Rating: 4/5

Price: $21.99

This spring, MVP Books sent us a review copy of the new expanded edition of Complete Bike Maintenance by Fred Mislon, a British published bike maintenance text now available in the states. At just 185 pages, the book covers 98% of what you will see on a bike with plain, clear instructions and high quality color photos.

Some guide books give you a little more than just the facts. Leonard Zinn’s books are very conversational and include some bike industry history and asides while others add a twist of counter culture politics like Bicycle!: A Repair & Maintenance Manifesto. There is none of that with Complete Bike Maintenance. Just the facts, ma’am. The pages only make good bed time reading if you have insomnia. On the other hand, the book is well thought out and conveys the necessary information without being verbose, a very good reference guide.

The book is logically laid out by each part of the bike. One really nice aspect of the book is how comprehensive it is at covering almost all possible components you will encounter. This is the only maintenance book I’ve seen that covers internal hubs in detail with every design and includes info on serving less common parts like cottered cranks and BMX brakes.

Each page is loaded with quality color pictures and concise instruction.

My only gripe is in the first section of the book on choosing a bike, specifically transportation bikes. Taking the North American bike industry bias, they call a mountain bike with slick tires (but obviously missing fenders, racks or lights) the ideal city bike. They only mention Dutch bikes as “women specific” as if half the population in places like The Netherlands and Copenhagen have an identity crisis instead of riding bikes that make sense. The bike sizing and positioning section is also pretty rudimentary so don’t expect more than what you get from bike shop staff when you buy a bike (go see a professional fitter or look at a custom bike if this is an issue). Chances are that if you are interested in this book, you already know a bit about the bike you ride so just skip over this first section.

While not for casual reading, the concise, encyclopedic approach of Complete Bike Maintenance makes it an excellent reference to have on the self when you are getting ready to try something new or need a refresher.

Version 43-100 covers winter and spring with stories that focus on adventure on a bike. I especially enjoyed “Bikeless”, a story of an adult overcoming her fears to learn to ride a bike and discover the simple joy of riding. Also near to my heart was the reflections on riding a Kronan, the single speed Swedish army bike that is a close relative of the Dutch bikes I build. A whimsical hand drawn bike map of Eutaw, Alabama and soulful photos of bikes in New Orleans grace this issue as well. As with previous issues, there is a passion and accessibility to Boneshaker that rarely comes through in other bicycle periodicals.

It is unfortunate that I ended up reading most of Boneshaker while I was in bed in my pajamas. Each article made me want to jump on my bike and see where the road would take me. You will be similarly inspired, and with 43-100 currently available and the summer/fall 43-200 to hit any day now, you can pick up plenty of summer reading. Or if you really want to join Boneshakers United States Bicycle Army, pick up the limited edition Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac box set which includes the first 5 issues of the almanac delivered to you in an old cigar box.

Boneshaker: A Bicycle Almanac, 43-100- $8.00

Boneshaker Box Set- $50
Includes brand new copies of BA 42-100 through BA 42-500; a never before printed interview with the precise and talented Mr. Jeff Nye, Boneshaker‘s loyal cover artist, published in pamphlet form; and a beer koozie from Fort Collins’ own bike shop Brave New Wheel.

Available from Wolverine Farm Publishing or in fine bike shops.

Summary:

Rating: 2/5

Price: $16.95

In the world of bike bloggers, there are the earnest and the snarky. Usually the twain never meet, but BikeSnobNYC has become one of the rock stars of cycling new media with a lot of the latter sprinkled with some of the former. The once anonymous writer built an impressive, widely read site with extremely funny, sharp pieces poking fun at all of cycling’s various archetypes with fixie urban hipsters getting a good dose on a regular basis. Logic would say you take this great writing and put it to paper, and you’ll have something great. Unfortunately, taking the magic of one format and medium to another isn’t so simple as we’ve recently seen.

