A Symposium on Shift Cables

A frayed, partially broken shift cable

A while back, I heard a participant in an indoor cycling class talking about shifting problems with her road bike. I could tell she was a distance rider with plenty of endurance rides under her belt, as opposed to someone who rides a few miles on the Monon Trail on holiday weekends. It was also pretty clear, though, that she had limited knowledge of how her machine works. I say that because her problem was a frayed shift cable, but she had no idea why it caused her problem!

My first road bike (a 1964 Garlatti) had shift levers on the down tubes: you could follow the entire length of the cables running from the levers to front and rear derailleur. Not so my current road bikes (a 1994 Trek 1400 and a 2015 Fuji Altamira): they both have Shimano STI® integrated shifters, with the end of the shift cable concealed inside the shifter beneath the rubber “hood.” Cables, in case you didn't know, aren't solid wires: they’re made of multiple strands of stainless steel braided together, which allows them to be flexible while minimizing stretch.

Riding in My Basement with Greg LeMond

LeMond RevMaster Pro Spin Bicycle

For some bizarre reason, our local gym (a YMCA) decided that the membership isn’t interested in spin classes, which resulted in the removal of about half the spin classes from their schedule. Oh, sure, the ones with cycling “in the dark” are still on the schedule, but of the four that we regularly attended, three are now gone… What’s a dedicated road cyclist to do during the winter?

We bought a LeMond RevMaster Pro, that’s that we did. The LBS that sells then (Bicycle Garage Indy) carries both the Pro and Sport models, but we decided on the Pro for two reasons:first, dual-sided pedals (SPD on one side, toe clips on the other) are a $100 option and second, a cyclocomputer isn’t available. The construction of the Pro is sturdier, including aluminum friction cam handles for adjustment of the seat post and head tube, and an overall heavier frame – 31 pounds heavier than the Sport model.

Things Cyclists Wish Drivers Knew #5: That White Line Is Not a Force Field

For a lot of the past couple of decades I lived in different cities in Texas – a state that's quite possibly the very model of modern bicycle hostility (though I must admit I’ve never ridden in Mississippi, Florida, or Alabama). Then-gov Rick Perry – who at the time claimed to be a cyclist – once vetoed a safe-passage law passed by the scarlet-red legislature, effectively making anyone with a driver’s license a double-oh agent. Kidding. Sort of. But now I live in Indiana... and not much has changed.

The Hoosier State, like Texas and nine other states (AK, HI, ID, ND, NM, IA, MI, KY, NJ)¹, has no legal mandate for a minimum passing distance when a motor vehicle overtakes a slow-moving vehicle such as a bicycle or Amish buggy. Some cities (Carmel, for instance) have passed local ordinances, but out on country roads it can be “Katy, bar the door!”
When riding city streets, especially those with striped bike lanes, and roadways with a fog line along the side of the road, most cyclists do try to stay to the right of the line – even though they are not required by law to do so. It’s common courtesy… What isn’t common courtesy, however, is the motorists who whiz by in the closest traffic lane without paying any attention to the cyclist, as if the white line at the edge of their lane marked a Star Trek-style force field.

Just so you know, there is no such thing! A bicycle or pedestrian on the side of the road is just as fragile as one in the middle of the road. Show some common courtesy, people, and leave them enough room to maneuver around road hazards. ¹ The differing state laws are detailed by the National Conference of State Legislatures

copyright © 2017-2018 scmrak

Park Tool CN-10: Well-Designed and Useful Cycling Tool

Park Tool CN-10 Professional Cable and Housing Cutter

If you, as do I, have several bicycles around the house and the garage and have come to the realization that you'd much rather perform your own normal maintenance out in the garage than go without your bike for a week, one of the critical tools you're going to need in your bike maintenance arsenal is a cable and housing cutter. Don’t be like me: the first few times I replaced a shift cable, I dug my ordinary wire cutters out of my toolbox. The result was a nightmare threading the cables through the housings and fitting a ferrule on the cut end. I've even tried using a dab of solder to “silver” the end of the cable.

What Cyclists Wish Drivers Knew 4: We Can’t Always Ride on that Bike Path!

If often seems to me that there are only two kinds of people in this world, or at least on the internet: there are the people who ride bicycles on the streets and there are the people who detest them. Sorry, that’s kind of a generalization… but when it comes to being vocal about cyclists and cycling on the streets, the dichotomy certainly seems to fit. All you need do is look at the comment section on any story about bicycles or cyclists, and you’ll see plenty of venting from the second group. Take, for instance, a recent post in the “Let It Out” section of the Indianapolis Star, in which the anonymous writer asked, “Why is this guy riding his bicycle in the street when our taxes paid for that nice new bike path?”

You see the word “taxes” come up a lot in discussions of bicycles on streets, since so many non-cyclists are of the (mistaken) impression that gasoline taxes and vehicle registrations pay to maintain local streets: they don’t – local property taxes pay the bulk of that cost. But that’s not my point today – my point is the question, “Why aren’t you using the bike path my money built for you, Lycra-clad loser?” The answer’s pretty simple, especially in towns that – like Indianapolis – are at best only moderately bicycle-friendly: The bike paths don’t go where I need to go; the streets do.

