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Cycle Cinema: American Flyers
After looking at the history of the Red Zinger/Coors Classic bicycle race -- America's unofficial national tour of the 70s and 80s -- I promised I would delve into the 1985 film based on the event:...
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Everybody Knows It
Everybody knows disc brakes are better. They stop faster. They have more stopping power. They are unaffected by rain and mud. They don't fade like rim brakes. Everybody knows it, so c'mon Retrogrouch,...
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May is Bike Month
As far as I'm concerned, every month is a bike month. But to much of the country, and according to the League of American Bicyclists, May is Bike Month.Bike shops, clubs, and advocacy groups all over...
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Component Style: Old and New
Bicycle components are getting really ugly. Every time I look through the current magazines, the websites, and the showroom floors, I'm struck by how bloated everything looks. I suppose it shouldn't...
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In the City of Bikes: A Book Review
Moments after arriving in Amsterdam, Pete Jordan slung his duffel bag over his shoulder and walked out onto the streets of the bustling city. Stopping to admire some 17th century architecture, he...
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Component Style: Modern Parts - Classic Looks
After my recent retrogrouch-y rant about the garish and bloated state of many modern bike components, I got to thinking about what a person can do if they want to put new components onto a more...
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A Tale of Two Bikes
I've written before about weight and bicycles. I've argued that reliability, durability, comfort, and convenience (and even beauty) all trump weight on my list of priorities. If fenders allow me to...
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Campy Goes Ugly
As I've been looking at the state of modern bicycle components, pointing out the bloated, swollen proportions of today's cranks and derailleurs, it might have been noticed that I generally avoided...
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Total Electronic Integration?
Some months back, I "predicted" with a bit of satire that Shimano was introducing a new integrated electronic component group that would combine speed, cadence, power meter, GPS, heart-rate, and other...
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Fakes and Forgeries: Buyer Beware
I recently saw this post on the Mercian Cycles webpage. In it, they alert readers to the problem of "fakes" -- bikes with Mercian decals that were brought to them for renovation or repairs, but which...
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Getting "Connected" With Your Bike
Following right on the heels of Tuesday's post about Total Electronic Integration comes this Wall Street Journal article on "The Connected Cyclist." Yes, the WSJ got one of their tech geeks to load up...
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Sunday Bike Ride
After a week of rain, thunderstorms, and even tornadoes, we finally had a great day for riding today. The number of people out on road through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park was astonishing, as...
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New Old Project Mercian
Regular readers of this blog know I have quite a collection of bikes from the Mercian company of England. I wrote up a pretty thorough overview of the company back in February. From a Retrogrouch...
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The Hour Record
The Hour Record has been in the news a lot this spring, starting with stories that Fabian Cancellara, that dominator of the Spring Classics, was considering making an attempt. Chalk me up as one person...
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Will the Real Hour Record Bike Please Come Forward?
After the previous post on the Hour Record, I thought a good follow-up would be to look in more detail at the bike that Eddy Merckx used in his 1972 record. Over the years there have been a number of...
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Towpath Trail and Storm Damage
Last Sunday, I wrote about enjoying a nice ride on my Rivendell Long-Low through the Cuyahoga Valley, and I mentioned some of the damage that had occurred after some torrential storms that moved...
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To Be Filed Under "Why?"
Back in April, I posted a story about the Weird and Wonderful (or just plain weird) "innovations" displayed at the last Eurobike trade show. One of the innovations was this bike with hubless and...
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New Campagnolo: It's Officially Ugly
The spy photos of the new Campagnolo Record group taken during the Giro d'Italia have been confirmed. The new flagship line from Campy is officially ugly. The new designs are shared by the Super...
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"Rough Road" Tires?
I saw this article on BikeRumor about some new prototype supposedly fat tires for "rough roads." What the heck is going on when a 25 mm tire (that may or may not measure as much as 27 mm depending on...
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The Beard Factor
What a relief. Specialized put its wind tunnel to work on a problem that has really had cyclists like me concerned for a while -- the question of whether or not having a beard affects a rider's...
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