Cheap good bikes, used shoes, and the death of Dylan Thomas

All over the place there are old cheap and medium bikes that have been resurrected as modern street bikes and have secret artsy touches that can’t be had and will never again come on modern cheap or medium bikes. I have a mini-fascination with these bikes, at least to the extent that I always look for them and stop when I see them. It’s just the old kind of trickle-down from high-end to low-end, but it doesn’t happen anymore, since high-end isquitefrankly so blagly (bland + ugly). Here are some now ancient bikes with the kinds of details (specifically, fork crowns) that I’m talking about. All found in the west village of NYC, but they’re really all over the place.

Motobecane from the late ’70s. Flat crown, ornamental shoreline.

Raleigh from the ’60s? I completely dig these tubular crowns that must have been made from scraps at the factory, then closed at the end with a nice chome plug. Flat and tubular at the same time.

Flying Pigeon: The famous most popular bike in China. Maybe the biggest bike maker in the world? Riveted head badge, stamped-and-visible serial number, flat crown, good clearance, striped fenders—two color stripes, even. On a bike like this? It’s so great.

Sears Free Spirit. 1970s, I’m sure. More striped fenders, good clearance, and a twin-plate style crown with a cheap chromed cap. Matching paint and fenders. Totally cool, wonderful.

Ross from the ’70s. A lousy decade for pop music, hairstyles, men’s shirts and pants…but good for bikes. Chromed flat crown with a one-piece crank, even. Ribbed and striped fender. These bikes were on every other pole.

Schwinn Varsity. This fork, the most aero of all time, is a flat piece of steel, continuous from left dropout to right dropout, and with a nice chromey crowny thing. The Bridgestone “Technart” Fork—-which really belongs here, but I don’t have access and it’s just not worth tracking one down. If you have one and send a photo, I won’t post it…it’s a small thing. Well, maybe I would, but really, don’t look. If you have a Bridgestone Carmel from 1982-3-4, that’ll do.

Raleigh, old one again, another view of this wonderful crown. But it’s the fender mohawk that steals the show in this picture. So, so cool. And look at the fender tab, so integrated. Let’s not get overly sentimental about these things…but they are neat, right?

Raleigh later on, more sporty flat crown. The funky R decal there—-no, shouldn’t’ve done it. But the crown is fine, and the lug there.

Huffy. Flat top with chrome cap and that super chunk sleeve-thing coming out from it. Matching fenders, striped and all—-and on a Huffy. This is really cool, and speaking of cool, look at the Kool-Stop shoes. It makes you wonder what the salesperson said or what the motivation was to buy the most expensive brake shoes for this inexpensive bike. And they match both the paint and the tire, or close enough. This kind of thing makes me happy on a normal street-walk.

NOW: Compare those to this modern bike:

It looks like a dementor.

https://www.google.com/search?q=dementor&client=firefox-a&hs=N9s&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=wACMUaT_JYSk8QSf1YHgBw&ved=0CDwQsAQ&biw=1038&bih=649#client=firefox-a&hs=U9s&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&q=dementors+face&revid=1984776562&sa=X&ei=xwCMUb3ND4uk8QSazoHIBA&ved=0CGsQgxY&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.46340616,d.eWU&fp=56d42fcbf5869e44&biw=1038&bih=649

There’s nothing arty or to look at on this bike. The internal headset—it’s like how kids draw bikes, and it’s hard to find anything to harp on. It’s whole deal is absence. I’m not into it.
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YouNew Yorkers may know the White Horse Taven on Hudson as the last bar Dylan Thomas ever took a drink in. He died on November 9, 1953, just 59 years and 6 months to the day from the date of this posting, and to force another coincidence, I ride a 59cm A. Homer Hilsen. There is some controversy as to whether he died from drink or a bad injection of morphine intended to clear up some pneumonia, and you can read about that here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/nov/27/books.booksnews
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There have been allusions to a new Moustache H’bar. Here’s a comparison, old and new:

So: less reach and drop, more comeback, and wider. We’ll have these in a month or so. We have a few of the old ones left. We still LIKE the old ones. The newies are not an improvement as much as a reshapement, and only slightly, at that. They’ll work with a lower stem, so they won’t be as dependent on a DirtDrop stem as the others were. Oldies were 51cm wide, newies shall be 55.5cm—a bit less than an inch per side.