There’s more, of course. When people drive cars – and most adult cyclists also drive – they generally take the most efficient route. That means avoiding heavy, slow-moving traffic and streets that are in such poor repair that they slow them down. They use I-74 instead of Crawfordsville Road to get from Brownsburg to Indy, for instance. Well, on a bicycle, it’s the same: it’s inefficient to try to ride the Monon Trail when it’s filled with strollers, and it’s nearly impossible to ride the Fall Creek Trail when (and after) the creek has flooded it. I’ve seen bike trails blocked by standing water, fallen trees, official trucks (lots of times), landscaping crews’ trucks, and bridge construction; to name a few reasons I found myself riding in the street. That’s assuming, of course, that there’s a trail – and that it’s continuous. Out in Hamilton County, many a trail has been built up to the limits of the subdivision, where it then simply ends. We’ve even seen bridges to nowhere on some of our rides (see photo above). Alleged bike paths that just stop in the middle of a block dump riders out onto the streets, sometimes at seriously bad locations. Oh, and for what it’s worth? Many of those bike paths are part of the subdivision’s green space, and weren’t built with taxpayer funds…

So gimme a break, please, drivers! The reason I’m in the street instead of on the bike path is  the same reason you’re on that street: it goes where I’m trying to go!

copyright © 2017 scmrak

Axiom Lazer 500: Nice Light, Lousy Mount

Axiom Lazer 500 LED Headlight

UPDATED: See red text at bottom of page

A recent painful encounter with a distracted driver – well, actually, with the side of her van – reminded me that no cyclist is ever too visible. While neon jerseys and rear-facing blinking lights may serve to alert a driver overtaking you, some of the ones in front of you also need a visual nudge or two. One of those strobing headlights seemed to be just the ticket, so a pair of them appeared just in time for Mothers Day. They’re both the Axiom Lazer 500 LED Headlight.

According to the manufacturer’s specs, the Lazer 500 puts out 500 lumens of bright blue-white light. It features four modes: three different intensities of steady and a strobing flash. The lithium polymer battery is rechargeable from a USB port (charging cable included). Axiom says the battery lasts for up to 36 hours of flashing, or 2.5 hours at maximum steady intensity. The stated recharge time is five hours.

Lazer headlights come with a clamp-style handlebar mount that installs without tools. The light unit is removable for charging, and the mount allows me to swing the light from side to side to “see around corners” or, more commonly, point it at drivers approaching from the side.

There’s a one-button ON-OFF switch that you hold down to turn on or off or to activate the strobe function. Pressing the button while in steady mode changes the intensity. LEDs in the switch tell you that the light is working (green) and that the battery is below 15% charge (red). The light’s visible from several hundred feet away in strobe mode, though not really noticeable in bright sunlight beyond a couple hundred feet (3 seconds at 60 MPH).

I like that the Lazer 500 locks in its mount, because otherwise the bumpy local streets would probably bounce it off within a few hundred yards; I also like that swivel feature. I don't ride in the dark, so I can't speak to its use as a headlight: I bought this for safety. What I don’t care for is Axiom's handlebar mount: it’s hard plastic with an optional corrugated rubber insert, and a screw with a knurled knob to tighten the mount in place. The rubber insert can’t be used on our 31-mm bars with their slightly oval cross-section, which leaves hard plastic in direct contact with the handlebar (it can’t be mounted on the stem, for whatever that’s worth). As a result, the relatively low friction allows the mount to turn just a little as I ride, which eventually points the light downward. I’m careful to only rotate the mount itself instead of trying to use the light, but geez, guys, don’t you realize that many bikes don't have skinny handlebars any more?

As for battery life: the battery in one of our lights lasted twice as long as the other on its first charge, but since then the two seem to be keeping similar recharging schedules of perhaps 30-35 hours.

Axiom also sells a 700-lumen model (cunningly called the Lazer 700) and sets with both headlight and blinking tail light. I like the visibility and the rechargeable battery of my Lazer, but I’m less impressed by its mount. If the clamp were sized for real bikes, I’d like it a lot better. As it is, I’m just “meh” about it, mostly because I am suspicious that the mount is not going to last as long as the light.

And I was right: three times, the mount has broken on bumpy city streets, broken in such a way that it cannot be repaired. I'd say that mount ins worse than "Meh," it's utter crap. Buy any brand but this one...

copyright © 2017-2019 scmrak

She Said, He Said: Road Rage or Driver Intimidation?

Transcripts of a couple of Indianapolis newscasts have come across my email of late, newscasts that tell wildly different stories about the same incident. It was initially labeled a case of "unprovoked road rage" on the part of an anonymous local cyclist. The cyclist has now been identified, and he has a... different take on the incident. It's now turned into a case of he said, she said... and you can be pretty sure that neither one is telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth...