Fender Shakedown Ride

I took the Rambler out for a shakedown ride to the Farmers market.  Although, it was not quite “fender” weather.

In the last couple of days I was able to get the VO Zeppelin fenders onto Rambler No.1.  Overall I would say it went pretty well.  The VO fenders require a bit of re-shaping to get the fender line just right, no big deal though.  Mount up to the rear connection points went as planned, but there will be some fine tuning on bridge locations for the production run.  Likewise with the front, we knew the crown was a couple of mm low compared to the production spec.

I ended up using the top mounted angle bracket for the front fender.  The daruma bolt was just grazing the top of the tire.  Production frames will have the crown about 5mm higher, and all should be good in the fender world.  Things fit with the 42mm Nomads and 52mm fenders, but it is tight.  This is not really the fault of the bike as there is still a few mm of space at the frame and brake contact points.  The trick is finding a 58mm fender for a 700c tire. Fit would be superb with 38mm tires or a slightly wider fender.  That sounds like another project for another day.

I have had a few questions about racks.  So far I have fit both the Bruce Gordon Lowrider and the Nitto Mark’s Rack with no modification to the racks.  Production frames will have the mid fork braze on located for an easy installation of both of these off the shelf racks.

The Mark’s rack is currently mounted to the crown with the center bracket.  There is plenty of room for the Paul brakes full range of motion.   With a little bit of strut bending the rack can be attached at four points to the bosses brazed into the crown.

In the long run I intend to offer a custom three-piece rack designed to incorporate the strong points of both of these racks into a singular modular system.

Resist Nomad Early Review

I have been riding the Resist Nomad 700×42 for almost 6 weeks and almost 1000 miles, and feel comfortable sharing my initial impressions of the tires.  Over the years I have come to appreciate the ride quality of fat light weight tires on the road.  Experience has proved for me at least that you can get the comfort and speed, rolling over all of the little stuff and most of the big stuff too without having to give up speed and acceleration.  The catch in the 700c size is a limited selection of true light weight performance tires wider than 32mm.

While the selection for tires like this is improving, most have a more pronounced knobby tread.  I was excited to see the Resist Nomad hit the market a little over a year ago.  These tires are primarily designed for the freestyle urban scene.  The fact that they meet the demands of the mixed terrain / fat tired road bike crowd was a bit of a surprise for Resist.  The catch for me at the time was not having a bike that would fit tires this wide.  Rambler No.1 then entered stage left.  My Rambler is purpose-built around tires this wide.  While my production samples were under way I was in contact with Resist to get some samples in my hands.   Currently these are the lightest 700x42mm tire on the market that I know of.

Out of  the box I was pretty impressed.  I have samples in both the skin wall and black wall.  The skin walled tires average 530g while the black walls average 560g.  Both currently are only available with a wire bead.  While not a svelte race tire, the weight is quite reasonable when you consider that the popular 650bx42mm Grand Bois Hetre’ is roughly 430g with a folding bead.  The width is a rue 42mm.  The tread is a semi slick with micro pyramids broken up with a larger square grid.  The street price on these tires is around $30.

Enough with the stats, the ride is what really matters, and it has been great.  Initially they were a little bit loud, a sort of hum from the tread against the road, but that quickly faded as the tire wore in a bit.  I have kept the pressure between 40-50 psi for my combined rider/load/bike weight in the 240lb ball park.  Handling has been superb.  They get a little bit of roll or dive at the rim if I let the pressures drop below 35psi.  The road buzz from our currently terrible roads is gone.  It really is like riding on pillows.  Average times and speeds, about 18mph cruising, are on par with my previous data I collected riding Jack Brown greens or a variety of 28mm tires on other bikes.  Cornering and grip in dry weather is fantastic.  I am able to carry more speed through turns, ride through rough patches and hold more consistent lines than previously possible on narrower tires.  Unfortunately (or Fortunately) we are a bit spoiled with a lack of rain in the SoCal basin and I have not had a chance to push these in the wet.   On fire roads and the trails they have held their own well.  While obviously not as grippy as a true MTB tire, the added volume and contact patch has been welcome in easing the attention I need to pay to my line with the “skinny” 35mm tires I have been on in the last couple of years.   The Nomads help to bridge the gap between true underbiking and a knobby tire.

