The order of effects :: Part I.

In 2003, a physicist at M.I.T. named Richard Muller wrote an article entitled "The Physics Diet" (and later "The Physics of Gluttony"). The premise of the articles is that the first law of thermodynamics, conservation of energy, applies directly to losing weight. The first-order effect that makes the most difference is simple: calories in versus calories out. If there's a positive energy balance, you gain weight. If there's a negative energy balance, you lose weight. All things equal means a constant weight.

The weight loss business has flourished despite this relatively simple idea. Why? The first law of thermodynamics is hard. Going to bed hungry is hard. Tracking your calories in tandem with exercise is hard. Food is everywhere and it's cheap. It's a lot easier to overeat than to put on those damn thermal tights and freeze briefly rolling out of the driveway. The dieting industry knows this. Like a baseball pitcher with a sub-80mph fastball, there's way more nuance and room for interpretation on edges, rather than in the fat part of the plate.

The result is a cacophony of second-order (and lower) effects being brought to the forefront, egged on by the impatience and desperation of those unwilling or unable to exhibit some willpower or to see exercise as something other than menial labour that must be gotten over with as quickly and painlessly as possible. You hear about these effects in percentage form all the time in "news" snippets from your chosen ideological information outfit, and no doubt there's a little validity to some of them. But, you have to weigh things based on the order of effect. Me drinking as much cold water as possible or only eating things at certain times does not outstrip "calories in versus calories out" over the long term as far as the effect it will have on my weight. Period.

Are there nuances and other effects, as well as health and nutritional matters, that will skew things from being a simple math equation? Of course. Just the amount of water retention, piss, and fecal matter you're carting around on any given day will turn a gentle downward curve into a jagged series of peaks and valleys if you zoom in tight on the data by weighing yourself everyday. This makes things a little nebulous if you're not taking a relaxed, healthy, long range view.

Nebulous entities breed internet discussion. Wildly. If things are unclear about why weight loss might go in fits and starts or why random, seemingly healthy people develop cancer...well then an army of bored souls can say whatever they want within the grayness, sticking in a finite red push pin. Muscle magically turning into fat and vice versa. Muscle evaporating faster than fat. Aspartame magically turning into sugar. Carbohydrates killing swaths of people. Fat killing swaths of people. Arguments ad nauseam.

This could only happen in a land of plenty like the First World. Now there are legions of folks wearing their dietary dogma on their sleeve, completely outstripping whatever supposed benefits they gain over people who "just don't get it" by living with a low rumble of stress, thinking about such things for an inordinate amount of time each day and microfiche-ing through the mental flowchart to make sure it jives with dogma "X" before loading their fork. All of this is usually perpetuated by someone selling something. Seriously, give it rest. I can say this because I lived it myself at one time.

We want the "best" thing/method/plan now, for fear of wasting our time, making sure that we maximize every possible effect down to the parallel of drinking only cold water to burn a few more calories. This is often done at the expense of day-to-day common sense. Looking in the rearview, after always looking for something that will really make you content - this time for sure, you'll see a whole lot of books, gadgets, food, and time composting in the rubbish heap. It's like spending your time on a rare moment away from work behind a digicam screen to insure thorough Flickr documentation of your freedom, so you won't forget what a great(?) time you had - and sharing with people who, for the most part, don't really care that much - instead of just enjoying it then, maybe taking a picture or two, and remembering most of it later. Good enough.

So how does this all apply to bicycles?

I don't see the bicycle industry as sinister or trying to take advantage of anxiety. Far from it. The business is full of intelligent people striving to do good and spread the positivity they've garnered from cycling. Even the most cynical and jaded have had at least some inkling of the euphoria that can come from riding a bike sometime in their life.

The order of effects plays into the cycling world too, though. Like folks in the First World who have a dizzying array of choices from tall and long grocery aisles, the cycling world has resilient components, great bearings, easy adjustability, stuff that stays tight, and a myriad of other things that we take for granted now that a cyclocrosser rolling on Endricks and rat traps in the 1950s would fall to his knees and grovel for.

As alluded to in the "Fuctionality as inspiration" posts, the curve of development flattens out as basic problems are solved, leaving brows furrowed in deep thought while trying to come up with reasons to buy new, "better" stuff. One then marches downward on the order of effects list, genuinely trying to make things better but in less quantifiable ways. There are all kinds of ways to do this, but most often it comes with trying to make something stiffer or lighter or both. That's all well and good. Unfortunately though, this striving comes with some baggage in the form of confusing new standards, proprietary stuff that might not be supported down the road, new oddball tools, etc. It's distinctly quiet when talk of long term service life (or even long term existence) comes up.

The cycling that I love and know best (and has grown more and more popular over the last decade) consists of long rides and lower average speeds, though not pedestrian. It comes in many forms: brevets, gran fondos, long MTB races, mixed surface touring, bikepacking, etc. As distances get further and service hours are bunched together in bigger blocks, you can't rely as much on frequent maintenance so it requires you to be a little more circumspect about what you put on your bike.

For the riding most people do, I feel that the benefits from adopting the ethos of the long slow distance ideology are wide-ranging and would alleviate some stress. There are a few areas on the bike where it's easy to fall into that trap of striving for things to be just that little bit better, despite the weak benefit/$ ratio.

The order of effects has to be examined more closely, and I'll do that in Part II.

>

Functionality as inspiration :: Part III.

Continued from Part I and Part II...

As I alluded to earlier, progress follows exponential arcs, both from a macro view and, if you zoom in really close, a micro view too. The macro view might show the jump from a dandy horse to penny farthing. The micro view of the same graph might be the jump between a steel single pivot sidepull and a modern aluminum dual pivot sidepull. It's all dependent on the perception of who you ask as everything is subjective, regardless of quantitative data. You'll certainly get different answers from me versus a wealthy Masters road racer versus a recumbent enthusiast versus a migrant train hopper.

I am firmly in the "bicycles as tools" camp. I understand that might put me in the same Venn diagram with people that have text-based websites or give overly verbose explicit instructions to waitstaff and grocery baggers, but I'm OK with that. Along with thinking about aircraft or minimalist racing vehicles, I think about hand tools and machinery that were made for my grandparent's generation: functional, repairable (or replaceable at the time with good vendor support), owner serviceable, and...after all that...aesthetically pleasant without extraneous showing off. I open my tool box and see "my nice hammer". I then take it and happily, as it is so well balanced and I know it well, pound the hell out of what I need to. Then I put it away. I don't gaze at it longingly like a deity, but I know it's good.

