Happy Holidays everyone!
To get you in the spirit, here's the group NORA and One Left's Big Red Bicycle Christmas (from their album Bicycle) - already named 'the best new Christmas song of the year' by the BBC.
All together, now...
If you received this in an email, here's the link to the video.
Best wishes,
Jim
Ren� Herse Restoration - 2 more photos
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| Crankset by Ren� Herse |
If you have a Ren� Herse missing its signature crankset, you'll be happy to know that you can now purchase a reproduction and replacement chainrings, too (I'm excited about that because it means I can save my original chainrings and log miles on the reproductions if I want)!
The second photo (below) shows the Herse sealed- and pressed-bearing bottom bracket. Modern bike companies seem to believe that this is a new design, but Herse was doing it decades ago.
You can also see the integrated tube in the bottom bracket shell for the internally routed front derailleur cable and more detail of the extraordinary craftsmanship that went into constructing this frame.
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| Wanted: Huret Jubilee front derailleur |
If you have a Huret Jubilee front derailleur or know where one is, please let me know so that I can get the proper one back on this bike.
Thanks!
Jim
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| Ren� Herse sealed-, pressed-bearing bottom bracket |
HOLY GRAILS: Ren� Herse Restoration
Happy winter, everyone,
As we spend more time indoors, here are some photos of an exciting winter project I'm starting: refurbishing a 1975 Ren� Herse randonneur bicycle. It's in nice original shape with most of the parts it left Herse's Paris shop with. It was built for my friend, lifelong cyclist and bicycle lover, Richard Payne (as was required by French law at the time, Dick's name and address are engraved in the stem cap; photo 4).
Dick was still regularly riding his beloved Herse into his 85th year. It was passed on to me by his family who knew how close we were and that Dick would have wanted me to have it so that I could resuscitate it.
My goal is to bring it back as close as I can to how it was in 1975 when Dick purchased it. He kept the original order forms so I have a record of how it was equipped.
These randonneur or randonneuse bicycles were made for what we Americans sometimes call credit-card touring, where you carry lunch, a change of clothing and ride relatively long distances for the joy of it, continuing at night, in the rain, and only stopping at hotels to rest up for more pedaling adventures the next day.
While I have never visited France or ridden there, of course I've seen the awesome terrain watching the Tour de France on television, and it makes it easy to appreciate how the French came up with this type of bicycle to enjoy it.
Route sheets and registration forms that Dick saved and are in the same file as the bike specifications, show that he toured in Tunisia on it, too, where he lived and worked as a teacher for decades before returning to his other home in Santa Cruz, California for his retirement.
I'm familiar with Ren� Herse bicycles because I worked on a couple of his masterpieces over the years as a mechanic. But my appreciation for him and his work has piqued, and my knowledge grown immensely thanks to the writings of Jan Heine in his fine publication that covers randonneuring bicycles and builders old and new, Bicycle Quarterly. He covers new bicycles and technology, too, so there's something most cyclists will enjoy in every issue.
What's unique about these treasures is that the builder made the frameset and also crafted or designed many of the parts, such as the front rack, crankset, stem and small pieces. Before he became a master "constructeur," as these renowned bicycle builders were called, Ren� Herse worked making airplane parts, so he brought expert machining skills and knowledge of engineering precision parts from ultralight materials to his bicycle building.
Also unique is that these bikes were made to be ridden long distances, carrying a small load in all conditions. And unlike the heavily laden long-distance tourists with front and rear panniers or even trailers crossing America or riding round the globe, these randonneuring bikes were made for performance riders who not only wanted to cover long distances, they enjoyed doing it in record time and there were even timed events and records to be had.
Dick's Herse has a magic ride. It's wonderfully smooth and stable and easily gets up to speed, and stays there. It looks heavy but it feels light and lively and you don't want to turn back once you're in the saddle; you want to keep riding.
