If I were to get a titanium #bicycle, I'd definitely spec a compliant steel fork. I feel like steel folks get a bad rap because consumer grade production ones are overbuilt, especially ones with disc brakes! #cycling
I have an aluminum frame track bike with a carbon fork that I am considering switching to a steel fork. I guess the ride a little whippier but the front wheel is the place you want rigid control over what is moving where...
I have very long legs and a short torso, so "normal" bicycle frames never fit me very well. I always end up with a lot of seatpost height and a short stem, even though I'm leaned forward comfortably and with plenty of power in my pedal stroke.
I’ve been running 38mm Panaracer GravelKing tires tubeless on my Soma Stanyan for years, but the front tire I just put on has enough wobble to rub in one spot on every rotation. (The wheel itself is true.)
Two shops told me that the tire wasn’t seated right, but I checked and remounted multiple times and it’s seating fine. Even used some rubbing alcohol to lubricate the tire where it seated, but it always mounts up perfectly fine. The tire is the problem.
The second shop gave the real answer after chatting with the folks there for a bit: I should go down a size. It’s a real bummer, but even the Soma website says it can do up to 35mm. :blobfoxsad:
The only other realistic alternative is a new frameset, or at least a new fork, but that will have to wait for a while. :blobfoxgooglycry:
The slow, silent ride will start at the Davis Bike Collective (1221 1/2 4th St ) this Wednesday 5/15 and will visit 4 different locations in Davis where people have been killed while riding their bikes
The route will be 7.5 miles and is expected to take ~1.5 hrs. We will have some flowers to distribute but feel free to bring your own offerings as well.
@meganL@cycling Can't believe I didn't know about this event. Doesn't look like #STL has one, but I'm reaching out to some local bike orgs to see if we can schedule one for next year. Hope y'all have a good ride!
kids, I'm doing Ride London again this year, raising money for the brilliant Bike Project, who do up bikes and give them, along with training and support, to refugees and asylum seekers. I'm WAY out of shape, having had my slowest start to the year cycling since before COVID. Here's the link to sponsor me, if you'd like to help support them and motivate me :) xxx
Isn’t it nice to know that you can take your bike into any bike shop and get it fixed? Even if you’re in Mexico, France, Italy, Montana, or even India? If they don’t have the part to fix your bike, they can easily order it and have it fixed in a day or two. Well, it wasn’t always that way. You see, in the 1970’s the International Standards Organization (ISO) spent years of painstaking work involving over 30 nations to develop standard sizes, thread pitches and specifications for common bicycle parts like bottom brackets, hubs, freewheels, head sets, etc…
Before the ISO endorsements were made, each country had its own standards. Even within a country, you could find different standards for different manufacturers. A bicycle made in France used different parts all around than a bicycle made in Italy or the United States. This made life difficult for both the bicycle dealer trying to help a customer, and also for the customer who had purchased a bicycle with standards not common in their area.
While rifling through my 1970’s Bicycling magazines, I found an article on this while the standards were still in development, and it brought to mind many situations that are occurring now in our industry today.
While we have always tried very hard to manufacture our bicycles using standard size parts and specifications to make things easy for our customers, many manufacturers are now veering far from the ISO standards in an effort to create what’s called ‘proprietary’ parts. These are parts designed specifically for that particular frame. It can be something as small as the part that holds the rear derailleur to a carbon frame, or something major like a specific bottom bracket that’s only available from that manufacturer.
I think people should be aware of proprietary parts as they can make life difficult for the customer, as well as the bike shops trying to help that customer. This is especially true for the cyclist touring foreign countries.
Replaceable derailleur hangers and the problems they can pose
Replaceable derailleur hangers Several years ago, I wrote an article called ‘Chaos, the new standard‘. That article holds so much truth even today that I thought a follow up was in order. So, here it goes. A company that’s been around for 51 years, as we have, will tell you the importance of standards. This is a short article detailing one such detour that we took in the 1980’s.
What are standards, and why should you care? If you are a person who wants to buy a bicycle that you will ride for 20 years plus, then standards mean a lot to you. For instance, I ride a Rodriguez road bike the we built here in 1999, and I’m still riding it today. I consider myself a Forever Bike person. I will still be able to buy parts for this bike in 20 years too. Any part that needs replacing we will have in stock. That’s because it’s built around ISO standards (International Standards Organization). ISO standards were settled upon by the bicycle industry in the 1970’s in an attempt to make sure that people could get their bicycle fixed in just about any country, and well into the future. It’s worked miraculously….until recently.
When I'm riding my #ebike I hate the pressure I feel to accelerate to the speed limit when there are cars behind me. My bike can do 45mph but must we!? #20IsPlenty
After over two decades, Surly moved the Cross-Check frameset from their standard lineup of bikes to the ‘Legacy Lineup’ of their website. Surly confirmed that the bike is no longer in production and is unlikely to come back.
If you haven’t owned this gravel/cyclocross/touring/whatever bike yourself, you likely know someone who has. The Surly Cross-Check was the egalitarian choice in cycling, simultaneously someone’s utilitarian dream bike that was attainable and sold at a fair price.
The end of the Cross-Check marks the bike’s reign as the most bike that ever biked, the go-to way to make a pile of parts you hoarded in the corner of your garage into a functioning bicycle, and the defacto option that a bike nerd could happily ride and recommend to their non-bikey friends all the same.
@tk@cycling@mastobikes@mhoye Aw, dang. I rejoined the cycling world 12 or 13 years ago on a black Cross Check. I loved it unreservedly, and kept it in my garage for years after I rode it regularly— it got displaced by lighter, shinier bikes — mostly out of sentimental reasons.
I finally sold it last year to a math grad student who rides it nearly every day.