: Cool Bike

By: g | No Comments » |

I originally wrote ‘Cool Bike’, for a mtb CD called ’26inches.com CD’ back around 2004. I found it while doing a system clean up and thought that it was still pretty pertinent today. While the parts have changed over the past 6 years and we have started to see a return to anodised parts from the big brands, as well as a raft of very cool frames and bikes from smaller builders, I still think we are a long way from bikes being as cool as they could be.

I hope you enjoy this article….

Cool. It’s a word that conjures up all sorts of images. “Birth of the Cool’, Miles Davis’ legendary jazz period is one of them. One of the many UK movements such as the Mods is another. Cool for the most part was a state of being that was attained, you did not go out and buy it, it was not marketed to you on the boob tube, it was something that was achieved as a by product of what ever it was that people were into. Cool was hand crafted.

I personally do not think there was very much in the way of cool things in the 70’s or the excessive 80’s (other than the birth of mountain biking!). It could have been something to do with the marketers ever increasing hype to buy things that we were told were cool and the ever increasing levels of greed in society; cool is not usually associated with greed. To me, true cool has faded; it is still there but now bubbling away under the surface, almost like an underground movement. True cool is not something you walk out into the street and see anymore (seeing a Chrysler PT Cruiser with sad flames is not cool…it’s sad), you have to know where to look these days.

Cool stuff these days is fragmented, compartmentalised into sub groups and your perception on what is cool really depends on what you are into. Mountain biking has lost a lot of its cool. If one was to ask when was the ‘cool period’ of mountain biking, I would have to say that it was the crazy days of the early to mid 90’s. The age of anodised, CNC machined parts and designs. It was the glory period of MTB related manufacturing and I liken it to the hot rod era of the 50’s and 60’s, where I am sure the aim was (and still is) to build the coolest car. Sure a lot of the gear produced by the small boutique makers was unquestionably dubious in reliability but is was still cool. Who remembers that crazy Cannondale/Alex Pong bike that was heralded as the wonder bike that going to change the way we rode? Not from a boutique maker but it illustrates that even the big boys could do cool. People did stuff to do it. Bikes reflected their riders, companies reflected their owners.

These days many of those small makers have disappeared, either bought out by the big boys or put out of business in the ever increasing price driven market that now propels the cycling industry these days. Walk into any mainstream bike shop or go to any big event and you will be confronted with row upon row of refined, cost effective and highly rationalised bicycles. It is like looking at a car yard – all the models on the floor are as good as the customer could ever want but ultimately lack life or personality; they are like corn flakes, filling but unrewarding for your taste buds. So is the cool bike dead? If one wanted, can a bike be handpicked from a selection of parts and still have a cool factor that sets it apart from those on the shop floor? The simple answer is yes, of course you can. The thing these days is that you have to work a little harder at it. The market is not the anodised, CNC’d Christmas tree it once was. I can hear you now, saying you can build anything at a cost and I, of course, will not disagree with you.

What I chose to do here though is build a ‘cool’ bike, a hot rod bike if you will, in a way that is not way too damaging on the pocket; showing you that cool is still well alive if you try for it. With luck it might get you thinking about your bike and start wondering if it does really reflect you as a person, as a rider.

Where to start? Well, let’s start with the single most important part of any bike, the frame. For this project I chose something simple, a steel frame. Steel is renowned for its ride characteristic and a well made steel frame is a joy to ride. It also has the bonus of being supplied at several different price points but by very few big companies these days. In a way this makes a steel mountain bike cool just for being steel. I chose a custom steel ‘Steelhead’ frame made by Ionic – Dean. A simple frame made from Reynolds 853 air hardened steel, the Steelhead is a traditional cross country style frame. Nothing too radical, just a very nice frame. If anything, one could describe it as a bit retro with its wishbone seat stays.

One of the great things about buying a custom frame is that you get to pick the colour of your bike and in the case of the ‘Disco’ bike, I went with a rather extravagant metallic purple and white flame scheme. Not the cheapest option as paint like this can be rather expensive, but hey, this was supposed to be ‘cool’, and if you were building a hot rod, would you put a plain paint job on it?…… Ok, ok, you can but I like flames just as much as I like anodised parts. For around the same money (as the frame) I could have bought the Salsa Ala Carte and, if a very budget conscious purchase was required, the KHS Team for about half the price (in which case you could spend a bit of extra cash and get it painted any way you want). Both frames are steel, offer great value for money and have those great steel characteristics. At the other end of the stick, I could have also bought a full custom jobie from Independent Fabrications or even Seven.

