Sturmey Archer 3 Speed Hubs

Have been working on a renovation project this week, a Raleigh 20 folding bike. The bike was complete and looked to be in pretty good condition, apart from renewing the usual tires, tubes and cables, everything else has cleaned up nicely and gone back together without replacement of any internal parts. Back in the day they built things to last.

The Beast Laid Bare

                 As is often the case with bikes like this, I am the first person to see the inside of them since they were put together, this bike was no different and when it came time to open up the 3 speed Sturmey hub I was not sure what to expect. The hub was still working, albeit a little clunky in the changes, nevertheless I took that as a good sign. As is usual with the big hubs all the grease that had been originally packed in there had long since turned to a wood like consistency but, once all that had been chipped out of there, the parts showed very little sign of wear. These hubs never fail to disappoint, I have lost count of how many of them that I have rebuilt over the years but I have never had to scrap one.

The Gear System. 2nd gear is direct drive, 1st gear is a decrease of 25% and 3rd gear is an increase of 33% over direct. Clever stuff.

Butyl versus Latex. The Great Debate

Every year, as sure as leaves turn and fall, the perennial debate of "what are better butyl or latex tubes?" rears its head in the store. This year is no exception, brought to life by a group of riders traveling across the country and looking for a mediator.  Now I have learnt long ago when to keep my head down and look busy and this was one of those times. The rest of their trip gives me a headache just thinking of it. Anyway I thought that I might offer my thoughts on the subject here, where it is quiet…

                Firstly a little history, back in the day, the only game in town was latex rubber, basically latex is the stuff you pull out of trees and plants that can be formed into a rubber. Most plants exude some form of latex when they are cut or injured in some way. One tree in particular ‘Hevea brasiliensis’ was found to have great potential for commercially made latex rubber. Now I am no chemist so I will cut the lesson short on manufacturing natural latex, suffice to say it is produced from trees.  I should say that natural latex is, as it can be synthetically manufactured as well but originally everything from gloves to tires to condoms were made of natural plant based latex. Now everything was progressing fine until the advent of WWII. Amid worries about supply of rubber for everything from tire tubes to condoms a push was made for a substitute. Along came butyl, proper name Isobutylene Isoprene Rubber. The basis for this compound was developed by the German company BASF in the early thirties but was developed into what we know as butyl today by a couple of guys at Standard oil just before the onset of the war. Anyway I think that covers the how and the why but what is the difference and benefits of the 2 when it comes to your bike.

                I will agree that there are benefits to a latex inner tube and paired with a suitable tire they can be felt by most competent riders. The benefit comes in the form of better rolling resistance due to better or faster elasticity. When rolling, the tube is compressed and then, as it rolls along it springs back to its original profile. At the contact point the tire has a portion of its profile squashed to the road, obviously tire pressure and profile all factor in but as it is rolling the section that is leaving contact has to bounce back, the quicker this happens the less contact patch there is and by default the less drag. Latex is like a huge tight spring and it snaps back quickly. Butyl on the other hand acts like a hydraulic shock and bounces back slowly and in a controlled way, the energy is absorbed along with the heat.

                Other benefits include better feel when generally riding, for the reasons mentioned above, the tube also benefits cornering and basic feel.

A few things to consider when running Latex tubes.

·         Compared to butyl air leeches out quicker from a latex tube. Get used to pumping them up before the event to ensure proper psi.

·         Because of the high permeation rate, as mentioned above, do not use CO2 to inflate them. CO2 permeates through latex much quicker than regular air which is predominantly nitrogen.

·         They are lighter than a regular butyl tube, although some of the ultra-lite butyl are comparable. I have never been a big fan of the ultra-lite butyl tubes, they are extremely flimsy and the failure rate on them is very high which in my opinion negates any gain, especially on race day. Latex tubes in comparison, despite their delicate nature are surprisingly durable. They will shrug off lots of abuse. They will find any weaknesses in your rim tape though so be careful to install good tape well.

A standard Latex tube.

A latex tube will be beneficial to any good road race tire to a certain degree. That gain can vary from about 1.2 watts to about 2.8watts. Using a supple, high thread count tire makes a big difference. On tires utilizing some form of protective aramid belt or a thicker rubber tread the benefit will be considerably less.

