“I feel most strongly about racing’s influence on bikes and on riding, and the perception of riding among non-riders who might want to start, and somehow, I don’t know how, I want to influence a trend toward just riding. Not putzing around, necessarily, but a kind of riding that’s acceptable to most people, that isn’t redlining your heart rate and keeping it there long, and going faster than comfortable and longer than comfortable. Just riding like kids ride, but as adults; wearing clothes that work but don’t look the racing part.”
– Grant Petersen of Rivendell Bicycles in an interview with Cycloculture

The production and marketing of this bike is sparking all kinds of questions.

Will it sell? Who will buy it?

The answers that interest me most touch on whether such a bike is really necessary, when you can spend half to 75 percent as much and get the same results.

I won’t be buying one, and wouldn’t even consider it, but different strokes for different folks, I say!

The market will decide, and that’s as it should be.

I hope they sell a ton of Civias! And I hope I find one at a yard sale in a couple of years for 50 bucks.

Question: I’ve heard you don’t pedal off the saddle, that you sit down always. Is it true?
Answer: It is when I’m riding a multi-speed bike. It seems to me that standing up to pedal defeats the purpose of multi-speed gears. I don’t do it unless I run out of low gear on a climb, but this rarely happens to me. I think a lot of standing is the result of having the saddle too low, or the gear too high, or just to give the butt a break from one of those ubiquitous plastic saddles.
– Sheldon Brown, in a Rivendell Reader interview, from Rivbike.com

“The forced turn technique must also be practiced intensely and consciously, since it by no means comes naturally. Initiating a left turn by steering right will probably require the beginning cyclist to overcome all sorts of reasonable inhibitions and demands lots of practice. Take your bike to a grassy area or an empty parking lot a few days in a row …”

– Rob Van der Plaas, The Bicycle Touring Manual, Page 131

“Do that (make a quick turn) by sharply steering away from the turn just before you get there. You and the bike will immediately start to lean over in the direction of the turn. You would risk a disastrous crash, as your bike moves away precipitously from the mass center, if you were to continue in a straight line. You have very quickly achieved a considerable lean angle in the direction of the turn. This must be compensated by steering quite abruptly in the same direction. Since this is the direction of the turn, you are set up just right to make a sharp turn. Once completed, steer back into the turn just a little further, to get the lean for regaining the roughly straight course …”

– Rob Van der Plas, The Bicycle Touring Manual, page 131

“You will often be confronted with situations that don’t allow you to wait until you are conveniently leaning the appropriate way to make a gradual turn. Deficiencies in the road surface or the presence of other traffic in the road may force you into a narrow predetermined path, with only a few inches to deviate sideways. Or a sudden obstacle may force you to divert suddenly. Finally, you may have to get around a curve that is too sharp to be taken naturally at your current riding speed. These situations require the second method of turning, which I call the forced turn. In this case, the turn must be initiated quickly, regardless which way the bike happens to be leaning at the time. You have to force the bike to lean over in the appropriate direction and under the right angle consistent with the direction and radius of the turn. And it has to be done quickly.”

– Rob Van der Plaas, The Bicycle Touring Manual, Page 131

By now, if you’re plugged in to the online cycling community, you know that Sheldon Brown, one of the best-read and most-respected voices of cycling online, died Sunday.

“I have always loved riding bicycles, especially for the feeling of freedom and self-sufficiency that they give.”
– Sheldon Brown, 1944-2008

Like many avid cyclists who like to (1) tinker with their bikes and (2) surf the Web, I e-mailed Sheldon about several projects over the years, and got prompt, gracious responses each time.

I will fondly remember him for letting me know the historic significance of the Fuji S-10-S, which I was debating about fixing up. I often refer to his Web site, a virtual bicycling encyclopedia, and I have referenced it many times on this site. The page he wrote about his bikes says a lot about his personality and expertise.

