Save the date: June 23-24 Brewfarm Classic

Save the date of June 23-24 for the 3rd Annual Dave's Brewfarm Overnight Classic. You're invited! We'll ride our bikes to Dave's Brewfarm in Wilson, Wisconsin for food, drink, merriment, and camping (leave HC at 8am, about 70 leisurely miles each way). If you haven't been to the Brewfarm, it's a wonderful place, owned by wonderfuller people. This is truly the highlight of the summer. You'll have fun, I promise. Oh, and bring the kids. Family friendly. Also bring a potluck dish, if you want to. There will be cars taking camping gear, food, etc, so you don't have to carry it all on your bike.

This was initially a cycling-based event, but riding 140 miles over a weekend isn't for everybody, and lots of friends were not terribly interested in the bike part. Just to be clear: We welcome all modes of transport, so if you prefer to drive out to the Brewfarm, it's cool. Some people drive out early, but bring bikes to ride around in the countryside. That's good, too.

Anyway, we get to the Brewfarm on Saturday, June 23. We set up our tents for camping. We hang out in nature's splendor, we eat, we drink, we make and/or hear music, and for heaven's sake, we enjoy the great company and the magical atmosphere. Optional: I'll wrestle any one of you into a painful submission. Then, by our chosen mode of conveyance, we go home the next day, Sunday, June 24.

If interested, please email bikepubcrawl@gmail.com for details and to RSVP.

Closed Saturday April 21

I'm going on a BADASS tour of Milwaukee for the weekend, and Mark is going somewhere else. So we'll be closed Saturday, April 21. Normal hours through Friday and back to normal on Tuesday. Also, please order your 2012 HC poster by Adam Turman here.

Is this a great town, or what?

Posters are in, Grant P's visit, and an opinion piece for the benefit of non-cyclists

First:
Adam Turman dropped off the GORGEOUS 2012 "Spring Ride" posters this week. You can order them here or just stop in and get one. The graphic in the catalog listing isn't 100% accurate in regard to colors, and I think in real life it's more awesome than it is on my computer screen.

Second:
As I mentioned before, Grant Petersen of Bridgestone and Rivendell fame, will be visiting us to sign covers of his new book on the evening of Thursday, May 31. You can buy the book from us very soon for $13.95. Back to the May 31 book-signing event: I have plans to turn this into a semi-major party. Not a fall-down drunk kind of thing, but more of a Summer cook-out with the best quality meat on the grill, craft beer, and bike-riding, and maybe even some music. We've got our best people assigned to these tasks. It should be an amazingly fun time. Not many specifics to divulge yet, but put it on your calendar.

Finally, some opinion:
A few weeks ago, I was coming up to a stop sign in a quiet residential neighborhood near the shop. This is the kind of situation where stopping would usually be a pointless exercise in following rules, because I can plainly see if cross-traffic is coming, and it usually isn't. So I treat it like a yield, slow down and prepare to stop, proceeding with full power when I can see that stopping is not necessary. Cyclists often get excoriated in public opinion for bending such rules, but in truth drivers usually treat these intersections as yields, too, and nobody complains about it. Just so we're clear, nobody should complain about it! (For years, until recently, residential South Minneapolis had hundreds of intersections with no stop signs at all!) Cyclists are a visible minority, and we get singled-out. Anyway, on this particular day, an elderly lady and her little dog were waiting to cross in front of me. They had the right-of-way, and I had a stop sign, so out of legality and courtesy and common sense, I stopped at the stop sign and waited. The old lady waved me through once I'd already stopped, but I pointed out that she had the right-of-way. At that point, she started scolding me, saying something about how "bikers don't usually stop for stop signs." When I said that, in this case, I, a "biker", did, in fact, stop, all while trying to be polite and pleasant with her, she kept nagging me about it. I was the one following the rules, and she was resentful about it! I thanked her for her opinion, and continued on to the shop.

Throughout the day, I continued to reflect on the incident. Clearly, she was a batty old lady, but she expressed a sentiment that I think is nearly universal among non-cyclists: "bikers" are a cohesive group that makes up and agrees upon its own rules, often just to tick off the respectable people of the world who drive cars (or walk dogs). But what she didn't know is that, in fact, the opposite is true. Cyclists come more or less equally from all income quartiles. Homeless guys and convicted drunk drivers and doctors and business people and kids and hippies and Ron Paul and Lebron James all ride bikes. Some are wonderful people, some are jerks, and some are misunderstood, like everybody else. Some ride bikes for exercise, some for a political reason, some to save money, some because they geek out over equipment, some for family recreation, some to be fashionable, some to train for a "tri", and some for several or all of the above reasons. Often a "biker" from one category resents "bikers" from the other categories. We don't usually know each other, or even agree with each other on most issues.