Charlie Cunningham, as well as some constructeurs in the heyday of technical trials before him, took this tack as well with bicycles. The resulting bikes were ideal for stage races and multi-day riding away from the workshop, giving excellent performance while stepping back and taking a longer view of cycling needs beyond laying down strong and fast numbers. Entities like field serviceability, long-term serviceability, and optimization of riding experience across a multitude of situations were seen as paramount. Bikes as tools to open up realms of possibility, within ourselves and across terra firma, rather than bikes as "nice bikes!" Bikes to be kept and used. A lot. Over time.

I don't say these things in an adversarial way, I like beautiful metalwork and paint and much as the next person. There are plenty of concours quality machines that also fit and work incredibly well, a true testament of the knowledge and skill of the craftsperson. I enjoy looking at these bikes and love hearing the excitement of their new owners. Sometimes though, with the reverence being paid and the deep thought/concern regarding aesthetic details, it's hard for me to imagine some of these bikes being crashed, or dropped, or grinding for days with bikepacking bags strapped on.

The facade centrism seems coupled with unbridled striving for "better" - often shown with the turnover of said machines in order to fund new, "better" projects...either due to a shift in interests or continued scrabbling up that exponential arc. That returns us to the graph above.

So much effort (and money) is spent to nudge farther up that curve, attempting to reach perfection at the top of the graph. New standards and designs for the backbones of drivetrain and steering systems come at a rate that sounds like an animator's flip book or your kid nephew playing with the Rolodex at the office. We've been high on the arc for a while thanks to things like cartridge bearings, reliable cassettes and freehubs, great chain advances, and certain non-aggravating clipless pedals to name a few. The top of the arc is a bitch. That's what leads to clever pockets all over every damn thing at the outdoor store; PEDs coursing through speeding foot, ski, and wheel athletes; and the ever quaking trash pile of 'obsolete' cellphones, music players, and computers.

There are problems to be solved and improvements to be made, no doubt. This stuff takes time. Through anxiety or desperation or (?), time is something no one seems to have as much of nowadays. Cunningham and others made their own stuff to engender improvement but did not present it to customers until after a long vetting period on their own machines. There are functional improvements always afoot in the bike world, but with that flattening arc comes some departure from rationality. Proprietary items repeatedly billed as solutions or advancements but offering marginal, anecdotal tweaking of the short-term curve and minimal long term support beyond a possible warranty swap don't seem that great to me. The modern computer/electronics/appliance model is not the one I would choose to follow for my "tools".

My take on bicycles is maybe a bit staid. OK, it is. I think about things in the context of longer distance, lower average speed cycling and bikepacking away from larger commercial centres for multiple days first and feel that translates well to the day-to-day cycling we all try to fit into our daily lives. Multi-surface bike riding for the experience beyond training and competition. This breeds some degree of conservatism that wasn't there with the visionary that built Cunningham bicycles, but it doesn't preclude me from learning from and applying the lessons borne from such revolutionary thinking over time in an exercise of pragmatism. The same goes for advancements that have risen out of the battle ala VHS vs. Beta. You can do the same.

For all the infinitesimal striving, eventually you have to give up and ride your bike, and your health and fitness is the most important variable in the equation. Doing so on a simple bike with fit as the priority that is also reliable, maintainable, and repairable over a long period is pretty rad and a good value. Standardization shouldn't be taken lightly and late adoption is often the most prudent plan.

There's more to say specifically on that tangent, so I'll save that for my next post: The Order of Effects.

Functionality as inspiration :: Part II.

Continued from Part I...

Before credit cards had large limits and tiny minimum payments, the idea of "advancement" was often a lot less amorphous than it can be now. There's reasons for this, but I'm not done talking about Charlie Cunningham's creations.

Cunningham rode a lot, and his innovations came from being on a bicycle saddle looking out, rather than standing to the side and pondering changes off the bike. Aesthetics held less sway than the resulting functionality. At the time for riding off-road: One pole had you riding a 30+ pound bike with slack cruiser-y angles and rudimentary cobbled components. The other pole had you getting jackhammered on a roadish bike.

General problem solving and a drive to make backcountry travel more enjoyable as well as reliable led to: Lightweight but conservatively built aluminum frames; more spirited designs incorporating more aggressive angles and lower trail; innovative rim brakes; wide range 2x6 drivetrains; lower Q-factors on dirt going bikes; Grease Guard designs for headsets, hubs, and pedals; newer, stiffer steerer interfaces; influential stem and saddle designs; 135mm rear hub spacing; wider hub flange spacing; new bearing applications; new quick release designs for both wheels and seatposts; and on and on...

Not every advancement "took" and Charlie wasn't necessarily the first for everything - there were plenty of passionate independent thinkers that came up with similar improvements, ranging from French constructeurs to Tom Ritchey to _________. But, like Richard Pryor with stand-up comedy or Dick Fosbury with the high jump, everything in off-road bicycle design before Charlie seems dated and everything after bears his mark, at least in a small way.

The parallel with aircraft designs is the unbridled pragmatism. You don't screw around with something that flies at five digit altitudes and is meant to safely transport a human from the ground, across the sky, and back to earth. This is augmented even further when this machine is placed in a kill-or-be-killed situation. Functional improvement over all. Make it work. Make it work beter.

Field testing over time makes it so.

Improvements that cause great leaps in performance are rare. There's refinement that occurs between these great leaps, producing a gentle exponential arc as performance approaches perceived perfection (until another "leap"). Manipulating this arc drives the bike world, to its benefit and detriment. Differentiating between true advancement and potential long-term aggravation isn't always easy when the data gathering comes via on-screen anecdote versus saddle-worn ass.

Sometimes acceptance of the status quo shows some wisdom and sometimes pushing upward is warranted, as determined by miles and hours in your two-wheeled wake. I'll talk about this in the last installment of the post next week.

Continued in Part III...

Functionality as inspiration :: Part I.

