Thirteen speeds please!

Long, long time ago pretty much all road bicycles had 10 speeds - 2 chainrings and 5-sprocket freewheels. Over time, bicycle drivetrains developed into 2x6, 2x7,... and today's newest 2x11 systems. That's what you would see now on a typical, new road bicycle.

When mountain bikes became more popular, they needed more gearing range and a standard 2x5 or 2x6 system couldn't provide that. The solution was to add an extra chainring so soon 3x6, 3x7 and 3x8 setups became a norm. But when cassettes got more and more sprockets and a wider range (such as 11-36T), it turned out that a 3x9 setup was usually not needed so the extra chainring was abandoned. This is why today's mountain bike feature 2x9 and 2x10 drives and a 3x? (three-by) setup is now a rare sighting.

The situation got more interesting with the arrival of 11 speed cassettes in the mountain biking world. The extra sprocket allowed for even wider range setups and when SRAM came up with a 1x11 system, with a single chainring and a 10-42T cassette, it became obvious that front derailleurs may soon be extinct.

A typical 2x9 MTB setup compared to SRAM's XX1 1x11 - same range but no front derailleur, simpler shifting and a lighter crankset (Simulated using 27.5" wheels with 2.35" tires. Source: gear-calculator.com)

But what's good for mountain bikers, is not necessarily good for roadies. Mountain bikes need wide gearing range and clearly 10-42T cassette can provide that. But it's not very useful on a road bike because jumps between the gears are just too wide. Not yet - but in several years when 12 and then 13 speed cassettes show up, such drivetrain is definitely possible on a road bike, providing wide range and tightly spaced gears.

Today's 2x11 road setup compared to a hypothetical 1x13 - similar range with tightly spaced gears in the higher cassette range. (Simulated using 700C wheels with 23mm tires. Source: gear-calculator.com)

Both 1x11 and 1x12 drivetrains have many benefits - they can be lighter, requiring less maintenance, easier and faster to use. But there are issues as well. The main one is the tight space available on the rear hub. Adding more sprockets to the rear wheel means that the spokes from the drive side must be aligned nearly vertically and asymmetrically loaded. In order to solve this problem, future rear road hubs may simply become wider, for example, adopting the 135mm MTB, or wider, standard. Such transition happened in the past already - old 5-speed road wheels used to have 120mm rear hubs until the newer 126mm and eventually 130mm standards were developed.

My prediction is that in the nearest future we will see more of:

• 12-13 speed cassettes combined with a single chainring
• lack of front derailleurs on most new bicycles
• wider standard for road bicycle rear hubs (and possibly MTB as well)
• more options for wide-range 11 and 12 speed cassettes (plus lower price)

The setup I would like to see for my future road/touring bike - wide range 13-speed 10-40T cassette with a single 38T chainring. (Simulated using 700C wheels with 32mm tires. Source: gear-calculator.com)

The future begins today. SRAM has already showed what the next road setup may look like with their newest 1x11 system. But at this point it's not a particularly interesting offering for those who would want to replace their 2x10 setups - it doesn't have enough range, using 11-speed only cassette.

We need more gears on the rear hub and I'm pretty sure we will have them (At least on road bikes. MTBs may get other solutions such as the Pinion gearbox instead). Anyway, the future looks exciting. 

Unfinished business

I mentioned a few weeks ago that town of Bedford, MA planed on adding multiple bike lanes in its area. Earlier this week I was really happy to notice that this process has already begun. Newly renovated section of Route 62 received bike lanes on both sides. Placing bike lanes on this busy road is definitely a good idea. Unfortunately, its execution doesn't look exciting at all.

Route 62 is wide enough in places to allow for wide bike lanes on both sides. But then, there are sections where the bike lane would have to be so narrow that you couldn't possibly fit a bike on it. Obviously, we would expect the traffic lanes to be adjusted or the road widened to make space for regular-width bike lanes. But it didn't happen. Instead, what we are getting is a very fragmented network of lanes, in short sections only.

No bike lane here since the shoulder is too narrow and can't be converted into a proper bike lane easily.

 

But the road gets wider several hundred feet later and we get a "protected" bike lane here.

 

Unfortunately, it continues for only 300ft until the road gets narrower again and we lose the "protected" lane. New lane markings are not complete yet but you can see where the shoulder will be, marked by this preliminary line.

 

The construction is not over yet so I still hope that the remaining part of the road is going to be rebuilt to maintain continuity of the bicycle lane network. Otherwise, I wonder what is the point in painting these bike lanes? If the town is not intending to do this right, then instead of pretending that these short fragments are real bike lanes, it would be better to just leave them unmarked, as road shoulders only. Cyclists could still use them as bike lanes if they wanted to and the town could save some money on paint and labor. But then they couldn't tell everyone how vast network of bicycle lanes they have in their area, I suppose.

