Functional Cycling

Update:  The Rattleback tire failed after about 2500 miles.  The mechanism of failure was quite disappointing.  About .75 miles from work the sidewall blew out (And no, it was not from the brake rubbing, I checked).  I had to hoof it the rest of the way in a downpoor.  It was good to find out at I can run that far with relative ease.  But it meant that I had to catch a ride home with a friend in his undesirable vehicle — not something I like at all.

Sidewall Failure

After the Rattleback tire failed, I contacted Sweetskinz and showed them the blowout.  The representative said that that tire wasn’t really designed for how I was using it and said he would send me a couple of more tires.  He sent me the Eclipse.  After about 6 years on the front and well over 5000 miles, my Hutchinson Python had had it.  So I through the Eclipse on the front.  It looks cool but that’s about it.  In tight corners, it feels like you have the brake on due to the tread pattern.  The tire also feels squishy and rolls to the side easily even after I replaced the rim with a wider one.  The compound is also weak, at best.  I burned through the red compound relatively quickly and found the ugly cream colored compound beneath.  After about 2000 miles on the front the tire is virtually trashed.  I would not recommend these tires unless your a very casual rider and only put in about 1500 miles every few years.  Sorry, Sweetskinz.  Good concept, poor durability and performance.

I came across the Sweetskinz website while searching for different styles of tires for bike commuting and bike commuting at night. I thought the tires looked pretty cool and thought they would be especially eye-catching at night. About two years later after wearing out one knobby while bike commuting, I thought about Sweetskinz again and was determined to give them a try. I bought the Rattleback Semi-slick as I thought it was the least dorky of the patterns offered. When I received the tire I was surprised at the weight – these things are a big chunk of rubber. Of course, I also tested the reflectivity of the tire which appeared to be pretty good. I have been riding the tire for over 4 months now (about 1500 miles). I do like the tread pattern and I have only had 2 flats over this time. This is pretty good for a back tire in Memphis given the abundance of road cacti here. I have not had anyone comment on the night visibility of the tire which I had expected. The reflective material is only a thin covering so it immediately wears off of the tread and thus is not visible from behind. Being visible to undesirable vehicles traveling perpendicular to me doesn’t really seem all that necessary. I would much rather be visible to vehicles approaching from the front or rear. I don’t think the Sweetskinz really help with that. The most reflective portion of the tire, the sidewalls, quickly become coated with brake dust and other road filth, especially in the wet winter months when you need visibility the most. You can wash them with soap and water but I’m too lazy and it’s too cold for me to do this.

The Sweetskinz Rattleback Semi-slick receives a 2 Broken Down Car Rating

Best Uses: Drawing attention to your bike, bike commuting, street riding
Likes: Good tread pattern
Dislikes: Expensive (~$45), heavy, poor tread pattern (Eclipse model), poor durability

A lot, I think. Following is a list of the repairs/maintenance I performed during 30 days in July and August:

Monday 7/20: Repaired tube. 15 minutes.
Tuesday: Cleaned both brake cables and replaced cable housing on front brake – 45 minutes.
Saturday 7/25: Repaired three tubes – 40 minutes.
Sunday: Repaired tube with two punctures – 30 minutes.
Tuesday: Puncture. 5 minute road repair, 15 min. patching work
Sunday: Trip to bike store, Replaced brake calipers, mounted new light, tightened bottom bracket on the fixie – 2.5 hours $25
Tuesday: New seatpost – the old one was almost 12 years old – 45 minutes $19
Saturday: Rebuilt front wheel – rim was almost 12 years old and out-of-round. $70 rim and spokes. – 2 hours
Sunday: Switched out rear tube to a Slime tube – other tube had six patches: 15 minutes
Friday 8/14: Fixed cable and adjusted internal hub shifter cable that was completely not functional: 20 minutes (still need to zip tie the cable to the frame and I noticed the cable is frayed at the shifter – will need to replace.)
Saturday 8/15: Biffed it on the fixie. Lots of time doctoring wounds. Have a nicely bent rear wheel. Will need 45 minutes to true. (Not included in the calculation)

For July/August 30 days: 8.25 hours of repairs.

