So many rabbit holes...

A customer brought in her gravel bike, saying that it sometimes locked up when she was on the big chainring, and that the freehub sometimes would not engage right away.

The bike is a Parlee Chebacco. She might have bought it used, but it does not look ill-used. But cleanliness can conceal problems almost as effectively as dirt does, sometimes. A bike that has been hosed regularly may be clean and shiny, but it has been abused. The abuse is disguised as meticulous care. It only appears to the trained eye in the oxidation, the unnatural dryness of certain areas, and rusty bearings in a bike that otherwise looks like it never leaves the house.

This bike had faint indications of hosing. It's not that old, so it can't have been through much, but the chain was already worn out. It wasn't thrashed, but it was due.

Crank jamming sounds like chain suck, but there were no signs of chain suck. The freehub could be the culprit, if the ratchets lock up and then release, giving her other symptom: no resistance to pedaling. The frame showed absolutely no signs of chain suck. The chainrings had no bends, hooks, or burrs as might result from repeated jamming.

The wheel is a DT Swiss, but not a star ratchet.

It has three pawls. The spring encircles them, secured into the freehub body with little bent ends that tuck into  drillings. The mechanism was lubricated with light grease, dirty from use, but not gritty or congealed. The pawls moved freely. The ring that they engage with in the hub body had no worn or broken teeth. There were no little bits of metal or dirt pinballing through the mechanism to cause intermittent jams.

Turning to the omniscient Internet to look for reports, rants, and sophomoric proclamations regarding problems with DT freehubs, I discovered one more thing for neurotics to amp about: Points of Engagement. Abbreviated to POE by the cool kids, it's a characteristic worth a lot of chin stroking pronouncements and passionate denunciations.

I guess I don't ride hard enough. But even when I did, I must have been fortunate never to have a serious failure of the drive mechanism. I had one freehub failure in a nearly new Sachs hub in the mid 1990s, when the freehub body itself cracked, causing the ratchet to jam, which fed chain through the system, yanked the derailleur apart, and made me walk home from that ride. The replacement hub that Sachs provided is still working, more than 20 years later. It has outlived its parent company.

In any pawl ratchet, the massive power of your monster quads is channeled through two or three little chips of metal. Points of engagement: two or three at any given moment. The size of teeth in the outer ring is inversely proportional to the number of them. In a star-ratchet type freehub, there are more POE, but the same proportion applies: more points mean smaller points. The engagement is finer, but shallower. The load is spread over more teeth, but a smaller piece of debris can disrupt it.

A freewheeling mechanism at all is a point of weakness compared to a cog threaded directly to the hub shell. Should you let yourself think about it, or just be glad that you've been lucky and hope your luck holds?

Add the POE rabbit hole to the "I'm worried about my position" rabbit hole, with all of its subsidiary burrows: stem length, bar width, seat height, saddle choice, cleat attachment...Does your crank arm length really suit you?  Then we can get you losing sleep over the shorts you buy. Have you noticed how the thread count of your tires can cost you as much as a tenth of a second in the sprint? And I don't even want to get started on chain lube.

I was unable to duplicate any of her problems or find any hint of a cause. I cleaned and re-lubed the insides of the freehub, checked the bearings, replaced the chain, and test rode the bike around and around, trying to make it malfunction. It should be fine. But some customers have mysterious powers. You learn never to stand back confidently and say that it's cured, especially with certain people who seem to have their own flock of gremlins constantly sabotaging them.

Revenge of the nerds

I've had a to do a lot of counseling in the past week or so, helping customers who had state-of-the-art ten speed drive trains and now find themselves relegated to the mediocre masses when they need parts. As I explained how the bike industry is not their friend it struck me how the tone changed during the 1990s from its earlier cheerful bike nerd persona at the end of the '80s.

As I have posted previously, promotional literature for the early mass-produced mountain bikes actually suggested that the owner of one of these affordable fun machines might start "riding more and driving less." But as the market exploded, bringing in unprecedented amounts of cash and public interest, the tone shifted quickly to technological hype. The 1990s brought the No Fear craze, and the rise of the badass image. Mountain biking events still presented themselves as welcoming to all abilities, but the range of abilities was rapidly widening, with those on the crumbling ridge crest of the leading edge getting the most publicity.

