Report From the Beautiful Island

Formosa is Portuguese for beautiful island, and it's the old name for Taiwan. While the flat coastal plain studded with the factories that make our parts may not be particularly beautiful, the mountains just to the east and north certainly are, as are the beaches, and especially the people. In my travels to dozens of countries, I've rarely met locals as friendly and hospitable as the Taiwanese. And it never ceases to amaze me that it's far easier to get along speaking English in Taipei than in Paris.

We visited several factories that make our parts and met with many more suppliers at the Taipei Cycle Show. The longest meeting was with our rack manufacturer where we went over the myriad details required to make our new touring racks. I don't think these will be ready before fall. There is really a lot involved in getting them just right. We're also working on a new saddle bag support.

At our handlebar factory we approved the prototype stainless steel VO 25.4mm-26.0mm shims. These will be priced lower price than the only existing type and we'll have a wider version for use with threadless stems. We also discussed our new short reach drop bar and arranged to have all the logos on our city bars changed from laser etching to the engraved or stamped version.

Dia Compe has some new Campy-look shifters that we'll be stocking in down tube and bar end versions. There are a few other surprises from the folks at DC, including a new version of their touring frame that looks very nice.

We're still exploring the possibility of making very high quality roller-bearing bottom brackets, but what's stopped us is the high cost. Maybe, just maybe, there has been some progress in bringing the cost down. If we could manage to sell them for between $75 and $85, would you be interested? They would be aimed at long distance touring cyclists and others that ride extreme mileage in difficult conditions and need a bomb-proof BB. The photo is of VO BBs at the factory.

Our brake manufacturer showed us some prototype cantilevers reputed to be more powerful than existing models. We'll be testing them soon and may develop a Grand Cru version.

The new Grand Cru stem has been in development for a long time. It's amazing how many issues can crop up on such a simple project. It's almost ready for production, really!

Many of you had asked us to look for a high-end frame pump. I'm afraid that I found nothing that I thought was particularly better than models already on the market. We talked about opening tooling for a Grand Cru pump, but I doubt that sales could cover the costs. The simple fact is that mini-pumps and mini-floor pumps are now so good that most cyclists, myself included, don't bother with a frame pump. The only advantage of a frame pump is inflation speed, and I'm not in that much of a hurry.

We also scoured the show for retro-style lights. There is only one possibility so far and it would be expensive, but we'll explore it further. With so much going on I'm unwilling and unable to devote the time it would take to develop our own lights from scratch. We can't make everything and keep what little sanity remains.

One project that's been behind is the next production run of the Polyvalent frames. We're making a few small refinements including improving the bend of the fork blade; that's caused the holdup. With luck we'll have the final version of the new fork in two weeks and production can proceed. We're also working on a 700c version of the Polyvalent that will be more of a touring bike.

There's a lot more, but those are the highlights. I'll leave you to ponder, and comment on, the following photos.