As I've said many times before, the work of Charlie Cunningham is a big influence on me. Charlie's father was a pilot and an interest in aeronautics planted the seeds for his unpainted aluminum creations, which seemed minimalist or crude (as the unkind said) on the surface but were found to be intricately thought out upon investigation. They were also far lighter, better handling, and easier to use/maintain (thanks to heavily modified or custom components) than most counterparts of the day. All business. Subjective aesthetic standards were secondary to performance in the field and repairability/long-term maintenance down the road.

When I think of this influence, I think of one of my favourite aircraft: the MiG-15. I don't think fondly of it because of its status as a warplane, but more as an embodiment of minimalist and functional execution that represented a marked leap forward in performance - despite the ominous task it was meant for. It wasn't the first jet of its kind, but it was the one that put a lot of the pieces together for modern fighter aircraft.

When the Korean War began in 1950, the United States had an early jet eventually known as the F-80 Shooting Star, a straight-winged plane mostly known now to aficionados as a trainer. While the UN forces had a jet age machine, the North Koreans had only propeller-driven relics at their disposal and the air war was initially very one-sided.

The North getting MiG-15s under the butts of trained pilots was a total game changer. The MiG-15 was incredibly light, fast, and easy to fly. The Russians used German research regarding wing sweep to make a swept wing fighter that was far more stable and maneuverable than any straight-winged plane. US fighters piloting F-80s and the F-84 Thunderjet (a straight-winged fighter-bomber) had their hands full dealing with this new threat.

This dichotomy, of course, was far more sinister than that of the holistically-minded Charlie Cunningham dealing with passive-aggressive snide remarks from those who strayed little from level top tubes, black shorts, black shoes, white socks, and shopworn copies of Eddie B's manual. I mean, you could die as opposed to being mildly annoyed.

The answer to the MiG-15 was the F-86 Sabre, also having swept wings. The initial F-86 was still behind the curve performance-wise, but was a little more refined and pilot-friendly (meaning: a heated and armoured cockpit). It did catch up as the war progressed. The F-86 was polished and smooth with countersunk holes and tidy labeling. The MiG-15 was hammered and riveted with no thoughts of the bearded vote at the air show concours d'elegance down the line...minimalist and effing rough. Want to fly it? Better put more clothes on and HTFU. Pilot protection? Your protection = your ability to shoot and not be shot and you've got an airborne sports machine to aid you.

Korean War era jets (as well as early sports cars and formula racers) are inspiring to me. A new age in performance borne by fundamental changes (jet engines vs. propellers + swept wings vs. straight ones + power/weight ratio mindful of handling vs. brute horsepower over all variables) and small groups of men building these new machines by hand. Aluminum, analog instruments, and fresh challenges.

A similar arc exists with Charlie Cunningham exercising similar drive and enthusiasm towards riding bikes in the dirt, as opposed to making bikes...to all our benefit. It's an important distinction to make and I'll talk more about in my next post(s)... 

Continued in Part II...

Isolation for revelation :: Part III.

Continued from Part I and Part II...

I first built a threadless specific flared drop mountain bike for Rudi Nadler in 2001. Rudi had experimented with Nitto Randonneur bars on his Landshark and Schwinn mountain bikes, so he had some inkling to the benefits of a flared drop setup. Being smaller (~5'6") and really flexible, it was easier for him to get a decent position on a regular mountain bike (the narrower Nitto bars helped too). Rudi decided he was ready for a bike specifically designed for flared drops (WTB Dirt Drops).

Since we were both in new-ish territory, we worked together on the design through a series of phone calls and letters mostly, becoming great friends in the process. The result was pretty out there. A 57cm effective TT (remember, Rudi ain't tall) coupled with a 90mm x 15° stem and a really long headtube. The tops of the bars ended up an inch or two above his saddle height. It fit him like a glove and bar none my favourite photo I've ever seen of my bikes has Rudi rallying a corner during a Tucson cross race in a tutu costume (in all his Jamie Farr look-a-like glory) in front of a group of three or four other riders. Rudi looked loose and relaxed, smiling as he looked "right" in jet fighter style while everyone around him showed signs of tension and effort in their faces and positions. Shoulders hunched, arms rigid, grimaced, white knuckled, and locked to narrow ill-placed traditional drops and narrow flat bars. A lot of this was Rudi of course, being fit and flexible, but to me and a lot of others (disturbing costume not withstanding), it was the best commercial for flared drop usage possible.

There was another wrinkle as I had become interested in riding fixed wheel off-road everywhere after years of singlespeed mountain biking, borne both from my riding fixed as a messenger in Atlanta and with the stories of Team Hugh Jass in Harrisonburg, VA riding 24 hour and 100 mile mountain bike races on completely clapped out bikes set up fixed with the most random jumble of parts possible. They were effing strong too. Rudi was intrigued and got into it too. Over the phone we compared notes and revelations as far as tweaking one's position as well as the bike. This too was nothing new, as the training bible of road cyclists through the 1970s, the CONI manual, alluded to the use of fixed wheels geared as low as what we were riding now on mountain biking terrain as a means not only to build pre-season fitness and souplesse but to help dial in position as well.

There's nowhere to hide as far as fit when you're riding a fixed wheel geared in the low 50s as far as gear inches. No standing and coasting. No stretching. No getting behind the saddle on sketchy descents. No rear brake. This sort of riding was pretty far away from anything we'd experienced. Even riding a singlespeed was pretty far removed despite the aesthetic similarities. You just didn't have the mobility on the bike that you had when you rode with a freewheel, multi-speed mechanisms or not. It proved to be a great thing for dialing in the nuances of threadless flared drop setups (as well as saddle position) for riding long distances, especially off-road. Again, we weren't really breaking new ground. This was all stuff learned by folks 80-90 years before us, who didn't have decent gloves, forgiving footwear, or a comfortable interface in their shorts. We were learning it independently through doing it ourselves.

I designed and built more bikes for flared drops, ranging from cross-ish bikes with larger clearances (which my friend Wade Beauchamp of Vulture Cycles later termed as "monstercross" - a name which stuck) to full-on 29" wheel mountain bikes. The resulting bikes worked well and I got good feedback, including plenty from people that had ridden flared drops since the 80s as well as people that owned bikes from Cunningham and Steve Potts. That meant a lot to me.