To carry the gear and handle all conditions, the bikes featured a front rack that supported an easily accessed large handlebar bag, a lighting system and full fenders. For reliability and durability, the fenders were metal and firmly attached so as not to loosen or rattle, and the shift and brake cables were internally routed for protection.
As an example of the painstaking effort put into designing and building this Ren� Herse, it had a generator (dynamo) that attached to a precisely positioned threaded post brazed onto the left seatstay.
A dedicated Huret Jubilee down-tube style shift lever allowed you to turn on/off the generator moving it to rub against the rim or move away from it. (Without a photo to go by, it took me hours of experimentation with many different generators before I figured out how this worked - which will be the subject of a future post.)
There was probably a small seatstay light powered by this generator (it may have been on the fender instead). To power the front light, that you can see is integral to the front rack - the wire leaves the generator and goes into the hollow channel in the edge of the fender. It then exits the fender, goes into the left chainstay, through the bottom bracket, up the down tube where it makes contact with the head tube, I believe (I haven't taken the front end apart to investigate).
Meanwhile, the front light wire traveled through the hollow rack tube, exited the rack underneath the fender, traveled to the fork steerer and into it, where it attached to the contact brazed inside the steerer. To get the electricity to bridge from the steerer, which has to turn - to the stationary head tube, there is a carbon brush that always touches the steerer and causes no drag you can feel. Ingenious!
There are many other details to admire, such as the lovely lugs and bottom bracket, the arrow pump peg, the cable hanger built into the seat lug and the unique and stout dropouts. The right rear dropout actually includes a chain holder that acts as an extra freewheel cog so that you can shift onto it for wheel removal and your chain will remain in position as if a wheel was still in place. Herse thought of everything.
Enjoy the photos, and as I bring this incredible bicycle back, I'll post updates. Best of luck with your winter bicycle project, too!
Jim
As we spend more time indoors, here are some photos of an exciting winter project I'm starting: refurbishing a 1975 Ren� Herse randonneur bicycle. It's in nice original shape with most of the parts it left Herse's Paris shop with. It was built for my friend, lifelong cyclist and bicycle lover, Richard Payne (as was required by French law at the time, Dick's name and address are engraved in the stem cap; photo 4).
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| Ren� Herse randonneur as photographed about 2004 |
My goal is to bring it back as close as I can to how it was in 1975 when Dick purchased it. He kept the original order forms so I have a record of how it was equipped.
These randonneur or randonneuse bicycles were made for what we Americans sometimes call credit-card touring, where you carry lunch, a change of clothing and ride relatively long distances for the joy of it, continuing at night, in the rain, and only stopping at hotels to rest up for more pedaling adventures the next day.
 |
| Gracefully raked blades, elegant dropouts and marvelous Maxi-Car hubs |
Route sheets and registration forms that Dick saved and are in the same file as the bike specifications, show that he toured in Tunisia on it, too, where he lived and worked as a teacher for decades before returning to his other home in Santa Cruz, California for his retirement.
I'm familiar with Ren� Herse bicycles because I worked on a couple of his masterpieces over the years as a mechanic. But my appreciation for him and his work has piqued, and my knowledge grown immensely thanks to the writings of Jan Heine in his fine publication that covers randonneuring bicycles and builders old and new, Bicycle Quarterly. He covers new bicycles and technology, too, so there's something most cyclists will enjoy in every issue.
What's unique about these treasures is that the builder made the frameset and also crafted or designed many of the parts, such as the front rack, crankset, stem and small pieces. Before he became a master "constructeur," as these renowned bicycle builders were called, Ren� Herse worked making airplane parts, so he brought expert machining skills and knowledge of engineering precision parts from ultralight materials to his bicycle building.
Also unique is that these bikes were made to be ridden long distances, carrying a small load in all conditions. And unlike the heavily laden long-distance tourists with front and rear panniers or even trailers crossing America or riding round the globe, these randonneuring bikes were made for performance riders who not only wanted to cover long distances, they enjoyed doing it in record time and there were even timed events and records to be had.