Over the years latex has been definitely pushed under a rock when it comes to bicycle inner tubes and, honestly, that is probably the best for most riders. Butyl is much more suitable to the needs of most cyclists. It is thick and offers a little more protection and durability than latex. Butyl holds air better, it still needs topping off regularly but compared to latex it is significantly less permeable.

 Latex still has a place though, for those riders looking for ultimate performance from body and machine latex tubes can be a benefit. At this level any performance gain is always minimal but it is there. Running a quality latex tube in a quality race tire on race day is another of those gains.

Tour of Britain 2013

The 2013 Tour of Britain dates have just been released and mark the 10th anniversary of the event. The route will be finalized and made public next spring but the dates are as follows; Sunday September 15th to Sunday 22nd September. The tour this year will also team with the ride London event that will take place in August.
www.tourofbritain.com
www.ridelondon.co.uk

Aston Martin Bikes

News this morning from the good folks at Aston Martin, builders of some of the best looking cars on the planet and of course James Bond would be walking everywhere if not for them. Well it seems that they felt the need to design a bike worthy of their name and came up with the "One-77" limited to a run of 77 and with a price tag of 25,000 pounds, roughly $40,000. Their website is a little sketchy on details but heck they look cool.

New Lights

Another light, well it is the season, the Cateye "Nano". Lots of lights to choose from these days, the usual standard aa and aaa battery units, these are fine but the cost adds up quickly replacing batteries every five minutes. Rechargeable ones, with the battery pack that hangs in the bottle cage or a little bag under the top tube are o.k but a little inconvenient. Until this year the usb rechargeable units were not that great, now however we have a 600 lumen light without the added weight or hassle of a connected battery pack that can be quickly charged via a standard usb port on the computer. The nice features are the standard flash mode but also a setting that flashes one led while having the other shine a constant beam, see and be seen.

Helmet Mountable
Run Time High: 1.5 hrs
Run Time Low: 4 hrs
Hyper-Constant: 2 hrs
Flashing: 35 hrs

Tacx Drop Bar Light.

The good folks at Tacx have come up with another great idea. The "Lumos" drop bar light. It fits into the bar end of any drop bar and has a nice powerful red LED light that alerts drivers following of your presence. Now this is not a new idea, there are many makes and models that do the same thing however, where this Tacx unit differs is that it also has a forward facing white LED light as well. It obviously has to drop down below the bar a little to be able to shine forward but it is completely unobtrusive and stays out of the way of any hand position and fits well to the bar.  

We have fitted a few already and the initial feedback has been very positive.

New, Old School Wheel

We have a pretty lugged frame Cinelli road bike in the store at present for repair and service. One of its issues was a trashed rear wheel so we needed to find a suitable rim for replacement. A big problem when replacing rims on classic road bikes is matching the "look" of the original. Well good news, the folk at Soma, whom we are big fans, have just produced this beauty. The "Eldon" rim comes in 700 and a 32 or 36 hole count. It looks fantastic and, more importantly, is built well. Double eyelets like the old original Mavic rims and double wall obviously. Highly polished with non machined sidewalls. It built up very well and took 100kilos without any trouble.

2013. The Year of the GPS.

This is the time of year when we start to see new product brochures hitting the mail box. This year has seen its fair share of literature describing new shiny products that should hit the shelves in 2013. one such flyer that caught my eye was from the good folks a t Cateye. Well known for their fine cycling computers and light systems they are now eying the gps market, long the domain of Garmin. While I have nothing against the Garmin systems, they have produced great performing units for some years now, however good as they may be they are pretty expensive. Any other company looking to break the Garmin hold on gps is going to have to do something special and this is where Cateye could make a dent, they are planning to offer some pretty low priced models. One even has a tentative price tag of below $120. It remains to be seen if they can pull this off but that kind of price point certainly will have some takers. I will keep you informed and hopefully we will start to see them soon.

Re-Inventing the Wheel.