As time went on, more and more people became interested in flared drop specific bikes for the dirt (as well as for longer mixed surface riders and randonneurs) thanks to the internet. The rub though was that a custom frame wasn't necessarily possible for a lot of riders and there was no way that a lot of folks were going to shell out a large amount of money on such unknown, off-beat design parameters.

So, people wanted to start converting existing frames to flared drop usage with threadless stems, mostly mountain bikes that were made for using flats and risers. Most people were/are not successful in coming up with a setup that they stick with long term when trying to convert an existing frame, and there are reasons for that.

The first reason involves the nature of internet discourse. The internet is an amazing tool, but unfortunately it doesn't really engender patient investigation or problem solving. What I've witnessed via the screen is another glorified game of dart throwing that generally consists of buying a cheap 25-40° rise stem bolted to an already cut fork steerer and a crappy ripoff flared drop bar. This is understandable again because people don't want to invest money in something that they are unsure of. The problem is that there's no real plan or modicum of conundrum rectification introduced into the process...so the result is a bar that is too far away and too low, or too high and close, both of which suck. So, via internet logic, drop bars must suck as well and on to the next distraction. A textual game of egoism ensues with the vociferous blind leading the inquisitive blind and the snowball grows. I'm not saying this to be snarky or smug. I'm saying this because I see it play out over and over again...and not just with flared drop conversions.

Second reason involves the specific needs of flared drop bars and how most modern "normal" frames (especially mountain bikes) are often ill-suited to this sort of conversion without a pretty wacky custom stem being fabricated for it. This is thinking about things purely from a "fit" perspective, without even thinking about handling or traction at each end of the bike - we aren't starting from scratch. Design always depends on the rider, but flared drop bars really throw a wrench in the works due to their necessary placement and due to modern opinions about what a bike should look like.

Everything comes down to contact points...set specifically by saddle height, handlebar height, and cockpit length (I measure this from the center of the saddle to the center of the handlebar clamp, others do it differently). 

Saddle height is pretty easy for most people to get dialed in, and it's really the most important piece of the puzzle when setting up flared drops as bar height in relation to the saddle is so important. If you take two 5'11" riders: one with a long torso + a 740mm saddle height and another with long legs + a 790mm saddle height, the resulting setups (stem choice + spacer stack, or frame design if building something custom) will be very different. As a rule, riders with longer legs for their height present more challenges as far as getting situated with flared drops (and many off-the-peg bikes for that matter). Riders with shorter legs for their height can be much easier.

Handlebar height when dealing with flared drops usually means getting the tops of the bars around saddle height, maybe a little higher for shorter riders and at saddle height or a little lower for riders 6' and taller. Everyone is different and we're just talking in ballpark terms right now. You're going to be setting the bars higher than the flats or risers on your mountain bike, much higher than the tops on your cyclocross bike, and way higher than the tops on your road bike.

So here's the important part, and why flared drops throw a wrench in the works: The trick is to get a reasonable cockpit length that allows you to ride properly while having that higher bar height. I know I've said this before in other articles/postings and it sounds simple...but sometimes getting everything to line up when you have too many set variables (e.g. a stock frame)is like trying to hit a moving target going away from you with a water balloon as you hang out the window of your buddy's rolling pickup truck. Let's look at the long legged 5'11" rider mentioned before...we'll call him Mr. X.

All of Mr. X's bikes have 175mm cranks and his saddle height on all his bikes is around 790mm, give or take a few millimetres. Mr. X has a 29" wheeled mountain bike with flat bars (11° sweep) and a cockpit length of 750mm. Next to that bike in the shed is a "gran fondo" sort of road bike for doing longer rides with a cockpit of 725mm and the bars set for riding primarily on the hoods. Mr. X also has a cyclocross race bike with a cockpit length of 720mm with traditional drops set a little higher than he has on the road bike. All in all, pretty normal. Everything is comfortable and fits him pretty well.

For those coming from mountain biking and wanting to ride flared drops off-road, I generally look at their mountain bike cockpit and get feedback on how things are fitting with their flat or riser bars, thinking of what adjustments might need to be made. Then, based on what I've learned over the years, I take that adjusted cockpit length number and subtract anywhere from 20-40mm from it, again depending on the situation and said feedback. I understand that this is all rather general, but we're again only dealing in ballpark figures to illustrate differences. So, for Mr. X:

750mm - 30mm = 720mm

You can see that the resulting number is the same as what Mr. X already has for his cyclocross bike, but don't forget that we are trying to replicate this cockpit number with a much higher bar position and a drops-centric hand position. Remember, again, that as bar height is raised, cockpit length decreases as head angles are slacker than 90°. Sometimes it's not easy to get all the dots to connect because:

- With mountain bikes, effective top tube lengths and head tube lengths are set for using shorter stems with flats/risers, as well as providing adequate front-centre for clearing obstacles and descending rougher terrain. This means that top tubes are generally too long coupled with head tubes being too short (29" wheel bikes can be easier with their necessary higher head tube bottoms) to make flared drop set up easy with most off-the-shelf stems. This isn't always the case though, as riders with a low saddle height for their physical height have some hope in dialing things in with readily available stems and careful stock frame choice.

- With modern all-road and cyclocross bikes, effective top tubes and head tubes are designed for drops being primarily ridden on the hoods and for weighting the front wheel more aggressively for cornering purposes. This means that top tubes are generally too short coupled, again, with head tubes being too short as well. It's a little easier to retrofit a cross frame for flared drops, but it requires a much longer/higher rise stem (possibly needing to go custom), especially on a more aggressively designed "real" race bike. The aesthetic result certainly isn't for everyone either, especially when the bike has a level top tube.

So you can see that a flared-specific design for a certain size person kind of falls in a no man's land versus more traditional stock offerings: top tube length falling between that of a MTB and cross bike + a taller head tube top than both. It is possible (and I do this for anyone that's not a full-on flared drop adherent) to design from scratch to allow for both flared drop usage and an alternate bar setup, be it an allowance for using flats/risers (or even Jones bars/backswept bars for taller riders) or more traditional hoods-centric drop bars, by specifying different stems and spacer stacks...all the time being mindful of handling concerns, etc. but making fit/comfort the main priority.