The strength of the BikeSnobNYC’s online work has been responding to the latest ludicrous happenings in bike sport, advocacy, and industry and his observations of cycling on the streets of New York. If one post falls a little flat, no biggie. Just wait until tomorrow’s post. This freshness and timeliness is difficult to covert to a medium that must stand by itself in a book store with no links to background stories, funny pictures, or previous related posts. Instead, BikeSnobNYC is shoehorned into what can only be described as an introduction to bicycling book. There are chapters on what to wear, how to do basic repair and maintenance, and bike safety. Bizarrely, the book begins with a pretty straight history of the bicycle. Interesting, but not exactly BikeSnobNYC territory. Throughout the book, the austor attempts to convince the reader how great cycling is and why you should take up the activity. This bee line shift from snarky to earnest is a little off putting regular readers of the ‘Snob.

It’s not all straight forward bike advocacy and education. The chapter Velo-Taxonomy attempts to define the tribal splits within cycling brings BikeSnobNYC back to his more familiar territory of satire with pseudo-encyclopedia entries on the Roadie, the Righteous Cyclist, the Contraption Captain, and the Beautiful Godzilla. This was probably the funniest chapter and the one regular readers will enjoy most.

There are also some real moments of clarity in describing our car addicted culture and the aggression motorists often take out on cyclists. Take this gem:

The fact is that a motor vehicle is a “major purchase,” and major purchases are how people express their self-importance and project it to the rest of the world. But they’re not important; they’re merely self-important. And that’s the real reason everybody is trying to kill you. . . when you do something as audacious as question someone’s importance by obstructing the physical manifestation of that importance with your bicycle, you are an affront to their very existence.

Unfortunately, these insights and the old sharp tongue of BikeSnobNYC are few and far between. Whether the print medium required this mediocre moderation for mass market appeal or the ‘Snob is trying to pay karmic amends for past systematic and merciless satire is uncertain. It is probably the former as BikeSnobNYC is now also featured with a seriously toned down column in Bicycling, no doubt to provide some edge to the flaccid publication. What we are left with is a book that will go over the head of a newbie not steeped in bike culture and fall flat on the fan of BikeSnobNYC. The good news is that while this book is not worth picking up unless its on discount, his blog is still going strong with great, funny posts on a daily basis. I recommend you bypass the watered down Bike Snob book like a Walmart Huffy and head straight over to his blog for unfiltered truth.

Summary:

Rating: 3/5

Price: $36

With the Alps in full swing and the Pyrenees waiting just ahead, the Tour de France has reached the meaty stage. Gone are the long flat days of hours of watching intrepid breakaways attempt the rare feat of out running the sprinters teams to the finish and waiting to see the inevitable crashes. Now we have a dwindling number of true contenders battling it out on the mountains for victory in Paris. These are the days where you might actually get your non-cycling friends to come over for a beer and watch a stage (if you are smart you’ve recorded the live broadcast of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin avoiding the clunky “enhanced” coverage of Craig Hummer and Bob Roll and ever douchey Michelob Ultra commercials.) For your uninitiated friend, the Pop-up Tour de France book is a perfect primer to answer many basic questions about how the Tour works while you make the nachos.

Pop-up books are mostly the purview of children’s books these days, but one should not mistake the Pop-up Tour de France for anyone younger than 10. While the pop-ups and fold outs are well designed and executed (the fold out of the final day on the Champs Élysées is especially cool) they can not hope to keep the attention of a child while you read the long and encyclopedia-like explanations on each page. On the other hand, those who regularly watch the Tour will find little they don’t already know about the Grande Boucle. So that leaves us with an audience of adults who are unfamiliar or recently exposed to the Tour de France. Those folks will find this book informative and fun to flip through. Unfortunately, those particular readers will probably not think to buy this book or if they do will likely balk at the coffee table book price.

This leaves us with the dedicated Tour watcher who wants to avoid having to explain all the ins and outs of the race to their friends (but really what are you going to be doing for the 3-4 hours it takes to watch a stage? Even the best stages have LOTS of down time in which you could, you know, interact socially with your guests.) Those having Tour watch parties or just wanting to collect all things Tour de France will find this to be a nice edition to their collection.

Some of my favorites in the pocket sized book include a hilarious chart on what and what not to eat on a bike and a great travelogue of an intrepid cyclist who rides 500km over the mountains of British Columbia to a jazz festival with little more than long johns and chocolate and no knowledge of how to change a flat. All ends well for her, but the story made me want to jump on my touring bike and do the same.

