Bikes

You are currently browsing the archive for the Bikes category.

Cambodia by bicycle

February 3, 2010 in Bikes, Travel by Mark Beattie | No comments

It is a truth universally acknowledged in Siem Reap that a foreigner on the street must be in need of a tuk tuk (technically, these are not tuk tuks, they are moto-remorques, a trailer hitched to a scooter, but that’s a rather big French mouthful). It could be 9 o’clock at night, you could even be on a bicycle, but you will invariably be asked if you need a ride by every driver you pass.

We did take a moto one day to visit a few of the more remote sites, otherwise we mostly biked. Pretty much all of the bicycles are single speed steel women’s bikes. Kids will ride them to school, two to a bike, even children so small that their heads are the level of the seat and they have to stand the whole time, peering out under the handlebars. Rear racks support hanging bundles of coconuts or large woven baskets carrying who knows what.

Riding a bicycle around Siem Reap means being one with the traffic. You never stop before making a turn, you just kind of flow. The roads are shared use, and as a result of the constant passing vehicles seem much more aware of their surroundings. Slower vehicles stay right, so we’d pass food vendors pushing their carts, just about any Cambodian on a bike, and occasionally a slow moto. Passing us, in the middle of the road which is basically two way, are tuk tuks, faster motos, cars, minivans and tour buses, all of which constantly honk to let you know they’re coming, which is somewhat considerate, if loud.

The main temples are between 6 and 15k north of Siem Reap but our nicest ride was to a village about 10k to the south of the city, where a hilltop temple (both an Angkor ruin and a modern working one) affords a panoramic view of giant Tonle Sap lake in the distance and bright green rice paddies all around. The road there is raised, with the rice paddies below and simple houses rising up on rickety wooden stilts to the level of the road. Little children play in the dirt on the edge of the road as women tended shop in traditional skirts and checked cotton headwraps, and through the open doors of the immaculately swept houses we got a glimpse of rural Cambodian life.

V1 Octalink? 105 or Dura Ace, you choose!

August 17, 2009 in Bikes, Mark, New York, Training by Mark Beattie | No comments

I found this awesome quote in rec.bicycles.tech while looking for setup tips on the old Dura-Ace 7700 Bottom Bracket:

The Octalink crank attachment, its feet of clay, has no preload
between the facets of the square spline and therefore frets (tiny
motion] elastically, even if it has no actual backlash in torque.
Aluminum parts against steel are a classic of this syndrome because
the softer aluminum frets on the steel, and instead of developing
rouge as steel-on-steel does, it makes (hard) aluminum oxide whose
repeated fracture often makes a sharp click.

I haven’t heard your BB, but I have heard such clicks. This may be
your problem and the reason why Shimano gave up on Octalink. Elastic
backlash (absence of press fit) is a phenomenon that escapes
recognition in various mechanical devices and gets passed over in
time, even when the reason is not recognized.

Jobst Brandt
So there you have it from JB himself – Octalinks may develop clicking due to their design. We’ll see. I’m not sure if the weight savings and extra $30 are worth it for the DA BB-7700 vs the BB-5500 but I’m partial to designs that allow rebuild and proper setup/adjustment, so I think I just might go for it paired with a Sugino Cospea compact crankset. In my heart of hearts I want a triple with that 12-21 cassette I’m running, something like a 28-38-48 perhaps. The current 34/44 setup is fine considering I don’t often find myself needing much bigger of a gear than 28+ mph but on downhills it is lacking. The other issue being crossover gears where I often find myself running 34 x 12-13-14 and realize I need something slightly bigger.

Sugino Cospea Cranks

Gunks’ V4 – early bike rides & Bing!

July 14, 2009 in Bikes, Climbing, Computer, Mark, New York, Shimergo by Mark Beattie | No comments

Ryan and I went to the East Trapps yesterday to Boxcar and Andrew’s Boulder problem. I mananged to send the normal Andrew’s V4 problem by late in the afternoon. No luck on the Black Rock V5, and the V3 Baby Hole almost went, but we wanted to save a little skin and tendon strength for Andrew. The heel hook to toe catch seems to be crucial, there are some more challenging variations on it, including the roof, so I look forward to going back to it.

Went for a bike ride in Central Park at 06:30 with some co-workers. Seems crazy, but I feel good. Zoe informed me that Bing! is not finding my page yet, and I know there are quite a few optimizations I can make to get more hits of out of this thing. Wordpress has gone to 2.8.1 so I probably should upgrade which might help. That’s about all I got. Lots of Gimme! fresh roasted Platinum Blonde blend these days, should’ve brought a samovar with me to the Gunks yesterday, I think it would’ve helped assist more sends.