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We’re looooooking at a Mini-RIV retail spot in a town nearby. It would be our first foray into the real world. We might not get it, but there’s a chance. I wonder what it would be like to be in a strip mall, and we may find out.
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I am not much of a wingtip-wearer, but in my advancing age I’ve come to like them a little, and four years ago I got a pair and wear them only rarely when I have to, even though I like them—-my lifestyle does’t call for them. And then about a month ago I found another pair I Had to Have, and—-uncharacteristically I bought them. I got a $5,000 royalty check from the publisher, and before turning it fully over to college tuition, I bought a pair of these, which you have to admit are the kinds of shoes you’d like to wear everyday so they can aquire great beausage:

But here is the pisser, at least from where I sit: They’re a hair too narrow. No, I don’t want to stretch them. Yes, I can take them back to Nordstrom and they’ll take care of me. But I see this as my fault, and although I don’t begrudge any of you your returning rights, once you l iive for a while on the receiving ends of returns, you get really reluctant to return anything, and that’s where I am. So I wanna sell them. They are Allen Edmonds Neumok, in olive, and 10E, and I had a thin rubber sole glued on over the leather one—for better pedal-gripping and less queasy slop-walking. You can go to the Allen Edmonds site and see that they cost a lot, and the rubber soles cost me an extra $30. I would LOVE to take this opportunity to sell them to you for $140, which, if you do the research, you will find to be pretty cheap. I’ve worn them for about four miles of walking, and with clearn feet and fresh socks, and they still have that “new shoe smell.”
It’s up to you to know your size (these are 10E). If you have Allen Edmonds shoesm maybe you know. Don’t try them on locally just to get your size. I’d rather not sell them than be a part of that. But if you know and you understand that there are no returns, send me what they call a PM and then the $140, and then if they don’t fit you, you can sell them to somebody else. I’ma get me some 10EEEs..

This BLUG won’t turn into a place to sell used shoes. That is for sure.

Green and Grey Shorts Back

They are plainer this time, no contrasting crotches.

here’s a hard lug to cast

It’s for some bike in the future, but not an inexpensive one. The name will come up later, but it’s only a working name, anyway. This is a beautiful lug, though. More so if you’re an investment caster, and can appreciate the challenge risen to. 

Rear view showing the cast-in donut at the bottom of the slot. It’s a small thing, but actually a big improvement over a normal lug, cast or not, and only our lugs have it. It’s free for anybody to copy, go ahead—it’ll make a better slot-ending and give the painter something extra to paint (or the bike owner, after the fact—a fun project, not too messy.

Another picture of the Clem Smith Jr. lug. A frame builder or designer would look at this and think aha, that’s lousy, the seat stay angle is fixed, so how do you vary it as you necessarily have to do, on different frame sizes? That is a good question, but not one that went unconsidered. It’s like this: Most bikes are designed to specific chain stay lengths, and then indeed, as the seat tube gets taller, the seat STAY becomes more vertical, and this is the case even if you vary the chainstay lengths in a minor way to look like you’re thinking about things. I apologize for not being super clear about that, but visualize it and you’ll see.

But this lug is made for ONE bike that’ll come in ONE size, and it’s a big one. If later on we use this lug or another like it on a range of sizes, we’ll just make sure the big one has super long chainstays (which we’re into anyway), and then on smaller sizes, we’ll let the chain stay length be determined by the angle of the seat stay. Plus, there’s some flexibility in the dropout design—if the right elements are in place, and we’re working on that, too.

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Has anybody else noticed that the new gmail formatting is worse than the old one? And that Tumblr has gotten more fussy, too,  when you go to save, or even hit “return”? Right to the top of the page. Like now, I have to return, but it’ll shoot me to the top.

It did. I’m sure there’s a way around, but I don’t know it.

