a bit.

But it was the tales and experience from many years on the Pro circuit that made those visits to special to me.  He explained in detail the way Steve Bauer preferred to ride a smaller frame than his contemporaries or how Pascal Richard liked the tension of the spokes “just so” as he laced a set of wheels for my dad.  He showed me how he filed out the holes in the hub flange to cradle the spokes better and reduce the chance of breaking one.  He built wheels on a truing stand he built himself and to which he affixed a micrometer.  He told me that a perfectly true wheel will never go out of true, not even on the cobbles.  ”Maar het moet werkelijk perfect zijn.” But it has to be absolutely perfect. Sounds like something you need a custom truing stand and micrometer for.  (That bike is now something like 20 years old, and has never seen a spoke wrench; the wheels are still perfectly true.)

He was personal friends with Eddy Merckx and picked up a frame my dad had ordered after dinner with The Man at the factory in Belgium.  A prototype Campagnolo saddle with titanium rails and air bladder that never made it to production somehow found its way atop my dad’s seat post.  I can’t imagine how his insides churned as my dad insisted on having a set of Scott Drop-Ins installed on that bike.  He never uttered a word about it, opting instead to teach me how to seamlessly splice two rolls of bar tape together to accommodate the long bars – a skill he picked up wrapping the bars of riders who wanted double-wrapped bars on the tops but not the drops at Paris-Roubaix.  He taught me to cut my cables short and solder them before cutting for the perfect, sleek finishing touch.  He taught me how to “feel” a bolt to get it just the right amount of tight – where it holds but the soft aluminum doesn’t strip.  He taught me to trim soda cans and tuck them in between the bars and stem of a handlebar that persistently slips.  But most importantly, he showed me the intricate beauty of our machines.

He also stocked a backpack called the “Body Bag” which I always felt could have used a more sensible name and whose marketers perhaps missed a nuance in the language.

Apart from his poor choice in backpacks, this was a man who understood the finer things about bicycles, and I’m grateful he took the time to teach me even a tiny little bit of what he knew.

So, I leave you today with this question: if you could ask a pro bike mechanic – perhaps even one on the ProTour circuit – one, single question, what would it be?

Class 5 Rule Breaker

As enthusiasm for The Rules has been growing, we’ve been having a lot of fun watching the conversation take shape and go in directions we didn’t necessarily expect it to. You have the Geof’s and the Jarvis’s who defend them honorably and even compare cycling to a religion. Fittingly, you then also have the Opus Dei-like loyalists like SGW who find purity in only one Rule, which is – tastefully – Rule 5. And, naturally, some posit that we might be idiots, and I can’t blame them; in fact, they probably have a point.

There is, however, another Rule which will never grace the list but which is critically important for our humble sport to continue to grow and garner further public support, in particular from motorists with whom we share the road. I’m talking, of course, about obeying the laws of traffic and being a Good Ambassador for our sport.

I find that much of the time when I’m put into a dangerous situation by someone driving another vehicle, it’s due to their ignorance of what it’s like to be on a bicycle in traffic. Other times, it’s because we present the impression to the driver of the vehicle that we’re somehow hindering them in their ability to also use the road or get to the bar. Whatever the cause, it’s rather inconvenient to be struck by said vehicle and as a cyclist it’s in our best interest to ride defensively and keep out of danger. (If conventional wisdom is to be believed, it would appear that in a bus/truck/car/motorcycle-bicycle collision, the bicyclist generally tends to be the worse off – at least from a physical point of view.)

Part of riding defensively, I feel, is to demonstrate that while we expect to be treated with the same respect and rights as the other vehicles on the road, we also hold ourselves to the same laws and order of traffic; don’t run red lights (unless there is a compelling reason to do so, such as a malfunctioning weight sensor), ride near the side of the road, and follow the conventions for “right of way” at intersections.

Many cyclists seem to have the expectation that they are to be respected by traffic, but that the laws of traffic do not apply to them. This double-standard does nothing to aide cyclists in winning the PR war with other traffic on the road – including pedestrians. Seeing a cyclist dodge through stop signs and red lights conveys a message of entitlement and recklessness; something I think we can agree none of us need.

