why I won't sell you a cheap bike

As a part of my work existence, I work in a bike shop selling bikes.

I won't sell you a cheap bike.

I have been asked before for a bicycle which costs around $250-$300 dollars by customers, but I just cannot sell one. For one thing, we don't sell anything that inexpensive, and for another, a new bike in that price range is not worth owning. If that is all that is affordable by someone, I suggest a good used bike and will direct them where to go to get one.

But still, I get people insisting that spending more on a new bicycle is a waste of money and they refuse to pay more.

But such bikes exist I am told. Big Box Stores sell them!

Indeed, they do.

But...

You see, big box stores can sell bicycles in the lowest of price brackets by telling bicycle manufacturers that they want to sell their product, that they can move X number of units, and that the price needs to be X dollars with X mark up. Now, make the damn bike!

So, they do.

Frames are heavy, welds are substandard, and frame materials are extremely cheap. Components are no name and don't work. Wheels are machine built (ok in and of itself) and not tensioned properly (never ok) and therefore unsafe. Brakes are in general brakes in name only. Same thing for the gears. Overall, someone buying such a bicycle ends up with something which looks like a bicycle, but does not function like one should.

They end up with a lousy experience when riding it. It ends up sitting in the garage collecting dust because it is too inefficient and not enjoyable.

This is the very definition of a waste of money - buying something for a specific use and then not using it because the product does not meet your expectations.

I told someone that once.

They bought a real bike from me.


So, I won't sell someone a cheap bike, instead, I sell an experience. This is what our reps tell us to do, but perhaps not in the way that I do it.


You see ...

... your bike is free when you buy from me.


Think about that hard, your bike is free.


I have dropped that bombshell on people before and it raises more than just a few eyebrows.

Often, in our shop, we get people who are interested in using a bike as more than just a toy, or sporting equipment, or something for a twice a season 15 minute ride around the neighbourhood. If someone is interested in using a bicycle as more than that, then the bicycle is free.

Let me explain.

We, collectively, allocate a lot of money to moving ourselves around and use some of the most expensive forms of personal transportation devised by humanity to move individual people - our road ways and our cars. Assuming a middle of the road car and the average Canadian distance covered per year, each adult will likely spend between $450 000 to $500 000 driving over their course of their driving career on the cars, interest, insurance, and maintenance. This does not count subsidies for maintaining roads (comes out of the general tax revenue NOT fuel tax). And they won't even notice. They won't even notice. It is seen as a cost of living.

So don't do it. Drop out.

I am not advocating getting all Hippie here, and nor am I advocating no cars, but rather, I am advocating a shift in perspective which is, I think, needed in our current economic climate.

We are living in an era of high inflation on things which actually matter. Like food. Food prices are climbing and are likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Costs of most things in general are creeping up.

Hand in hand with that are fairly flat or stagnant wages. People are extolled to do more with less even though this is not physically possible for many people. Once discretionary income is absorbed by needed spending, that's it! Done!

Remember that if wage increases do not match inflation, there has been an effective wage cut as the dollars someone is paid will not buy what they did before.

At the same time, we are encouraged by clever advertisers and seasonal holiday guilt to spend spend spend! Advertisers are not stupid. They study human psychology and what makes us tick and push all of our buttons and, like lambs to the proverbial slaughter, we go along with it (usually without even noticing - do you really need that new cell phone? etc?) And we do go along with it, en masse. Look at the level of consumer debt in our economy.

So, change or sink.

Adapt or die.

Which brings me back to free bicycles and selling an experience.

I can demonstrate how to turn a $600 basic bicycle into an effective commuter designed for urban use by adding about $200-$300 in extras. The bicycle will be comfortable for trips up to 30km each way and will have room to efficiently carry all that is needed for the day.

I can demonstrate how to break into riding for transport easily, over a long period of time, so that covering distances becomes easy and not intimidating. It takes time to built the fitness and comfort level needed to ride all the time. It would be condescending in the extreme to look at someone in their mid 40s and laugh off their concerns with this. I can do it, but I have 36 years experience on bicycles, something that is a rarity in Canada.

I can demonstrate how to work with traffic and how to route plan so that traffic is not an issue.

I can demonstrate how to cycle so that you don't overheat and need a shower when you get to work.

I can demonstrate how to safely navigate a Canadian winter on two wheels.

I can demonstrate how much happier people who bicycle are and why (for example, I was told I was crazy by a co-worker once for riding in the winter - I told her that I am always smiling when I ride, that other winter cyclists I see are always smiling, that when I drive, all I see are miserable people, so who is the crazy one anyway? Made her think that did...)

