Obsessions

At the end of John Watters's Pecker, the title character says that what he's learned from Little Chrissy is that life isn't worth living unless you're obsessed with something. In one of the bonus features on the Royal Tenenbaums DVD, Wes Anderson says that what separates artists from other people is the ability to become obsessed with a project, and bring it to completion.

For better or worse, I have this ability in spades. Over the summer, my obsession was Niles. For the past several months, during which I have not posted here once, my obsession has been my dissertation, and reading. Having finished another chapter, and being about to start on another, I have given myself a brief chance to resume one bicycle-related obsession: my hatred of anodizing.

My Velo Orange Randonneur, which I ordered 15 months ago, is apparently going to be begun this month. I certainly hope this proves true, not only because I want to ride it when the snow melts, but also because waiting for a bike to arrive is the cruelest sort of torture one could inflict on someone like me. I have gone through at least three versions of every part for the Velo Orange, buying something that seems perfect on eBay, changing my mind, selling it or putting it on another bike, etc.

I settled on MAVIC stuff early on. I love most everything about the brand, from its nice aesthetic to its weirdness and Frencheyness and rareness. (The rebuildability, until now, never seemed like such a great thing, since they're not made anymore.) I will have MAVIC brake levers, derailleurs, and rims on my Velo Orange (code name: New York Bike.) If Mavic made a 94bcd crank, centrepulls brakes, and silver seatposts, I might get those too.

Rear derailleur-wise, I got a very nice 851 early on, a stunningly beautiful part: light, odd-looking, and ingenious in its sliding pulley cage. I have been second-guessing its practicality from the beginning, however, because of it's old-fashionedey single-pivot, non-slanting parallelogram geometry. Sure enough, on my Alan with a 14-24 freewheel, it shifts fairly well, but no so well on the 13-26 I want to use on NYB.

I happened to have bought an "NOS" 840 on eBay (along with some Mavic brake levers, which was what I was really after) extremely cheaply because someone listed it as a "dearailler." It's a much heavier derailleur than the 851, not as cool-looking, but better-working (not that I've actually mounted it—but it's essentially like all other modern derailleurs.) I didn't really think about using it until the 851's sub-optimal shifting was revealed, and until I saw this excellent post by Jeremy Rauch, who loves MAVIC even more than I.

Seeing an 840 all disassembled like that made me see what I had to do: disassemble my derailleur, sand of all the anodizing, and make it shiny. This I did over the last few days. It was extremely fun, and relatively easy as well. The results were nice, also. What seemed to me a somewhat soulless derailleur now has lots of personality, and having seen it "vulnerable" and disassembled, I feel we now have a special relationship. It will be going on NYB.

I have also included a photo of a sanded-and-polished Stronglight A9. Ugh, I just can't stand the look of anodizing. It's awful. I tried the Easy Off method for this, by the way, and it just turned everything black, and then I had to sand off all of the black crust. Just sanding off the anodizing is the way to go.

Riding with the Grand Bois bars

Sorry for the long delay in finally posting my ride report on the bars. It's been a very busy couple of weeks!

I took Niles for a ride with his new bars last week and liked them right away. The flatness of the ramp (close to 0 degrees) was a bit off-putting at first, but I got used to it, and really liked the variety of positions the bars permit. One thing my conversation with Mike Barry last week reinforced is that "fit" riders need different positions than non-fit ones. Put more properly, different things are comfortable for different types of riders. Racers in the peloton are comfortable with their bars really low; they ride in that positions for seven hours a day — it's a viable long-distance position. I'm not quite at that level, but I like my bars relatively low, and I like to be able to stretch out. These bars allow that. I'm a lot more comfortable on them than on the GB bars. (Strangely, I'm still most comfortable in the drops.)

Note also the new tape and new shellac. It makes me sad to have to remove perfecly good tape that was carefully wrapped and shellacqued, like I did from my GB bars. But it's an opportunity to make things look even nicer than before. I put four layers of clear shellac on this time, making the tape darker and shinier.