Getting doored & handlebar shapes a New York rite of passage

January 24, 2009 in Bikes, Mark, New York, Safety by Mark Beattie | No comments

So Zoe and I were having a lazy Saturday after having some Astoria coal fired thin crust pizza at a nice Italian place on Broadway and 29th called “Sac’s Pizza Place” (it was quite good) anyhow, we were biking back home down Broadway to Vernon Blvd. and there was a line of traffic probably heading to Cost Co. and just before making it to the light at the intersection WHAM! I was sprawled out on the ground, me and my ‘72 Gitane. A nice older couple pulled over to offer assistance and add themselves as witnesses. It was cold out and I was a bit worried about going into shock if I had broken anything.

We weren’t riding very fast, and the guy in his BMW 528xi didn’t bother to check his mirror. He clipped my right hand and handlebar and I managed to roll my left shoulder into the ground. After the nice elderly couple gave me a piece of paper and pen, they gave me their name and number, I wrote down the BMW’s plate, went up to talk to him, asked him if he had insurance, he did. Turns out he owned a Limo/Car Service place across the street. He was just going to work. I said, “Look it’s cold and I don’t think my hand is broken. I don’t want to file a police accident report here, I just want your name and number in case anything else is up. ” So that was it. Zoe and I walked halfway home, then rode a short section on 21st St. We went to Lennox Hill Hospital to have the hand and wrist X-rayed. Thankfully nothing appears to be broken. I’ve iced it for the last few hours, kept it elevated and have a bandage on it. Good times.

Scotty, a guy who used to be messenger in the 80s and who I’ve worked on films with mentioned “getting doored” one day when he looked at my bike’s handlebars (which are chopped “preacher bars” like Soma Fab’s “Noah’s Arc Bar“) as they offer no hand protection. He said that he always preferred drop bars on a track bike, as they offer some protection. I thought about this, and figured that its better to have narrower bars than protection. Well, after hitting the edge of a car door today with my right hand – I amend my position – I’d rather have handlebars that offer protection.

Sadly, there just aren’t many that offer this. European style Trekking bars are good, but quite wide (usually 57cm end-to-end) and they require a longer higher stem. Also the fact is Trekking bars raise the dork quotient of your bike by about %1,000. Scott Components used to make a mountain bike handlebar that fits the bill called the Scott AT-4 Pro, it was a continuously curved mountain bar. Similarly, the shape I want is a curved flatbar (like my arc’ed preacher) that then curves back around the front in a U shape for each side, about 40 cm wide. The Scott AT-3’s did this to some extent but I think it’s important for the curves to come pretty far in so that they don’t get caught objects while riding. Anyhow, Rivendell and Velo-Orange don’t really sell bars for “aggressive urban” hand protection. I’m taking a metal shop class at Pratt these next 8 weeks, so hopefully I’ll be able to make something to rectify this situation, otherwise I should probably throw on some drop handlebars.

A Trekking Handle bar setup from Coweater on Flickr

Arc, not so good for your hand on door

This sort of bar would protect your hands

This one might get caught on stuff

Campy 10 Shifts Shimano 8!

November 15, 2008 in Bikes, Cyclo-cross, Mark, Shimergo by Mark Beattie | 1 comment

Bless you kind souls at CTC UK who creating the rear shifting cable pull ratio page. It seems, despite all the other irrational things that happen in this world, by a stroke of luck Campagnolo 10 Speed Ergo levers such as the ones I own will shift 8 speeds using a normal Shimano rear derailleur (I do have a pretty sweet all metal RSX 8v) and a SRAM/Shimano 8 speed spaced cassette, no fancy cable routing is required. According to the table the normal 8 speed ratio is 4.8mm per shift, using Campy 10 it’s 4.79. I’ve read a forum with readers in the UK who said it works fine. The God’s must be crazy. And that means I’m leaning towards an 11-28 SRAM ocho estrellas. Okay. Now, is it 44/32 or 46/34 up front? Decisions, decisions. I realized for the sake of chainline on a 130mm rear triangle I shouldn’t run a mountain triple, as I was briefly considering a set of vintage XTR 952 cranks that looked pretty sweet in a triple configuration. Also with the triple I could just keep the 12-21 cassette that’s on there. I don’t know what this would’ve done to my chainline, but I imagine it wouldn’t have been good.

Hanka where are those SRAM Double Tap™ shifters?

November 13, 2008 in Bikes, Cyclo-cross, Mark, Racing, Training by Mark Beattie | 1 comment

So I got the 2009 Trek XO2 working with my old gear from the Salsa. I am still uncertain about keeping the Campy Chorus Carbon 10 levers, I mean I like them well enough, but as it stands I don’t see myself converting to a Campy drivetrain and if I upgrade to 10 speed I’d rather go SRAM or Shimano. And currently the 2009 SRAM Rival group looks like the best deal going. The only question that remains is one of gearing. I’m not hoping to make this bike a full time ‘cross racer, more of a light off road touring & dirt buddy if you will, so even in that context carbon shifters seem like a bad idea. I know, I know, bar-end shifters and aero brake levers are always an option. But so are flatbars and a set of cheap SRAM gripshifts.