The resulting bikes are certainly not traditional in any way, shape, or form. Here the spectre of internet discussion rares its head again. The brain-to-keyboard wiring diagram in regards to anonymous electro-"interaction" is far more elementary than the brain-to-mouth one involved with talking to someone face-to-face. I've seen a fair amount of quick-draw skepticism regarding head tube length, stem selection, etc. about bikes set up for flared drops. In all fairness, some of this is justified as a number of people have taken things that I've said over the years and run with the ball Heisman-style, ending up in places that result in a mystifying bike setup that seems only good for quick test spins on the street and rapid documentation on the internet...or nothing, actually. Fair play. Translation: They look terrible and won't provide long term riding satisfaction for the rider. I see it over and over for people trying to retrofit many kinds of "alt-bars."

But, for a thought out design with contact points pondered and usage accounted for, there can be some criticism that lacks foundation beyond: "That ain't right" when it comes to aesthetics, especially for tall riders who always have to ride bikes outside the realm of a 56cm x 56cm road bike or a size M mountain bike. The fact of the matter is that some lucid pragmatism went into the design work and things are the way they are for a reason. Not to be rude, but there's a lot of intellectual laziness amongst those who are bored at work with a quick connection courtesy of the boss, spending massive amounts of time ejaculating pontification like an unmanned firehose. Hey, I might do similar in a parallel situation. But nothing, nothing is more representative of the lowest common denominator than an internet counterpuncher. Especially a passive aggressive one. Why choose that tack?

So, check it out for yourself and you'll get some inkling of what's up. I've basically given you the formula to get in the strike zone as far as flared drop setup. Take your cockpit and adjust accordingly, set your bar height, take your saddle height, and draw it up for yourself. There is about 1000% more information available to aspiring bike designers than there was for anyone (including me) starting up 10+ years ago. Take your contact points and either get a big-ass piece of butcher paper and some basic drafting tools from the art store, or check out a basic bike design program and see what you come up with as well as what pitfalls you encounter. You'll see.

The devil is in the details of course, as this is a very rough guide - I can't really articulate everything nor would I want to. I'm still learning myself, even after a decade of fooling around with it.

Through the mid-2000s, especially with the On-One Midge bar coming on the scene and taking up the torch from the venerable WTB Dirt Drop, more and more people became interested in flared drops. It became my niche and soon some smaller companies began coming up with some nice off-the-peg designs that would be easier to dial in fit-wise. Not custom of course, but a hell of a lot easier than starting with a "normal" mountain bike.

Then Salsa came along with the Fargo, which was a big deal for sure. Definitely a pivotal moment for flared drops on frames with threadless headsets. Now there was someone that had taken on producing a large number of unusual framesets. Personally, as an advocate of such designs, I was pretty stoked.

Time for another aside...

Around a year(?) ago, I had a call from another framebuilder asking me what I thought about the Salsa Fargo. I said I thought it was great and I was glad to see this sort of design get wider acceptance. The reason for the call was that apparently someone had called one of the product team at Salsa and started freaking out about Salsa stealing his design or stealing his ideas or something. My shouting at a stranger on the phone (or really anyone) is about as likely as me building full suspension bikes (which are great tools for their particular job, by the way). Nope, not me and I have no idea who it could have been...even with my paltry output I don't know of anyone who has dealt with this sort of design more than me.

It's not the first time I've been asked this sort of thing. Standing in the bike shop in Salida, CO during the time period that the 29" wheel movement really started to spread its wings, a rep for Gary Fisher asked me sheepishly what I thought of the brand new Gary Fisher Rig and if I was offended, since I was already a singlespeed 29er specialist very early in the "movement." Hell no! More singlespeeds, especially 29" wheel ones = more better. The greater availability for such things means easier experimentation for those on a budget, further refining their preferences and maybe setting them up for getting something custom built later on down the road. It also opens up the possibilities for great components to be developed when there are enough applicable bikes around to bolt them to.

I felt this way as the singlespeed movement gained steam too. I started building in 1998. That year, I went to UBI where Mark from Paragon Machine Works brought me a brand new flanged track end design for me to use when building my frame there. It was round (maybe made from round bar stock) and about 1/2 the length of the Paragon ends I use now (which were originally designed for Moots in the early-2000s, the design was refined later...you can see all three iterations through all the frames I've built). I was all about singlespeeding and thought I'd like to build only bikes with track ends. Two of my fellow classmates were from Japan and I said, "I don't think I can really specialize like that. I mean, can I really sell 50 frames like that a year?" The American ex-pat from Japan said, "I don't know, there are a lot of people in the world." Needless to say, that turned out to be prophetic. Not long after that I saw an ad for a new company called "1x1", of course later to become Surly, selling their "Rat Ride". Between me, those guys, Spot (the first), a few other small builders who were there even earlier (mostly in California - Rock Lobster, Blue Collar, Hunter, etc.), and some more cruiser-y offerings...that was singlespeeding then. I didn't get wound up about the whole thing blowing up, I was happy to see more offerings when the larger manufacturers started latching on. Without small guys to lay the groundwork, the big guys won't tool up to spread things to the masses.

Oh, and the fixed gear thing too. Granted, I'm not experienced with the streetwise trickster program, just the dirt riding end of the spectrum. I did messenger on a fixed gear road bike when no one else really did it much in Atlanta, but it was because I was sick of blowing up BMX freewheels in the rain and losing money (no work = no pay), justifying it as "training" for doing long mountain bike races. Anyway, from some weird collective of forces, or just general pretension, I seem to be an early adopter of things that become more popular down the line.

That's when you have to look at your own motives. Are you doing this stuff to be different for the sake of your own self-esteem, or are you doing it because you think it's rad and really think that other people would like it? The High Fidelity-esque contrarian is tired, I was around enough of those folks working in college radio. What has two thumbs and was/is guilty of it too? This guy [pointing at self with thumbs].

I really like the way flared drops feel and I think others would too if set up on them properly. I'll sum up about that shortly.

Back on topic...

