Bendix

My kickass Bendix kickback hub finally arrived today. My God it's heavy. Almost 4 lbs. This was build back when A-myrrh-ica still build steel. It's so heavy, I'm having second thoughts about using it for a bike I want to be fast and nible. But I am going to use it and convert my fixed gear into a 2-speed

I got my (no longer) bianchi back from the bike store. The one with the cracked frame. Now it's got a new (used) steel frame. New headset. New (used) brake levers. New carbon fork. It's not as pretty as my old celeste frame. But it seems to ride just fine. $380 all together. But what can you do? I guess not buy a carbon fork. But I had a carbon fork and I don't want a worse bike. Carbon forks really do turn small bumps into butter.

A man, a plan, 2 speeds!

My plan is unfix my fixed gear, put on slightly smaller (650B) wheels, and coast with joy down the Queensboro bridge. I've got nothing against fixed gears. I've had this bike for almost 10 years. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

Today on ebay I purchased a Bendix coaster brake 2-speed kickback hub. At least from the pictures and description, the man did a great job cleaning and rebuilding these hubs. That's even better than "new in box" because even "brand new" isn't good for 40-year-old grease.

A kickback hub is a rare bird. It has two speeds. You shift, get this, by braking! Crazy. Every time you brake, you shift. Not ideal. But I've ridden one in Amsterdam and it's surprisingly not a pain. The advantage, of course, is no cables and no external shifting parts. These hubs were made on the early 1960s for Schwinn. Sachs also made some from folding bikes (those are even rarer).

There are two speeds: low and high. On the red and yellow bands, the high is the natural speed and the low is geared down. There's also a blue band where the low is the natural gear and the high is geared up. I wanted the high-speed to be more efficient because that will be used more. The difference between red and yellow band is in the type of coaster brake. I don't know anything about coaster brakes, so I went with the yellow band because it's the later (and hopefully improved) design.

The new hub will necessitate a new chainring. My current fixed hub has 16 teeth. This one has 18 teeth. That means the new hub will be as if in a lower gear. If anything, I'd like the higher speed a slightly higher gear. This means my current 46-tooth chainring will need to get uped to maybe 54 teeth.

Also for this bike, the Screamin' Salmon, I got my new peddles in the mail today. They're flat on one side and SPD clipless on the other. I have these on my (sniff... formerly) Bianchi. That bike is currently at the shop getting a new frame. The peddles are great. To Manhattan, I usually ride with bike shoes, but it's great to have the normal shoe option. And these peddles (or at least the one I already have) are weighted so they always fall in the same direction. This way you never get the wrong side when riding. Slide forward for bike shoes, back for street shoes.

All this said, none of this is cheap. I'm spending more on bikes this month than I have in the past few years combined. But it's all cheaper than having a car. It's even cheaper (but not by much) than riding the subway. And luckily I got paid today.

Top-of-the-line coaster brake hub?

Is there such a thing as a top-of-the-line one-speed coaster brake hub? I'm thinking of (gasp) turning my fixed-gear into a free-wheel one-speed. I want a light and fast one-speed for commuting. Ideally I'd get another bike, but I think maybe I have enough. And though I have loved my fixed-gear, the Screamin' Salmon, since 1999, and though it's great going up hill, every time I go down the Queensburo bridge, I wish I could coast. That's the best part of the ride!

Plus, this would give me an excuse to build a set 650B wheels. Not only are 650Bs cool (if I say that enough, maybe I'll believe it), but they'll allow full fenders and this frame has always been just a little big for me. So an extra 1/2 inch of clearance.

The coaster brake would have two advantages: one, rain, two, I can put on an Egyptian spoke bike bell and avoid the problem of having to fix three hand brake levers. It's such a shame I now have this great bell on a bike I rarely take into Manhattan. Crossing 3rd, Lex, Madison, and Park... that's where I want to ring!

