Variety Pacque

There are lots of pies in the oven around here. I often regret spilling the beans, and then swear to myself that the next time we develop something or plan to get it even if it’s not something we’re designing ourselves (there are some good things out there that we’ve had nothing to do with !), I’ll shut up until it’s in stock. It seems more dignified that way, and I like the idea of exhibiting that kind of restraint, but I can never muster it.

Our current posters, the Hunqapillar and the French “Brillant” bicycle poster simply do not sell. We don’t push them, they get buried and forgotten, and I understand that. We have eleven other old-French posters, too, but were going to go through the Brillant one before moving on to the next. We got 100 Brillants, and sold maybe 20. If we were a poster-only co. it would be a different story, I’m sure.

John and I are morosely disappointed in the sales of postcards and posters. Not disappointed in anybody. Just in how they aren’t selling. I love getting postcards and sending them, and sticking them up. But who doesn’t? I got one with a clipper ship on it last week, and you can’t beat that.

Here’s John in his posterfilled room, including two posters of—you guessed it—Carter the Great.

And these are the unselling postcards:

You get two each of six, including Geugeot, which later became Peugeot. Who wouldn’t like to get one of these in the mail? We have considered offering them with pre-written, gender-neutral messages on sticky-back labels, but we’re giving them another two months before that. Then stamps, and if we include those, the price will go up. But that would be kind of neat, wouldn’t it? Sticky-back messages, maybe with blanks in a few key places (“Hi, ___________! Long time, no __________. I hope you and the fam are doing __________. Everybody on my side of the fence is ______________. Say, do you still have that ___________ I lent you about ten years ago? I want it back, if you don’t mind. Cheers, ______________________.”)

Despite all that, we’re getting a poster. It started nearly two years ago, before we knew what lousy sellers they were. The new poster is a Rivendell poster a local guy is doing for us. It will be 18 x 24 and cost a lot—$25. We may have a lifetime supply of them, even though it’s a limited edition. The EA (early adopter, order-before-they-come price is just $20, and if you knew the artist and the paper and the printing process and the poster, you’d know what a bargain that is.

We recently sold a Betty Foy 52 to a woman back east, after working out the normal specifics of fitting and bars and stem and wheels and gearing—-like always—-and she got it and took it to a shop for out-of-the-box assembly. We fully assemble the bike, test ride it, and break it down only enough to fit into the box again.

She had a shop remount the stuff, and then they pitched to her a $165 fitting. For an Albatross-bar Betty Foy. All she needs is the saddle at the right height (specified already, since we know her PBH), and the bars set comfortably (there was plenty of quill for that), and I just wonder what a “fitting” would entail. I have zero to little faith in fancy fittings, because I’ve rarely seen a good result. If a guy is over 6-ft 2-inches, it’s hard to get (by our standards) a good fit on a mainstream bike sized and fitted the mainstream way.

We get guys that tall all the time in here, who’ve been pro-fitted and sold 58s. I’d say there isn’t a 6-2er on earth who can be maximally comfortable on a 58, unless it has a remedial stem that compensates—or there’s a sloping up top tube that jacks up the front end of the bike enough to give the stem a high enough launching point for the handlebars.

 A guy here today, a bit over 6-ft, PBH of 90.5, was sold (bought) a 56 Surly. Nothin’ against Surly; lots against the seller. He’s never been comfortable, and is ordering a 60 Sam. On a Homer he’d be on a 63.

This weekend a nice woman came by wanting to buy a bike, and she had her numbers from a body scan. Some cutting-edge shops do this to help nail the bike fitting. Here is part of her score:

The dimensions noted are useless to any of us. There’s good intention, and it may be that the askers know what to do with them, but I have no clue. Fist height is the Big Baffler. At first I read it as Fistula Height, because that’s about where the fistula forms when it does, but then I figured it had to be fist. Pelvic bone height is different from Pubic Bone Height, and I hope nobody there at Body Scan starts abbreviating it as PBH, because…I hope that always will mean Pubic Bone Height.

The shoulder width—look at it again—seems to indicated an outside measurement, but then you see the 9.78 inch figure on that, and it makes you wonder just how accurate the laser beams really are. This was normal and although I didn’t put a tape to her, I am sure her shoulders were more than 9.78 inches wide. I don’t think there’s an important relationship btw shoulder width and handlebar width, anyway. But still: 9.78 inches?

Related to that, think about this: The widest Noodle (drop) bars we have are 48cm. They’re the widest in the world. The Dove bars we sell are 52cm wide, and we recommend them for tiny women negotiating tight spaces in Tokyo traffic. In the late ’60s  and early ’70s, the widest drop bars were 42cm. Big Ed Delano, in my club, rode 37s. Then he got a new bike and new bars, and his new bars were…39cm, but that’s  how things were back then.

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I find myself being increasingly attracted to stem-mounted shifters on certain bars and bikes. On the new Bosco bar, not bad. And, on Albatross bars. Even drops. They’re convenient enough. We  buy super cheapies, still all metal, the retrofit Silver shifters onto them, like this:

They’re still right there, the cable routing is fine, and it’s just another way.