With the Salsa Fargo on the market making things seem a little more normal, I have to say it's a good thing. The Fargo makes setting up a flared drop cockpit easier, and it's marketed as an adventure bike with a bit more fork rake (the original ones had 50-55mm fork rake, less now) that makes carrying weight up front feel nice, not to mention circumvents some toe clearance issues. My approach is a little different as I usually design a more spirited front end (usually 72° and 45mm rake), allowing for minimal weight up front (say, bedding for bikepacking lashed to the bars) and a little more aggressive handling and lighter load carrying. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. I'm glad for it just like I was for the Rat Ride, Fisher 29ers, Fisher Rig, Cannondale 1FG, Rivendell Quickbeam, Specialized Tricross Singlecross, etc. etc. etc. Why feel threatened that others are coming to similar conclusions - unless your motives are less than genuine? Exactly.

So why all this trouble and thought into an odd bicycle part? Simple. I tried it and I really liked it for the kind of riding that I enjoyed doing. Lots of seated and standing climbing and long distances to places (like cycling was originally) away from others, including other cyclists. For me, the properly set bars made climbing a pleasure and added some grip security for riding rigid in rougher terrain. I want to continue spreading that, because it is something that resonates within me and I think is very much an elixir for our over-stressed nervous systems.

The pace of life now is such that we spend lots of time flitting about, cortisol coursing through us, and we lose sight of the fact that we're all going to die eventually. When we do, we let go of everything...no matter how worried we were about it. 

Riding a comfortable, simple, reliable bike lets us let go of some of it now.

Isolation for revelation :: Part II.

Continued from Part I...

Obviously, road racing changed as WWII approached. Road events became less of a kilometre-laden slog and more intense. There had always been team tactics and freewheels allowed for riders to derive greater benefit from echelon formations, etc. to get shelter from the wind. Rules in major events became less draconian and vehicular support improved as motorcycles and automobiles did. Since effort increases exponentially with speed due to air resistance, it's natural that that things took the tack they did.

Bars became narrower and the height they were set at came down (slowly over time). Brakes slowly improved too, as did the comfort of brake hoods...allowing the hoods to become a more dominant position. Frames became smaller while maintaining similar cockpit lengths, wheelbases became shorter, and trail increased. All this is indicative of bikes that are meant to be ridden in close proximity to other riders on better surfaces, and the application and subsequent improvement of multi-speed drivetrains accelerated this even further. Efficiency improved, elbows were brought in (you see recommendations in the 50s and 60s for riders to bend their hooks slightly in and up to allow the elbows to sit closer to the body). Road racing was still immensely hard physically, but it became much more of a team sport and chess match. Gone were the days of 400+km at one stretch, mostly on dirt. Queensbury Rules had supplanted 50+ round bareknuckle savagery in the context of cycling and the sport as a spectacle improved greatly for it.

So the flared drop was left behind for "real" racing, save for the few oddballs piecing together cyclocross bikes from ancient parts jumbles. Of course there were still adherents amongst the tourists, audax riders, and general dirt road free agents.

Flared drops didn't reappear on many peoples' radar until mountain biking began to pick up steam in the 1980s, where the idea of exploring the dirt in more remote areas on rougher terrain entered the general cycling consciousness again. There were great enthusiasts in this burgeoning period who were both great innovators and very interested in cycling history at the same time. Charlie Cunningham (WTB/Cunningham/Indian), Steve Potts (WTB/Steve Potts), Grant Petersen (Bridgestone), Wes Williams (Ibis/Willits - who drew inspiration from riding a Bruce Gordon Rock'n'Road off-road with larger 700c wheels, which put things in motion for bringing about the 29" mountain bike tire), and many others I'm remiss in not mentioning were instrumental in sowing the seeds for a flared, "multi-position" drop bar for dirt usage again on a wider scale. The initial result of the enthusiasm was a really high quality, sleeved, heat-treated bar designed by Cunningham and made by Nitto...branded as a WTB and/or Specialized product with a few different designations (e.g. RM-2).

The WTB Dirt Drop was/is the bomb. I was lucky enough to start my own flared drop experimentation when you could still order new (NOS) WTB Dirt Drops from a few bicycle part distributors. This was around 1999-2000.

I had ridden mountain bikes for a number of years and built a few at that point. Like most new framebuilders, the way to get further practice and to showcase improving skills was to build new bikes for yourself at a regular rate. I had been riding an old Torelli road frame all over Colorado and other places in the west (as documented in 700see #1), fueled by the nostalgia of doing the same all over the great fireroads of North Georgia on old steel road bikes before I moved to the Rockies.

The Torelli didn't really fit that great (way too small) and it was a bit of a bone by the time I had it. It was time to build a 'cross-ish bike that I would ride everywhere like a mountain bike. I was going to build it around WTB Dirt Drops sourced from QBP, a Nitto Technomic stem (as it seemed bomber), and a 1" threaded Kinesis Crosslight fork.

The bike came out well from a fit perspective, though it was a bit wambly for its size since I used seat tube(!) material for the top and down tubes. A real flexiflyer. I had chosen to build for flared drops as riding a road frame with traditional drops down washed out mining roads was less than ideal for braking and general confidence with the more hoods-dominant hand position. The hand position possible with the WTBs seemed much better for standing climbing as well as descending. It was also inspired some confidence having a sleeved, heat-treated bar in front of me when jumping off or running into stuff.

The drawing of this bike was the linchpin for design modalities that I use to this day. I knew that the dominant hand position was much lower on the bar, so that required a higher bar position. I took measurements from both the 44cm Nitto road bars I had on the Torelli and from the WTBs and I liberally lengthened my cockpit from what was on the ill-fitting 58cm Torelli (56cm TT!). With this information I placed my contact points (specifically hands and butt) where I thought they needed to be and designed the bike underneath using a 12cm Nitto Technomic stem, a titanium Litespeed post, and 170mm Mavic cranks.

The resulting bike was pretty nuts compared to something off-the-peg. I'm not crazily tall (6'2") though I do have a Larry Holmes-like wingspan and long legs to match. The bike had a 63cm effective top tube, a longer headtube than you'd see on a 60 or 62cm stock cross bike, and the tops of the bars slightly below saddle height at my preferred stem quill insertion (arrived at after some mileage and fitness gain).