Happy handle bars for a fixed gear

After 7 years and many (4?) attempts, I finally found comfortable handlebars for the Screamin' Salmon, my fixed gear.

It finally involved:

1) buying handlebars in Amsterdam
2) sawing off the end of those handlebars
and 3) buying a new extended high handlebar stem with minimum reach




The handlebars are right at seat height. Maybe an inch higher. This allows upright posture. As I wrote once before, unless you're sprinting, fixed gears mean you can't really rest your weight on your feet (because you can't rest your feet). As a result, there's a lot more weight on your ass and hands. On drop handlebars, weight is more evenly divided between feet, seat, and hands. Take feet out of that equation, and well, it just doesn't work. Hands aren't designed to take that weight.

And yet I see people with fixed gears all hunched over drop handlebars. I don't get it. Seems like torture to me. And I like drop handlebars.

The angle on my handbrake isn't quite right. I want the whole thing lower, but rotated that way, the brake handle shoots out a funny angle. I'll have to play with that a bit.

My earlier posts on handlebar heights and fixed gear bikes:
http://bluebirdbike.blogspot.com/2005/06/handlebar-height.html
http://bluebirdbike.blogspot.com/2005/06/ handlebar-height-and-fixed-gear.html

Handlebar height and the fixed gear

I was biking on the Screamin’ Salmon, my fixed gear bike, and think I discovered the answer to the handlebar dilemma: why are lower handlebars more comfortable on my Bianchi and less comfortable on my fixed gear. The answer has less to do with the style of handlebars, as I mentioned previously, but the kind of bike.

You sit a lot more on a fixed gear. On a road bike, when you coast, your legs are supporting a good part of your body, and your ass is supporting the rest. Your legs are often supporting all your weight, as when you go over a bumpy stretch. Then your butt is hovering just over your seat and your hands are barely grasping the handlebars. The bike and your legs take all the bumps. This is why bikes don’t need shock absorbers.

(I have to say, shock absorbers are kind of fun, but that’s for another post. I think shock absorbers can even be dangerous inasmuch as they may make you relaxed about going over bad pavement. You can’t ignore bad pavement because some potholes in this city will eat you and your bike alive, shocks or not.)

As opposed to riding a normal free-wheel bike, you can’t really coast on a fixed gear. You can, but you have to let your legs turn with the wheel. Because of this, you don’t support yourself with your legs when you “coast” on a fixed gear. Rather than, in effect, standing, you sit on your seat and divide your weight between the seat and the handlebars. Going over bumpy pavement while still peddling is one of the skills you (by default) must learn on a fixed gear. It’s not how you normally ride a bike.

The lower the handlebars, the more weight gets shifted from your bum to your hands. That’s no problem if your legs are holding most of your weight. But if you’re not using your feet for support, low handlebars mean that too much of your weight is on your hands and arms. This hurts.

So raising the handlebars on a fixed gear means your seat takes most of the bumps on the road. And a well-padded seat I have. This also explains why more novice bikers like high handlebars. It’s better for your weight to be on your seat than on your hands. A more racing position, on the other hand, puts most of your weight on your legs, with your seat taking most of the rest and your arms, by pulling and pushing on your grips, primarily give you more peddle power.

I don’t know if all this is right, but at least I think I’ve figured it out.

Fixed Gear. The Screamin' Salmon has a new look!

The Screamin' Salmon has news look!




Of course almost nobody reading this knows the old look. But let me tell you about the Screamin' Salmon. This bike was originally built and named in Boston by my friend Ryan Tacy. It was also ridden by John Gertsen. I underpaid one of them (I think Tacy) back in 1999 and it became mine. It’s the only bike of mine with a name.

It's a fixed-gear bike. I learned to ride this bike in Baltimore. I didn’t bring my Bianchi when I moved to Baltimore in late 1999 so I’d be forced to ride the Salmon. It worked. I rode it to the police academy everyday for 6 months and less so after I had to buy a car. But it was my Baltimore bike.