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Below is Emil’s A. Homer Hilsen. That’s a John’s Irish Strap hanging from the bag loop.

Some of you may remember this as the bike that, a year and a half ago, had a Kryptonite U-lock locked to the top tube, and no key. He’d locked it to our bike rack, lost the key, and we cut the rack to free his bike.

Emil’s bike is one of the more interesting employee bikes around here. Maybe THE most interesting. It’s a 54cm, designed for 650B wheels, but he opted for 700c wheels (don’t copy this), and fancy ones at that. They fit, but …welll, see. By the way, I am not poking fun at the bike. Emil put it together the way he likes it, and I find it to be a fascinating study in unpredictability. He rides it, everywhere, too—and doesn’t baby it. Have a look:

He has DT hubs and rims, 700c Ruffy Tuffy tires, and those tricky SKS split fenders that he wouldn’t have needed with 650Bs, but still…it works. Has Dura-Ace brakes.

Can’t you just hear the scraping noise?

And this Pletscher rack. There are few to no other bikes in the world with DT wheels, Dura-Ace brakes, and Pletscher racks.

This is Emil’s original rear derailer, a Campy Chorus. He had Ergo levers and drops on it, but then went to Albatross bars and a basket, and even though he has bar-end shifters on both sides, only the rear has a cable in it.

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A few weeks ago Mark here was struggling with a Campy Chorus crank. This week he’d given up on it after having broken another Park tool. Here he is before that happened.

KIND of a complicated deal here, and expensive. Campagnolo has always been an expensive way to go…and has always made really good bike parts, of course. But one of the groovy things about OLD Campy was the serviceability of its parts. The Nuovo- and Super Record brake levers were so easy to disassemble and reassemble and replace parts on that you wanted to break ‘em or wear ‘em out, for the satisfaction of the surgery. It was others who copied Campy (a good model back then to copy). When Campy  introduced a 135mm bolt circle for its chainrings—-after 130 already existed, that was kind of a bummer, an omen that things had changed…which, they’re free to. We change stuff. Nobody ever likes change, it seems. Still, honing back in on the crank at  hand, this is not good. The crank you see in the photo now resides semipermanently on that frame. The customer has another frame, and..we’ve got a white elephant. We can cut the left crank off and slide it out. We will mull this over.

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On a more natural note, former emp curr friend Daniel and Keven and Dustin and I went on an S240 last night, about the sixth or seventh so far this year, and here are some snaps from it. My black-and-white film of it is still…doing the thing film does these days, which is sit for a while.

My bike & tent. It’s the first proto-Atlantis from 1998. It has three quintillion miles on it, and I like it a lot. This is a secret spot, 39 minutes by bicycle from work.

My bike as packed the morning we went back. The two blue-foam pads are for sitting around on during the evening or something, but we didn’t use them, because we went for a hike, and  had rocks to sit on. Only 12 ounces total, though. My sleeping bag and extra clothes and too-big tent all fit into the Large Saddlesack. The SlickerSack has a genuine pillow. I used to be one of those “make a pillow out of spare clothes” guys, but you know what? It’s heavier and bulkier and not as fun. So: Fake down pillow from Target.

It’s Dustin and Daniel. Daniel used to work here, now works at American Cyclery in S.F., and is shown wearing his railroad shirt while standing alongside his Hilleberg tent. Hilleberg tents are, actually, the best in the world, and Daniel has more than 150 nights in that one.

Although, on the topic of tents, here’s me at 23 in 1977 standing alongside my Rivendell Mountain Works Bombshelter. On Mt. Shasta, and 80 mph winds right there, although during the night they reached 100mph, as measured by a climbing ranger with a nanomanomometer, or whatever a wind-gauge is (his tent blew down, too). This photo was taken with a plastic disposable camera, but I scanned the print and here it is.

Thirteen of the fourteen tents at this camp blew down and away or were destroyed. This one didn’t even flap. A seriously good tent, and the last of the A-frames.

And I’ll end it with a note about Rick Smith and Yehuda Moon, his comic book guy.

Rick has been, kind of, espousing a softer-than-normal riding approach for several years now, through his comic strip, which came and went and is back again.

If you have already registered on our new site (since mid-Sept 2011), then here’s a deal:

Go to Yehuda Moon, and sign up for a year. Do it by March 5.  It’ll cost you $12.

Provided you have registered on our new site (you can do that now), we’ll create a $20 credit on your account, good till the end of March. Cannot emphasize that expiration date enough. In the subject line put YEHUDA, I DID IT. Next Tuesday, March 6 I’ll check with Rick to verify the sign-up, and away we go. You have to notify me by email (grant@rivbike.com) and send Rick your $12. Not one or the other, but both.

You gotta be registered on our site. If we have to do it for you, no prize. Click on this to register, if you haven’t already.

https://www.rivbike.com/AccountSettings.asp?AddNewCustomer=Y

Confusing? Not the intent. Thanks.