The bike business is a business like many others, ideas come and ideas go, some good some bad and many are just there to let people know that the company ain’t dead. Every once in a while an idea comes along and just kind of hangs in the periphery, just waiting for their time to come. One such idea is 650b wheels, not that the 650b wheel is a new idea, hell it’s not even an old idea it has been around for decades, but to mountain bike designers and riders it is relatively new. There are some people, and I myself am one, that contend that if we had designed mountain bikes from the ground up in the beginning instead of modifying road bikes and cruisers to go biking in the woods, we would probably have opted for 650b wheels right from the start, however modifying frames led us to the smaller 26 inch wheels that then became the mountain bike standard for so many years.

        A few years ago we made the quantum leap to the 700c wheel, more commonly referred to as the 29er, which has made a huge impact with off roaders. This has made it difficult for the 650b though. Going so long with one choice, the 26, then adding the 29er quite recently has meant some reluctance from mass manufactures to add yet another wheel size and different bike geometry to already swollen product lines. Luckily the fear of being left behind by the competition has won out and we are seeing many choices from frame companies along with tire and rim manufacturers for 650b. This is very good news. And here's why; Choices.

As mentioned before the industry standard 26inch wheel MTB has been around since the start of mountain biking, the 29er or 700c MTB wheel is a relative newcomer and the 650 b is the new kid in town. The important thing to keep in mind here though is to not disregard any of the old wheel sizes just because there is a new one. They all have their place when looking for a new bike.

During this bike season we have seen a lot of new customers, which is very nice, a lot of new MTB’ers have come through the door as well and a good deal of them have opted for the 29er. Now don't get me wrong a 29er is a fantastic machine but it is not for everybody.

Designing frames and frame geometry for big wheels is tough, sure anyone can build a bike to accept big wheels but getting the handling and feel dialed in is a very different matter and it is especially difficult getting it right on mid to small frame sizes. We have seen many, many riders lately that look like they have been swallowed whole by their bike and, while this arrangement is fine for a gentle trail ride, on a more MTB specific trail or good single-track it must be akin to riding a bull elephant with colic.

Before I carry on let me clarify what we actually mean when we talk about these different sizes. Below are the measurements, in millimeters across the wheel, bead to bead. The bead of a rim is about 3mm down from the top of the rim.

26        559mm

650b    584mm

29er     622mm

As you can see the 650 falls about midway between the other two you will also note that the bead seat diameter of the 29er is the same as a standard road 700c so why do we call it a 29er when it is really only a modern 27inch road wheel. Well it is because some bright spark decided to measure the diameter outside to outside with a fully inflated mtb tire on, which gives you a measurement of roughly 29inches. Confused yet?

Anyway, back to the business at hand.  If you are a tallish or leggy person the big wheel option is definitely a choice for you. The frame size will be plenty to accommodate the extra clearance while still maintaining the ride characteristics of a good mtb. All the rules of bottom bracket height and head and seat tube angles still need to be obeyed and they can be with a mid to large frame size. However, if you are, shall we say a little vertically challenged, this is where problems arise. The rules of designing a bike to perform well for the rider tend to get thrown out the window and it all becomes about designing a small enough frame to at least reach the pedals on while the design is sacrificed to fit a big set of wheels. This really does not work. The cut off for a bike designed for the rider instead of the wheels generally falls somewhere around the 5’6” mark. There are exceptions for those with exceedingly long legs in relation to body height but generally speaking this is where sticking with the 26” wheels tends to be the better option.  Now though we have another option 650b.  This is where the slightly smaller size gives us, as frame designers, much more scope to still design the bike for the ultimate ride and handling but still giving the option of bigger wheels.

A Soma "B-Side" Built and ready to roll.

For those wanting to know more about the options available in the 650 or 29er range stop in or fire me an email. There are lots of choices. At the moment some of the best 650b frames tend to be from companies like Soma who offer the B-side. I expect some of the major names to start producing complete 650 bikes in the next year’s product line.

Laser Lights Are Here!

Well we are nearing the time of year when light begins to fade and safety becomes a concern. The last few years have seen quite an influx of new lights and high density LEDs that function for many hours on little power etc. Something a little different this year though is the inclusion of laser beams. Yep lasers, hell I'm of the opinion that anything with a laser has got to be good. We should be receiving our first batch any day now so I will have a test report soon but for now take a look at the pictures to see what they are all about. Basically in addition to the high density LED light we have two lasers pointing down to highlight a path for motorists to stay clear as they pass.