Then it sat in the Cambridge basement for the past four years (it actually improved a bit as Tacy put some more work into it). It’s not easy to move bikes long distance without a car. I have a bag large enough (and specifically designed) for bikes. And thanks to the Chinatown bus (they don’t care what you throw down there), I finally brought it back about a month ago to its new home in New York City. It’s mine again!

A fixed-gear bike means you can’t coast. When the rear wheel turns, the peddles turn. A little nomenclature: all fixed-gears are one speeds, but most one-speed bikes are not fixed gear. Most bikes are free wheel or free hub, meaning when the rear wheel goes forward, the peddles don’t go with it. And any bike that doesn’t have a derailleur can be called a single track. A single-track bike (it’s not a very common term, I don’t think) can be your old 1-speed, a fixed gear, or an internally shifting bike with many-speeds (like the Bluebird).

And all track bike (racing bikes for track racing) are fixed gears; but not all fixed gears are track bikes. Most fixed gears you see on the street, like the Screamin’ Salmon, are converted road bikes. Now you can actually buy a new fixed gear in a bike store. This is a new development. It shows they’re gaining popularity, but they’ll never be mainstream.

How can you spot a fixed gear? Look at the rear cog. If it looks like a racing bike and it’s only got one cog in the rear (as opposed to a standard “10-speed” setup), it’s probably a fixed gear. But it could just be a one-speed. Next, look if there’s a rear break. Fixed gears don’t have rear brakes. That’s what your legs are for. Many fixed gears don’t a front brake either, but more on that later. Finally, look if the rider stops peddling when he or she slows down. If the rider coast, it’s not a fixed gear.

Finally, look at the rider. Is the rider a white guy with dreads? Is the rider somebody you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley? Is the rider somebody you wouldn’t want to date your daughter? Is the rider somebody you’d like to date? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” then the bike is probably a fixed gear. If it is a fixed gear and you’re caught staring at it, feel free to give the rider a knowing nod and a sly smile.

Fixed gears are very old-school (I’m talking 19th-Century old-school, not Afrika Bambaataa old-school). Fixed gears are very popular among bike messenger. Fixed gears get you some street props. They’re generally considered hard core. But in general, being able to coast is good. He who invented the freewheel was on to something. So why, you might ask, would anybody want to ride a one-speed fixed-gear bike?

Fixed gears have a couple of big advantages over “normal” bikes:
1) They’re really light. There are no extra parts like deralleures and breaks and shifters.
2) They’re really simple. Because they don’t have extra parts, they really get to the essence of what a bike is about. And there’s less that can break.
3) They’re so efficient to bike. Nothing takes less energy to peddle than a fixed gear. It’s a combination of light and efficient. There’s no wasted effort on your part. What you peddle is what you get. No friction, no noise, just power.
4) They’re really precise and easy to steer at very low speeds. Useful for city riding.
5) They’re great going uphill. Many people find this surprising. I did. People have gears for going uphill. It doesn’t makes sense that a one-speed is better. But fixed gears always pass racing bikes going up hill (and everything passes mountain bikes. I really don’t get why people have mountain bikes with big nobby tires in New York City. It just don’t makes sense). I’m not 100% sure why fixed-gear bikes are so good uphill. But it’s got to do with being light, being efficient, and the fact that you have no choice. Since you can’t downshift, you just have to keep peddling. The ability to zoom uphill, to me, is the main advantage of riding the Screamin’ Salmon. Pretty much the only big hill where I go is the bridge into the City. On a fixed gear, I know that the half-mile Queensboro Bridge uphill will be a piece of cake.
6) You’re much more “at one” with your bike when you’re riding. I don’t want to get too Zen here, but trust me on this one.

Fixed gears also make you a better bike rider. You learn how to ride a bike much better when you can’t coast over bumps and through turns. The first time you ride a fixed gear, it’s tough. You can’t stop peddling. You instinctively try to coast and you almost get thrown by the peddles. The peddles will move you. Momentum is on their side.

