Bixi is in Trouble!

The Montreal Bixi system is so fantastic. I've also used a similar system in Paris, but the bikes were nowhere near as good as in Montreal. The Bixi takes away so many excuses to not ride a bike. It's cheap. You don't have to worry about your bike getting stolen. You don't have to worry about maintenance.

My only worry about a similar system coming to Vancouver is:
- You'd have a hard time keeping a stock of them at the top of hills
- The rain might make things difficult
- Our helmet laws make it difficult to hop on/hop off

Hopefully financial problems in Montreal don't derail the whole thing. And hopefully Vancouver is smart enough to purchase designs already in place in Montreal.

Race Face RIP

I was hoping there'd be some more news up today before I commented on this. But there isn't. So prepare to get weepy. For me to get weepy. Probably not you.

I remember the first time I ever layed eyes on a Race Face component. It must have been 1993 or therabouts. I was young and impressionable and I somehow found myself hanging out with my friends older brother and his good friend, Chris Sheppard. Chris was a Kamloops XC god at the time and to find myself hanging out with him at a bike shop, looking at new parts was kind of surreal. I remember standing around with him, looking at these new cranks. He was blown away by them and it became another one of those things that I just never imagined would be on my bike.

The first Race Face part I ever owned was a pair of Gold Turbine LP cranks. We had ridden our bikes downtown from UBC and we got about halfway there and my crankarm fell off. I had an 8mm so I screwed it back on and then it fell off again. Sugino square taper cranks weren't made for the North Shore.

We rolled in to Simons and I started trying to figure out how to make a new set of cranks work on my tight budget. I asked Simon if he had any cranks and he showed me a set of gold Race Face Turbine LP's that he had pulled off a bike that the new owner didn't want. I had a brown Rocky Mountain Equipe at the time. The prospect of throwing a set of gold Race Face LP's on there just blew my mind. "One hundred and twenty-five dollars." I gave him the money before he could change his mind. I think those cranks are still rolling strong on my old Stiffee that I sold to my friend Dan. I miss those cranks.

97/98 rolled around and I had to explain why I had nothing but Race Face parts on my bike when I started my co-op job at Syncros. Man, those guys just did not get it. Here we were, at the epicenter of the mountain biking universe of the moment and they just couldn't see it going on. They sponsored XC teams. They were totally isolated from other bike companies in the city. They laughed when I suggested flowing some parts to some of those crazy, upstart "freeriders" that were all around them. They were bankrupt 8 months after my Co-op term ended.

But that was just the craziest time in Vancouver for biking. Every week there was some new trail. Some new stunt. The energy on each mountain was thick. Vancouver was making the bikes that mattered, the parts that mattered, the trails that mattered, the riders that mattered. Everything. And then it slowly began to fall apart.

Syncros. Gone. Dekerf. Not really relevant in the era of full suspension. Brodie. Cheapened. Rocky Mountain. Let's not talk about that. Race Face. Race Face was still there.

My only bad memory of Race Face was applying for an engineering job there a few years after that. My friend was marketing manager there at the time and it just seemed perfect for me. I've never approached something so confidently. I sent him my resume and cover letter. I started drawing up ideas for the interview. I learned 3d modelling in my spare time. It just seemed totally inconceivable that I wouldn't get that job. And I didn't even get an interview.

A few years after that, I was building my first hardtail and I needed parts for it. I dropped Race Face a line and one of the marketing guys helped me out. Diabolus had just come out and there was no real middle ground between the XC stuff and Diabolus. I ended up with the heaviest hardtail you could ever imagine (Marzocchi 66...Diabolus...insanely heavy Syncros wheels). I still have all of the Diabolus stuff running somewhere on one bike or another.

A few years after that, I'd gone in to production on the Rented Mule. I got an e-mail out of the blue from one of the Race Face Sales guys with an OEM price list and an invitation to start ordering parts. Jesus Christ did that ever help me out. It knocked a couple hundred bucks off each part and bailed me out of a few last minute parts problems. I really did start to plan all of my parts builds outwards from the Race Face parts. Yes, the headsets weren't all that great. The seatposts were a bit awkward (shit...that reminds me...I have a broken one that I was going to try to warranty) and the chainguides were a bit ugly. But the cranks, stems and handlebars were all a rock solid start to a well spec'd bike.

I completed my last Race Face order two weeks ago. I received the parts last Wednesday. I was e-mailing the sales guys on Thursday looking for a couple of bolts that I couldn't find. He was going to throw them in an envelope for me until I found them an hour later. It couldn't have been more than an hour after that conversation that it all got shut down. It just seemed so baffling to me. I honestly looked at my watch to see if it was April 1st when I saw the announcement. It was inconceivable. Just like not getting an interview for that Engineering job.