The frame below is a Legolas, a light cyclo-cross frame, and it got wrecked in a…wreck, and since it’s steel—and lugged at that —- the fix was fundamentally easy, although of course it required time and skill. But this is one of the good things about a steel bike.

New top, head, downtube

New steer tube, which bent. Same crown and blades.

Back to that Clem lug again. Here’s the top view, but look at the seat binder ears. All of our seat lugs (since…’99) are this way, with thick, straight sides that allow—-and this was the idea—-you to hold your seat post in with a vise-grip clamped on, if that’s what it comes down to. It probably won’t, but more practically, the ears will never pinch in and bend bolts or just wear out over time and repeated uses. They hold up to our demo fleet, and on a 40-year old Riv they’ll be as good as they were when you got it. It takes an M6 x 22mm socket head bolt and a 10mm hex nut, and if you lose yours you can get one at any hardware store in the world that sells nuts and bolts. And if you’re not at a hardware store, you can slide in any bold that fits, and on the other side use a washer and a nut. It isn’t genius, but it makes total (not just a lot of) sense.

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Lugs too boring? (never, here). OK, here’s a prototype of a bar that looks a lot like a Moustache Handlebar. Made for us by Nitto….with some (not a fan of this word, but it comes in handy) tweaks here and there not to improve it, really, but to make it ——- well you know what? After 24 years of no changes, this is something we get to do. Less reach, less drop, wider, and more retrieve—-it comes back more. It’ll be a while, and we’re getting a round two-er with a hair more flair. We will have ridden this one by this time next week. I’ll probably put it on my bike-of-month, which will be up for sale in a couple of weeks.

There are ongoing projects.

Here’s something from today and the last few days. The topic is rim width to tire width to brake compatibility and set-up. It started when Keven put a new-to-us model sidepull on the back of his long Joe Appaloosa prototype. He was riding a 24mm wide rim and the brake—a big BMX-y sidepull with a reputation for power, felt super wimpy, like—dangerously so. Looking at it close down on the rim got us to thinking it wasn’t contacting the rim soon enough, so needed a wider one. We asked Tektro about that and it confirmed THAT brake was made for a 28mm to 32mm wide rim, and although it makes sense that the rim’s action and mechanical advantage will change as the arms go through their stroke, it had never occurred to me (Grant) that it would matter so much, because in all these years of bikiness, I’d never experienced a bad combo before.

It made me wonder if the Tektro 559 brake—first introduced as “SILVER” and the standard brake on Sam, Betty, Homer—was designed for certain rim widths. We know it works on a 23mm Velocity (brand) Synergy (model), and feels fine/great/the same on the new 25.4mm Velocity Atlas, but what about a 28mm Velocity Cliffhanger?      Will mounted one, and the the Marathon 38 actually measures 38mm on the 28mm wide rim; so it sticks out only 5mm per side. Braking is even improved, if anything. But Tektro said this brake is for 22 to 25mm rims, so there was some relief there. In the next few months we’ll say more about this kind of thing. In RR44, for sure. It will actually come out this year.

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I’m reading the new BSNYC book, Bike Snob Abroad, I think. It’s at home, so no picture yet. I just got it a day ago, but I’ll report later. I’m 40p into it, and it seems—-well, it’s good, entertaining, interesting, and he’s a really good writer, Eben Weiss. Good book.

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The drag news of the day/week/month is that the Bettys will be a month late, which is sad-to-us because we need the bump in posi-cash flow. Sams too will be late. Arrghhh. Some of you with bikes on order are being called——-and are kindabasically coming through with payments you’d have to make anyway, earlier than you’d otherwise have to make ‘em. Soooooo appreciated, serious thanks.