This design gave me some insight into why the pre-war bikes were the way they were, as I alluded to before, with their higher bar positions allowing full use of flared hooks. Raising the bars meant they were brought closer to you as head tube angles are slacker than 90°. To have a proper cockpit with a higher bar position meant a much longer effective top tube, and therefore longer front-centre, not necessarily a bad thing for riding longer mileage on bad surfaces. 

It's definitely not the setup for modern road racing, with its importance on aerodynamics and cornering speeds. It isn't the setup for modern cyclocross racing either, with the same needs for cornering speeds and the required intensities on relatively non-technical courses...as well as shouldering and carrying the bike. To a modern road or cross racer, a flared-specific design doesn't initially inspire as much confidence during hard, tight cornering on pavement or hardpack with the position of the hands being higher and farther back in relation to the front axle...it kind of feels like steering on teflon initially. With practice though, you can still ride it plenty quick and it feels great when riding on more varied surfaces like you'd see on a long mixed bag ride incorporating road, dirt road, and mountain bike trails. You know, bike riding.

It was an eye opening experience. Now remember, this was before the internet was rife with framebuilding information. I didn't participate in the one ongoing discussion board that I knew of at the time since it seemed sort of obnoxious, I pretty much did my own thing and I urge others to give things a go without doing reams of research. Again: Sequestering yourself away from the masses can be a positive thing as far as engendering real learning and experience.

Using contact points (adjusting those as necessary first) and knowing a few general variables beforehand (e.g. frame drop, necessary clearances, brake reach if applicable, frame angles to fit the body and application, etc...), the bike would pretty much design itself and often it would turn out a hell of a lot different than if you had thought about using a certain top tube length and head tube length beforehand. The latter pretty much seemed like throwing darts to me from the word go. Doing things the former way seemed logical and, you know, custom.

I rode the hell out of that initial bike, more than I have on any other bike I've owned. Lots of 5+ hour rides on the tracks all over the east side of Leadville. Also, commuting in season 1-2 times a week 80 miles round trip over Tennessee Pass to my part-time weekend radio gig in the Vail Valley. I raced a few 100-mile mountain bike races with it too, including a nice ride at the Brian Head 100...missing a sub-9 ride by stupidly missing a turn in the singletrack and having to backtrack.

I then went to Cascade Cream Puff and didn't have as nice a time, from a racing perspective anyway. When pre-riding some of the Alpine Trail, I hit a chuckhole at high speed and managed to crack my Nitto stem on the quill shaft, cocking my bars to the left about 5°. I had a disconcerting ride back down to my campsite and, with the help of friendly Oregon locals, put out the APB for a decent 1" quill mountain stem to ride the race with. Paul's Bicycle Way of Life in Eugene saved me with a UNO MTB stem from the parts bin, only for me to end up balling up big time in the bunch grass during the race and folding up my front wheel. Doh. Later in the summer, I went through similar when I was taken out in a crash by other riders in the soon-to-be-even-bigger-zoo that is the Leadville Trail 100.

I had problems with the threaded headset/quill stem on a few other occasions. I didn't complain as I was obviously riding things above and beyond their intended purpose. It was time to start thinking about a flared drop specific design utilizing a threadless front end.

This was nothing new of course, as the flared drop mountain bike pioneers mentioned before had dealt with this. Charlie Cunningham came up with his own proprietary system circumventing the threaded designs of the time. Charlie and Steve Potts also fabricated LD stems that did the same. With Cunningham and later Wes Williams (Willits), the bar positions were maybe a bit more aggressive than some folks might like for technical descending. Both Charlie and Wes were/are tall, fit, and skilled guys where having a longer, lower cockpit in that context would be a little more acceptable. The LD stems (straight up with a gentle curve forward...hence Limp D*ck) allowed for good drop bar placement on bikes with effective top tubes meant for flat mountain bike bars with a bit of backsweep. I felt that I'd rather have the option of using stems that were readily available off-the-shelf and could be replaced easily. LD stems were custom jobs and really not much fun to make, from what I understood anyway. 

An added complexity was the fact that I wanted the ability to use off-the-shelf forks as well, mainly for ease of replacement in case the custom fork made for the frame was ruined in an accident. This was no big deal for mountain bike frames, with their longer axle-to-crown lengths. It was a big deal though once you got to road and cyclocross forks on bikes that were meant for taller riders with high saddle heights. For the most part (and still today) the longest steerers available were ~300mm. With a tall rider, that often meant using a rather high rise stem (+30-40°) or having a custom stem fabricated, often with pretty out there dimensions. For example, when I built myself a new flared drop specific bike in 2003(?) for use with a threadless headset, I had Rick Hunter make me a 165mm x 35° stem (imitating the design that Wes Williams used for Ibis Scorchers and their Crescent Moon bars) so I could get the bar position I needed while using every bit of a 300mm steerer with a standard cyclocross fork design (400mm a-c with 45mm rake). Good quality super long steerers really weren't known to me at the time. I was torn about "standover" too with my dirt riding background. Now, it's easy to get a threadless 1 1/8" 400mm steel steerer for larger, taller riders and standover concerns are overstated (IMO) for all but real, techy mountain biking. The longer steerers allow me to spec more "normal" stems (e.g. 120mm x 15°) for taller riders with requisite longer headtubes. I still worry about a fork with a 300+mm steerer being ruined after a collision (like one with a vehicle or a log) and the rider being stuck waiting for a new custom fork or having limited choices off-the-shelf to get rolling again.

To be continued in Part III...

Isolation for revelation :: Part I.

NOTE :: I originally was going to post 'Isolation for revelation' as one big post, but it's just too long - especially in these days of internet attention spans, so here is Part I with more to come:

That's my bike above. My only bike at this juncture. It probably will be for a while. I built it 5+ years ago, I think, and it's a constant reminder that my work is much nicer now. If it had been built for a customer, I would have taken the hacksaw to it, thrown it in the bin, and started over. The tire clearance is tighter than it should be and it's about as well aligned as I am. I didn't like it at first, but it grew on me to the point where the setup changes with regards to stems, spacers, and saddle positions have varied only slightly over that five year period, mostly influenced by real time flexibility and fitness. I suppose that's some testament to design/fit. But overall, it's a mess...1.125" > 1" shimmed headtube, 1.125" > 1" shimmed steerer clamp, 31.8mm > 25.4mm shimmed bar clamp, 50+mm chainline on a bike that only fits 32mm tires with a 450mm+ rear end, crooked rear triangle, Powergrips, etc. The mechanic often drives the rattiest car. No different here. Not a good commercial but that's the way things ended up. It feels and works great. If I built something new, it would be about the same give or take a few millimetres here and there.