Whether you are at the beach, in the mountains, or at Barton Springs for your summer vacation, pick up a copy of Boneshaker for some fun bicycle themed summer reading.

Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac
Issue BA 42-500
$6 online
or order a 1 year subscription for $40 including Matter 13 and 14 & Boneshaker 42-500 and 43-100

Beauty and the Bike
Darlington Media Group
55 min, In English and German
DVD (PAL format only) available from the Beauty and the Bike website for £14 plus shipping.
Overall Impressions: 4.5/5

The new documentary Beauty and the Bike comes at a fortuitous time. There has been a lot of discussion within the bike industry and within transportation policy lately about how the role of women in cycling is a critical part of creating wide spread adoption of the bicycle for everyday transportation. In countries with significant bike usage, there is a correlation between the number of women cycling and how widespread cycling is adopted within the culture. The current theory goes that if we can get more women riding and get the biking gender split close to 50-50 (it’s currently 66% male in the U.S.) we’ll see an accelerated shift to more and more of the population living their life on two wheels. Since women are still the primary errand runners in most households, their choice of biking instead of driving to the grocery store, picking up kids, etc will have an even larger impact on how cycling is perceived and how many cars there are on the road.

Beauty and the Bike follows a group of teenage women from Darlington, England and their German counterparts in bike friendly Bremen to explore why so few English girls ride bikes beyond childhood. In discussions about urban cycling, it’s easy as Americans to fixate on cycling meccas like Amsterdam and Copenhagen and assume the rest of Europe is closer to these cities on the alternative transportation spectrum than American suburban sprawl. In fact when I bring up European transportation innovations as a possibility here, I’m often met with the argument that what works in Europe won’t work here because Europe is different. It’s as if we think Europeans are a different species and do not react to the same stimuli as genus Americanus.

As we’ve seen recently in Hungary, the Europeans can cling to car culture and fight infrastructure for bicycles just as well as we can. While England has a more developed rail system than much of the U.S., much of the country is very car focused with suburban development the norm (albeit on smaller lots.) The film begins by showing how car dominant the Darlington streets are and interviewing the women on why they do not bike.

Early focus of the film is on the equipment. The participants mention the fact that the sports bikes that are offered in the market do not allow you to reasonably wear fashionable clothes. Peer pressure also looms with many girls saying since none of their friends bike and biking is seen as odd, they do not feel encouraged to ride.

The Darlington project attempts to address these concerns by providing classically attractive and functional Dutch bikes and using the test group as the social network to provide support for the new two wheeled lifestyle. Watching these young women joyfully riding their uprights in dresses and heals is one of the best parts of this film and is inspiring to think about what an empowering tool the bike could be.

With their Dutch bikes chosen, the women head to Bremen, Germany, a city where 25% of the population commutes by bike. They join German counterparts to ride the city and are exposed to bike paths and other infrastructure throughout the city that invite all users to get on bikes. They also see a culture where motorists give deference on the road to vulnerable users like cyclists and pedestrians.

After an enjoyable time riding in Bremen, the Darlington ladies are confronted with the automobile dominated roads of their town upon returning home. Some are yelled at by passing motorists to get off the road while others are made fun of by their peers. Two ride to school and find no bike racks, being forced to lock up to a street lamp. Several of the women stop riding. Having the right bike is not enough. The social support of their fellow participants helps a few women get back on the bike but clearly the lack of even a bike lane on the road provides a real barrier to continued cycling.

Beauty and the Bike focuses much screen time to arguing for better bike facilities as the key to getting more people on two wheels. While I am in agreement with this sentiment, I think this film is far more interesting because it deals with the social pressures and interactions that cause individuals to make certain decisions. Alternative transportation policy usually focuses on big infrastructure improvements like bike paths and rail lines and often leaves out consideration of the interaction of persons with the improvement. Yes, we need great projects, but we also need to think about the psychology of asking people to dramatically change their lifestyle. How can the broader public visualize the bicycle as a viable alternative? We must make biking as attractive as possible while providing the social support system to encourage continued use. Most people do not want to be the only person biking or put on the costume (helmet, reflective clothing, clip-in shoes) that identify them as different from their friends. I believe addressing these issues will be as critical as building bike paths in getting more people on bikes.