The photos on the right show Niles on my ride today. It was probably the last nice day of the year here in Toronto — warm and sunny, and with lots of leaves still falling. Spring and fall are my favourite times of year to ride. I don't like the heat of summer, for one thing. I prefer to wear long sleeves and tights and to have the option of unzipping the collar to cool off. Spring has the advantage that one is excited to get back on the road. Fall has the leaves, and the sense of having to make the most of every ride before the snow starts falling.

I have naturally been thinking a lot about what to do with the sets of 531 currently bound for my door. My thoughts were helped along by my dinner with Mike Barry and my trip to my hometown of London, Ontario over the weekend. One thing I wanted to talk about with Mike was Greg Curnoe, a London artist who painted — among other things — bikes. Some of his best paintings are of Mariposas. My favourite is "Mariposa T.T." from 1979 (I went to Museum London hoping to see it, but it's not on display at the moment.) It's a painting of an actual Mariposa owned by Greg, with some creative license taken with the colours (though not much, according to Mike). I've decided that my next bike will be based on this one, with a paint job that will be a "literal transcription" of the painting — i.e., lots and lots of colours. I'll use a Reynolds tubeset, Prugnat lugs, and an old Nervex crown.

No updates on where I'll actually build all this — but I'll figure something out!

Alumite Nothing: My Bars Arrive, and Other Good News

The puzzle pieces begin their final alignment with the arrival of my Grand Bois Parallel "MARS" bars.

With terrifying haste, they travelled from Kyoto to my door in two days. (I ordered the chainring and cog from New York state almost a week ago, and no sign of them!) Grand Bois is a classy operation: they have their own cardboard boxes, for one thing. And these bars are good-looking, and have a very promising shape: lots of reach, a totally flat ramp, not a lot of drop, and a bit of a flare. Very important to me and the stylish Japanese, they are non-anodized (or, in the words of the Babelfish translation, "Alumite nothing"). I'm going to leave lots of shiny aluminum unwrapped in the centre to show this off. At 40cm, they are wide but not too wide — this is the narrowest available size. Witness their beauty:



The other good news is that: (a) I ordered five sets of NOS Reynolds 531 tubing today from Bicycle Classics. This is an "investment in myself"; I have now committed myself to building five frames. Soon I will begin laying out on here what their design will be. They'll be good. (b) I interviewed Mike Barry tonight for a couple of articles I'll be working on, and it was great. Lots to go over. More on these articles soon.

A Dangerous Trend; or, from GB to G.B.

Oh dear. I ordered another part for Niles today. (Another possible dangerous trend: is this just a shopping diary blog? I really need to finish up my work and do some riding...)

This time it was handlebars. This is one of those most awful of situations: something that aesthetically is absolutely perfect but functionally is not great. The GB bars are incredibly good looking and follow the curves of my logo, etc., but they just don't allow for all that many hand positions. Their almost complete lack of a ramp, for instance, is a problem.

So I've ordered some of the Grand Bois "Parallel MARS" bars (photo lifted from their site). They look almost exactly like the bars from my "example" bike, the Rene Herse winter training bike. The long, flat ramps should make that my "go to" spot, and push the hoods out a bit further for a more stretched-out position. The one concern is that they won't work particularly well with my aero levers. Well, they're staying regardless, so that's that. (Shipping was about $30 Canadian, which isn't great, but they're large and coming EMS. So it's not bad, either.)

I do have one pair of handlebars in my house that are even cooler than these Grand Bois ones, and I may as well mention them now. They are destined for my Velo Orange Randonneur, expected before next riding reason. They are (apparently) extremely rare black Philippe Professionel randonneur bars. The ramps are more curved than on the Grand Bois bars I just ordered and the reach not as long, but they're otherwise fairly similar. Black bars would look pretty bad with anything other than a black bike, but luckily mine will be black. It will also have lots of shiny stuff on it, so don't worry. (Yes, they will be getting orange cloth tape. Lots of it!)