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Many of you know the name Manny Acosta. He’s a local, rides a 48 Sam, is the only man alive who actually uses his digital camera enough to give it beausage——-to the extent that can happen on a digital camera——and to everybody-who=knows=him, he is at or near the top of the list of favorite bike snappers. He goes out there, he shoots, he gets the grabs we all wish we’d gotten, but he’s Manny the Man, and he’s the one who gets them. I’m older, I have shot so much more than Manny, and all things are in place for me to hate him for his results, but he happens to be the nicest bicycle rider you’ll ever meet on top of that. Here’s his cover photo on the new Merry Sales catalogue (bike parts supplier to retailers). I know many of you have heard of this cover photo, but some haven’t seen it, so here it is:

That is friend Mike on his Atlantis, somewhere south of here, I think on the flanks of Mount Hamilton. Note to Manny and Mike: Don’t bother correcting me on the loca; I’m just showing a photo and have no time to fix it later, not that important, just be happy you shot the shot or are in it, because it looks so good.

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Here’s a photo of the Marathon 38 on the 28mm Cliffhanger rim. It’s not a common look these days, but widening the rim to chase the tire has benefits:

It’s no Mike-on-the-hill, but it’s kind of neat, and this is what it looks like. The tire isn’t as skinny as the wide rim suggests.

Fender Lights Back in Stock

Thirteen dollar, set-it-&-forget-it Spanninga Pixeo Fender Light. Made in Holland for the European market, you’ll be surprised how effective the single LED is. Works great on our Longboard Fenders. 

Should also mention other stuff going on in lights: Rear rack-mounted German tail lights in both battery and dyno form, and a nifty little adapter to make them backwards compatible on the Nitto racks we sell.

-Dave

Long Shen Trip

In the late teens of March’13 I went to Taiwan and visited the Long Shen lug factory, which I believe makes the best lost-wax (investment cast) lugs, crowns, and bottom bracket shells in the world.

Lost wax casting is an ancient technique—-at least 5,000 years old, and employed by Indians, Egyptians, Chinese, Romans, you name it.  Long Shen has made other lost-wax items (years ago I saw a bunch of  ear-piercers), but I think it’s been only bike parts for the last seven years, at least. Lost-wax casting is a common way to shape metal intricately, and jewelrs do it all the time. An intricate lug is more complex than an Elsa Perreti heart, though. I’m not an authority on how Elsa makes her hearts, but the smart money has to be on lost-wax.
In any case, Long Shen proprietors Alan and Shirley generously allowed us full access to the process and to share it with you, so here we do that, hoping you like it. —G

Throughout this presentation we will call these hanging brown things “trees,” because that’s the normal terminology. The brown part is wax, but they’ll get whitish. Inside the brown wax is metal. At the top of the tree is a funnel that is capped here with metal plugs.

This lady is removing cores from a multi-piece die so she can remove a freshly-made wax fork crowns—one of ours! Unseen behind her is the machine that shoots hot wax into the die.

Closer.

The wax positives come out near perfect but not quite. Some of the wax squirts into tiny seams in the die and gets molded into the part and has to be trimmed off.  EVERY piece is hand-trimmed. The wax is delicate, and you can’t trust a robot to do this. Human 1; robots 0.

Here’s another tree. The next step is dipping it into a ceramic batter several times—up to eight—drying each dipping before the next. This builds up athick crust of heat-resistant ceramic, which, after the wax is melted out (lost), becomes a mold for the metal.

Another picture of a wax tree, with somebody’s right rear dropout. Each one has been made with the same die-injection technique, and each one has been hand-trimmed. Never two at a time; only one.

These trees (of wax lugs) have been dipped once, and are on racks in the drying room.

Dipping a tree. This, actually shows-tho-not-in-detail, a secret lug we’re having made for our secret bike.

Working Name: Clem Smith, Jr. 

It’s a year off. it’ll be too big for you. It’s a complicated lug, LS doen’t like to make them, and see how few fit on a tree? Sooo inefficient. And to add insult to injury, there is expected to be a high reject rate, due to the complication. All in all… not a smart move, but it will be a heck of a lug. We will not answer any questions about this bike. We might not even make it. Seriously, don’t ask. If you preface your question with, “I know you said not to ask…”…we still won’t answer. Back to the lug-making process:

Dipping again.

Some battered-up (multi-dipped) waxed crowns on their tree. Trees are dipped up to eight times, drying each time in between.

Here’s a dipper with a tree. Them’s the Clem lugs again!

