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What is your all time favorite city bike?
I don’t think the bike makes that big a difference. They
all work. But, if you’re asking my own preference, or what
I think makes the most functional sense, the most practical
sense, I’ll stick out my neck and nominate an all-steel
early to late ’80s mountain bike fitted up with a higher
and maybe a swept-back handlebar, fenders, rack, and basket.
Platform pedals, kickstand, bell, rear view mirror, and
some kind of light. It might not suit somebody’s style, and
I’m not saying it’s a better style; I’m just saying for me,
that’s what I think makes a lot of sense.
The fact is, there are major bargains to be had in certain
kinds of used bikes. Any of the pre-’85 Japanese lugged
steel road bikes, a decent steel frame that was designed
before things got wacky.
Pre-’85? I would’ve set the date a few years
later. I sometimes see some decent ‘90s Taiwanese-made
road bikes.
OK, we can go a little later, but a five-country monetary
re-valuation happened in 1985, and it devastated the
Japanese bike industry. Remember the highly ornamented
Shimano 600 arabesque and 105 arrow groups? It seemed
over the top at the time. But it is high evidence that a
strong dollar and a weak yen meant wonderful, unnecessarily
artsy things, could happen. The worst Taiwan bikes
were the ’86s and ’87s, the rookie years for high volume,
imported-into-the-US Taiwanese bikes. It’s not fair to
paint them all with the same broad brush, but many of
them had problems. By the later ‘80s and beyond, those
problems were fixed. By then the lugs were gone. But for
urban riding, a lack of preciousness is usually a good thing.
Do you ever think of building cheap TIG-welded
mass-market bikes?
I think of it a lot. I thought of when I was in Yosemite
on vacation. That should drive home the point. But a
good idea isn’t always a good idea. Ideas have tentacles,
they affect and are affected by other things outside the
main idea, and those things aren’t always obvious. If you
could take some of our bike models, fold your arms and
blink your eyes like Jeanie, and turn it into a TIG-welded
bike with thick, seamed, straight-gauge CrMo steel tubing;
you’d have a heck of a cheap, functional bike. But if we did
that and they became immensely popular, we’d have tons
of competition the next year, and that competition could
smother us. We don’t source from China, but that kind of
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bike could be, and suddenly we’re just an also-ran, an after
thought.
What about building a bike that is a bit more
theft resistant?
I still have a plan for a cheaper bike for riding in bike
thefty areas. Everybody at Rivendell knows about our
“cheap bike project.” The idea is to have a super ugly bike
with a few manufacturing shortcuts, it would come primered,
but not painted. You’d assemble it and then paint it,
and not worry about overspray on the rims and tires. Each
bike would look already stolen, and could have a unique
paint job that made a real thief reluctant to take it, because
it would be so identifiable.
It was a relief to me when in your book you
confess that you do not like working on your
bikes.
The worst part of working on bikes is hooking up the
cables. I insist on smoothly cut or ground cable housing,
because I don’t like even the remote possibility of a burr
damaging a cable. Even in theory. So I grind burrs smooth
off the housing on a grinding wheel, and if the heat seals the
end and I can’t get a cable through it, then I have to re-cut
and start over again. It can take me 30 minutes to hook up
brakes. Hate it.
There’s an entry in Just Ride titled “The Predictability
Ruse,” where you mention one type
of unpredictable behavior–that is to swing out
a bit before the car passes you; what other
methods do you use?
The key is to look unconcerned or unaware; not to
freak out the driver and cause an accident. But there’s
nothing to be gained by riding with such an air of confidence
and control that the driver passes within inches of
you.
I also think that bike riders see cars as inanimate evil
polluters and killers, because they don’t see the face and
the eyes of the good person inside. They see the grill and
headlights as a menacing face out to do them and the planet
harm. it’s easy to forget that inside that polluting hunk of
metal could be a kind pacifist who does a lot of good in the
world. In the absence of absolute knowledge of who’s behind
the wheel, that’s a good assumption to make. You can’t get
along and do good things if you don’t survive. Cars win every
collision.