Early mountain bike evolution refined the parameters of a rigid frame, retreating steadily from the relatively slack geometry of early models to something with snappier handling. Roomy rear triangles shrank to only sufficient clearance for the tires of the time, to make the bikes stronger climbers. Head angles north of 70 degrees were the norm. Some might sneer at this as "roadie influence." I never tire of pointing out that the originators of mountain biking were roadies, and all-around bike nerds. The exclusive category specialists came in once things were rolling, to beef up the BMX influence and feed off of the anti-roadie sentiment that is always too ready to spring up. In any case, race courses shaped the bikes and the bikes shaped the race courses. The tighter, steeper frames also worked better for mixed-media riding. That made sense because so many people were using the bike for all their riding needs. People were dumping nice road bikes for cheap, cheap money as a down payment on a mountain bike. Other people, who had not owned a bike in years, were buying in and finding that they liked riding more than just trails. The bike nerds almost got their wish. But category fracturing had already taken hold.

Even as suspension was in its infancy, the sponsored riders and ambitious racers were pushing for bikes to meet their specific desires. The downhill crowd had the most stringent need for ballistic missiles that they could control at the greatest possible speed. But effective suspension had a strong appeal for everyone on rough surfaces. And before that, Shimano had been pushing the Shifter Wars, and dominating OEM spec until the SRAM lawsuit in 1990 threw a speed bump in front of them. The industry borrowed from the computer industry and drug dealers for its business model. Both of these models consume the consumer. They are hostile to longevity of both products and users. Was this in part motivated by bitterness that the peace and freedom of the original simple bike had been cast aside for gizmos and bravado? Or was it purely motivated by simple greed?

Looking back over the history of human inventiveness in general, humans invented items that made their lives easier. A stick, a rock, a vine, these mutated into levers, spears, arrows, hammers, axes, string, rope, and so on. A tool would be made to perform a function. A better tool would displace the earlier version. Before industrialization, mass production called for numerous artisans performing similar tasks or coordinating their efforts, but the goal was to make life easier. If a job could be done in less time, that meant you could do more jobs or have more of your irreplaceable time to spend on other things. Even well into the age of industrialization, things were built to last, even if that was just accidental. I was born in time to experience the end of the Era of Durability. It really did happen, although little sign of it remains today.

On the consumer side, you didn't want to waste your time and resources on an item that didn't hold up. There was no Amazon to deliver new crap by drone to whatever GPS coordinates you provide. There wasn't a Dollar Store or a big box retailer every 15 miles. A time will come when that is true again. We may be back to sticks and rocks and vines by then, or we may simply rediscover the concepts of durability and longevity.

The current waves of obsolescence may be the revenge of the nerds. Even if they didn't intend it that way, it's working out that way. Before 12-speed has fully penetrated the market, here comes 13-speed. Shimano had patent drawings for 14 back in the 1990s. Tinfoil chains indeed. Prepare to be penetrated, market, over and over. The fact that it's asinine and destructive and wasteful has never mattered. What matters is giving the tech-obsessed market segments one fix after another until they die or go into rehab.

Not many people could do my job. But who would want to?

On the Facebook page of a sort-of-young mountain bike rider, he made reference to the three whole weeks he spent working for a bike shop. He dismissed most of the bikes he had to work on as “shit.” It was a classic example of the arrogance of a category-specific rider who ranks the whole world based on his personal choices in technology and obsession.

The arrogant cyclist in any category is a common enough character to have become the stereotype of all bike riders as viewed by our hostile audience. Almost any reviews of a bike shop will mention one or more examples of dismissive conceit. And wherever non riders encounter riders, someone’s feathers will be ruffled. Disregarding the small percentage of hardcore non cyclists who will always find a reason to hate, we cyclists have to admit that a sizable percentage of us do ride in stupid and offensive ways. It is certainly not the majority, but it’s hardly rare. Riders who are impressed with themselves will expect everyone else to be equally impressed.

I love pulling off a good maneuver just as much as anyone. And when I ride the multi-use path I try to maintain my flow and give the pedestrians only as much as I have to for safety and basic courtesy. Based on the expressions on most of them, it’s never enough.

As for shit bikes, most people have the bike they feel they can afford. In 1980 I tried to work the sales floor at the shop where I worked at the time, to see if I could get more people to buy better bikes. Once in a while, it worked. But most people’s eyes would  glaze when I tried to get them to buy up from nutted axles, steel rims, and vinyl vasectomy seats. That was when we sold mostly just ten-speeds and three-speeds for adults, and coaster brakes and BMX bikes for kids. When I reentered the bike business in 1989, I had more success convincing customers to aim a little higher. Even during the recession of 1988-‘92, people seemed to be able to scrape up the money for a mountain bike. But that boom is long gone, along with solidly built bikes that cost $600.