I can demonstrate the improvements in health that you get from riding.

I can question the blind acceptance of environmental destruction, dollar cost of driving, and subsidizing personal automobiles as being just the way it is.

I can question the wisdom of multi-hour commutes per day in a car as being a good use of time.

I can question why we accept as being ok the high numbers of deaths on our roads caused by automobiles as being just a cost of our lifestyle we have to deal with. It was society blowing its cork in the Netherlands in the 1970s over exactly this issue which brought about the cycling infrastructure and cultural change needed to shift from a car crazy culture to a bike crazy one - and the Dutch were just as car nuts then as we are now. We are no where near that tipping point here. We still, for some reason, accept death by automobile as being ok. A shame, but ok. No change needed.

I can question why we choose to live in one city and work in the next (ironically, I do this - but, I am willing to do the ride and it is really not that far for me).

I can point out that if we accept the cost of cars as being a necessary expense - which we do culturally as a group - and if we are going to do our short trips by bicycle, that the bicycle comes out of the transportation budget NOT the fun budget and compared to the money we are already committed to spend, the bicycle costs are trivial. I point out to people that my first year as a bicycle commuter cost me nothing for the bicycle, bags, some extra clothing (layers vs a bulky coat), boots, and maintenance because it came out of the money I had already committed to spend on gasoline. In fact, I ended up ahead by about $1500 AFTER accounting for the startup costs of my bicycle rig. After that, it worked out to more than $2000 a year. More really if you consider that I can get away with buying half the number of cars over my working career because I am not wearing them out so quickly.



So, I sell an experience. But it has nothing to do with wind in the hair, hipster coffee shops, or mud between your teeth. It has everything to do with paying the mortgage off faster, travelling, and retiring well and with your health.

Plus, as a bonus, I get to be smug. And that is always fun.


*I have, in different conversations with different people, pointed out all of the above while selling bicycles. It works, and not just in the selling of the bicycle but in the use of them. I see a lot of my old customers out and about biking everywhere on the machines I sold them. They look happy. They sound happy as well when they return to the shop for bits and pieces.

(EDIT TO ADD: A few people on a Google+ forum I shared this article with made some observations I would like to quickly address. I am speaking here about the experience in the Canadian market which differs from that in other countries. Some pointed out options for inexpensive bicycles which are quite good for commuting which match the dollar number I mentioned above as being not worth it. Bicycle costs in Canada have seen a large jump in the last couple of years making life difficult for bicycle sellers and buyers alike.

One, our dollar, relative to the USA dollar, has lost about 25% of its value when oil crashed and other commodities took a hit. Two, bike companies had largely frozen bike prices for reasons known only to themselves for a couple of years and did their increases all at once. Three, the federal government slapped a 5% tax on bicycles. All of this hit all at once which results in things costing more here than in the USA in particular over and above the fact that things in general cost more in Canada than the USA for reasons which have nothing to do with the bicycle industry.

None of this, however, invalidates what I said about commuter bicycling being basically free when a person who has already committed to spending car like money - and, in fact, owns a car for that purpose - makes a partial switch to commuting by bicycle.)

race of truth

I have ridden the race of truth and it has shown me to be a liar.

Riding a time trial, be it a real one in competition or one on your own will reveal more about your abilities and power on a bicycle than almost anything else. Riding in a peleton, you can hide, wheel suck, and not put out as much effort as those around you. The same is true in a break away. Bursts of power are shorter and more intense, with time to recover. Work is shared.

Not so with the time trial. It is called the race of truth for a reason.

I don't race. I do like to ride all the time and do like to go fast. But I don't race.

Most of my riding is solo, or with friends, some of who are stronger than me, some not so much. I find that solo efforts are harder mentally and, since I like to push myself, at least on the surface resemble time trials. It is harder when riding solo to push right up to the red zone and hold it there for a long period of time. Give me someone to chase though, and I go faster. I will bury myself trying to catch another cyclist on the horizon. Catching them does not matter, but the effort of burying myself does to me. Blowing up on a chase is just an excuse to recover and go again.

What I need to develop is that mental ability which allows almost red zone effort without the lure. I need to break free from the racing greyhound charging after a mechanical lure mentality.

It is time to stop being a liar in the race of truth.