I got these bars from Chris of Velo Orange, who I thank very much for them. I also thank him for linking to a photo of Niles on his recent post about a possible VO fixed gear bike. Niles is very proud of himself.

Small Changes

Yes, I'm restless by nature, and so things don't stay the same for very long. But we're getting to the point where things are so perfect that any change would be absurd.

First change: I received some Shimano PD-A520 pedals today. I hadn't intended to put them on Niles, but they were just so nice and shiny that I had to consider it. The fact that they have slightly more cornering clearance than the TA track pedals, and the upturned clips don't scratch on the ground pre-clip-in, also helped. I've never ridden a fixed gear with clipless pedals — perhaps the "mystical union" of bike and rider will be even more pronounced. I've been extremely busy with work lately, but I'll try to get out for a ride this weekend and see how I like them.

Naturally, I removed the Shimano logo from the side. I have nothing against them as a company, of course — take these fine pedals, for example. But with the exception of certain inherently beautiful logos, it's my policy to remove them if possible. The Shimano logo is quite plain, so off it went. It was very easy to remove: just some Simichrome vigorously rubbed. I've learned my lesson about calling such things too soon, but I'm pretty sure these pedals aren't anodized. In any case, they're shiny and beautiful. (And a very smart design, too — they place your foot low relative to the axle, and prevent "hot spots.")

Second change: gearing. The only fixed ratios I've ever ridden are 42x15 and 42x16. I like both, but for long rides 42x15 is beter. Motivated mostly by my aesthetic distaste for my chainring, though, I began to think I'd like something between the two gears. I also thought I might as well use larger rings for less friction and less chain tension (my rear hub has been wandering a bit), and also to make things look more "proportional" on my 62cm frame. So, to bring this tale to its conclusion, I got a new chainring and a new rear cog: 48x18. The rear cog is another Phil Wood (though a 1/8") and the front ring is a Spécialités TA. I think it will be a nice match to the rest of the bike. It's pictured on the right. (I lifted the photo from World Class Cycles, where I ordered all my stuff from. Their service is incredible and they have great prices.)

Campagnolo Keychains

As some of you may recall, I recently turned some Nuovo Record shift levers into downtube cable stops for Briggs, one of my bikes. This left me with two decapitated shift levers, which I immediately thought of turning into keychains. And so I have. I drilled holes and filed off the ends, and there we have it: in my opinion, the coolest keychain imaginable. (Accuse me of heresy if you will, but I was also recycling!)

In other news, I have a cool idea for a front rack for Niles. I face the usual problems of finding space and equipment to fabricate this rack. But my ride last Monday showed me how nice he is to ride on longish rides, so it might be worth it. (This would require a new front fender, unfortunately. It's a long-term project.)

Also, my search for lights is progressing well. An acquaintance is travelling to France soon and will look for a headlight there for me. And a local CR member has the taillight below for sale. Do you think it will look right? I think it might.

A Reversal of Roles

Last night I gave a slideshow at the "No Click Club" — a meeting of vintage bicycle enthusiasts that takes place monthly at the Mariposa shop. I brought Niles in for a show and tell and illustrated his creation through photos (all shown here first, of course!)

This put me in an odd position: telling Mike Barry about how to make bicycle frames! He was a very gracious listener, however, and naturally fielded any questions I couldn't handle myself. It was certainly one of the nicer experiences I've had when Mike congratulated me on what he regarded as a nice bike.

There are no bikes I like more than Mariposas. Having a look at the beautiful frames and incredible racks ("carriers" to Mike!) on the Mariposas in the shop reinforced this yet again. The next thing I'd like to learn to do is to make racks and stems. (The photo above is lifted directly from the Mariposa website, which is worth many looks, though Mariposas are no longer being made.)

(Mike doesn't know of any suitably pretty lights for Niles, unfortunately. So that search goes on.)