There's a common misconception, even among some people who ride bikes, that rolling through controlled intersections is a simple matter of physics and maximizing efficiency. That's only partly true. For me, if I'm waiting at a light, and can safely get a head-start on the cars waiting behind me, I'll do it. It puts distance between me and them, which is safe for me, and convenient for them. For this reason, I'll often filter through the gaps between stopped cars rather than wait dutifully in line to become the peanut butter in a Ford sandwich when some texting driver behind me "doesn't see me" and rams me into the car in front. It pisses people off that cyclists can and do bend these rules, but I feel that it's a matter of safety for cyclists to take advantage of our slim profile and maneuverability.

Behaviors like I just described are often cited as a reason why drivers HATE cyclists. It's beyond a common annoyance. It's white-hot hatred (not everybody, but many). Of course, drivers often bend the traffic laws, and nobody cares, or even notices. But when a cyclist does it, outraged drivers write letters to the editor. I think there's more to it than simple frustration with scofflaw behavior. There's a strong feeling that cyclists are getting away with something. We're getting exercise and, as a consequence, may be thinner and fitter and happier than drivers. We're enjoying ourselves, usually, more than a driver who's stuck in traffic. We're not prisoners of OPEC and Barack Obama and Dick Cheney and environmentalists who conspire to make us pay $4/gallon for gas. We bend traffic rules with impunity. We don't have a car/insurance/license payment (often not true, because many cyclists own cars). And, there's the oft-shouted notion that cyclists get to use the road without paying taxes, either because we're not paying the gas tax (which is a fraction of the tax revenue that might go into road construction) or because we're all homeless vagrants who fly below the radar of the tax-collector. I think that sense that cyclists are getting away with something explains the hatred and resentment better than anything. Of course, cyclists who are caught up in notions that cycling is better (which it is) for personal health, society's traffic and crowding problems, and environmental reasons, can seem smug, even if they're not overtly so, to drivers who may feel some internal guilt for not being "green" or socially responsible enough. On the other side, cyclists are in a world that strongly favors cars, both because cars are dangerous to cyclists and because street design often doesn't account for the presence of cyclists, AND because some drivers threaten or otherwise lecture cyclists. Mix the 'getting something for nothing' with the perceived smugness and the feeling of being threatened, and conditions are ripe for deep resentment on both sides.

It's best to remember that drivers and cyclists are all people who tend to share the usual people-issues, and sometimes drivers are cyclists and sometimes cyclists are drivers. I almost hate to use the words "cyclist" and driver" because they categorize and dehumanize, which is necessary to fuel major us vs them resentment. Everybody makes mistakes, and we're all learning, and the world isn't perfect yet. There are nice people and jerks and responsible drivers/riders and morons and hoodlums out there in the mix. There are more cyclists every year, but cars aren't going away anytime soon. Can't we all just get along?

brain dump

In any given day, in reading various internet forums and working with customers on their bikes and working on and riding my own bikes, I have a lot of thoughts about bikes, and I frequently think: there's widespread misconception about this topic, and I should set the record straight with a blog post. Of course, sometimes I start writing and get bogged down in the long-winded nuance of the topic, and realize that for all the good info I may (or may not) be disseminating, anybody reading would be quickly put to sleep by the tedium of it all. So I click delete and go to bed, only to repeat the process a few days later. Maybe instead of detailed explanation, I should stick to a concise format, using Surly's famous "Some answers to just about any bike forum post I’ve ever read" or Rivendell's similarly well-read "tips for happy riding" as examples. Truth be told, being thrifty with words is not my strong suit, but here goes, in no particular order:

There are few universal truths in cycling. Every cyclist is unique or has unique priorities in some way or in many ways. What delights one person will be a source of disappointment for others, and vice versa. Anybody who's an absolutist about anything related to cycling needs more experience working in a neighborhood bike shop. Everything I write below is a matter of my opinion based on my own experience and observation. Others disagree, probably, based on experience or priorities that are different than mine.

No bike, no matter how well made, how well reviewed, or how expensive, is going to be perfect or even tolerable for you on any given day. If you own a number of bikes over the years, each one will teach you something. Your next bike might be better in some ways, and worse in other ways, than your current bike. That's why many cyclists own more than one, or even more than five or ten bicycles.

Don't think that boutique level components are significantly better performing than more mundane components. XTR (or Dura-Ace) might cost 5-10x as much as Deore (or Tiagra), but most of that extra cost represents a shiny finish, a few grams of weight, cachet with your buddies, and avoiding the regret of not having purchased "the best". With either top-shelf or entry-level parts, having things clean, lubed, and properly adjusted is far more important to smooth performance than whether or not the part is high-end. Don't buy a used up Dura-Ace derailleur on eBay to replace your mid-level 105 derailleur that still has plenty of life in it.