Review: 2014 Kona Sutra

Again the usual applies with my product reviews. I am not being paid by Kona to write this. I am not a professional reviewer. I am writing my own opinions, the good and the bad, about products that I purchase with my own money. It is worth noting at this point that I have taken a job at a local bike shop which sells Konas. It is also worth noting that I have been a Kona fan for a very long time. The goal here is not to write a piece of "fanfic" designed the sell Konas. Feel free to take it that way if you must, but if you are familiar with my reviews, you know that I mention what I do not like about something even if the something is a thing that I like.

The purpose for me buying a Kona Sutra, a touring bike, was two fold. Firstly, my wife and I are interested in doing some bicycle camping. She already owns an Optima Orca recumbent touring bicycle, and she loves to camp. I love to ride bikes. She does not mind cycling, and I will admit, under duress, that I don't mind camping as long as I get my not ugly sleep. So it only makes sense to put the two things together. Enter the Sutra. Also, we are moving house in about a month, and my ride to the bike shop will increase from five km each way to about 27 km each way. Therefore, a better long distance commuter bike is needed. As a nice bonus, I will be able to ride instead of drive to my other job with ease where we are moving to. Again, enter the Sutra.

With all that in mind, let's explore the bike.

Here is what Kona says about the bicycle on their webpage:

"Our classic touring bike receives a facelift for 2014. We’ve taken our massively successful Rove frame and blended it with the styling and class of our Sutra from years past. The bike features solid front and rear Blackburn racks, as well as bar end shifters for simplicity. The oversized 44mm headtube gives a more precise ride while the steel tubing keeps things plush and smooth. Our new drop bar, the Wet Bar, features flared drops and a short reach to keep things comfortable during long descents." Source URL

Looking around the shop, I can definitely say that yes, this is a Rove in touring dress. Basically, if you were to take the current Rove, strip it of all of its parts, and take last year's Sutra, and strip it of all of its parts and then install all of those parts onto the Rove frame, you would have the 2014 Sutra.

This is not a bad thing.

My "road" bicycles for the last decade or so have been Kona cyclocross bikes, and I like the way that they feel on pavement and gravel/sand. The current Sutra has a very planted feel that I have come to associate with Kona cyclocross bicycles. But there are some significant differences in the feel of the machines.

The cyclocross bikes, while they share a geometry similar to the Sutra, are definitely racier. My Jake the Snake is a much faster bike with a more aggressive layout. The Sutra feels very sedate. A tall stack of spacers lift the stem and help keep the riding position relaxed. The Sutra's handling could best be described as lazy in comparison to the Jake the Snake. This is a very good thing for touring where the goal is to ride all day in comfort with a loaded bicycle as opposed to riding for several hours quickly, in a more aggressive stance. Also, darty handling is not a good thing when there is a heavy load on the bicycle.

The Sutra is made of steel. It has been a very long time since I have owned a steel bicycle and after riding the Sutra, I am reminded why steel is a good material for bicycle building. The ride is very supple but the bike does not flex in a noticeable way. Steel advocates will tell you that steel is the only material to make a bicycle out of. Clearly, this is a load of what cows leave behind, but steel is very good when used for certain applications. For a ride it all day bicycle, one intended to be loaded down, steel works very well indeed. The frame is comfortable.

Protecting the steel from corrosion is a matte finish which is semi transparent and tinted a sort of sand brown colour. It is possible to see through it and see different colours on the steel itself. As well, where the welds and brazing was done, the colour of the brazing material shows through. This is an aesthetic affection which fairly screams "look at me, I am steel!", but it is one which I like. It does nothing to help with the bicycle's performance, but does look nice. Not everyone will agree with that, but I like it. Time will tell if the finish is durable or not. It looks nice though.

The frame is festooned with nice touches. Braze on mounts for three waterbottles are included. This is a good feature for a touring bike - two are for water, and the third for a sig bottle filled with fuel for a camp stove. If you use a small camping wood stove and have no need of stove fuel, a tool kit put into a waterbottle would fit quite nicely into the lower bottle cage. Cables are routed on the down tube through brazed on cable guides. The rear brake cable is fully encased in a housing, while the shifter cables are less fully covered - barrel adjusters for the shifters are on the cable guides near the head tube. Rack and fender mounts are part of the frame. Kona made a mistake here in my opinion. The fenders and rack share a mount. I prefer them not to. Fenders and racks are easier to set up and adjust when they have their own dedicated eyelets to bolt to. That said, what is there works, but I wish that Kona had tweaked the Rove frame a little more to add the extra mounting points. Also missing are brazeons for extra spokes (like those found on the Surly Long Haul Trucker). How much this matters is a personal thing since it is possible to affix extra spokes to other spots on the bike. The head tube on this bike is oversized but not tapered. This makes it nice and stiff, and allows for an internal headset. It looks a little odd mind you, but it works. The brakes are disks and the mounts, on both the forks and the rear triangle, were perfectly aligned and did not need to be refaced or shimmed in any way. Nice touch.