And here he is. I couldn’t pronounce his name. I will get it and eventually post it. I’m not presenting him as Generic Dipper or disrespectfully. I just don’t have his name.

This is Alan, who with his wife Shirley owns and runs Long Shen. We did an  interview with Alan-Shirley-Long Shen in one of the earlier Readers. No, nobody here remembers which one. Alan is holding a finished ceramic tree full of wax bottom bracket shells. See the funnel atop them? Molten steel goes in there.

The tree-drying room.

Loading wax-filled trees into the melting-out oven.

In the oven, upside down, wax will melt out.

After molten steel has been poured and all’s cool. They’re full of steel castings.

Yep. Another shot of same, but this one showing the pouring gates.

The ceramic molds are broken open and out come…in this case, bottom bracket shells.

Used trees with castings broken off. These will be dipped into wax and reused as the future trunks of other trees.

You’d hope, after all that, that each lug would emerge perfectly formed. That’s not likely, but most are close enough. This one here isn’t close enough, and I picked it out of a reject pile.

Even after the unrejected lugs are culled, they still need to be deburred and crisped up at the edges. 

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On a related to lugs note—-

Sean here has a 2tt Sam and there was the faintest bit of monkey business going on with the paint at the edge of the rear tt lug. Paint prefers flat or smooth surfaces, and a lug edge isn’t, and the paint was ruffled a bit at the edge and looked stressed or cracked. We suspected it was just paint imperfection, totally inconsequential, and you had to look deep into it to see anything, but to be sure we sent it to the maker in Taiwan who said, “That’s paint, not metal” about the ka-ka, then blasted it off to show it:

Paint, not metal, but here’s a close up of the nice brazing.

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Here’s a Video

Making Bicycle Lugs

Nitto Bullmoose bars now in stock

Back by popular demand, the Nitto Bullmoose bar  with a 150mm extension.  Now in stock.

And Bosco Aluminum bars in narrow 52cm width.

I’ve been reading and have almost finished Jan Heine’s latest book, a big fat one, on Rene Herse.

It’s 9.5 x 12 x 1.75 x 424 pages and six-and-a-quarter pounds.

These days, to some who are familiar but not super familiar with Herse, his bikes seem frou-frou, more show-less go, but the book makes it clear how wrong that is. Herse bikes are proof that beauty doesn’t have to mean stupid. In fact, that it can’t. His bikes were smart first, pretty next, a perfect mix. It’s a book of bikes, and lots more. A respectful and useful way to show off the beautiful bikes is in perfect studio photos, and the book has plenty of those. It would be a weird book without them. But most of the photos are gorgeous black-and-whites of the bikes and riders in action, and these photos—to my way of thinking— show the bike at their best, in use. As good as the photos are, the best part, remarkably, is the text. What Jan does, probably what he intended to do, is teach you about the designer, builders, and assemblers behind the bikes, and then some of the riders.

Another thing remakable is Jan’s role in the book and his writing style. A book like this could easily have come off as heavy on the hero-worship and shame on anybody who’s out of the loop, or even look at me for knowing so much. Instead, Jan is respectful of the reader and if anything under-represents Herse’s contributions, so in the end you figure it out yourself. It is clearly a labor of admiration and love, and has countless fantastic photos and fascinating insights and interviews with those who were there at the time. Rene Herse is an educational, attitude-changing, enlightening, fascinating, detailed testament to the man who contributed more useful beauty to bicycles than anybody else. If Jan hadn’t written it, nobody would have, because nobody could have. and if nobody had, then we just wouldn’t know.

Way to go, Jan.

It costs $86, a bargain. We’ll have some by March 4, but I want to make it clear that our selling it has nothing to do with me liking it…except of course I wouldn’t sell it if I didn’t. What I’m saying is that the possibility of selling came way after the liking. You can buy from Jan or us or anybody else. Here’s Jan’s site:

http://www.compasscycle.com/

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Bike Show Bikes

There are bikes I think of as “doily” bikes that bring out the worst in me and lead to thoughts of self-criticism for feeling that way, because it’s just a bike, which is true, but the accolades heaped on crazily designed and nearly dysfunctional bikes at bike shows bum me out anyway. Not all show bikes are like this; only most.  When you see city bikes with skinny tires that skim the frame and fork and the same bike has a long, low stem and handlebars, and it all costs so much for what?, it’s hard to be mellow. Maybe it comes down to the question of whether bikes are metal-art, shock-art, or functional art or some other kind of art or avenues of personal expression, and when you say they can be all of those things, then there’s really no foundation for scoffing.