Take the cyclist pictured above. As we were riding out to start our training ride on Saturday, we passed this douchebag as he was teetering down Greenwood Ave with his handlebars nearly touching his nose. We greeted him nevertheless as we rolled by, only to have him sprint onto Michelle’s back wheel (which is an annoying habit of these types of competitive twatwaffles who would shit themselves seven times before leaving the neutralized zone in an actual bike race). We ignored him and continued our leisurely roll down towards Fremont and the first bits of real riding on the route. On the way down Fremont Hill, he came careening past us, dodging pedestrians who were mid-crosswalk, flicking off cars, and running lights along the way.

We caught up to him at a traffic light which he had no alternative but to observe, and as we waited for the light to turn, I reflected on his general mentality and what his behavior communicates to the rest of traffic, of which the result is this article.

To make matters worse, he not only disobeys sensibility and law, he also offended me in his egregious Rule-Breaking. Class 5, in my estimation.

Frank Schleck sporting a set of round bars with a classic bend.

I almost look forward to riding in bad weather because it means I have a perfect excuse to climb aboard my old Bianchi XL EV2, which currently serves as my rain bike (see Rule 12 for more information on bike requirements). Some bikes just seem to fit, and you feel it with every turn of the pedals. Sure, the frame’s about as soft as George Hincapie at the sight of a cobble stone, but I love the way that bike feels – and I always have. That’s something I really love about hand-built bikes – they all have their unique personality; both my Bianchis are hand-built according to (fundamentally) the same geometry, but somehow the EV2 just fits me like a glove.

One of the things that struck me the last few weeks riding the EV2 is that I really like the feel of round bars. Several years ago, I made the switch to FSA K-Wings for my main bike, believing I would never look at round bars again.  Not only did I love the comfort of the wide, flat platform at the tops of the bars, but I loved the scalloped perch they make for the hands when riding on the hoods. Imagine my surprise, then, as it recently began to dawn on me that the round bars on EV2 felt bit better in my hands, especially when climbing – both on the tops and the hoods.

It got me wondering about the peculiar choices that Pros seem to make with regards to their handlebar choice. It’s no secret that many Pros are notoriously finicky about their gear and in some cases refuse to upgrade from trusted pieces equipment to a newer model, especially when it comes to the touch points on their bikes. Lance Armstrong famously refused to ride Shimano’s SPD-R line of pedals after pulling out of a pair during the finale of a World Championship Road Race and, to this day, rides an old model of saddle, the Rule-Breaking Concor Lite (which also happens to be the second-ugliest saddle ever made, with the Selle SMP taking the win on that one). Similarly, Damiano Cunego Tom Boonen both refused to upgrade to the Time RSX line of pedals from their Time Impacts because they preferred the feeling of the metal pedal body on the old Impacts (I have a pair of these and they do, oddly enough, feel quite different from the RSX.)

When it comes to handlebar choice, it seems the majority of riders prefer round bars, and many also prefer a classic drop – not to mention aluminum (*shudder*). You have to search pretty hard for a Pro who rides a K-Wing or Cinelli Ram, and it also seems a minority even use an anatomic bend; most claim that the classic drop provides more hand positions.  I am not sure I understand this argument;  it seems to me that the classic drop would really only offer more places to build up sore spots on your hands when riding in the drops.  Are the round drops better for concealing amphetamines?  What am I missing?

That aside, I love the look of the classic bar bend, and as I contemplate switching from my K-Wing to a round bar, I find my mind drifting slowly towards a classic bend as well.  After all, if it’s good enough for the Brothers Grimpeur, isn’t it good enough for me?

The professionals don’t need to wrap their own bars-they have full- time mechanics who can do it blindfolded. No matter how carefully I did my handlebar tape around shop owner George, he would regard the job, and then cruelly shoot me a look that said “amateur!” I have studied him wrapping tape. It looks effortless and he might also be talking to a customer, mocking a minion, his mind on many things – but the final result is perfection.