The stock components are very good. Here is the list from the Kona website:

Frame Material	Kona Cromoly
Sizes	47, 49, 53, 56, 59, 61cm (mine is the 56cm one)
Rear Shock	n/a
Fork	Kona Project Two Touring
Crankarms	Shimano Deore
Chainrings	26/36/48t
B/B	Shimano BB51
Pedals	n/a (I put some Shimano SPD pedals on mine)
Chain	KMC HG53
Freewheel	Shimano Deore 11-32t 9 spd
Chainguide	n/a
F/D	Shimano Deore
R/D	Shimano LX Treking (Shimano SLX in Canada)
Shifters	Shimano BarCon
Brake Calipers	Hayes CX Expert (mechanical not hydraulic)
Front Brake Rotor	Hayes L Series 160mm
Rear Brake Rotor	Hayes L Series 160mm
Brake Levers	Tektro RL340
Headset	TH 848
Handlebar	Kona Deluxe Road Bar (actually the Kona Wet Bar - a flared thing which is quite nice)
Stem	Kona XC/Road
Seatpost	Kona Double Clamp w/Offset
Seat Clamp	Kona Clamp (wish it was a bolt and not a quick release)
Grips	Kona Cork Tape
Saddle	WTB Rocket V Comp
Front Hub	Shimano Deore (comes with an allen key clamp)
Rear Hub	Shimano Deore (comes with a traditional quick release)
Spokes	Sandvik Stainless 14g
Rims	Freedom Ryder 21
Front Tire	Continental Contact 700x32C
Rear Tire	Continental Contact 700x32C
Paint Color	Matt Raw Steel w/Sand Tint
Extras	Pannier Racks, Fenders (The racks are Blackburn units and the fenders are full coverage units with mudflaps)

Source

Bolded print is added by me.

The bike is well kitted out with good solid reliable gear. That said, I made some changes right off the hop.

The first thing to go was the saddle. Stock is the Kona branded WTB Rocket V Comp saddle which is found on other Kona bikes. It is a very comfortable saddle which I have used before. However, it is not something that I feel like sitting on all day. So, out came my Brooks B17 Narrow saddle. I have the chocolate brown one and it looks absolutely gorgeous when mated to the colour of the Sutra. I find double clamp seatposts to be a bit of a pain to set up as small adjustments made mid ride are kind of annoying to do compared with a single bolt seatpost. That said, once it is dialed in, there is no problem. A future change will see Brooks leather bar tape replace the stock Kona tape the bike comes with. Of course, the Brooks tape will match the saddle. Previously, I have had leather wrapped bars and really like how well they wear and how nice they look.

Seeing as how the racks are Blackburn, I grabbed some Blackburn waterbottle cages and an old Blackburn pump I had and put them on. The tail light I installed is a Blackburn Mars 3.0 unit which comes with a mount designed specifically for a Blackburn rack. One might think this was a plan on their part to sell lights. Well, it worked. This light has five rear facing LEDs and two side facing ones and is pretty bright. It will go nicely with my Fly6 camera/light combination when it shows up in the mail sometime in June.

I have replaced the quick release skewers with ones which use allen keys. In fact, the ones I am using are pinned and need a special allen key to open. While this won't stop a determined thief, it will slow one down or prompt them to move on. I wish that Kona had used a more traditional seat post clamp as my pinned seat clamp bolt will not fit with the QR clamp that comes with the bike. It will need to be swapped out in order to fix this problem.

An oversized bar bell and a Garmin GPS mount complete the initial modifications. At some point I want to source a nice sprung brass gong for the bike. They look cool, and are really loud and are my personal choice for waking up iPod zombies.

That about covers it for how it is kitted out, so how does it ride?

Due to it being a bit of a heavy pig, it takes a bit to get going. However, once it is rolling, it moves along quite nicely.

The riding position is very upright. This is due to a combination of frame geometry, a huge stack of spacers under the stem, and an absolutely marvellous handlebar. The bar is very flat across the top, has a shallow drop, and is flared outwards. This makes it very comfortable to use. It reminds me a lot of the Salsa woodchipper handlebar that comes on my friend's old Surly Crosscheck. Those seeking a relaxed fit and ride should be happy about this. If you are seeking a more traditional bar, you may wish to swap this one out. The relative upright riding position mates well with the Brooks saddle I added. The bike is very comfortable to perch upon and ride, even in "street" clothing.