Dick's Herse has a magic ride. It's wonderfully smooth and stable and easily gets up to speed, and stays there. It looks heavy but it feels light and lively and you don't want to turn back once you're in the saddle; you want to keep riding.
 |
| Herse rack with built-in light, wire runs through rack |
As an example of the painstaking effort put into designing and building this Ren� Herse, it had a generator (dynamo) that attached to a precisely positioned threaded post brazed onto the left seatstay.
A dedicated Huret Jubilee down-tube style shift lever allowed you to turn on/off the generator moving it to rub against the rim or move away from it. (Without a photo to go by, it took me hours of experimentation with many different generators before I figured out how this worked - which will be the subject of a future post.)
There was probably a small seatstay light powered by this generator (it may have been on the fender instead). To power the front light, that you can see is integral to the front rack - the wire leaves the generator and goes into the hollow channel in the edge of the fender. It then exits the fender, goes into the left chainstay, through the bottom bracket, up the down tube where it makes contact with the head tube, I believe (I haven't taken the front end apart to investigate).
Meanwhile, the front light wire traveled through the hollow rack tube, exited the rack underneath the fender, traveled to the fork steerer and into it, where it attached to the contact brazed inside the steerer. To get the electricity to bridge from the steerer, which has to turn - to the stationary head tube, there is a carbon brush that always touches the steerer and causes no drag you can feel. Ingenious!
There are many other details to admire, such as the lovely lugs and bottom bracket, the arrow pump peg, the cable hanger built into the seat lug and the unique and stout dropouts. The right rear dropout actually includes a chain holder that acts as an extra freewheel cog so that you can shift onto it for wheel removal and your chain will remain in position as if a wheel was still in place. Herse thought of everything.
Enjoy the photos, and as I bring this incredible bicycle back, I'll post updates. Best of luck with your winter bicycle project, too!
Jim
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| Pointed lug tips, Herse sealed bottom bracket |
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| Herse custom stem, engraved stem cap, integrated bell (I made this copy) |
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| Hand lettering |
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| Herse dropout, internal shift cable, peg holds rubber stay guard |
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| Exceptional lugwork and crown |
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| Stylish braze-on for internal cable routing |
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| Another view of the cable port |
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| Elegant pump peg, seat cluster and dedicated lever for generator |
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| Look closely: that's a chain carrier on the inside of the dropout |
Q&A: Are folding bikes twitchy; individual cassette cogs
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| Dahon's Mu Undo |
Thanks!
Arnold
A: I�ve got a few folding bikes, Arnold and like them a lot. I have a Dahon from about 1980 and even back then they had a solid reputation for making nice-riding, convenient to use portable bicycles.
I've ridden some recent Dahons at bike shows but not the Mu Uno. On their website it looks like a quality one-speed model featuring a butted 7005-aluminum frame, nice aluminum wheels and solid components stem to stern including a Kinetix forged-aluminum crankset, Suntour folding pedals, Schwalbe Marathon tires and a Shimano coaster-brake hub.
I think you�ll love the Mu Uno if you get it. You�ll want to ride it on mostly flat rides probably, since it has only one 62-inch gear and a foot brake, but it should be wonderful for that. The little wheels feel quick to most people and that�s great, but they can feel a little too easy to accelerate and steer - because they're smaller and lighter - at first and that�s why some feel that folding bikes are twitchy.
Good folding bikes aren�t really twitchy or hard to handle. They just feel that way because you�re used to steering a big, heavier larger wheel. When you get on your little-wheel folding bike you need to relax and let the bike steer itself. It doesn�t need much input from you. Once you relax and stop trying to steer the bike like you do your other bikes it gets natural and feels quicker and nimbler.