The really boutique level stuff, made by small production domestic manufacturers who have an impressive attention to detail, is often the best you can buy, and it'll certainly cost you a lot of dough. But even the "best" parts break or have defects sometimes. If your $400 hub shits the bed, it might be at least a month or a year of shipping back and forth and waiting for new parts before the manufacturer can impress you with its famous lifetime warranty. If, on the other hand, you kill a $40 Tiagra hub, which is unlikely, you can walk into any bike shop and be back on the road in a few days for a fraction of what the "best" hub would've set you back.

There are a lot of persistent notions dating to the 1970s "bike boom" (or earlier), that are probably out of date now.

The ongoing reverence for Campagnolo is an example of the previous point. Every time we have to work on a Campy-equipped bike turns into a nightmare of hit-or-miss compatibility issues and/or horrendous design decisions. Nonetheless, that brand seems to maintain an exclusive status because it has a storied history of being standard equipment on all the fanciest bikes 40 years ago.

Not every new cycling innovation improves the cycling experience in a meaningful way, and many justifiably flash in the pan, but some new stuff is genuinely better than what existed before. On balance, good quality bikes made in 2012 work a lot better than similar good quality bikes made in 1975. Plus, we have a helluva lot more variety now.

Pigeonholing various bikes into easily definable categories is about as sensible as pigeonholing various people into easily definable categories. There are so many different varieties of bicycles, and bicyclists, that it makes no sense to parse things so finely, unless you're in the marketing business and trying to define your product to your least knowledgeable consumer. A Surly Long Haul Trucker is a "touring bike", right? Or is it a "commuting bike"? Or a "trail bike"? Or a "Burley-pulling bike"? Our customers use their LHTs for all of the above, and more. If you ride it on roads, I'd say it's a "road bike", but that term has been co-opted by a very limited, but popular niche in the bike universe, and it only confuses people to apply that vague term to other bikes that get ridden on roads. I have a Cross-check, but I don't race 'cross, so calling it a "cross bike" is misleading. I ride it, and all my bikes, in a wide variety of places in a wide variety of situations. What my bikes do has more to do with me than with what category the bike fits into.

Bike fitting is mostly a matter of big adjustments based on factors that are obvious to anyone who has enough experience with bikes. A whole sub-industry of highly technological bike fitting procedures has sprung up on the understandable fear of having a horrible-fitting bike, to which all cyclists can relate. But 95% of fitting can be done by eyeball and addressing specific complaints of the cyclist in question, starting with getting a bike that's approximately the right size. That last 5%, which is done with video cameras and lasers and vector diagrams and computers and other widgetry, is more about squeezing out that last drop of efficiency than it is about alleviating physical discomfort.

The internet is an echo chamber, and there are a lot of people on there making claims with little first-hand experience or with odd agendas. I can't count the number of parts or bikes I've tried that are somewhere between mediocre and absolute garbage, but get rave reviews on the internet forums. It works like this, one person says "Part X is awesome," somewhere on the internet. On this recommendation, 10,000 people buy Part X and have poor to suboptimal results, but since the first guy, and now a growing number of others, said it was awesome, they assume the lackluster results must be a personal failure (or they lack experience to know good from bad), and, rather than admit to being too stupid (they think) to make the damned thing work right, they concur with this new favorable majority opinion, questionable as it may be. Sometimes, especially in the world of "retro" bikes, people get romantic about the way a certain component looks, but that's irrational among technical types, so they delude themselves (and others) into thinking high-performance is the motivation for the glowing recommendation. Bottom line: if you look to the internet for information, try to figure out who is blowing sunshine and who you can trust for the unvarnished truth. And even then you'll have to try stuff yourself, and make mistakes, and learn.

If you spend a lot of money on a bike, you might worry about it more than you would a less grandiose machine. If it's expensive or irreplaceable, you might baby the thing too much. You might only ride it on sunny days, and on smooth roads, and you might be a nervous wreck if you ever have to lock it anywhere. If this is true, then such an excellent bike limits you from the full enjoyment of cycling. Better to have a less precious bike that isn't so limiting. Bikes get dirty and dinged up, and once in awhile they get vandalized or stolen. These are unfortunate facts of bicycling life - you'll enjoy cycling more, I think, if you ride bikes that are nice, but won't make you cry if they get a scratch.

There's a popular notion that bikes are precision machines. Most bikes and components, especially the stuff people rode before the Japanese started sending us their bikes and parts in high volume in the 1980s, are pretty crude if you look close enough.