The riding position encourages me to take my time and focus more on what is going on around me. I find on a bike with a more aggressive stance, I tend to push a lot harder than I do when riding this one. While I do focus on my surroundings when pushing hard, a lot of my thought processes go into various mental exercises designed to help me increase my speed or maintain a steady high output. This bike encourages me to amble. Not a bad trait in a touring bike where speed is not of the essence but enjoying the more sedate pace of a wander, vs a race (real or imagined), is the goal. Interestingly, a quick glance at my gps unit indicates that while me speed is lower than it would be on my cyclocross bike, it is not as low as the relaxed feeling the bicycle imbues would suggest.

The geometry and widely spaced gearing make for a different approach to tackling hills. Often, when on a race based bicycle, I spin up the hills at a high cadence out of the saddle. It is a quick and energy intensive way to climb, but one I really enjoy. With the Sutra, I find I drop a few gears as I ride up hills and stay seated. It is a more "dum de dum" approach to climbing vs a "grrrr hill be eaten" approach, if you take my meaning.

Bumps are nicely sorted out by the smooth rolling quick and nimble Continental touring tires. Lately, I have become a big fan of German tire manufacturers. Both Schwalbe and Continental make superior bicycle tires and I have yet to go wrong with any tire I have had over the years from either brand. In my opinion, Kona made a good choice by sourcing these tires for this bike. The steel frame also aids in bump suppression.

The stock drive train is simple and competent. Bar end shifters are a great idea for a touring bicycle. The front derailleur is shifted by friction. This makes it endlessly featherable and there is zero drive train noise coming from the front of the bike. Shimano, be a dear and give us a brifter for front derailleurs which gives this level of flexibility. I miss it and love this hearkening back to the "old days". The rear shifter is indexed, works perfectly, and can be made into a friction shifter should the need arise (like a bent derailleur out in the middle of nowhere on a tour).

There is a learning curve with these shifters if all you have used is brifter style indexed road levers. I grew up using down tube friction shifters from Campagnolo, so it only took me about 30 seconds to get the front derailleur dialed in. What took a bit was reaching to the end of the bar for the shifter. It does not feel natural after using brifters for the last decade or so. Adapt or change them out I suppose. Some people will really dislike the bar end shifters. I have read in other reviews of this bicycle and similar bicycles some complaints about them. However, I would suggest considering the following: brifters can break if the bike falls over, especially if the bike is loaded down and heavy, and cost a lot to repair or replace; and including bar end shifters instead of brifters helps keep the cost of the bicycle.

The brakes work well. I like using disk brakes and have no issues with mechanical ones. The brakes on my truck like commuter bike are cheap Avid BB5 brakes which work very well despite all of the abuse I heap upon them. This bike has Hayes CX Expert brakes which seem to be doing fine so far. While mechanical disk brakes are not as nice to use as hydraulic ones, they do work better than rim brakes, particularly when it is wet outside. They are also easier to maintain in the field. Remember, it is important to run new disk brakes in properly or they will not work well. About ten stops from near 30kmph at the threshold of skidding will seat them. Do the fronts and rears separately. After doing this, you should feel a marked improvement in the brakes ability to haul the bicycle down from speed. During the initial break in period, the brakes kept performing better and better.

The rotors on the bicycle are 160mm ones. The larger 160mm rotors (vs 140mm ones used on some other Kona bicycles) will give more stopping power when the bicycle is loaded for touring. While heavier than cantilever brakes, the more precise and powerful stopping power they offer is worth the minor weight penalty, especially when roads are wet. As an added bonus, if the brakes are dragged a bit on a steep descent when the bike is loaded, heat build up will not cause a tube to potentially fail.

Some pictures and a few things worthy of note follow.

Detail of the front brake rotor, calliper, and rack mount. With a little bending, the included fenders fit fine. One of my gripes about the frame is clearly shown here - the rack and fenders share a mount. I would prefer them not to. Looking at how crowded things are here, it is easy to see why Kona chose to use an allen key bolt for a quick release instead of a typical qr skewer. Look carefully at the one I changed the bike over to - this one is pinned making a conventional allen key useless for wheel removal. One of the things I like about the brakes is how solid the callipers are compared to others I have used.