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| Folding a Dahon takes seconds |
Regarding coaster-brake hubs, they are usually very durable. I would estimate that in most cases you wouldn�t need to service a hub like that for as much as five years or even longer if you stay out of the rain. In many cases they just keep going and going with no maintenance. Typically you don�t use a folding bike as much as a regular bike or ride it as far, either, and that helps keep the wear and tear down too - as will riding it on flatter terrain where you won't have to brake all that hard or often. Hope this helps and let us know how you like your Mu Uno if you get it.
When talking about folding bikes, I have to point out one more cutting-edge bicycle, the Brompton, which is my preferred city bike because it folds in a blink, sports lights, fenders, rack, prop stand and a ingenious front bag. Here's Brompton's current line-up.
Jim
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Q: Hi Jim, I recently purchased a Lapierre Audacio with a Shimano Tiagra C4600 12/28 10-speed compact cassette (with 50/34 chainrings) and I�m finding the top gear is too low. I�ve inquired with the shop that sold me the bike as to whether I could change the small cog from a 12 tooth to an 11 tooth but they advise that I�d have to change the entire cassette. I had expected that it would be possible to source a single 11 cog for this cassette given that there�s an 11/25 cassette in the Tiagra C4600 range.
Would you be able to advise if a single cog could be sourced for this?
Kind Regards,
David
A: I haven�t tried their cogs, David, but I�ve heard that Miche makes individual cogs for Shimano cassettes. Here�s a link to an online company called Universal Cycles that carries these so that you can learn more.
You�ll probably want at least two cogs, since if you remove the 12 and install the 11, you�ll have an 11 to 13 jump as your first shift, which will probably drive you crazy and feel like you�re missing a gear. Having a new 11 and a 12 should let you end up with 11/12/13/14 etc. which will feel right (you�ll want to disassemble your cassette and compare it to the Miche cogs to make sure they will fit correctly and let you build the cassette you want).
Another issue will be the Shimano cassette lockring (the last piece you install and tighten with the splined lockring tool - video shows lockring and removal with the lockring tool and chainwhip tool). The one you have is correct for a 12-tooth bottom cog. If you go to an 11-tooth cog, you will need a lockring made for an 11-tooth cog too, since the 12-tooth compatible lockring will be slightly too-large diameter and can prevent the chain seating on the smaller 11-tooth cog. (Tip: you have to look closely, but, so that you can tell the difference, the Shimano 11-tooth lockrings have a little "11" stamped on them.)
I'd compare the cost of the 2 new cogs and lockring plus shipping versus the cost of a new cassette, keeping in mind that your original cassette has resale value and that might make up the difference.
If I were you, I�d be strongly tempted to return to the bike shop and tell them you want to trade the original cassette for the right cassette for you. Even if they only give you wholesale pricing for it in trade, you might end up spending less than ordering the two cogs. Just clean your cassette up nicely so it looks like new.
I hope something here helps and enjoy that beautiful new bike!
Jim
In case you can't see it, here's a link to the video: http://youtu.be/O44Vk9P1HV4
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BIKE VIDEO: People For Bikes: If I Ride
Happy Tour de France month,
Hope you're enjoying the action as much as I am. With the coverage now on high-definition television, it's like the peloton is passing through your living room. The scenery is spectacular, the crashes so real they almost hurt and the descents are dizzying. For a retro take on the Tour, here's a photo essay on the 1953 Tour from Life magazine archives.
To ride the wave of interest in cycling created by the Tour, Bikes Belong just released a fun video promoting the impressive benefits of biking, so I wanted to share it with you. Be sure to pass it along so we can get even more people pedaling and supporting cycling. Maybe a few of them will one day race in the Tour.
Good rides!
Jim
http://youtu.be/jEhpUov-adU
Hope you're enjoying the action as much as I am. With the coverage now on high-definition television, it's like the peloton is passing through your living room. The scenery is spectacular, the crashes so real they almost hurt and the descents are dizzying. For a retro take on the Tour, here's a photo essay on the 1953 Tour from Life magazine archives.