Some bike designs seem to be driven by a need to be different and to get votes for originality, rather than to be good. Originality isn’t inherently good, and when it’s the result of intentionally avoiding existing designs that a lot of thought went into originally and a lot of refinement went into subsequently, then “original” can be construed as disrespectful, ego-driven, or just foolish. Whatever the case, “original” usually means “hidden influences,” or “never combined just that way before.” Every seemingly original or at least exclusive design here comes from somewhere. The Noodle handlebar was inspired by a Modolo with a slight retrieve and flattish ramp. Ours is better because I have better taste, but it’s basically a copy. The Moustache H’bar came from Japanese schoolkids bikes, and those bars were first seen as early as 1907, or at least a variation of them. I got my affinity for lowish bottom brackets from Richard Sachs and Marc Muller. I learned to like steel from Ritchey, who still likes it,  no doubt, but the segment of the market his company operates in dictates other materials. I learned to like lugs from seeing Bridgestone’s tests, and then (again) Richard Sachs was influential. Fattish tires I came to from riding, and I think anybody would do the same. The list could continue but I’ve made the point, at least in RIV’s case/my case.

When industrial design students go about designing bikes—and they seem to do it every year in some part of the world, usually northern Europe—they go after the city bikes, since they’re more accessible in some ways than are racing or mountain bikes. The presumed buyer —- it seems to me—-must be a harried executive parent shopper multi-tasker with a tiny apartment, and yet rich and avant guard, who wants the kind of bike nobody has ever exactly seen before, and ideally it will be the only one in town. That is my impression, anyway.

I’ll tell you what a good city bike is, but my description won’t be revelatory.

A good city bike has these qualities

• High  handlebars for an upright position, because guess what? The busy streets are not your raceway, and you need to be comfortable and to see what’s up ahead. No high bars, not comfy, and you can’t see.

• Wide tires, at least 38mm wide—-minimum. So you can inflate them hard or soft, as you like and as the street surface warrants. Even if you ride 38s, it should fit 40s at least, and with a fender.

• Tough tires that are hard to puncture and stand up to no to low maintenance and inspection. Of course we always recommend daily pre-and-post ride tire inspections. Right.

• A city bike without fenders works only if you ride only on dry streets and dry weather.

• Ways to carry stuff front and back. Might as well have carrying capabilities in front and behind you, because city riding means shopping or carrying stuff to and from someplace, and the room is good. If you fill up a bag or basket in back and you have an empty bag and basket up front, no harm done—but at least you’re riding within the cushion, should something else come up. It’s better than being maxed out.

• Easy mounting and dismounting. This doesn’t mean it must be a mixte, because that depends on how your hips and flexibility are. Boys bikes do well for boys and girls; girls bikes do well for girls and boys. Bikes are gender-neutral, but everybody carries some imagery baggage with them, and that’s something I can’t address.

• Kickstandable. These trackbikelike city bikes with no kickstands…ohmy. Here’s a kickstand tip: When your option is a pole or air, use the kickstand. When you have a wall to lean the bike against, wall trumps kickstand. Anyway, city bikes that are made for the city and not for the auditorium will have kickstands.

Bike categories are so weird, anyway. I’ve told the story before so will make it short: When Bstone introduced the XO-1 in the Fall of 1990, it didn’t have a category, and eighty percent of the bike dealers who saw it wanted to know what KIND of bike it was. Mountain? No. Road? No. City? Not exactly. You could point out the inherent versatility and even the expandability with the help of racks or different tires, but what they wanted was a category, and it had none. Everything in the world has categories, but you use a thing, not the category it falls in.