Detail of the rear brake and rack mount. Again with the shared mounts. Kudos though to Kona for putting the calliper on the inside of the rear triangle vs the outside. This increases the options for racks and reduces cost for fenders. Look through to the seat stay in the background. Kona included a pin for hanging the chain on when the rear wheel is removed - a nice touch which will help keep the drivetrain clean should the need arise to perform maintenance road side.

Being a steel bicycle, the bottom bracket is not massive and oversized. The encased cable is for the rear brake, while the other two are for the derailleurs. I added some spacers on the underside water bottle bolts so a bottle cage installed there in the future will clear the cables. They are on the bicycle now so I don't lose them :)  The dirt splash gives a good idea how much the fenders cover. Your feet might get a little damp, but not too likely. Top of the line SKS fenders with mudflaps will drop significantly lower and help prevent dirt from hitting you or the drive train.

Of note here is the space around the fender mount. There is a lot of clearance for the 700x32c tires, and a gap still remains between the fender and the underside of the fork. Much larger tires will fit should the need arise with fenders, and even larger without. The headset is internal. Note the brass from the brazeons showing through the tinted finish which is, I think, a lovely lovely colour. I put some tire patches between the cable housing and the head tube to prevent wear to the frame's finish.

Shimano SLX derailleur. The cassette has a wide range of gears which should make climbing steep hills under load fairly easy. There is a fairly long 10% grade on my new commuter route I will be travelling with the bicycle loaded down once we move in May which I will report back on after I ride it a bit.

This year's Shimano Deore crank is a pretty thing. Very beefy and strong.

Shimano Deore hubs - 36 hole - are at the core of the heavily built wheels. My friend at work is a terrific wheel builder and he tensioned it up for me nicely. I suggest having new wheels be looked at before the bicycle is ridden by someone who knows what they are doing to ensure they are true and tensioned correctly.

The rear. Nice and compact. The rack has multiple mounting points for various things. I am not 100% sure what the slotted mount is sticking out the back of the rack, but I think it is for running a strap through to further secure panniers or perhaps something stacked on top of the rack and panniers.

Nice and simple. This is the rear shifter. It can be switched from indexed to friction shift by twisting the switch on the inside of the shifter.

How the cockpit is laid out at this time. GPS on the stem, and bell on the bar. Future updates will include hardware to mount a handlebar bag and a light (removable). Note the huge stack of spacers underneath the stem. My Jake the Snake stem pretty much sits on the top of the headset.

The brake levers. These Tektro levers are quite comfortable actually. I was pleased to see that they bulked them up a bit compared to the way that they used to be. It is possible to see the flare of the handlebar I was talking about above in this picture. I would like you to use your imagination and pretend that the tape is a rich chocolate brown leather. That is what will be swapped in sometime this summer.

This is how I prefer to carry my pump. At some point, I would like to replace this one with a slick brass plated one and redo the bottle cages in a brass colour. It would look great on the bike with it the colour it is.

The Blackburn Mars 3.0 tail light. It is a seriously bright unit which fits perfectly on the rack.

My Chocolate Brown Brooks B17 Narrow saddle. I love this one on this bicycle. It is a perfect match.

That is it for now.

I have been riding long enough to be certain that my initial impressions about the way the bicycle handles will remain consistent as I use the bicycle more. Should this not be true, I will do an update post and tack it to the bottom of the review.

Cheers and good riding!

an answer to a question

Red Kite Prayer's  Friday Group Ride this week asks the following question: "How did you become an adult cyclist? Did you tread an uninterrupted path from first childhood ride to this morning’s commute, or has the bike come and gone from your life? If the latter, what was the catalyst for your grown up self taking to the wheel again?"

(RKP is one of the best bicycle blogs - scratch that, it is THE best bicycle blog - that I have read)

Here is my answer to this question:

It started when I was 10. I could already ride, of course, but 10 was when my father bought me my first 10 speed and a wool cycling jersey and wool cycling shorts.
From then, a couple of years of hacking around on a bmx which got stolen.
Followed by years of road riding with my father. The best memories of my teen years center around road riding with my father.
Sadly, the car bug bit and I got out of cycling for a few years until a friend of mine got me hopelessly hooked on mountain biking. Did that for years until I was sidelined (mentally) by a bad crash.
Enter a spell of running followed by a spell of lazy.
Cycling kept rearing its head off and on for about eight or so years.
And then, a rebirth of sorts. All it took was a cyclocross bicycle and a persistent friend.
Now? The obsession is back in force and seems unlikely to ever die.
Spring cannot get here soon enough...