The real crux of the build, besides which shifters to go with, is just how compact of a chainset I want. Alex Wetmore has a great page talking about the pros and cons of 110 vs 94 BCD cranksets and how compact doubles, especially when you go with something like 46/32 or a 44/31, can actually give you more reasonable chain crossover. When I was looking at gearing tables for 2 x 9 mountain bikes, I pretty much came to the same conclusion. It seems most 2 x 9 mountain drive trains run something like 44 x 29 up front and an 11-34 in the back. Some racers will bump that front chainring to a 46 I guess (or down to a 42) depending on the speed of the course. A 44 x 11 gear gives 104 inches development and a 29 x 34 gives 22 inches (on 26 x 2.1″ tires w/ 175mm cranks). I mean that’s a pretty good spread for off road I’d think.

SO, I’m leaning towards using the more common 110 BCD crankset with a 46/34 up front, unless I happen to win a set of sweet 8 year old Race Face square taper Turbine cranks in a 94 BCD double configuration (or vintage Ritchey Logics) I would say that the advantage of something like a 44/31 setup using an 11-28 cogset gives almost the same range. On my Jake the Snake when we rode across the US I ran a 50/40/30 triple with a 12-32 8 speed cassette in the back and Rivendell “Silver” friction barend shifters. That worked fine. I didn’t find myself fully loaded in 1st gear very often. I’d say I spent most of my time on that trip in the middle 40 tooth ring switching between 24 to 12 on the back (45-90″ development). And as I recall, the real problem was when I shifted up to the 50 tooth ring I really only got two more gears using 50×14 and 50×12 (96″ and 112″ respectively). We generally didn’t go over 18 mph, and as I recall there were only a couple of days when I remember us using having a tailwind and actually using those big rings.

And when Hanka and Katie battled it out for 1st at Pijnacker this past weekend? Well sadly the Rainbow Colors didn’t win it on SRAM Double Tap technology, but it was a good battle nonetheless.

Friday Night 3AM, Prostitutes on Clinton

June 28, 2008 in Bikes, Mark, New York, Racing, Training by Mark Beattie | No comments

I’ve spent what feels like the last two months working either splits or overnights. Last night was under the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan side, one of Olafur Eliasson’s waterfalls is fully visible, but at night the LEDs seem somewhat dim.

Riding up East Broadway to Clinton on my way to the W’burg Bridge I nearly ran over a hooker who had positioned herself in the bike lane presumably for callers in motorized transport. Granted, I am only speculating she was a woman of the night, but there was a man nearby who I believe was her pimp and he did holler some indecipherable at me as I passed.

As I climbed the bridge’s bikepath I had various thoughts, namely how many Johns actually solicit while riding their bicycles? Which led me to think about bearded potbellied men on recumbents, tandem recumbents more prcisely, trolling the LES and Chinatown late at night with an empty seat hoping to score. It’s a funny image I think. And surely a boon to the image of large bearded men on recumbents everywhere.

A final thought: riding my bicycle is faster than taking the subway. I supposed I knew this, and most nights my excuse has been that I was so tired, why would I want to ride home? But the best reply to this is twofold: 1) after a long night riding home is a good way to unwind 2) there is literally no traffic in NY city at 5am. Seriously, I had some beautiful rides home coming up through the damp verdant jungle that is the east side of Prospect Park Brooklyn, riding home from Church Ave. Also at 5am, if you are lucky, there will be passed out tight jeans fix’sters on the Williamsburg Bridge who just couldn’t quite make it home from a debaucherous night out in the LES.

So yes, commuting on bicycle has somehow renewed my faith in humanity, even if NY is still far too automobile-centric. My hope, and perhaps it’s closer than we realize is 1000$ per barrel oil and every road a bike lane.

Out of the way old man!

May 29, 2008 in Bikes, Mark, New York, Training by Mark Beattie | No comments

Maggie was in town briefly before heading to work at a clinic in Bolivia for a few weeks. We were walking through Central Park near Umpire Rock and there is this a middle aged man time-trialing his Cervelo Carbon P3 with matching Zip 404 front and 808 disc (yes a disc! in Central Park!) wheels. So of course he hits the corner with the intersection path that goes to Columbus Circle at top speed and expects everyone to get out of his way, because you know when you get to carriages and the smell of horse dung, that will really motivate him. He nearly ran over an old guy riding his huffy. It was really an American Psycho moment. I hope when he does race his triathlon that he is training for he gets run off the road by a pack of wild dogs. That’s the least we can pray for really.