But, that's all after the obvious aesthetic questions, e.g. "WTF?"

I'm of the opinion that sequestering yourself away from the masses can be a positive thing as far as engendering real learning and experience, distancing yourself from the incessant theorizing and subsequent regurgitation masquerading as knowledge. That's not to dis social networking or internet forums, which can be positive, but more to point out that new discoveries are often borne from silence and self-exploration independent of "gain."

My own journey of riding and then specializing in bikes for flared drop bars came about in a pretty roundabout way - so I thought I'd talk about how I learned some things about using bars such as the WTB Dirt Drop, On One Midge, Salsa Woodchipper, and others.

As most of you know, flared drop bars were once the norm for sporting bikes that were meant to be ridden quickly. Pre-WWI up until the late 1930s or so saw road racers, cyclo crossers, and fast tourists using drop bars set quite high by today's standards with the hooks bent outward to allow for both a natural, supported hand position in the hooks and for wrist clearance when standing and climbing.

This choice was certainly not based on aerodynamics, but rather on drivetrain, brakes, and the nature of long road events at that time. The majority of go-fast riders before the late 1930s (and many for long after) were riding fixed wheel (especially in Commonwealth countries) or single freewheel (on the Continent). 

On the subject of drivetrain, allow me to digress for a moment...
  
With the popularity of fixed wheel bikes over the last five years or so, I've seen some pretty over-the-top statements from rather zealous + excitable (read: new) fixed riders attributing super-human feats to the hardmen of yore, knocking off multiple grand tours on direct drive drivetrains as well as leaping over alpine ranges and deflecting bullets with barrel chests in  incredible displays of wine-soaked machismo.

No doubt that you had to be resilient to be a good professional racer in the pre-war days. But, racing back then doesn't differ from today's racing in the fact that every available competitive advantage was studied and experimented with. The amount of fixed wheel riding that happened, for instance, in the Tour de France pre-WWI is grossly exaggerated. The ever changing rules of the Tour (especially in the early days) coupled with two terrible human conflicts destroying large swaths of Europe make nailing down equipment rule minutia from year to year well nigh impossible for even the most ardent cycling history writers like Woodland, Willcockson, Mullholland, the McGanns, etc. There were certain stages pre-WWI that riders were required to ride fixed. There were even Tours where the bulk of the route was ridden fixed (e.g. 1911). But, the fact of the matter is that the freewheel is far more prevalent in early Tour history and there was plenty of experimentation with multi-speed drivetrains (in the form of internally geared hubs like Sturmey-Archers) before 1937 and not in the second "tourist" class. This includes legendary riders like Lapize and Alavoine.

There's some queer sentimentalism regarding a time that none of us lived in. I'm guilty of it for sure...turning things black and white, grainy, and cinematic. Riding a fixed wheel off-road in the mountains is difficult, even now with all the technical advancements we take for granted like bearings that work and stuff that stays tight. Those guys back in the day wanted to do well and get paid. People in the Civil War wanted to go home. People living through food rationing wanted to consume more than they got.

Wanting to ride a fixed wheel or singlespeed is fine on its own. No justification necessary, especially if you want to do it well and are accepting of your mechanical limitations. No different than creating intricate skateboard tricks on a small patch of concrete (ala Rodney Mullen) or difficult rolling flatland maneuvers on a BMX bike at your local tennis court (ala Kevin Jones). Positive mental space can come from sequestering yourself and pursuing something that resonates with you.

Back to the topic at hand...

If you've spent time riding a single cog drivetrain, you know what it's like climbing any sort of grade. You have to get off your ass and lay down some power if you're going to maintain any sort of momentum. Having a good climbing position (seated or standing) on the bike as well as some modicum of fitness is one of the pure joys of cycling. Getting to the point where you look forward to climbing and steer clear of negativity when the track points upward is a big step and it's one that will come if you stick with riding a singlespeed or fixed gear. You don't have a choice if you want to really explore.

It was no different pre-war, and cycle racing back then leaned heavier towards the "battle of wills" end of the scale versus "tactical savviness," due to lesser vehicle support, lesser knowledge of the real-time race picture, longer events, rougher courses, cruder nutrition, less mechanical reliability, and greater general discomfort (meaning: contact points abraded).

With these realities, general comfort and climbing prowess held great importance. Also, brakes existed in name alone with wambly steel levers and flexy steel sidepulls. Not something you would actuate from the hoods for any sort of speed scrubbing. Mild steel forks (especially their steerers) didn't inspire a great deal of confidence either going down a goat track.

The result of all this gives us the flared drop bar. The bars were set high, with the tops of the bars at saddle height or perhaps a bit above. The flare of the hooks would closely mimic the angles your hands sat at naturally with your arms relaxed at your sides. The tips of the hooks would be angled downward to provide the broadest platform possible for your hand, also instilling some confidence in rougher terrain by allowing a rider to maintain a lighter grip on the bar without as much worry of a hand being knocked off. A skilled rider could ride lighter on his bike, allowing things to flow more naturally, safely attaining greater speed while being easier on his equipment. This hook position also provided a good platform for braking, allowing the rider to at least make some attempt at slowing down when necessary.

To see this in action, watch this short film of a French cyclocross race from 1925, paying special attention to 0:55-1:27 ► LE 2 EME CRITERIUM

Frame design was different then of course. The slack head tube and seat tube angles, large fork rake (and resulting low trail), and long chainstays are fodder for a whole other discussion. What is pertinent is general frame size. Frames for a given rider were much larger than they would be today...a longer effective top tube and a taller head tube specifically. This made things easier to set the bars in an advantageous way for flared drops while still maintaining a cockpit length that allowed the rider to breathe and relax while still having the ability to lay down some watts going uphill. Standover clearance was not on anybody's radar then, of course. I'll go into more detail about this later in the post, but suffice to say that these pre-war bikes laid the foundation for what would be necessary later on to design modern off-road flared drop specific bike using newer technology.

To be continued in Part II...

►

It begins again...