Your old Peugeot was probably brazed on a Friday afternoon by a guy who'd had three or four glasses of cognac with lunch, and absent-mindedly waved his torch over the lugs on the 18th frame of the day while he contemplated the upcoming weekend with his mademoiselle and more cognac. On every 20th or 50th or 100th frame, he forgot to braze an entire lug or he overheated the BB shell until it was brittle. Sure, it was "handmade", as swanky as that sounds, but on a mass-production basis, not by some old-world craftsman who put his name, and reputation, on every frame. Corners were cut and humans made mistakes. Quality control was variable or non-existent. Your new frame was welded by a robot that didn't care what time of day it was, or get sidetracked or intoxicated. If mistakes get made by the robot, it's on a batch basis, and obvious, and generally corrected before anybody outside the factory knows about it. Sure, the human element has some romance to it, but the robot is more predictable.

No bike is maintenance-free. If you don't enjoy doing bike maintenance, bring it to a good bike shop. It's probably cheaper than you fear, and you'll be thrilled with the results. Maintenance is unavoidable, even if you have an internal gear hub with enclosed belt-drive.

Bikes that are decked out with super fancy parts are not always great bikes. There's a bit of art to it, and spending a fortune only works if it's done well. A super expensive bike with glitzy parts will always get a ton of hits from the bobbleheads on flickr and people reflexively clicking the "like" button on facebook, but a more modest bike that is thoughtfully put together usually fails to generate excitement from anybody except the person who gets to ride it. I like the idea of a really nice bike in disguise.

Sometimes you have a magic ride on a bicycle. Some people are addicted to this, and want to recreate the feeling on every ride. "Chasing the dragon", as drug addicts sometimes call the pursuit of that feeling of the first high, is not going to be fruitful, except once in awhile, when it's least expected, and for no apparent reason that can be duplicated. You can't buy this experience, unfortunately. Sure, it's fun to put new tires or whatever on your bike, but soon, the effect fades and you have no choice but to escalate and buy more new shit for your bike. I see people who have geeked out every aspect of their bikes, down to the cable crimps, in pursuit of that one thing that will make the bike perfect. I hope they're having fun working on the bike, because the magic ride is elusive and has nothing to do with cable crimps.

HC Poster for 2012

Click the picture to see it bigger. Actual size will be 18x24". The title is "Spring Ride", which makes more sense this year than usual.

You can pre-order this on our website. On the top bar, hover your mouse over "categories" and click "fun and useful stuff" in the dropdown menu. Sorry for the weird instruction, but I've had trouble with a direct link in the past.

Rivendell weekend of May 31 thru June 3

Awhile back, I described a Midwest Rivendell Rally for owners and fans of Rivendell bicycles. The plan was/is to have an adventurous two days of riding our bikes in the Lake Pepin area June 2-3, with an optional two days (June 1 and June 4) of riding there and back from Minneapolis, camping along the way.

Just today a new element has been added to this party. As you may know, Rivendell founder and owner Grant Petersen recently authored a book, and Grant is going to do a tour to promote the book, sign autographs, etc. One of the tour stops is HC on May 31 at 6-7:30 pm (approximately). Any number of factors and events may derail this plan, but as of today, that is the plan as I understand it. We're going to have the book for sale here, so you can stop and get the book, have Grant sign it, and generally enjoy an evening of socializing with like-minded bike people. If possible, we'll have a ride afterward, though I can't speak for Grant on whether he can attend anything other than the book-signing session.

Grant Petersen has long been an inspiration of mine. I wasn't always into bikes in a serious way, but when I did start to immerse myself in bike-geekery, nobody influenced my thinking in those days more than Grant. I've owned two Rivendells and lots of other bikes over the years, and while my ideas about bikes have morphed and broadened a bit since I was soaking up all Grant's written wisdom and experimenting with my Atlantis, I still adhere to many concepts that Grant has promoted, namely an emphasis on versatility, durability, and aesthetics. I'm not the only one who has been influenced, directly or indirectly, by this seemingly common-sense approach. Now, in 2012, the number of steel bikes available with fattish tire clearance, longish chainstays, and rack/fender braze-ons is huge compared to what was available just 6 years ago when HC opened its doors. In 2004, I bought an Atlantis, mostly because there were very few touring bikes on the market. Now I can think of at least 10 close substitutes without much effort. Grant didn't invent this concept, but he did it before most other modern manufacturers did it, and he promoted his counter-culture ideas relentlessly through the Rivendell Reader, catalogs, internet discussions, and various incarnations of the Rivendell web page.

Anyway, I'm excited to have Grant here in May.