As I thought about Sheldon and his influence, I recalled two projects that a non-bike-person would probably find bizarre, or perhaps a little alarming. I am no great wrench, but his clear writing and obvious trustworthiness persuaded me to try these medieval-sounding procedures:

• I removed a cottered crank from a Peugot under the following advice from Sheldon (some of my favorite lines from his writing): “You need a short length of pipe, long enough to go from the underside of the crank to the floor. Wedge it in position so that the non-threaded end of the cotter can fit inside of it. The pipe will transmit the impact of the hammer to the floor, so as not to damage the bearing cups or axle cones. I prefer a claw hammer to a ball peen. Claw hammers are designed to drive nails without bending them, and that is very similar to what you want to do to a cotter. Most people are scared to hit a bicycle with a hammer, and are afraid they will miss if they swing too hard. They go “tappy-tappy-tap”, nothing happens, then they try hitting a bit harder, then harder still, until the end of the cotter is mushroomed over or bends. If you are going to hammer a cotter, pretend that you are going to try to smash the crank right off the axle. Hold the hammer by the end of the handle, and give it everything you’ve got! …” Well, Sheldon, I whaled away, and it worked! Thanks!
•  I bent the frame of an ancient Nishiki in order to make a wider-axled wheel fit on it. Sheldon again: “Although it seems fairly alarming to deliberately bend your frame, it is really not that cataclismic an operation …” and: “There are a number of ways to do spread a frame. Probably the easiest way is to use a lever. A piece of 2 x 3 or 2 x 4 lumber, roughly 5-6 feet long works well for this …” Suffice it to say that my operation involved a chair, a piece of lumber as he described, a ruler, and a good deal of trepidation. And you know what, Sheldon? This worked as well!

Many great RIPs to Sheldon have popped up online. Here are a few links:

• Grant Peterson at Rivendell Bicycle works: “Thousands of words have been written about it by now. It should be hundreds of thousands …”
• Nice overview of his career from Wired Blog Network.
• The Internet Bobs come through as usual with articulate and thoughtful comments and tributes: 1, 2.
• Best wishes from the commuters at Bike Forums.
• Dave Moulton’s tribute: “You can measure a person’s greatness by the number of lives they touch; Sheldon Brown surely touched many lives.”
• Who knows how many how many guys across the country can identify with this statement: “From across the country, Sheldon helped me acquire parts for my first serious bicycle project …”
• More from guys I like to read: Jason Nunemaker | Kent Peterson
• Here’s another roundup.

“When the turn is completed, you will still be leaning over in the direction of the turn, and you would ride a circle without some other corrective action on your part. You get back on the straight course by steering further into the curve than the amount of lean demands to maintain your balance. This puts your mass center back right above the bike or even further over, allowing you to resume the slightly curving course with which you approximate the straight line … Unconsciously, you probably learned to to this when you were a kid, but never realized that you were doing all this.”

– Rob Van der Plaas, The Bicycle Touring Manual, pages 129-130

“Under normal circumstances, the rider knows well ahead where to turn off, and there is enough room to follow a generously wide curve. This is the situation of the natural turn. It makes use of the lean that results from normal straight path steering corrections. To turn to the right naturally, you simply wait until the bike is leaning over that way, while the left turn is initiated when the bike is leaning to the left. Instead of turning the handlebars to that same side, as would be done to get back in balance to ride straight, you just leave the handlebars alone for a while. This causes the bike to lean over further and further in the direction of the turn. Only when the lean is quite significant do you steer in the same direction, but not as abruptly as you would do to get back up straight. Instead, you fine-tune the ratio of lean and steering deflection to ride the curve out.”

– The Bicycle Touring Manual by Rob Van der Plaas, Page 129

“Clearly, both riding a straight line and staying upright with the bike are merely illusions. In reality, the bike is always in disequilibrium, following a more or less curved track. The combination of bike with rider leans alternately one way and the other. At higher speeds the curves are longer and gentler, while the amount of lean can be perceptible; at lower speeds the curves are shorter and sharper, with less pronounced lean angles for any given deviation.”

– Rob Van der Plaas, The Bicycle Touring Manual, page 129