Navigating Paris by Bike

by Igor

Riding through a new city can be a test in itself of a rider's navigation skills, awareness of their surroundings, and general understanding of vehicular, pedestrian, and bicycle flow. You want to look and feel like a local, even if you're absolutely terrified of getting lost. Throw in not having practiced the language since high school, and it can be an interesting experience to say the least. Bonjour France!

After visiting our French distributor Mohawk Cycles on the outskirts of the city, we made our way into downtown Paris (of course during rush hour - yikes!). We got to our hotel room, unloaded, and ate a dinner of local grocery store finds. One thing we noticed the first night is that the sun sets quite a bit later than here in Maryland, so that means that there's plenty of time to explore the city before nighttime really takes holds - so I grabbed the Neutrino and headed out to do some reconnaissance of bike lanes and infrastructure for our morning ride, as well as take some photos around the bustling and iconic city center.

Nighttime riding really does sharpen your senses. Automobiles, passionate yelling about something or other, and street crossings stand out so much more, while you blend in. At night, people can't see my touristy bum bag, the cartoonish map sticking out of my back pocket, or my bewildered look as to where the heck the turn I was looking for disappeared to.

The Neutrino performed perfectly. It's nimble geometry made negotiating tight French traffic easy and fat 2.3 tires absorbed construction road chatter, ancient cobbles, and errant potholes effortlessly. It's the perfect city exploration machine, make no bones about it.

Having now more or less put to memory routes, construction, and bike lanes, the three of us set off for a nice morning tour around the city to take in the big sites, sounds, and lots of coffee (ancient jet lag remedy).

Up next: 2019 Anjou Velo Vintage Festival and Ride!

Rough Stuff Fellowship- a visual archive

By Scott

A group that was riding touring bikes where mountain bikes would later go was the Rough Stuff Fellowship in the UK. This hardy band of cyclists rode bikes (and pushed bikes) through the British Isles and the remote regions of Europe well before the folks in Marin County were flying down hill on modified Klunker bikes.

A year ago, the RSF hired an archivist to collect and catalog photos belonging to the club and its members. Now, we finally have a book that reproduces the photos of those rides in glorious color. It's 207 pages thick and over 95% of it is photos of riders/riding scenes.
I've been following the process on their Instagram and we were excited to be able to import some copies of the book which is available on our web store.

One of the coolest parts of the book is that they have reprinted the club's account of the first self supported crossing of Iceland by bicycle. Yes, Horace Dall crossed Iceland in 1933, but had "help" crossing one of the rivers and thus the RSF riders were the first self supported riders, using their own inflatable rafts to cross the rivers in the interior. For those of us obsessed with riding in Iceland, this is pure gold!
July 16th update- Thanks for the support. We sold the first batch out quickly, but the book is back in stock.

Splatter Painted Fenders Make Your Ride Totally Unique

by Igor

There's a reason why MTB's from the 80s and 90s are awesome - splatter paints makes everything 100% more radical. And while the process, on first glance, seems to be time consuming and difficult, it's actually super easy and fun!

All you need is a spread of paints, some cardboard, fenders (mudguards for our friends across the pond), and time. I'd suggest going with three colors: color matched (or close enough), complementary, and analogous. In this case we went with Lilac, Pass Hunter Orange, and Gen1 Piolet Blue. We used extra touch-up paints, but you could really use anything including rattle-can paint sprayed into a cup, nail polish, auto paint, or even model paint.

Prior to splattering I'd suggest getting the fenders 100% ready for mounting. That includes cutting and affixing the stays to the fenders, drilling for frame mounting, and thoroughly cleaning the surface of any grease or fingerprints. Having them ready to mount means you'll be able to re-install without risk of damaging your new, unique paintjob.

Lay some cardboard down to catch excess splatter and use the fender stays to keep everything upright and stationary. Turn up the beats, shake some paints, and get to splattering. Lines, blotches, speckles, and imperfections are all encouraged.

Once you're satisfied, leave them to dry. We left them out in the sun for the afternoon. You can clear coat if you'd like, but we didn't.

Now that they're dry, mount them up!

Two New Rim and Fender Designs!

by Igor

Friday was container day, so you know what that means: restocked parts and accessory inventory, tasty group lunch, and temporary cardboard box offices. With this shipment, we received several new products that we are particularly proud of, and I think you'll be quite pleased. Jump down for all the details!

Voyager Rims

A good set of rims are the cornerstone to any good wheelbuild. With nearly two years of R&D, prototyping, factory visits, and extrusion tooling, the Voyager Rims are finally ready for their launch. This was a super fun collaborative effort with wheelbuilder extraordinaire Tommy from Cutlass Velo in Baltimore.

While the Voyager looks like a traditional box section rim, it is packed with modern accoutrements including tubeless compatibility, stainless steel eyelets, and generous tire fitment of 38mm-61mm(2.4"). Magnifique!

Tubeless Compatibility

Having a tubeless compatible rim means that the tire bead and rim hook are able to interlock, and stay interlocked, without a tube placing external pressure on the inner casing of the tire. There are several design details which make this system work.

The valley of the rim must be sufficiently shallow to create a seal between the rim, tubeless rim tape, and tire prior to attempted inflation. While in theory this may make tire installation tougher, we have tested about a dozen mainstream brand and tire combinations, and have not noticed any difficulties.

The next step in the tire and rim, ehm, relationship is the bead shelf. Notice the small protrusion along either side of the valley. Basically what happens is that once air is forced into the valve by floor pump or compressor, the tire bead expands outward ramps up the bead shelf and once the bead makes the jump, snaps into the hook of the rim with a satisfying *snap*.