Nobody seems to know what went wrong at this point and time. Everybody had an opinion. My only comment was that as I looked through their last price list, I couldn't believe how much shit there was. So many crank options. Bar options. Colours. Grips. Chainrings. Stems. Some of it at prices that I couldn't imagine. But so, so much overlap. Perhaps that's the way you have to do things in this day and age but it took me an hour to sort through everything and make sure I had all my numbers right, just to order a couple of cranks, a chainring, some grips and a few other miscellaneous parts.

Vancouver has slowly lost it's position as the place to be for mountain biking. Trails are disappearing. Companies are disappearing. We exploded on to the scene and now we're left with Norco and a few small little companies here and there. I was a teenager when it first started to blow up. Everything seems pretty awesome when you're that age. Whatever it is, this Race Face thing depresses the hell out of me.

Ask Nick

I'm getting pretty fed up with the state of Mountain Bike websites these days. I stumbled across this series on Velonews and we need something like this for mountain bikes.

It's all about road bikes, but the insight from a professional mechanic is very intersting and worth checking out.

Steve the Bike is Finished

Steve the Bike is more or less complete. New brake levers, brake pads, rear derailleur, fenders, basket...that's about it.

I rode it to work yesterday, just to try it out. It's a bit more work than my road bike, but that could just be the lack of seat height for me. It shifts okay, brakes acceptably. I'm pretty happy with it for now. I think Andrea is too.

Vanier Park Dirt Jump Progress

I popped by the Vanier Park Dirt Jumps a few nights ago and I just about pooped my pants. All along I've hoped that this becomes a real dirt jump spot. It's definitely looking like this is going to be a great little spot.

The big line is definitely a big set that is going to take some skill to get over. The medium set will be a nice little challenge, but the gaps are half filled in so the consequences won't be severe. There isn't much shape to the little set yet. But it truly does look like something for everyone. With a solid pump track this will be amazing.

Some shots from the side that aren't that great.

New Project Bike

This guys is a bit different and not for me, but this is the next project.
It's in pretty great condition but needs some work. New cables. Fenders. Brake levers. Maybe a new rear derailleur. Tires eventually. Maybe wheels. A new basket. I'll probably just do the basics to start off.

I wanted to get some new brakes for it and couldn't find anything via the usual routes. I went into Mighty Riders:

Me - Hey, I'm looking for some new brakes for this bike.

Them - What's wrong with those?

Me - Well...these ones don't work. I'm going to replace the levers and cables, but if there is a cheap option I'd like to just replace these.

Them - Those will probably work fine if you do all that and change the brake pads. Besides, we don't have anything that will work.

Me - Could you order something in?

Them - I guess so. I wouldn't really bother though. That thing looks brand new anyway.

I like Mighty Riders. It's funny when shops don't seem to be able to get motivated to order something in for you.

Anyhow. It says "Peugot", but this will hopefully soon be the newest Lumberjack roaming the streets of Vancouver.

LBJ0001 Becomes a Commuter

The Rented Mule actually builds up quite well as a commuter with 700C wheels. I had one built for a while, but stripped it. I have my prototype frame sitting in the corner, quite literally collecting dust, so I decided to build it into a commuter.

I rode the prototype frame for a year or two and it's quite a nice frame. The angles are slacker than the production model. The seat tube is a half inch longer. The gusseting is different. The head tube is not machined. And, most importantly, it has a different set of dropouts. Other than that, it's pretty close to a production model.

Unfortunately, I screwed up on the prototype dropouts. One of the holes is .1 inches out from where it should be, causing it to ride a bit high on the disc. I fixed it by running a 7" adapter with an 8" disc and then spacing it up to fit properly with washers. This doesn't work too well though. The caliper constantly came lose and you could see that it was stressed out and causing the holes on to ovalize a bit. I wanted to drill it out to where it should be.

Where the hole should be overlaps with where the hole is, so it's a pretty difficult hole to drill. I brought it in to work to use the drill press and asked my riding partner/maintenance supervisor to help me out. He figured we should get one of the millwrights/machinists involved as he would be the best guy to get the job done.

My plan involved bolting a disc adaptor to the right spot and then drilling through the whole works to get a hole in the right place. I would have to sacrifice the adaptor, but this seemed like the only way we would get the hole in the right place. Worst case, if it was a bit out, I could clean it up with a file. Well, worst case I could weld in a new dropout and get the frame re-painted.

Millwrights, of course, aren't used to dealing with such precision. "We'll just file it out. Here. Gimme." Next thing I knew, my frame was clamped in a vice, one of them was scratching away at the paint to mark out where the adaptor should sit and the other was banging away at things with the file. They wouldn't believe me that it was steel and got a magnet out to prove me wrong. I probably should have just filed it out myself in the first place, but I honestly thought I'd be able to have a cleaner solution with a drill press at my disposal. Anyhow, it's almost there. I will have to clean it up a bit with a file once I get it built.

So, the lesson for today...you're always better off doing the job yourself. My paint will survive bit it was hard for me to watch. I should have taken a "before" picture. I'll try to get an "after" up in a few days.