Some shops are lucky enough to be able to specialize in one or two categories they particularly like. To do that, you either need a source of independent wealth, or a strong customer base in your favorite market segment. In a rural town, you need to attract a lot of people from outside the area to finance your dream shop. Otherwise, you will have to make your living by servicing the bikes you call shit.

Youth makes a mechanic arrogant in two ways. On a basic level, young adults are automatically susceptible to arrogance as a matter of simple biology. It’s the time of life when animals try to establish breeding territory and compete for mates. Humans are complex creatures. We filter our simple urges through our technology and experience to form our self image and world view. I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of bike shop snots are males between age 20 and 40.

Anyone stupid or trapped enough to have stayed in the bike business for more than two decades has probably had all the arrogance crushed out of them. We can despise WalMart bikes because they are truly a ripoff and a danger to the people who get stuck with them. But there’s a whole world of bikes that would bore and annoy a young firebrand or a bike snob, that still have value and deserve a measure of consideration.

My opinions on bikes are shaped more by economics than by the cutting edge sophistication of their technology. I definitely prefer working on some things more than others. The tweaky new stuff is stupidly expensive and kind of a pain in the ass. Really cheap stuff presents its own challenge. Working on something twenty years old can be a relief. The people who taught me about bikes instilled a respect for the craft. It's a point of self respect to be able to work on whatever anyone throws at you, and to know something of the history and evolution of our machines.

Young riders and mechanics are handicapped by what they’ve never seen. The world begins for them at the point where they began to pay attention. Every generation goes through the same thing. A set of assumptions is provided. Only a minority will look beyond that. Even then, their analysis has to work with their grasp of basic principles. The basics for a bike nerd starting out in the mid 1970s are all cup and cone bearings and things that secure with lock nuts. Someone joining up in the 21st Century may have had some cheap equipment with cup and cone hubs and a fake sealed bottom bracket, but they surely aspire to something with all cartridge bearings, hydraulics, and electronics. Road, mountain, or other, sophistication afflicts all categories. A fashionable conceit can afflict each of them as well.

Modern riders are resigned to the idea that the components they buy and the tools they buy to work on them are all going on the junk pile in a couple of years, to be replaced by the compete set of new stuff they buy, for as long as they can afford to buy. Addicts spend money on their habit. Dealers keep feeding them stronger and stronger doses. If your riding style involves frequent crashes on rough surfaces, nothing will last long anyway. Some burn hot and short. Some endure.

Mettle fatigue

This was the kind of winter that makes owls starve to death. It was not an epic snow year, but the snow we got was dense, and melts slowly. The weather has not been very cold, but cold enough to make the winter very long. Snow arrived in November and never left. It's still here, more than a week into "spring."

Owls have been unable to reach their prey under snow too solid for their bird-weight to penetrate.

Until a couple of years ago, I would have been out there already, claiming my space on the road. As soon as the ice retreats fully from the pavement, I figure all's fair. At least I did. I needed base miles, and no one was going to stop me.

On my last days off, the temperature was supposed to top out in the mid 30s (F), on sunny, slightly breezy days. That's not inviting, but it's not bad. Dress for it. But on Monday I woke up with a weird digestive ailment that made me cold, depressed, occasionally lightheaded, and reluctant to venture far from the house. The malaise receded overnight, but enough effects lingered on Tuesday to make me stay off the bike then, too.

Each additional day off the bike gives me more time to contemplate the steadily increasing size of pickup trucks. Traffic looks less intimidating when you join its flow, but the big beasts are dangerous nonetheless. I have held my line with my elbow inches from tractor-trailer tires a number of times. It’s all part of the experience. Not a good part, mind you, but it will happen in the traffic criterium. It’s one reason that biking isn’t always a great way to see the sights. You need to concentrate on what’s in front of you while you try to herd what’s around you. You want to see the sights, take a leisurely walk or ride a tour bus.

It could be better. But any time we try to increase our speed using a wheeled conveyance we increase the risk of an unfortunate event. Balancing on two wheels is more precarious than squatting on four. You could stuff it riding on a separated bike path by yourself.

