Tamahagane

I started commuting to work again via bike earlier this week, on a used whip that I picked up a couple of weeks ago from a guy I met off of Craigslist. Some kind of weird bike karma was working its way toward me; I managed to snag a Lotus Excelle, the same model of bike that was stolen from me in late August. But the one I copped is a Sport Series, instead of the standard model I had originally. I’m not really sure what the designation means, but everything on this bike is a little bit nicer than the old whip. It’s got 4130 cromoly Ishiwata tubing, a step up from the Tange stuff on the old bike. The Shimano gruppo is likely an upgrade too, but I can’t remember what my other bike had on it. The guy I bought it off of said he picked it up at an estate auction somewhere in Jersey. I think it’s a pretty good bet that it’s been in storage for the last 20+ years. Everything on the bike is in amazing shape, other than the tires, which looked like they had some dry rot.

I took the drops off, instead opting for some riser bars and cross levers, and recabled the brakes. I did manage to salvage the old cable guides, which are this weird semi-translucent pink, in keeping with the paint scheme of the bike. I also upgraded the tires to some Continental Gatorskins, and swapped out the platform pedals for some MKS track pedals I had lying around. I’m already deathly in love with the ride the bike gives–a nice combo of smooth and twitchy responsiveness that’s helpful to riding in the city. The geometry is a maybe a little tight for me, I think the combination of the short top tube and the riser bars keeps me more upright than I’m used to.

I had kept the bike on ice in my storage space for a few weeks after I bought it while I rounded up some replacement parts I needed and waited for the Gatorskins to get mailed in. I did most of the rehabbing over the course of a few hours one Wednesday night, and discovered that Brooklyn Bike & Board, the bike shop that replaced Bicycle Station on Vanderbilt Ave. in Prospect Heights, is trying to stay open until 9 pm on weeknights to cater to the commuter crowd. I had been reluctant to support the new shop as I was a huge fan of the wrenching and general attitude of Mike, the owner of Bicycle Station. Going to its replacement somehow felt like a betrayal of the unspoken oath of fealty I had made to the shop. (It’s hard to explain to a non-bicyclist the loyalty engendered by a solid shop owner; it’s unbelievably hard to find a decent local bike shop in Brooklyn, or NYC for that matter.) But I was forced into going into BB&B a couple of weeks ago, when I caught a flat on my way to UnionDocs on Sunday afternoon a couple of blocks away from the shop. The guys there were friendly, non-condescending, and had me on my way in a few short minutes. They also kept copies of the print version of Urban Velo on hand, which I had never seen before.

I had been waiting for a new Bell Variant helmet to come in from Nashbar, but when it finally got here I realized I had bought one that was too large. Instead I went to City Bikes on my lunch break and tried on about 5 different Uvex helmets before leaving with the XP100, with which I am now totally in love. I also managed to rationalize the purchase of some 4Season OG Pants from Outlier. It took me a while to come around to the idea that it’s just better to pay more money for decent bike-related gear. I had to learn the hard way that it generally saves you both grief and money to just pony up for the good shit from jump. I haven’t gotten the pants yet, they’re on preorder, but I’ve read nothing but good things about them. One of the owners of Outlier, Abe, seems to know his shit down cold and is always dropping science on the nyc fixed gear forum, where I like to lurk. I also copped a softshell from The North Face, the Apex Bionic Hoodie, for the ever-approaching winter cold. I’ll see if the breathability rep lives up to the hype after it gets here. I’m not holding my breath though.

Ladri di Biciclette

Some FUCKING ASSHOLE stole my bike today while I was helping Sheba’s sister move some furniture into her new digs. I loved my whip. I kept the thing looking kind of gully in an (evidently failed) effort to dissuade thieves from marking her. But she was a beaut and a serious workhorse, had a great lugged cro mo frame and fit me like a glove. I just spent three hours yesterday tuning her up, putting on some brand new kevlar bead tires and a rear rack. At least I got to share one last beautiful ride with her today up the West Side on my way to Washington Heights. Hov was right. Ain’t no love.

Domo

I finally got my cyclocross levers in from Performance Bike last Friday, and so spent a few hours on Saturday evening installing them on the Lotus Excelle in an effort to get it ready for regular commuting. I totally lucked out in scoring the Excelle from Ravi’s roommate, who sold it to me for a song. I think he sold it mostly because it had a flat tire and he either didn’t know how to fix it, or was too lazy to deal with it. Anyway, I was gassed to pick up the whip, which other than the flat had some frayed brake cables, which wasn’t that big a deal to fix since I wanted to ditch the road levers anyway. Cross levers are pretty key on road bikes in NYC. Traditional road levers that sit on the curve of the drops are great when you’re trying to get aero, but have the effect of lowering your eyeline on the streets. Better to have levers that keep you sitting upright, keeping your eyes ready for the endless assault of doors, peds and taxicabs. I had to rip the foam grips from the bottom half of the handlebars to get the levers off, but decided I liked the resulting shitty look. (I kind of subscribe to that theory that bike thieves will be less likely to steal shitty looking bikes. Kind of.) In that spirit I left the dork disk on too. The bike is in great shape though. It’s probably mid-80s and has got some nice Tange tubing, beautiful lug work, and was definitely kept away from moisture for most of its life. The bearing systems are all smooth, and I discovered that it had some really nice platform pedals after I took off the crappy plastic toe clips someone had slapped on.

Most of the R&D going on in bikes right now is geared toward building things lighter and stiffer, two traits that are great if you’re trying to haul up a hors categorie in the alps, but that will leave you pretty saddle sore after a few minutes of being abused by New York City streets. Aluminum and carbon frames both have the same problem; their stiffness conveys all the kinetic energy your bike absorbs from Buick-sized potholes and conducts it directly to your ass. Plus when carbon or aluminum frames fail, they tend to do so catastrophically, meaning in a way that will likely leave you fucked up physically. Maybe emotionally too.

Steel is heavier than either carbon or aluminum, there’s no doubt. But it has a much higher tensile strength than both and much more flex, giving you a more dampened ride when you’re rolling over cracks, bumps or whatever else. Plus I think I would go much faster if I dropped 15 pounds from my gut instead of 200 grams from my bike. I’m always on the lookout for Japanese-built steel frames from the 80s. Because the Japanese are just generally real about the shit that they built, Japanese companies tended to invest in higher grades of cro-moly steel for their bikes, even the low-end mass-produced models. And because of the weak yen of the era, the U.S.’s West Coast was flooded with a variety of Japanese imports, some of which have managed to filter their way to the East Coast since that time. I was pretty surprised when I checked out the dealer sticker on the seattube, and saw that the bike was originally sold from a store named A&B Bicycle World that used to be at 663 Amsterdam Ave. (Some place called Window Gates & Locks currently resides there.)

So I think I’ve got most of the kinks worked out of the ride, but am going to test it out on Sunday during the 2009 inaugural Tour de Chomps ride. Hopefully I won’t encounter any serious problems and can start the commuting up again on Monday, if I can cement my willpower into place to do so. P.S. somebody loan me 85 bones so I can expand my brand.