In the opposite direction, there is no bike lane despite plenty of space on this side of the intersection.

 

But then, the lane shows up on the other side of the intersection...

 

...only to disappear at the next one.

 

This is what I find particularly annoying about modern infrastructure in many American cities. There is no vision. New bike lanes look like an afterthought, like unfinished business. Almost like city planners didn't really want them, but were required to add a number of new bike lane miles a year. So they did. In few hundred-feet-long fragments, not connected with each other at all. When a new road is built, no one suggests that only short sections of it should be paved, with others left undeveloped, so why is this approach acceptable with bike infrastructure?

Bikes for your young riders

I follow several bicycle-related, local blogs online and it seems that the author of one of them has moved to Northern Ireland where she can enjoy a perfect summer weather, wearing sweaters and tweed coats. Meanwhile, here in Boston, with outside temperature around 90F (32C) I wonder how many more layers of clothing I can remove without being accused of indecent exposure.

But sunny weather makes kids happy so I try to include my two little gangsters in any bicycle-ran errands whenever possible. Junior is 4 now and I am trying to teach him the whole biking thing but adoption rate seems very slow. Being a cautious kid he's just not that interested in trying on his own. Perhaps his time will come later. His little devil sister is much more eager to explore all the dangers of this world and I have a feeling she will be the first one to ride her own bike. For now, both of them love riding with me on big Eddie.

All this doesn't mean that I'm not trying to find the best future bike for my kids. Even if they are too young or not interested, it's still good to check what's on market. Fortunately, the situation has improved dramatically over the last years. We now have more options of quality kids bikes with new ones popping out each year.

That's good, because so far most children's bicycles were either BMX or some crappy and heavy pseudo-MTBs with really weird geometry. Also, too often, in my opinion, bicycles for youngest kids come with suspension forks and too many gears. Simplicity usually does the trick so let's not make bikes for 6-year olds look like miniature downhill machines, shall we?

A fairly typical bike for little kids. In order to ride this thing they would either have to lean back or have really short arms.

First of all, it's good to see the biggest manufacturers to come up with some new designs that may actually work quite well. For example, Trek sells Superfly 16 and Superfly 20 and both seem to be designed much better than an ordinary Walmart bike. Basic chainguards, better-suited sitting positions and aluminum frames should account for a stress-free riding.

But then I keep finding more and more examples of really well-thought children bicycles coming usually from new, small, family-run businesses. The biggest one of them is probably Islabikes. They have many models of lightweight and well-designed bicycles such as Cnoc 16 ($310) that comes with aluminum frame, lightweight wheels and fully-enclosed chainguard.

Cnoc 16 by Islabikes.

Another new player in this market is Cleary Bikes. They offer only a few basic models and, like Hedgehog 16, they are built from steel and as single-speed only. Interestingly, these little buggers have internal cable routing! Price is $295 for Hedgehog and $250 for a smaller Gecko.

Hedgehog 16 from Cleary Bikes.

Recently, we have also seen something new in this market coming from Linus - a classic-looking Lil Roadster (or Lil Dutchi for girls). For $290 your kid can roll around on a bicycle that resembles daddy's old Schwinn. You may question whether it's worth spending nearly $300 on a steel single-speed bike but this is one of very few that clearly doesn't have a mountain bike heritage, comes with fenders (even though they seem a bit short), bell and an optional rear rack. How many other children bicycles look like Lil Roadster? None, I think.

Linus Lil Roadster

If you want to be even more original, how about a tiny cargo bike for your kids? You can have one from Republic for $350. It looks like a miniature Christiania bicycle and although its usability may be questionable since the box can hold only up to 10lbs (So no carrying another kid in it. Sorry.), you have to admit that it does look damn cute.

 Miniature cargo bike from Republic.

That's not all. There are more interesting kids bikes on Kickstarter. Priority wants to be a new player on this market with Priority Start - a bicycle with some interesting features such as aluminum frame, belt drive and solid tires. I don't think I'm sold on non-pneumatic tires idea but belt drive in kids bike makes a lot of sense. No more greasy pants and virtually no maintenance required.

Priority Start - a bicycle with solid wheel and a belt drive.

The second one you can find on Kickstarted is The Revo ($260 with discount) from Pello Bikes. It looks really good, I have to say. Aluminum frame with fender eyelets and low weight is a good start. Add a chainguard and we may have a winner.

The Revo from Pello Bikes.