This drives me crazy.

It should not be so hard. I replace my tape maybe two or three times a year, just seldom enough to forget how to do it properly.

The Velominati have spent a lot of energy debating bike color co-ordination (see Rule eight) and I had a bad tire/tape issue, so I had to go white (I don’t do black tape). There is no doubt white looks great; the question is how long will it look great?

The bike shop I like to use, close to us, did not carry my favorite Fizik tape. It is bombproof and magically never ever gets dirty. So I bought what they carried, some white Deda tape.

I stripped off the old and tried to put on the new. After three attempts of rewrapping with more tension and less overlap each time, I was still short on one side. The tape was so stretched I might as well have been wrapping my bars with plastic wrap or the old Benotto cello tape. Son-of-a-bee-aatch!! (F’ing Italians, would it kill them to give me another few centimeters? The other side was better – could they be different lengths? F’ing Italians!) The only way to make it even meant both sides ended up short and too far from the stem-completely unacceptable! This put me in a mood most foul.

I called the other shop within riding distance, a Specialized shop, and was told they had three kinds of white Specialized tape. Three kinds- really? Of course when I got there, it wasn’t so-but the one they did carry has rocked my world. Specialized S-Wrap Classic 3 ply fake leather with some sweet dot perforations. It is $25 but supplies more than enough tape for the perfect wrap. It’s mighty fine looking and feels perfect; perfect cushion, perfect grip, oh, I’m in love. But, will it stay white? How bad will it look in a month? Two weeks of fair weather riding leaves the tape still bright white.

Again Specialized has impressed me with their form and function. I have some Specialized S-Works road shoes and a pair of their leg warmers and they are great. Their glue-less inner tube patches: the jury is out. Sure they lose some cachet because their items are made in China not Italy but until the Italians give me a little more tape, I’m an S-Wrap boy.

*Is it wrong to be this excited about handlebar tape? Is it dangerous to ask this question? I’m hesitant to answer either of these. And yes, Rules violations in photo, how many can you find?

Specialized S-Works Classic Tape

The Eurotrash Hublot Teammachine SLT01

If you’ve been paying close attention to my posts on other Keeper articles lately perhaps you’ve noticed my stable has been in a state of flux.  It all started when Frank texted me a pic of a pair of used demo 404′s at his LBS for sale.  Well no, that’s not true.  It really started 10 years ago when I lived in Bellingham, WA. and laid my eyes on the first Kona Jake the Snake I’d ever seen.  From then on I wanted a cyclocross bike.

The Kona is a distant memory, so fast forward to last spring.  My significant other and I were shopping for a new bike for her at a shop Frank and I used to work near.  The salesman working with us was a guy named Bob who actually used to work with Frank and me down the street.  Bob was an old friend who knows me as a gear junkie.  He’s also a damn good salesman.  As Sheri and I were paying for her new steed, Bob wheels out an ALAN Cross Carbon Excell from the back that had been special ordered and never picked up.  It’s a rare steed.  ALAN’s aren’t very common at all in the States but are very well known in cyclocross circles, especially European cyclocross circles.  It’s full carbon frame and fork with curvy lines immediately gave me carbone.  It’s also a large frame so it wouldn’t fit many people.  Being 6’2″ as I am, with a 34″ inseam, Bob thought I’d be just the guy for this beauty.  He was right. $2700 and an hour later I walked out of the shop with twice the cross bike I’d lusted over 10 years prior.  Last year I was so enamored with the ride quality of the ALAN I slapped road tires on it and used it as my sole machine.

Enter the the Zipps at Frank’s LBS.   They were to be used on the ALAN this year.  They would have worked well too but I never got the opportunity to try the combo out thanks to CompetitiveCyclist‘s rippin’ good deal on last year’s BMC SLT01 frameset, perfect for the Zipps.  The Team Machine is also the pro-level frame and fork I’ve wanted for quite some time.  I pulled the trigger.