This seems like a lot of time to be spending maintained a fleet of bikes as my primary form of transportation. I don’t wonder long about whether many of our current population would be interested in spending this much time repairing their primary form of transportation. We need more dependable bikes with more durable components!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Miles (estimate):

1. To Work: 17mi/day*260days= 4420mi
2. Farmer’s Market: 13mi*20 = 260

3. Misc. rides to store:  52*10= 520

4. Critical Mass:  10*13= 130

Total Mileage:  5330

My Bikes:

1.  Circa 1997 Schwinn Homegrown converted to single speed with knobby street tires (work commuter)

2. 2005 Breezer Citizen 3-speed with trailer bike and child-car attachments (grocery getter)

Things I Bought for Biking (that I can remember)*:

2 pairs of shorts (baggies), Two poly shirts, 3 pairs of socks, 2 chains, 2 pairs of pedals, numerous tubes and patch kits, 1 pair cranks, 1 bottom bracket, one rigid fork (the suspension was warn out), 2 rear tires (my front tire is about 5 years old and has about 8000 miles), 1 saddle, 2 rear lights, 2 front lights, two boxes gauze pads, 2 boxes band aids, two rolls medical tape, 1 tube of triple antibiotic goo, 1 pump, 1 rear hub rebuild kit, 1 single speed conversion kit, 1 brake cable kit, 2 sets of brake pads, 1 set of brake levers, repair of internal hub (I messed it up trying to adjust it), one rear fender, reflective tape, 1 pair shoes (my others were 6 years old)

Keep in mind that this was not my first year of commuting.  Most of these purchases were required just to maintain the bikes.

* Does not include cash purchases

Total Cost:  $1358.49

I recently began converting an old Peugot Monaco frame into a fixie. While very familiar with most aspects of bike repair, the old frame represented new challenges. Before I began buying a bunch of replacement parts (I found the frame without a seat and seatpost, wheels, brakes, chain. While also having a loose bottom bracket), I headed to Outdoors, Inc. Fortunately, I found Jason there and he demonstrated how to remove the bottom bracket and he set me up with some new bearings and a lockring tool (not something found commonly in stock at other shops). Jason also understood — without me saying directly — that I wanted to do the repairs myself. He removed the components of the bottom bracket and got me what I needed and threw it into a ziplock bag — ready for the work in my garage. The staff then helped me measure and order all of the components I needed to make the conversion. When the components came in I had some problems with the seatpost sizing, since the Peugot has an odd size seatpost. Mike (who also builds his own frames (Magnolia, if I remember correctly)) took the time to describe what I should do to shim a post in order to make it fit.

Furthermore, since I use bicycles as my primary form of transportation, Isaiah has been more than helpful and diligent in making sure that I was aware that parts I order were in and ready for pickup.

The bike repair staff at Outdoors, Inc. is knowledgeable, helpful and organized. With that being said, they need to make sure they continue to help bikers learn how to fix their rigs. After all, there aren’t bike repair schools readily available to teach repair techniques. And, if you hadn’t accommodated my needs for instruction, I would have gone elsewhere.

Outdoors, Inc. Midtown receives a 5 Broken Down Car rating. Cheers to you!

I work in an industry where standards are commonplace. Many standards work to ensure that different products play nicely with others. For example, the IEC 60601 standards help to ensure that your pacemaker doesn’t stop due to electromagnetic interference when you pop a hot pocket in the microwave. While bike technology has moved forward immensely in the past 20 years, bike companies are kind of like the music industry – extremely fragmented. While this is positive for technology development and individualism, it is frustrating for guys like me who just want to ride their bike to work and be able to fix it at home.

Riding a bike frequently, like 16 miles a day, requires quite a bit of bike maintenance. I am constantly fixing something on one of my two bikes I ride frequently. Besides being expensive and time consuming, it’s often frustrating. Bike parts are ever evolving and thus always require some new tool or servicing technique or a specified amount of torque. Yes, some of the technology has improved the reliability but mostly it has changed to better specialize bikes for a specific purpose like trials riding or Super D. For someone who just wants to ride his bike to and from work it’s annoying. If I want to take my vehicle into a shop for someone to fix all of the time, I would buy a car.

Here’s what I would like to see: A bicycle design standard that specifies the following:

1. 1) All of the mating features of components,

1. 2) Standard bolt sizes,

1. 3) A standard home tool kit that enables the owner to service all parts

1. 4) A standard road tool kit that enables the owner to service parts that are most likely to fail on the road,

1. 5) A detailed service manual,

1. 6) An option to buy bike, kits and manual at the point of sale.

As I hope we are moving toward a society in which more people will be using bicycles for regular transportation, a standardized bicycle with standardized tools would be very beneficial for several reasons. Bike parts would be cheaper, more widely available, easier to service and likely, more reliable than currently available parts. This being the case more people would be inclined to taking up cycling as a mode of transportation because after all, in the current world of bicycles, the layperson probably has a hard time figuring out what a bike is.

Who’s willing to lead the initiative?