When you learn to ride a fixed gear, it’s a little like learning how to ride a bike all over again. And since you don’t forget what you already know, you become a better biker.

But breaking is what tends to define a fixed-gear bike. Many don’t have any brakes. But that’s just dumb. Why not have a front brake? Chains can brake. Rarely. But they can. Why risk it? But most fixed gears, including the Screamin’ Salmon, have a front-wheel brake.

To slow down on a fixed gear you just sort of reverse peddle. You can’t really reverse peddle, of course, as long as you’re moving forward. But you apply force in the backwards direction. To break medium hard you basically stand on the peddle as it’s coming up. It’ll lift you, but you’ll slow it down. A lot.

With a little practice on a fixed-gear, you can also lock your legs and freeze the rear wheel, This slows the bike down with a rear-wheel skid. But I’d just a soon use the front brake for quick stopping. And using the front break lifts the back of the bike up a little, making it easy to lock the rear wheel. Fixed gears require toe clips or bike shoes. Your feet have to stay on them peddles.

If you can't picture this, think of your old Big Wheel (I don't think I ever had one--I was on to "real" tricycles pretty quickly--but I sure thought Big Wheels were cool, especially the skid-inducing read-wheel hand break). Big Wheels are fixed gears, or they would be if they had a gear. You slow down on a fixed gear like you did on your Big Wheel.

I think a fixed gear is safer to ride than a normal bike if you tend to ride fast, like I do. Because the fixed gear is a one-speed, you tend to bike slower on the level roads than you would on a 10-speed. But slow and steady wins the race. And on a fixed gear you also start slowing down a bit earlier.

What’s the downside? Not coasting can be a downside. But really there’s only one: going downhill. It’s not as fun or as fast on a fixed gear. You can’t go too fast downhill, because your legs have to keep up. And it’s not as fun, because you can’t coast after you crest a hill.

Truth be told, if I could only have one bike, I’d take my Bianchi over the Screamin’ Salmon. But the Screamin’ Salmon or any fixed gear is a great second bike. I probably ride it half the time I could take my Bianchi. Especially for short to medium distances.

So what’s the new look? (please excuse the--as Ali G might say--digestion) The handlebars! The Salmon had straight mountain-bike handlebars. I didn’t like them. They were too hard on my arms, especially my wrists. It’s much harder to absorb shock in your arm on straight handlebars and with your fists straight out and horizontal.

I’ve always wanted to try these handlebars. So I ordered me some Moustache Handlebars on e-bay. About $35. And I had to buy a road-bike brake lever (about $20). Along with looking slick, these handlebars give your hands lots of positions, a huge advantage. Because of the multiple hand positions, moustache handlebars aren't great with brakes and shifters (which demand that your hand be on them). But they're perfect for a fixed-gear.

The brake lever is up on top so that I can put my hands anywhere on the bars. And you don't need to keep your hand right on the brake on a fixed gear because your legs are the main brakes. I'll cover the bars with handlebar tape. I have some coming in the post. The only obvious disadvantage to these bars is that they're a bit wide. Not good for sneaking through stopped cars and avoiding side-view mirrors.

And I took off the bar ends for the old handle bars and put them on Katie’s bike. I feel like it’s good charma to put a bit of a old bike on a new bike. Like passing the flame.













The real color is actually a bit more pink than in these pictures.



Want more on fixed-gear bikes?

Of course, Sheldon Brown has something to say about fixed gears.

This a good article from Wired.com. I especially like the comparison between breaking on a fixed-gear with breaking on a Big Wheel. I stole the concept from this piece.

Here's another very good article called the fixed gear purist cult mentality thing. This article reminds me, did I mention how smooth a fixed gear is? Very.

And the fixed-gear gallery.

Finally, a quick "how to."