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Anyway, to make a long story short, I’ve gotten my stable in order and am in compliance with Rule 12.  What’s more, I was able to live up to Rule 11 without a ruckus whatsoever.  Where’s the third you may be asking?  It’s around but I will not speak its name nor post a photo here for fear of losing my newly granted Keeper status.

The migration to electronic transmissions in cycling is inevitable. Cables have lots of inherent problems; they stretch, rust, break, and get clogged in their housings. Worse, they are part of an imprecise mechanical system that requires constant maintenance and adjustment, and one that can by design only work perfectly in one gear and gets progressively worse the further you get from that “perfect” gear. In short, cable shifting sucks, and it will eventually go the way of friction-shifting.

The obvious solution is the electronic drive-train; once adjusted, an electronic system should need little further adjustment or maintenance since there are no cables to stretch,  and it should work equally well in all gears because an electronic system should be able to set the chain perfectly regardless of the derailleur’s position with respect to the cog in the cassette.  The only problem with electronic shifting is that it takes human control out of the system, which makes it suck even more than cable shifting.

When Mavic released their Mektronic groupo, I jumped on it like a pothead jumps on a bag of Doritos.   Sadly, I very quickly became disenchanted with the system.  For starters, it would only shift the rear derailleur electronically; the front was operated by an enormous cast-iron lever that looked like it was forged in the middle ages by a monkey with one eye.   I felt like an executioner on the gallows pulling the lever every time I shifted from the big to little ring.

Unfortunately for Mavic, the front shifting was the best part of the system.  The Huangism “Press and Forget” was coined to describe the process for shifting.  This was supposed to mean that you didn’t have to think about shifting once you pressed the button to shift; the “reliable” system would deliver a perfect shift for you without you having to worry about it.  What it really meant was that it had a mind of it’s own. Every time I would press the little yellow button to shift, I sent myself on an emotional roller coaster ride as I waited to see what would happen.

On the good shifts, a second or two would go by and then it would shift.  On the averages shifts, it would not do anything for a little while and then shift at a surprising time, like right when you gave up and got out of the saddle to power over the hill you had intended to downshift shift for.  On the bad shifts, it would just never shift or shift without the button being pressed.

It got worse when riding close to a radio tower where radio frequencies were strong.  (Mektronic was wireless and functioned using radio frequencies.)  There was a television broad-cast tower on one of my routes, and on several occasions, riding by the tower would cause the whole system to reset and stop working at all.  It was like the Mavic version of the Blue Screen of Death.  That said, not shifting was much better than the cases where it would shift without input.  The worst experience I had was on a group ride out by the airport in Minneapolis when the derailleur shifted from the 12 to the 23 in a single instant because some guy in the control tower spilled his coffee on the switchboard or something, causing the chain to snap and me nearly crashing as the group sprinted for a yellow sign.

Another problem with Mektronic was it’s gargantuan size.  The levers were too long and  were banned by the UCI as they offered a non-regulation aerodynamic hand position (the unfortunate pro teams who were sponsored by Mavic raced an even uglier stubby version of these levers).  The derailleur was enormous, with a bulbous extension to accommodate the ratchet pushrod that provided the shifting mechanism and which was prone to snagging other items around the bunch like wheels and rider’s feet.  In a crash during a crit, I tore off my derailleur hanger when my bike hit the deck.

Eventually, I abandoned ship and moved back to a good old fashioned Dura-Ace 7701 drivetrain.  There’s something very comforting about knowing that a steel cable is running between my shifter and my derailleur; I don’t know about you but if I need to shift, I really can’t be bothered with waiting for a derailleur which was apparently programmed by a disgruntled software engineer from Microsoft to decide if it’s going to go ahead and shift or not.  But maybe that’s just me.

Electronic shifting faded into the background as Shimano and Campagnolo quietly worked on prototypes over the past decade.  Campagnolo and Shimano were both slated to release their fully electronic groupos last Fall, but Campy eventually decided against putting the expensive set into production due to the economic climate at the time.  Shimano, on the other hand, did release their version despite a whopping $3250.00 for the derailleurs, shifters, and batteries.  A complete groupo runs upwards of $4500-$5000.