Interestingly, the main motivation of all designers behind those Kickstarter bicycles is to build one with lower weight than an oridinary Walmart bike. That's not surprising given how much a tiny kids bike can weigh. And even though BikeSnob says that "children should not be exposed to weight weenie-ism at such an early age", it's great to see so many higher quality options showing up.

So far it looks like all of these bicycles are priced around $300. It may seem expensive, compared to Walmart's $129 options but in terms of build and ride quality, I'm sure they come from two different worlds. On the other hand, $300 is probably not that much for something our kids will use for a few years and will make them want more. It equals 2 sets of high quality tires or 2 leather Brooks saddles or just 1 Rapha jacket.

It is important for the first bike to be the right one and not discourage our little ones from bicycling by anchor weight or uncomfortable riding position.

Oh, and one more thing. If you happen to have way too much money you can always go full custom. How about a 14.3lbs (6.5kg) bike with a titanium frame, carbon fork, Chris King headset, hydraulic disc brakes and Tune hubs? It can be done. Just don't expect this one to cost $300 (More like $3000 is probably a good guess).

Skyde 246 - a titanium youth bicycle for those who already have everything.

How bike-friendly is your city?

This week's big news in bicycle world (at least for those who just happen to ride their bikes for transport) is the 2015 Copenhagenize Index. Among the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world Copenhagen is first, Amsterdam second, and within the first 10 we also have 3 more Benelux cities, 3 French, 1 Swedish (Malmo) and 1 Spanish (Seville). Really, no surprises here.

 

More interesting things happened in places 10-20. We have Ljubljana and Buenos Aires ranked 13 and 14 and I didn't expect to see these cities ranked that high at all. Then, there is Minneapolis at number 18 (highest from all North American cities) and Montreal at 20. I'm happy to see that some American cities showed up on the Index and in general this is in agreement with many bicycling infrastructure improvements happening here. Unfortunately, with this rate of improvement Boston will show up in Top 20 around year 2150.

 

Speaking about the infrastructure, I was watching this video and really enjoyed how something Dutch and Danes take for granted is simply as foreign as real beer to most Americans.

Cycling Copenhagen, Through North American Eyes from STREETFILMS on Vimeo.

Unfortunately, Dutch (and Danish) concept of bicycling safety is even more foreign on this side of the ocean. Otherwise, we wouldn't see comments like this one:

I enjoyed the video (...). However, it seemed a minority of the cyclists wear helmets and I am wondering why safety would not be stressed more.

Frankly, what truly surprised me in this video was how MANY cyclists wore helmets as in any other videos of this kind I usually couldn't spot a single helmeted person. I explained it to myself that those wearing helmets must be American tourists.

Anyway, it's pretty clear that in this part of the world helmeted cyclist = safe cyclist and words "bicycling" and "infrastructure" just don't mix together. In general, at least.

But cycling infrastructure is not only about those protected lanes that we want so badly but rarely see here. It is also about parking, such as bicycle racks. I have seen many poorly designed and placed racks and I wondered why there are no installation guidelines to follow. Annie from Anniebikes blog must have felt the same. That's why she came up with this guide. Very well written.

A bike rack next to my office building. Not the best design, but I actually like the non-tubular construction. I can use a lighter and narrower u-lock this way.

Finally, some news from Australia (Because no week is a good week without some ridiculous Aussie news). First of all, if Australia's focus is on ticketing jaywalkers, they clearly use their police resources in a wrong way, but that's probably not news anymore. But then it gets worse. The fact Australia is hostile to all people on bicycles is well known. In such case their idea to remove a protected cycle lane in Sydney, in order to widen the street for more cars, as ridiculous as it may sound, is actually not surprising. I could understand such decision if there was some logic behind it, but even though that cycle lane carries more people during the rush hours than car lanes on the same street, Duncan Gay, NSW minister of transport, is not convinced the cycle lane should stay.

College Street cycle lane is used by more people than adjacent car lanes. Minister's of transport decision? "Remove it!"

 

Actually, Duncan Gay must be mentally stuck in the 70's as he truly believes that bicycles have place somewhere far in the forest but not on city streets:

Gay is a staunch supporter of Australia’s mandatory helmet law for cyclists, has proposed banning cyclists from some roads, and is also a vociferous champion of making cyclists carry license plates. An Australia without mandatory cycle helmets would lead to “rage everywhere” and would be akin to letting “anarchists run the world,” he has said.  He is “increasingly persuaded” that cyclists need to be licensed – banning cyclists from some roads would be considered “on a safety basis.”

Holy shit! With people like that in your government, good luck Australia getting close to Copenhagenize Top 20 before year 2500.