February 24th – An abortive ride out to Lichfield from which I planned to arc back around to Chasewater and catch the sunset, which looked like it would be a cracker. I got as far as Ogley Junction Footbridge and discovered the camera battery was flat.
I was very annoyed, but investigated the bridge restoration, and was pleased to note that they’ve replaced the bolt whose absence was irritating me. And the replacement looks authentic, too.
Nice work. Terrible phone photo.
February 18th – A call in to Ogley Junction to see how the renovation of the footbridge is going, and it’s looking really good.
The shot blasting has finished, and the metalwork is being painted in black and white, and it looks splendid, I must say. Nice to see the approaches either side have been concreted too – the voids on either approach have been quite a challenge on a bike for some time.
The only thing bothering me is the missing bolt from the one repair plate brace – I do hope they fix that, but otherwise looking very good. It’s nice to see this historically listed bridge getting some love.
September 20th – Spotted in a customer’s cycle shed, two bikes side by side that illustrate something that annoys me.
Shimano, the Japanese industrial giant that revolutionised cycling are not what many people imagine them to be. They are essentially production engineering experts, probably more than they are bicycle technology or fishing equipment manufacturers.
Shimano make loads and loads of great, well thought out products that I love. their work to refine the derailleur gear system in the 80s and 90s, their clipless pedal systems and electronic gear technology have changed cycling for the better immensely. But something more than these innovations has had a massive influence.
Shimano sell innovative kit to bike manufacturers. That means they also sell and produce the tooling to manufacture bikes en masse. Shimano often market products to manufacturers because they’re cheaper or easier to assemble on a production line, but sometimes of little discernible end-user benefit.
Shimano pioneered the external bottom bracket, a frankly piss-poor idea that is hated by lots of cyclists for it’s increased wear and susceptibility to corrosion. Shimano invented it to make assembly of bikes from one side far easier. It shifted to producers in large numbers and is now, sadly, ubiquitous.
Similarly, for years, bicycle disk brakes – which I love as a technology – had their rotors attached to the wheel hubs by six M5 screws, like the bike in the top picture. This ‘6 bolt’ design has been a standard for more than a decade, and works well. You can feel if there’s a securing issue without the loose disc being dangerous, and the rotors are light and easy to replace with standard workshop tools – usually an Allen or Torx driver.
Shimano recognised that a big cost in disc brake adoption to mainstream bikes was assembly of the disc onto the wheel – six screws require either a complex, mutispindle head or an operator repeating the same action 12 times per product. So they invented Centerlock(sic).
The lower picture shows a bike with a Centerlock rotor.
Centerlock uses a splined male dog on the hub, and a special brake disc with a mating female recess. The rotor slides onto the splines, and is held in place by the same type, thread and tooled ring that holds the gear cassette on a rear wheel, thus requiring one tool to fit the cassette and two brake rotors, a huge cost saving in production.
Centerlock rotors are heavier, and you need a special tool to fit or remove them. If the ring comes loose, there’s nothing else to hold it.They limit consumer choice of aftermarket replacements.
There’s a whole industry sprung up around centre lock to 6 bolt adaptors.
This change in technology was introduced purely for the benefit of bike manufactures, arguably to the detriment of consumers and to me, is inferior.
Rant over.
March 14th – Brooks Saddles. Made and broken in the Midlands.
I love a Brooks leather saddle – made in Smethwick for a century or more from real leather, they’re a marmite thing amongst cyclists – you ether love them or hate them. I adore them; I’ve ridden on a Brooks for tens of thousands of miles and I’ve never found anything that fits my ample arse better.
However, some aspects of them are not great. the ‘Brooks creak’, where at an indeterminate point after breaking in, the thing squeaks noisily for 400 miles or so no matter what you do to relieve it; the sometimes middling build quality can be disappointing; but both of these pale compared to the real annoyance – poor quality tension pins.
The two metal objects above should be one piece. This bolt sits in a yoke from the saddle rails to the nose, the nut adjusting the tension of the whole thing. It rarely needs adjusting, but it takes the entire weight of my resplendent girth.
Until it fatigue-snaps on the way home.
They are a bugger to replace, and cost a fiver a time. To snap like this (and it’s a common, longstanding moan with Brooks customers) the component is poor quality. It would be easier to fit were it threaded to the boss. The whole thing is weak and shoddy. That’s very poor for a £60 saddle.
It left me with an uncomfortable, rattly ride home and a horrid workshop job to do.
But I still wouldn’t entrust my posterior to any other brand.
Brooks you muppets, sort it the hell out. Please.
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