On the plus side, it appears that Shimano has actually designed a good system.  Aside from it being a bit expensive, all reviews and stories point to this being a really reliable and effective system.  The system is wired, so outside interference is limited.  The front derailleur is electronic and, provided it is set up properly, will reportedly never drop your chain.  Shifts are lightening-quick and reliable.  The system self-feathers the chain, running silently in every gear.  Even ‘Cross racers are using it in the the mud and crud.

I’m anxiously awaiting my first opportunity to try it out.  Accepting donations now.

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Marco Pantani destroys the field on the Galibier of the 1998 Tour de France.

In 1998, Marco Pantani staged one of the most prestigious coups of cycling by winning the Giro-Tour double.  He made this run aboard what I believe to be the most beautiful bike in history, a Celeste steed with a yellow section of frame starting at the seat collar and spreading out down the tops of the seatstays, top tube, and seat tube.

Very little is actually known about this bike; it was a one-off creation made especially for Il Pirata by the Bianchi Reparto Corse division which makes all the top-end bikes for the company.   Some say the frame is aluminum, others claim it was boron.  The frame undeniably used a compact geometry (this is commonplace now, but it was unique in ’98), but whether the top tube sloped up or down seems to be a point of contention: did the top but slope up to give a longer head tube to bring his bars up to accommodate his unique in-the-drops climbing style or was the top tube sloped down towards the seat tube in order to reduce the weight of the frame and increase the stiffness of the rear triangle?

The bike has captured my imagination for a long time.  I love the way the saddle and tires match the portion of the frame where they intersect in what I call the “Yellow Cluster”; the vision of Pantani climbing out of the saddle on the Col du Galibier with those flashes of yellow swaying back and forth as he danced up the mountain remains one of the coolest images of cycling.  I studied his bike extensively when I was building my Bianchi XL EV2 and I mimicked it’s setup, choosing a yellow Flite saddle and solid yellow tires.  To this day I love the looks of that bike, and Pantani’s setup has even influenced one or two of The Rules.

I’ve searched the net over for information on his bike, hoping that at some point someone would find and catalog it for the world.  Occasionally, there will be an article posted somewhere that covers the bike, but each of these has ended up a disappointment as upon closer inspection, it is revealed that the bike is not in fact his tour-winning bike.

I did, however, find one article on Campy Only which appears to showcase the real deal.  It comes from an account by a fan at a post-tour criterium in 1998 where Pantani made an appearance:

Here you have the pictures of Pantani’s bike. Note that he is using tubulars on his Electron wheels, even for this small race. He seems to love this bike. In the Giro he used the normal team bike on the flat stages, but since the mountains he has not been apart from this ultralight “hillclimber” (except for time trials). I think the weight is about 7 kilos, but is is of course a very small bike.

The use of a downtube lever and the modified Ergo lever is a funny detail. It is very unusual these days to see homemade stuff like this on a pro’s bike, and he even won the two major tours on it–it’s a classic bike, this one!

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Recently on CyclingNews.com, they did a Retro Bike review of Pantani’s 1998 ride, reportedly stored at the Bianchi museum.  I was thrilled and dove into the photos, looking for answers to questions I probably didn’t know I had.  Unfortunately, closer inspection revealed a host of problems with the bike;  I am sad to report that this is not in fact Pantani’s bike, and in all likelihood did not even exist in 1998.  It appears to be nothing more than the Bianchi team replica frame clumsily loaded with a 1999 Campy Record 9-speed groupo.  The items that give this fact away are: non-compact geometry, carbon Ergo levers, no front down tube shifter (and accompanying left-side Ergo lever with guts removed), black and yellow tires (instead of his solid yellow tubulars), and silver Time mag pedals (he rode red ones in 1999).  This could possibly be a late-season racer or a 1999 trainer, but in any case, it is not his 1998 Giro-Tour winning magical steed.  Since it appears his real bike eludes even the Bianchi museum, my only hope is that he kept it for himself and it resides somewhere in the Pantani estate.