It’s not about the crash. I hate to crash, and I refuse to consider it inevitable, with experience and due care, but I have burned in a number of times, and always gone back to riding as soon as I healed up enough.

Mostly I dislike the public exposure of riding. We remain a minority, a bunch of weirdos who go without engines, on devices most people consider a phase of childhood, or perhaps don’t consider at all. We are simultaneously ridiculous super athletes and ineffectual dorks. Nothing we do will make us respectable. The best we can hope to be is tolerable. I did not understand the terms of this agreement when I committed myself to bicycling at the end of the 1970s. All of the idealistic bike nerds of the day thought that our time was coming. Surely the world had to notice that practicality and fun coexisted perfectly in the bicycle. It was true then and it is still true. Just because we haven’t won doesn’t mean we’re wrong.

The weather warms grudgingly. As usual for this time of year, warmth brings wetness, followed by resurgent cold. It used to be easier to take, when the whole world didn’t seem so cold in general. Funny thing to say in a warming climate, but you know what I mean.

The latest and greatest!

Bike componentry development reminds me of the joke about the two guys running away from a bear. One guy stops to put on his running shoes. The other guy says, "Why bother? You can't outrun a bear." The other guy says, "I only have to outrun you."

No matter how much money you spend on ultra-fancy bikes and parts, you'll never really be fast. You'll only -- maybe -- be faster than the other pathetic dorks working outrageously hard to go about as fast as a prudent driver in a residential neighborhood.

Naive bike nerds

At lunch one day I was leafing through a book that Specialized put out to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Stumpjumper mountain bike.

The copy in one of their early ads caught my eye. It was pure biketopian dreaming.

See where it says, "...you'll find you're riding more and driving less." Bike nerds still believed that they could entice Americans out of their automobiles. The leaders of the industry had come through the ten-speed boom of the 1970s. A national organization promoting bike touring had sprung up in 1976 under the name Bikecentennial, which lives on today as Adventure Cycling. Bike nerds knew, we just knew, that if we could just get enough people to try riding that they would abandon their cars en masse and join us in the fresh air and sunshine of a cleaner, more humane world.

Oh, and we're all probably faster than you are, but don't let that discourage you. Just ride more!

Each boom did see a rise in cycling participation in the real world. Mountain bikes, ostensibly designed for trail riding, were based on road designs because the early ones were improvised on road frames. They were not racing frames, but all bikes were a product of the roads and roads were a product of bikes. Once the genre was separated, mutation followed, but it took a while. All life traces to a common ancestor, but a giraffe is not a weasel and a fish is not a bird.

The bike nerds were up against sheer population growth and an economy devoted to the pursuit of wealth powered by an internal combustion engine. Even if wealth meant mere survival at a grub job, of course you would drive to it. And when you got a better job, you'd get a better car. Duh! If you couldn't afford a car, you'd take a bus or maybe ride a bike until you could afford a car. It's called being normal.

The Chinese were famous for their herds of thousands of bike commuters before they embraced creeping capitalism and their economy revved up. The first thing they did was ditch the bikes and get cars. Pollution and traffic deaths soared. But people were getting rich.

It's nice to see the Chinese now taking steps to reverse the environmental damage of their surge of industrialization. Bike sharing has become a major social and economic experiment there. We'll see how it plays out. The level of damage, loss, and wear and tear on the share-bike fleets may have people pining to own their own bikes again because they can control the use and care that they get. But then they're back to the problem of theft.

The lack of safe riding routes and secure parking present probably the two biggest deterrents to transportation cycling. You're as free as a bird on your bike, but whole populations of birds have been wiped out by people with shotguns or nest-plundering predators. Or you get sucked into the engine of a jet.

Humans have a tendency to project the future. The ability to imagine consequences has helped us over the eons, but the problems we create demonstrate the limits of those powers of prediction. We might not know for years or decades whether we've made things fundamentally better or worse by doing something that seemed initially helpful. And every generation judges a future it won't live to see by the standards of its past and present. To the extent that humans have hit a plateau in physical evolution and that our mental and emotional responses seem fairly firmly set, perhaps a generation can suggest standards by which its descendants should live. But the descendants are the ones who will actually be living under those standards, so it's really their call.

I still believe that the bike nerd view was a good one, and that our species has suffered by pushing it aside. But no one can control the outcome. The bike industry itself is the aggregate total of mostly bad decisions. It is a microcosm of society in that way. As an industry, it has to try to survive in the reality of its times.