The Betty and Sam versus Prize-Winning City Bikes

We don’t call them city bikes, but when you outfit them with racks, fenders, baskets and bags and higher handlebars and reflectors and lights, there you go.

The most underutilized upfix for any bike and any city bike is reflective tape wherever it’ll go. First, at least, on the spokes. You can be visible without it, but semi-permanent visibility things have an edge over lights you may not have with you or on, or even my favorite, the big Triangle, that you may forget to wear.  The silver 3M Scotchlite tape we have shines so bright. If your pedals don’t have reflectors, put some on the back of your crankarm.

Anyway, here’s an over-the-top (show bikey?) version of a Sam Hillborn.

It is pretty enough, but is stuffed with smart function. This is a bike that’s nearly too intentionally decked out for my taste—a basket on the front would help—but all that means is it’ll look better when it’s got some wear on it. Purely from a looks perspective, as horribly superficial as that is, does the fact that there are a hundred or two of these bikes out there make them seem less pretty or less special than a no touch one-off?

This doesn’t look bad no matter where or when you are.

Same with this.

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These are some beautiful little beetles. The colors are so good.

They aren’t as colorful as these:

You can’t really pit one against the other. Both good, I’d say! The bicycle connection is that one of our customers showed these to me. He works in the American Museum of Natural History.

Thin Gripsters Back In Stock

Get ‘em while you can.

RIV CHICA WARRIOR-WEST ? and a horseshoe story

A few years ago Liesl Chatman of Mpls rode her Riv and chased down a bike thief and apprehended his sorry whatever, thus earning the moniker RIV CHICA WARRIOR.

Now, last Friday the 18th and while riding her 2tt 59cm A. Homer Hilsen on her way back from the post office, packer-shipper Jenny has another sort of similar story, and tells it:

I’m certain  any of us here would’ve done the  same thing— I just happened to be the one who saw it all happen.  All in a day’s work, I suppose, but I’m just glad everything worked out the way it did.

Shortly after that we snapped this picture of Jenny against a white backdrop:

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Tough work if you can get it. But…fairly manly.

Hillborne rider Earl Craig of Montana makes horseshoes and I THINK is also a farrier, but of that I’m not sure. No doubt he can shoe a horse in a pinch, at least. He was here recently, and since we have horseshoes hanging around here (literally) and as heel-lo-k-tors for our PBH measuring station, Craig felt compelled to talk about horseshoes, and … I really like horseshoes and talking about them, and so it went. Then a few weeks later (yesterday), we received in the mail a photo-book of the horseshoe-making process, shown below, with captions his:

The straight-bar shoe is a therapeutic shoe. Its purpose is to protect a damaged hoof. This shoe also dissipates load over a greater bearing surface, which can be beneficial.

The classic scenarios, though, are bad hoof cracks or cracked coffin bones.

This shoe will be made out of 15 1/2-inches of 5/16 x 7/8 inch flat stock. Forge welded (no modern welding equipment used).

The smithy (looking, for some reason, somewhat skeptical) selects some bar stock

With the Sam Hillborne sitting somewhere off in the corner,

THE TOE BEND IS MADE

Now one of the “hockey sticks” is forged. This will form half of the bar. Molecules are getting packed. In blacksmithing, this is called “upsetting.”

Back in the forge. (This is a coke fire—-coke is coal with most of the impurities removed.

Second hockey stick is now forged.

Now a branch bend is initiated over the horn.

Half the shoe is there.

Some scarfing of edges is done to prepare for the weld, and the edges are overlapped. A bit of flux will be applied and then it’s into the forge for a white-hot welding heat.

The weld is done with a hammer. (This can be done, by the way, in a gas forge as well, but it’s better in coal or coke.

Some more work done on weld over the tip of the horn.

At this point the fullering (grooves) and nail holes have been done —- my photographer disappeared for a while {damn guy!—G} 

Nail holes are stamped to depth, then pritchelled through.

Time for a quick break. (Tea time without the tea.)

The finished shoe after some rasp work and wire brushing. (Also treated with beeswax.)

THE END.

Closeup

Now it’s above the door. Nobody take it, please.