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But the truth is, what we’re witnessing here is the sapling of a future Keeper.

I’d been running them on my previous Roubaix, mainly to get the ‘Zabel-esque’ shifter cable routing, with some degree of success.  They shifted reasonably well, no better or worse than standard cables I thought, and looked pretty unique.

All was well until my front derailleur cable started to fray at the pinch bolt, necessitating a new inner cable.

Simple.

Or so you’d think.

What should have been a 5 minute job turned into an hour-long late night curse-fest, and left my bike front shifter-less and me unable to join the next day’s early morning ride.

With the Nokon’s multiple aluminium segments spread all over the floor, I decided to go back to good ol’ Shimano SP41 outers. But I wouldn’t be able to get Zabel with it.  Or would I?

Turns out that the black 4mm casing is flexible, yet stiff enough to run the bend from the lever to under the bar tape, and still shift with the precision that it’s known for.

I also routed the cables around the opposite sides of the headtube, crossing over under the downtube like I’d been doing with my mountain bikes, and how I’d seen it described over at Embrocation mag.

Tidy, functional, and dare I say it, PRO.  I’ve still got the Nokons employed for the brakes though, because everyone knows that they hardly get used anyway.

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I am facing a major problem; one not easily solved.  One of our principal Keepers – Brett – had made mention of the most important element of cycling: the Rules.  While the Rules are ambiguous, they are also very clear.  Not so much “clear” in the sense that any of us really know what they are or what they really mean; more “clear” in the sense that it’s pretty fucking obvious when a rule has been broken.

I have it on the excellent authority of a man down the shop that Nokon cable housing makes a noticeable difference in shifting performance.  (I haven’t explicitly asked the question, but I assume this “difference in shifting performance” is a positive one.)  In fact, it appears this opinion is held almost universally.  Even Brett rides a set of them.  I had them on my XLEV2 back when it was my primary racing machine, but I was unhappy with the crooked path the cables took from the shifters to the downtube.  Being a man of obsessive/compulsive qualities, this proved to be too much for my already feeble mind to deal with while riding – especially given Shimano’s STI cable setup at the time.  The Nokon cables went.

But, in the six or so years since, Nokon has come to the forefront and people seem to like them.  Not only do they not compress – leading to improved shifting – but they are apparently lighter due to a lack of rubber or plastic or whatever cables are coated in.  This is an easy sell.  Every rational cyclist craves performance enhancement – even the legal kind – not to mention the added bonus that, given the weight savings, I should be able to add an extra noodle to my weekly pasta ration.  (Cyclists only “eat” about once a week, on account of our strength-to-weight ratio.  The rest of the time we fantasize about “food porn” while preparing our daily EPO/HGH cocktail.)

On to my problem.  It appears Nokon now comes in a variety of colors, several of which would look absolutely dashing on my R3.  The obvious relevant color choices are Red, Black, or White – with the possibility of running a silver set.  Black is understated and simple.  It would not call attention to itself and simply serve the purpose of shifting improvement and extra noodle rations.  However, red and white would provide an additional stylish twist, accenting the detail colors of the frame.  There is more red on the frame than white, but the handlebars and the frame’s text are white.  Red would provide a certain “grounding” effect, while the white would continue the “accent” theme already present in the frame.

If I choose the white cables, do I then need to switch to black bar tape, allowing the white cable housing the freedom to rock it?   Or would I stick with the white tape?  Are red cables too…well, red?  Silver is an option, but I would need justification.  Something like, “I really wanted to match my cables to the titanium bolts.”  But I feel funny just writing that explanation – even after the several glasses of wine I’ve already consumed tonight.  I struggle to believe I’ll feel good defending my choice while I’m sober and on the bike.

This is going to take at least another couple weeks to decide.  Any input is welcomed.  See below for current configuration.

I envy you your simple lives.

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