Continental Top Contact Winter II

 Tire Test: Continental Top Contact Winter II

Time for another tire review. As before, I am not a professional reviewer, I just ride bikes and use stuff. I pay for what I use myself with my own money, blah blah etc etc etc.

The tire this time around is a lovely little winter tire called the Continental Top Contact Winter II. Readers of this mighty blog of mine know that I am a big fan of the right tire for the job, but in case you are new here, here is a bit of history for you.

When I started riding a bicycle as a car, and decided to ride all year round, I got through my first winter with a set of burned out mud type cyclo-cross tires on my bike. I was using a Kona Dew with 700c wheels. The tires were great actually, and did a good job. I forget what they were though - something from Nokian I think (heck, I doubt I even have the name right even in my guess!).

The following winter, I used a set of Schwalbe CX Pro tires in the winter. They sucked. Complete crap. While very good in mud and on gravel (what they were made for to be fair), on snow and ice, they sucked. No other word for it. Two bad falls in six hours put me off of them in the winter for life.

I swapped them out for Schwalbe Marathon Winter tires, with studs. Loved those, even if they did have a tendency to toss studs out at the drop of a hat.

A bicycle swap saw me go from 700c to 26in tires. Enter a need for new winter tires. This time around, I did not mess about and went with Schwalbe Ice Spiker HS 333 tires. They were fantastic. Huge amount of grip in the snow. Very good on ice. But, they had some serious drawbacks. The rubber wore a lot since I ride on asphalt a lot. Also, the things are very heavy, and buzz like mad. But if you ride over hard packed snow all winter, they are well worth it.

This put me in search of a good winter tire which did not have studs, but would still give vastly improved grip in the snow.

Enter the Continental Top Contact Winter II.

Here is the company link for the tire for those who care about such things: http://www.conti-online.com/www/bicycle_de_en/themes/city/winter/topContactWinter_en.html

I went with the 26x1.9 tire size.

The first thing I noted was that the tire rolled much better than a studded tire. Gee, ya think? It was almost as fast as a slick, but not quite. Due to the soft rubber compound - supple until -25C - the tire has a lot of drag compared to summer spec tires with similar tread patterns. Pump it up to its maximum tire pressure, and it rolls along quite nicely. Other than feeling a bit squishy, it is hard to tell the tire is not "ordinary".

Like all winter tires, best grip is had in snow when the tire pressure is lowered and the tire is allowed to squash out a bit. Remember - get narrow tires for winter as they sink into the snow and bite the surface underneath. This is good unless you are "fat biking".

The winter specific rubber compound tires, like this one, are great in cold weather as they offer better grip on bare asphalt than a summer tire will, even if the tread patterns are identical. That right there makes these tires worth buying. The rubber does not freeze into hard blocks with little flex and reduced traction.

The tire pattern is quite bizarre for one used to aggressive tread in slippery conditions like I am. It is very shallow, and is basically a pattern of sipes designed to "grip" to ice and snow. Think Bridgestone Blizzak for example, or Spiderman's fingerprints. Whatever the case, it works.

The tire actually will retain some semblance of control even when black ice is hit. Don't think it is a studded tire though - the ice spikers currently sitting in the basement out perform the Continentals on the bike right now on ice by such a large margin that they are not even close to being in the same league. You MUST take more care on ice if you are coming from studs to this tire. Otherwise, they, and the ground, will bite you on the ass.

That said, the difference from a summer tire is remarkable. I was able to do limited steering and braking on black ice and did not feel as if the bike was about to slide out from under me.  Sudden moves are a bad idea though. And the bike will "float" a bit without a doubt, but if you keep your eyes up, relax, and let the bike float, it is not much worse than floating a mountain bike over liquid clay. Doable, but take care.

What about snow?

It is actually not too bad. The above picture shows what the tire looks like when rolling through a bit of snow. It packs up a bunch, but grips really really well. The tread pattern just plain works. I could brake hard, steer (some slip, but not bad) and accelerate just fine in the snow today. Today, we had a layer of black ice with about one to two cm of snow on top. Not much, to be sure, but potentially very slippery due to the ice underneath it. The tires were just fine. I was quite impressed when I pulled away from a stop on a steepish hill with snow and ice on it and the bike just went about climbing it. There was no slip at all from the back end and steering on this surface was fine. I was running tire pressures a bit below optimal for dry roads, which definitely helped.

Once I got more comfortable with the grip levels, I deliberately tried to upset them. Jerking the handlebar side to side at low speeds in the snow did not result in much if any real slip. Works for me. I know that they will skid, but the skid appears likely to be very controllable. Should be good.