Once the tire is properly seated, remove the valve core, inject the manufacturer's recommended amount of sealant in (often based on tire size), replace the valve core, and do the sealant dance. I encourage everyone to have a sealant playlist. Mine has a lot of Elvis. Be sure to read your sealant and valve manufacturers recommendations for all the details on how to create a perfect and reliable setup.

All that said, you can still use a tube in a pinch (pun intended) or if the tire you want is not tubeless compatible.

While it can take a bit more initial time to get it all done (with the swishing and swashing), the reward is eliminated or significantly fewer debris and pinch flats and a lighter system without tubes, with the latter having the biggest benefits with the widest sizes of tire. The Voyager Rim is available in 26", 650b/27.5, and 700c/29er in 32 and 36 holes.

Enterprise Rims

While the Enterprise Rim is technically a new rim, it uses a modified RAID Rim extrusion with a single stainless steel eyelet instead of the traditional double eyelet style.

A bit of history: double eyeleted rims were sought-after back in the day because they could better distribute nipple tension within the rim than single eyelets. This was especially useful for randonneurs and tourers as this design led to less chance of rim cracking and premature replacement.

Today, double eyelets simply aren't necessary. Everything about high-quality modern wheel and tire manufacturing is better. Alloys are stronger and more durable, nipples and spokes are more resilient and longer lasting, and tires are consistent.

We switched to a single, stainless eyelet for each hole and dropped a bunch of weight. These new rims will gladly accept tires ranging from 23-38mm in 700c and 27".

650bx58mm Smooth Fenders

We had quite a number of folks asking for a Smooth variant of our Wavy Fenders. While I think the Wavy Fenders may be the coolest design we've released, I can understand they may not fit everyone's build aesthetic.

If you're going with a clean and modern or traditional and simple look, this Smooth set will be perfect. Available in Silver and Noir.

700x38mm Smooth Fenders

In an effort to dial in our fender offerings, we developed this 38mm fenderset to be compatible with tires up to 30mm. They're great for modern road bikes with fender mounts (I love that more companies are offering this feature) or older roadies with fender clearances.

I'm very much aware that we currently offer a 37mm fenderset, you'd be surprised what 1mm of clearance can do for road bike applications. Sometimes you need to make an incremental adjustment to provide the best product going forward.

Available in Silver and Noir!

Weight Wise - Pound Foolish

By Scott

There seems at times to be a divide between two sides in the cycling world. No, I'm not talking about flat bar vs drop bar or 650B vs everything else under the sun, but rather those cyclists who weigh everything they put on the bike vs those that just put parts on and don't care.

I'm brought to this thought as a month back I took my rear rack and rack bag off my touring bike. I'd had that rack for all 17 1/2 years that I've owned my bike and I've had the rack top bag for almost 12 years now. I never really gave them a second thought. They were where I put my spare parts/tubes/cell phone/wallet/keys when out on a ride.  However, this past year, my wife has been training for a 1/2 ironman triathlon on a carbon fibre tri bike. On the weekends, we'd go out and do training rides, with her on the tri bike and me on my touring bike. I never really weighed anything until we got Melissa's new-to-her bike and she was curious about it's weight. We weighted it on our industrial scale we use for heavy shipments, and it came out to right around 18lbs.

As Melissa's training for the triathlon increased, the distances and speed increased as well. So in an effort to try and reduce the distance between us, I thought I would take off the rack and bag and start using our Mini-Rando Handlebar Bag instead.  So the net result was that I lost 4 lbs off the bike and I still have the tubes/wrenches that I carry every ride and room for the phone/wallet/keys as well.

What have I learned? Well, perhaps paying attention to weight can be an advantage. I've not caught up to Melissa, but I have cut down the gap between us. I still have all the stuff I need with me should I get a flat or such on the ride, but without the weight penalty. I'm not planning on a tour this summer, so I don't need the rack and bag. I don't really see much else on the bike that can be taken off and replaced or just left off.

Are you a weight obsessed cyclist, weighing the rack and bag to get the lightest possible combination or are you more concerned with the look of it/compatibility of it all and weight be damned? Let us know in the comments.

Trail Riding with the Crazy Bar'd Piolet

by Igor

In between family riding this weekend, I took a fresh Piolet build out for a spin through some of Brunswick, Maryland's local trails. Rooty, flowy, steep, and narrow are all characteristics of classic Mid-Atlantic mountain biking, and this little system had it all in spades. This also allowed me to try out the new camera system, so that we can deliver even better photos and content in the future.

While these new, upcoming Voyager Rims are only really rated for up to 2.3s, I successfully tubeless'd up some Maxxis 29x2.5 Aggressors. While Maxxis actually offers the Aggressor in rear only, I made sure to flip the front tire around so everything is copacetic.

These grips are offered by All-City and are designed to be affixed to track drop handlebars. This'll do.

Shimano SLX components take care of shifty and cranky bits.

Sabot pedals mate well with my trail hiking shoes.

Our new Grand Cru Quick-Release Skewers as a brass cam keeps our hubs in place.

And also match well to Blue Lug's Brass Stem Cap and spacer combinations.

Our new Mini-Rando Bag is a super versatile and easy to use setup for the Crazy Bars. Notice how I moved the cords to the upper loops. This kept all of my gear secure and safe.

I love the Day-Tripper Saddle Bag. Packs up nice and secure.

Bonus family riding photos:

 Adrian was riding her Neutrino prototype. More photos of that one to come!

Theo fell asleep while riding on the C&O. We may invest in Thule's stuffed animal crossbar attachment pillow for the future.