Whatever the case, there are a multitude of options to fit your budget but the thing to remember is to buy a frame that is simple and fits your needs. Buying a frame can easily blow out your budget for other areas if you get too extravagant. Some frame suggestions which will vary with your budget: Salsa Ala Carte, Pastey Howler, KHS Team, Independent Fabrications…

Once you have the frame, the fun, or work, begins. Selecting parts for a bike can be a daunting task as there are so many options. Take the headset for example. There must be well over a hundred varieties on the market from more makers than you can poke a stick at. My natural choice would have been to throw on a Chris King, after all they are so nice and last forever. Keeping in mind the budget though, I bought a FSA DL unit. The DL is a simple anodised aluminium number that spins on a set of caged ball bearings. The one thing I learnt a while ago is if you take good care of a unit such as this, it will last a very long time indeed. For the price, the DL can’t be beat and hey, it came in anno red! A word of note: FSA units come with those pesky Conix fasteners instead of a Star Fangled Nut. No punches pulled here, I hated the things. In my past experiences with them they were a pain to install, especially in Al steerer tubes which have thick walls. This time around (and several years on from my first experience) it was quite easy and I installed it without problem. The nice thing is if you are a weight weenie, for the price of the DL you can go out and buy a lighter SFN and still be well ahead of the game. To the DL I mated a FSA XC 115 stem, well priced, light and capable for the XC type duties it is going to be used for. If you look around, you can find these units on sale at times for a very good price but either way they are good value.Bars are BBB carbon wrapped risers, again great value for money, strong and light. This, as you see, is a great example of getting good quality parts at a good price. For the cost of a King headset I bought almost all of the above! Saddle and seat post are more tricky.

A cheap saddle can be, well, a pain in the arse and a cheap post can bend (especially if you use a lot of extension). What’s worse, saddles just do not colour co-ordinate! Enter Fi:zi’k. Did you know that you can order online, direct from Fi:zi’k a fully custom saddle? On their site, you can custom build your own design from any of their models and they will make it and ship it to you within three weeks. Not only that, they do so at a great price that can be cheaper than buying it off the shelf. Now that is cool! I chose a Nisene in a selection of silver, glitter white and chrome on cro-mo rails and I have to say I am chuffed, especially for the 62 Euros I paid, which included UPS shipping.

For the post though, I did not go cheap. I use a lot of extension so need a post that is light and strong. Thompson is the natural choice. While it is top dollar, to me the Thompson is one of the best posts on the market and if you have ever bent a post you will soon find out that it is cheaper in the long run to buy a good post up front. The Thompson comes in polished silver or black, I went for the polished silver. Second hand parts are where you can save huge dollars and for some things this can be a great saviour. My natural instinct to throw on a Hope brake unit was proving to be a very expensive one. Even pulling it from the UK was out of the budget on this bike as I did not want to spend the cash.

This is where second hand parts really come into play. I searched around and found a second hand pair of Shimano Deore units for a very low price. Now, I am not a Shimano man but these units receive rave reviews from all sorts of people; I know why now – they rock. Ample power, simple and well, cheap second hand. The brakes get to pull up a set of two year old wheels that I dug up. These wheels have not seen a lot of life so are in great nik. The build is sold, Sun-Ringle XC Zero degrees laced to SRAM 9.0 SL hubs (which incidentally were pulled from production right after they won Mountain Bike Magazine’s best product of the year). Second hand wheels can be a great way to save money if you are tight on the green stuff and so long as you are careful and check the state of the wheels you are buying, you can pick up some great deals. Wheels can also be built from rims and hubs people have lying around. I had a set of two year old Mavic 519s that have seen no more than 5 hours riding. I built them up with a set of hubs I was offered a great deal on and suddenly I had a solid set of wheels. Out of season rims that shops might sell cheap can be laced to hubs which are plentiful and brands like Dice and Formula offer good IS 6 bolt hubs for very reasonable prices – new.

The forks are an old unit too. I love the original Manitou Black Elite Air 80mm. They are super stiff (maybe not like Fox units but in their day were a lot cheaper) and work oh so nicely. People get rid of good gear to get the latest and greatest but to be honest, I do not think the forks that replaced them are as good. I updated them with some Evil Genius seals and they are as good as can be!