One thing to note is how much water they hold in the sipes. You will leave a long track behind you after running through a puddle. It is this heavy duty siping coupled with the soft rubber that gives it its grip. While they hold a lot of water, they don't kick up as much snow as the knobby tires do. The mud flaps on the fenders did accumulate some build up, but not a lot. Very little to nothing got on my feet either. This is due in part to my fenders - I use Planet Bike Cascadia ATB fenders from MEC which really help keep the slop off of me. But the tendency of the tires to not throw a lot of snow helped as well.

I reserve judgement on their flat resistance since I only have about 100km on my set right now. They claim some protection from flats, but I don't expect protection on the level of a Schwalbe Marathon commuter tire. We shall see :)

This serves as a preliminary run down of the tire. So far, other than being a bit sketchy on ice, they are wonderful. A good friend of mine, who runs two bikes in the winter - one with studs, and one with these tires - reported that he only needed his studded tire bike five times last winter. His bike with these tires did it for him for the rest of the season.

Good deal if you ask me.

Update 1:

More snow riding has been done so I figured that an update was in order.

My earlier initial observations about the tires being good in the snow turned out to be correct. In general, I just ignore the tires and let them do their thing. Tires that just vanish and do their part are a pure win. They slip a bit, but do not dramatically skid out or cause concern. They remind me of the old Continental Cross Country tires that I had on my mountain bike over a decade ago. Those tires would grip like mad while slipping at the same time. It was a strange feeling - basically, they would skid out but in a very controlled manner which made "floating" the bike easy. They could be pushed very hard since the point of adhesion loss was so progressive. These snow tires do a similar thing.

Deepen the snow a bit though and they start to fall apart. They do not like deep snow very much and the bicycle will get a bit squirmy. It does not make the bicycle significantly unstable, but it is important to note. Rough unplowed paths are also a bit of a problem with these tires since they lack the tread to really bite into such surfaces. The machine will bounce around a bit. It won't dump a rider that is used to off road riding, but the tires are not as good as my studded Schwalbes are in similar circumstances.

When riding through slush and water on the road, the bicycle handled flawlessly. An incredible amount of water gets tossed up by the tires in such circumstances. It is very important that proper full fenders be used or the rider WILL get soaked.

Try to avoid hitting rock hard "pancakes" of ice on the road. The kinds of ice that are mixed in with slush and almost invisible. The bike will bounce off of them and get a bit skittish. Studded tires are better for that. So, avoid deep slush after an ice storm unless you are sure that the slush is all slush. Of course, these conditions are fairly rare.

My over all conclusion from initial observations remains the same. The tires are a good deal and work very well in urban environments. Don't trail ride them.

more night, good night

on the subject of freds

"Real" cyclists, whatever they are, do not like Freds.

What, dear reader, might a Fred be?

There is much blather about this on the interwebs but it boils down to this: a Fred is a person who has more gear than their apparent abilities suggest they can really make use of. Sometimes, this is true. The implication though is that the person referring to the owner of said nice gear as a Fred can make better use of that gear. Sometimes, this is also true. Also, Freds talk about training all the time. They talk about numbers. They are merciless enthusiasts who are often out to convert the heathen. But mostly they ride nice gear that costs a lot and dress the part. This makes them either genuinely smug, or gives them the appearance of being genuinely smug.

That bugs some people. Especially those who really wish that they had that nice gear who have fallen under the sway of the green monster.

However, what the term Fred really seems to refer to in practice is a person riding a nice or expensive bike who is going slower than the person calling them a Fred. This way, they can say, "You should have seen that guy I dusted/smoked/beat on his expensive bike! He couldn't ride! What a Fred!" thus implying that the victor in the one sided race up the road made better use of their money by buying a cheaper bike which they can clearly ride faster than that Fred. Moral superiority attained!

The fact that this "Fred" may have just ridden that day ten times what the "victor" in the Cat 6 (commuter MUP race) event rides in a month may not enter into the mind of the self righteous.

A person's degree of Fredliness becomes relative to the person referring to them as a Fred. A fast rider who dusts off a slower rider on a nicer bike may, perhaps, refer to that slower rider as a Fred. A slow rider who dusts off a tired faster rider on an expensive bike may do likewise. Ironically, all this does is make the name calling "victor" either genuinely smug, or gives them the appearance of being genuinely smug.

So, to avoid a bad case of pot calling the kettle black, Fred not!