As a once-relevant bike blogger whose e mail tackle remains to be lingering on the mailing lists of sure PR individuals who haven’t gotten round to eradicating it but, I often obtain discover of EXCITING NEW BICYCLES which might be SO EXCITING they’re UNDER MEDIA EMBARGO. Now, I’d by no means run afoul of somebody’s media embargo, even when it’s a little obnoxious (“Hey, right here’s a shitload of data from an entire stranger you didn’t even ask for within the first place. Now don’t inform anyone about it!”), however typically they’re simply SO EXCITING I can hardly hold my mouth shut. However I do anyway, although what I can share about this newest one I simply obtained is that the bike is for “journey” driving and it has:
Drop bars
Disc brakes
A suspension fork
Fats tires
So in different phrases it’s EXACTLY LIKE EVERY OTHER NEW BIKE MADE IN THE LAST FEW YEARS IN EVERY WAY. However I can’t let you know any extra till the embargo is lifted, by which level I promise I’ll have forgotten all about it. As an alternative, being the resolute contrarian I’m, you’ll find me driving a intentionally bizarre bike, like a front-shifted multi-gear singlespeed with rim brakes and a Biopace chainring:
For those who ask me, which you didn’t, top-of-the-line issues about singlespeeds is that they’re really easy to tinker with, although in case you’re a tinkerer the perfect and worst factor about this one is that it’s particularly straightforward to tinker with due to the potential for front-shiftability, which makes it exhausting to cease. I’ve already ridden it as a singlespeed with the Choco bars:
And as a two-speed with the Choco bars:
And as a two-speed with drop bars:
After which with a triple as a substitute of a double:
And now it’s again to a singlespeed once more…which I actually get pleasure from, and arguably each bicycle owner ought to have not less than one singlespeed, besides as I rassled it up a steep climb the opposite day I believed to myself, “Possibly I’ll flip it again right into a dinglespeed once more.” I haven’t but, however sooner or later I’m certain I’ll, which is why I haven’t even bothered to take away the artisanal chainring protector:
It’s constructed from reclaimed internal tubes and it price me $150 (not together with $35 for set up), which seems like quite a bit, however you actually can’t put a worth on sustainability.
Talking of tubes, along with having one wrapped across the chainstay the Roaduno additionally has one in every tire, although possibly I ought to go “fake tubeless:”
This mainly includes gluing your internal tube to your tire, or one thing, although you may nonetheless get pinch flats:
The minuses are that fake tubeless remains to be liable to pinch flats, as with a normal tubed setup, and you’ll nonetheless get punctures that the sealant or a tyre plug gained’t seal.
Clearly we are able to take fake tubeless one step additional by stitching the tube up inside the tire after which gluing the entire thing to the rim.
Wait–
Goddamn it, I feel we might lastly be operating out of ideas to reinvent–although right here’s one thing new and thrilling:
Apparently they selected aluminum as a result of excessive desert warmth:
Most outside tracks use concrete for development to resist numerous climate circumstances. In southern Arizona the place typical summer season temperatures exceed 100°F (37°C), aluminum was chosen because the monitor floor to endure the excessive warmth and permit for year-round use, which was famous by Canadian Biking Journal earlier this yr.
It’ll even be coated in a non-stick floor, and there will probably be an omelette station at flip three the place they’ll be made to order and cooked straight on the monitor floor. Or, after the race, you may merely eat your tires:
That’s assuming your tires are constructed from soybean oil and rice husk, after all:
On show was a pale-tan T50 prototype, for folk to see, really feel and, sure, scent. Gone is carbon black, the compound that provides most tyres their darkish color, in addition to artificial rubbers and chemical compounds. Of their place are pure rubber, natural cotton, soybean oils, rice husk silica, pure latex and recycled nylon yarn spun from discarded fishing nets.
By the top of an omnium on a sizzling aluminum monitor they need to be seared to perfection, simply season to style and luxuriate in!
However sure, the aluminum velodrome does sound fairly cool…although in a season or two they’ll in some way rationalize upgrading it to carbon fiber.