For the wheels, brakes and forks, the money I saved goes well into the high three figures mark and maybe more depending on which country you are living in, not something to be snuffed at either way. I spent the sum of the saved cash on having the fork legs painted to match the frame, which adds to the overall image of the bike. On the front end though I wanted a disc. I am a front brake man so like ample power on tap. Where you can not save huge dollars or gain huge cool is on the drive train. Unless you buy online, end of season gear, you have to make a few decisions. The biggest is what level of gear you want on the bike.

You can save money by buying Shimano Deore level gear. It works very well and will serve you flawlessly. Where it starts becoming expensive is when you want to save weight. The more weight you save, the pricier derailleurs, cassettes and chains become. Performance gets better naturally but not by a significant amount. Mix and matching can be a way around some issues. A Deore front mech coupled with a LX or SRAM 7.0 rear can be a good mix. Run these through a LX or 7.0 cassette and you have a pretty solid drive train. I opted to go the old out of season route on the drive train. I installed a set of older SRAM 9.0SL Shorty shifters and 9.0SL rear mech which were had for a bargain and have seen very moderate use. What’s more, they are the older style white units that I think are way cool as almost all drivetrain parts these days are either black, greyish or silver. The front mech is a discontinued SRAM 9.0 front mech that was in production for one season only. The unit works just fine and the cassette and chain are both SRAM; the cassette is a slightly damaged 9.0 that I repaired very easily and the chain was a spare. A small note: at the time that this bike went together I was given a set of SRAM X 9.0 Triggers and rear mech, so they ended up replacing the 9.0SL for testing purposes. The older 9.0 originally installed will be used on another bike as it is still really very good.

Cranks offer you a little more choice. I bought a set of FSA Afterburner 2×9 cranks but even the three ring units are a tad lighter and cheaper than Shimano equivalents. Careful shopping can save money and maybe a little weight, if that is your thing, or you can spend a wad of cash and buy Gucci cranks like Race Face Turbines; they look good and give you a choice of colour and cool factor. At the end of the day though they do the same as cheaper cranks, so you have to weigh it up carefully.

At this point the bulk of the bike is built. Where you can really tart it up (if it is not working for you 100%) is on little, somewhat frivolous parts. Hope Technology provided the cool anodised hose guides, X-lite provided bar plugs and seat post collar (which though looking cool is a ple of crap – beware!) and a set of second hand Salsa Rasta skewers rounded off the ‘detail’ areas for the bike. In every case there was both a more expensive and cheaper alternative to the parts I selected. Sometimes though it’s nice to spend a little cash on nice anodised parts and, even if you are not building a full bike, little parts like these can make your bike special. The great thing about these seemingly little things is that they can add a bit of colour and bang to your bike. In the days of canti brakes, you could buy not only anno brake arms but all sorts of hangers, bolts etc to tart up your bike. You did not have to go whole hog on the bike, you could just add little bits of cool here and there and quite often that was enough to get people to go ooohhh aaaahhhh.

Whether you want to admit it or not, we all like people going oohh and aaahhh at our pride and joy. So what’s the end result?

The easiest way is to look at the pictures but I have to say riding it is a blast. The steel frame rides like a dream, tight and responsive, yet subtle. The XC riser bars and the slightly shorter stem mean that riding the bike is not a back breaking experience like it would have been back in the day a bike like this was really popular. In some ways the set up is very ‘early 90′s hard core XC ’ but the addition of current forks, disc brake, risers and a great saddle, all features you would never had got back in the ’heyday’, take it to a different level, making the bike an easy long ride bike. Perhaps the biggest hoot about the bike is the response it gets. Not one person that has seen it has been able to resist the urge to ogle, even if it is just for a little bit. The comment I think best sums up the point of this whole project: “People should build more bikes like this.”

Footnote: As much as this bike rocked, the old back could not deal with it, no matter how subtle the steel ride. While one part of me wanted to keep it and hang it on the wall like a piece of art, the logic in me was saying that the true place for this bike is being enjoyed on the trail. So it was sold. Last report I heard was that the bike is still rocking and rolling along, giving many hours of joy to the ‘new’ owner.

Footnote Pt2: And the last owner also had the bike stolen! I saw it a few years ago sailing by under a local courier almost complete. He was tracked down but the ‘scene’ lost track of him after that. Now that I am designing and speccing bikes for Mountain Cycle Inc.’s 2011 range, we’ll see just how much of the ideal I expressed back in 2004, is still alive today.

 

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