To ride the wave of interest in cycling created by the Tour, Bikes Belong just released a fun video promoting the impressive benefits of biking, so I wanted to share it with you. Be sure to pass it along so we can get even more people pedaling and supporting cycling. Maybe a few of them will one day race in the Tour.
Good rides!
Jim
http://youtu.be/jEhpUov-adU
NEW PRODUCT: Anycase iPhone Tripod Adapter
Steve Boehmke, a longtime marketing and product-development guru for many major bicycle companies (including Shimano), told me about a clever gadget he's trying to bring to market called the Anycase iPhone Tripod Adapter. While this elegant little aluminum holder isn't specifically a cycling product, I contributed to Steve's Kickstarter campaign because I need something like this.
I shoot simple cycling videos with my iPhone and I need a safe way to hold it steady and position it more accurately than I can by hand and by balancing it precariously on its edge. The Anycase does this nicely as you can see here. If you use your smartphone for video like this, you might like one too. A $29 contribution gets you an Anycase in black. The Kickstarter campaign ends July 6, 2012, so contribute soon if you'd like to help. Thanks! UPDATE: The campaign did not raise the funds to launch production, so Steve is now selling the Anycase online for $29 plus shipping.
I shoot simple cycling videos with my iPhone and I need a safe way to hold it steady and position it more accurately than I can by hand and by balancing it precariously on its edge. The Anycase does this nicely as you can see here. If you use your smartphone for video like this, you might like one too. A $29 contribution gets you an Anycase in black. The Kickstarter campaign ends July 6, 2012, so contribute soon if you'd like to help. Thanks! UPDATE: The campaign did not raise the funds to launch production, so Steve is now selling the Anycase online for $29 plus shipping.
ALERT: $1,000 For Finding Hit & Run Driver
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| Aaron Freitas (left) is offering a $1,000 reward |
I talked with Aaron on Monday at the Santa Cruz stage of the Tour of California and he was in surprisingly good spirits - obviously beat-up bad, in a sling and bandages. But he was already talking about riding and racing again and determined to do something to bring the hit-and-runner to justice. He has put up $1,000 reward money for anyone providing information leading to a conviction. I wanted to pass this along and ask you to keep on the lookout when you're riding around here and especially in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and on and near Soquel-San Jose Road.
Other hit-and-runs
According to the Santa Cruz Sentinel, "Other recent collisions include one on Highway 1 that claimed the life of 35-year-old Joshua Laven, whose body was found on May 4, hours after he was struck while riding near Wilder Ranch. The CHP is looking for a 1999 to 2004 Dodge Ram pickup in that case. And in the past year, two bicyclists were killed in hit-and-run collisions on Empire Grade Road and Soquel-San Jose Road.
It would be great if we could catch these nutcases. Lyons, who also crashed trying to avoid riding over Freitas, saw the car that hit Aaron and described it as "an older model Audi wagon that was a "muted dull shade," perhaps grey or tan or off-white."
The Sentinel reports that "CHP officer Grant Boles said they are still working to find the driver, but have little to go on. He asked those with information on the case to call 662-0511."
Here's the complete Sentinel article.
If it happens to you
For what it's worth, I have twice "found" drivers who tried to knock me off my bike by swerving at me on the backroads of Santa Cruz. It was only by riding off the road and almost crashing that I avoided injury or worse. But I paid close attention so that I could recognize the car if I saw it again.
Then, to find these losers, I drove to the road where it happened on the same day of the week at about the same time as the incident. I parked, waited and watched. Both times, the vehicle that had tried to run me off the road came past and it was a simple matter to take their license number and file a full report to the police. In one case the driver was arrested and lost his license in court. Not enough of a penalty but at least it got him off the road for awhile.
Ride safe and always stay on the alert for insane drivers - I've run into them in every state I've lived in, and even when I was a long-distance runner - so it's not just cyclists who need to be careful. Sorry if this sounds bad, but it's true and it's better to be prepared and careful than to become a victim.
Jim
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