The build quality is what you would likely expect for a tire at this price point.  For $30 retail you can not expect the level of detail and finish that has been coming out of the Panaracer Japan group for some of the other popular boutique tires.  As you can see in the picture the two sides of the mold were not well aligned.  The casing and rubber around the bead on the skin walls is a little thin.  One of my samples has a short tear from being a bit heavy-handed with a tire lever, and that tire is now out of service.  I have only had one flat to date.  It was in the rear and caused by a thin truck tire wire.  Considering the amount of glass and debris on out roads this is pretty good.  I tend to pick up flats or slow leaks like this every couple of months. Thus a single flat early on is just that, a flat, and marginally an indicator of long-term performance.

Bottom line, these look to be a great tire for the price.  I will likely run them for a long time, and look forward to a long-term follow-up review.  If your bike has the room to fit these tires I would not hesitate to pick up a pair.  I am happy enough with them that I may be adding them to the storefront in the next few weeks.  There are a bunch of variables in that equation, but I know I will stock them eventually.

Practical Load Testing

One of the fundamental requirements of pushing the limits of the Rambler in the real world is load testing.  As the test pilot, this can get interesting.  I have both a vested interest in the success of the design as well as keeping my teeth.  As much as possible I try to keep the loaded riding practical, i.e. running errands that need to be done anyway.  Today I found some of the limits of load distribution while also pushing the boundaries of a prototype saddle bag support.

I notice a couple of high vis patterns here

Through a series of stops the load progressively pushed higher.  I am hitting the scales at about 220lbs right now, the racks add another 3 lbs or so, the empty bags are close to 4lbs and then there is the camera gear at 3-5 lbs.  Today’s final grocery stop added 40+ lbs of stuff.

Yes, we eat like hippies.

With load testing the bag support in mind I put all the juice, milk, liquids and potatoes in the rear bag, just over 30lbs.  There are a couple of observations.  The saddle bag support held the load fantastically without transmitting any twist to the saddle the way a Bagman has in the past.  This load did push the upper limit, where the handling of the bike was diminished.  I could feel excessive flex in the rear of the bike, and while nothing broke, after a mile or so I stopped to redistribute the load.  The sensation was more of a tail wagging the dog, with twisting of the frame from the rear as the load swayed.  I moved roughly half of the rear load to the panniers and everything went back to normal for the 10 miles remaining. I could even ride well enough with no hands.

This confirmed my design optimization of keeping the front end stiff enough for stability with moderate loads and the rear end compliant for both pedaling and road quality comfort.  With or without load, I am ecstatic with the handling of the bike, and managed to hit 98% of my design goals on the first pass.  While not wanting to put a weight limit on the bikes, rides like this help me to clarify the outer boundaries, and are fun too.  There is something primal yet fun about pushing the limits of our creations and having it work.

650b Conversion Kits

I am putting together the bits and pieces needed for a customer who wants to dip their toe in the 650b waters before diving in with a propose built frame set.

As always these projects require a bit of measuring and test fitting to get things just right.  In this case we were able to meet so that I could pull the required measurements myself from the bike to be converted.

The biggest part of the investment, the wheel set, is directly transferable to a Rambler he finds the waters to his liking. The 32mm tires would work fine, but I am sure that he would want to go fatter as the Rambler would allow.  The only thing that would end up in the parts bin is the Tektro brakes.

The knowledge and components needed to pull off a successful 650b conversion are scattered throughout the web.  What would you think of having that information in one place, as well as the needed components to pull it all off?  Rivendell used to have something like this, but does not appear to be a focus of theirs as much any more.  How about a kit price on a package like the one above?

Outtakes

Sometimes things happen.   This one was when climbing trees to set up for the Rambler Newsletter photo  Not everything that is going on always shows up in the marketing material.   It is fun but not always easy being the model, photographer and production.

Not to mention the relocation to a plan b grove of trees due to the police actually using the firing range in the back of the park for training.  In many regards it was a fun break in the day, but it may not be the immersion of leisure that it appears.  It is still the best job I have ever had.

Happy Friday!!