Beauty and the Bike does an excellent job of discussing the barriers to entry for cycling in the majority culture in a positive, uplifting narrative. The filmmakers have provided a film that will not only spark conversation but make you want to go out and make its vision a reality. This film is highly recommended viewing for anyone who has, is, or ever will ride a bike.

(NOTE: The current DVD offered of Beauty and the Bike offered by The Darlington Media Group is PAL formatted. This European video format is not playable on most, NTSC only U.S. DVD players. It is however, playable via the DVD media players on most computers.)

The romance of Conrad and Steve, while compelling in the web series, is laborious to watch in the feature film. Image courtesy of The Bicyclists.

The Bicyclists
Craftmaster Independent
DVD available online at The Bicyclists website
Overall impression: 3/10

Last night, Portland filmmaker Carl Jameson was kind enough to provide a free showing of The Bicyclists, his feature length film about characters he developed in his online series, The Bicyclist. Both the web series and the film focus on Conrad, a Wisconsin transplant to Portland, and his eventual love interest, Steve, an unfortunately named Portlander who has ambitions to start her own fashion line. All the main characters are cyclists centered around a local bike shop with some good ribbing at the expense of many cycling archetypes. The online episodes are funny and quick paced and develop flawed, sympathetic characters that you enjoy following. Those looking for a similarly compelling viewing will be sorely disappointed in this adaptation to the big screen.

First, filmmaker Jameson jettisoned much of the humor of the serial in favor of a straight up romance story. This is unfortunate as not only does the humor help move the story along, but also helps us develop a relationship with the characters. Characters like surly bike mechanic Zach were strangely kept on a leash and the use of sex tension among the characters is largely absent. Using the tried and true formula of animosity turn romance used from Jane Austen to Cheers, the web version waits 21 episodes until Steve’s initial disdain turns to enamor with Conrad. Instead after a relatively short meeting, we delve straight into the sometimes hot, sometimes cold romantic relationship of Conrad and Steve. This quickness to the punch meant I cared little for the overly dramatic angst of the couple although the actors had a good on-screen chemistry.

Also, the dialogue was stilted and cliched including such eye rollers as “Good thing we didn’t fall in love otherwise this would be awkward.” In the web series, Conrad is a lovable dolt, straight off the farm in the big city so some of this cheesy dialogue is ironic as he tries too hard to get the girl. In the film, Conrad comes off as much more sophisticated, and the lines are played straight to unfortunate presentation.

Add to this the laborious pace of the first half of the film, and you have a movie that is difficult to watch. The second half moves at a better clip with a sudden dark turn and the realization that some of the characters are not who you think they are earlier in the movie. This C change salvages an otherwise forgettable film. If you haven’t seen The Bicyclist web series, skip this movie and go straight to the online episodes. If are a fan of the serial, skip this movie to avoid the inevitable disappointment. I really wanted to like this film, but the inclusion of bicycle culture is not enough to carry it, even to this cyclist.

Well, not a day had passed when I came across the trailer for this new film “Beauty and the Bike.” The documentary interviews several young British women about why they don’t cycle and exposes them to the cycling infrastructure and great bikes of Continental Europe. Britain embraced car culture more than any other Western European country after WW II, so this film serves as an interesting reference for our country’s struggles to make space for people over cars. The fight to just get bike lanes painted in this movies sounds oh too familiar. The film appears to anecdotally support the ideas behind the research: women want to feel safe, find biking convenient, and ride a bike that is stylish and allows them to wear whatever they want.

Their discoveries of the ease and simplicity of travel by bike appears to reawaken the joy of cycling. More on the film here which is scheduled to premier in England on December 9. We are being sent a copy and hope to have a review in the coming weeks.

Race Across the Sky, Leadville Trail 100

On the weekend of the Texas Custom Bicycle Show, I joined fellow builder Brad Cason of KirkLee Bikes for a viewing of Race Across the Sky. Brad, who did the Leadville Trail 100, is in a half second shot of racers climbing the Columbine half way through the race. This was the highlight of an otherwise average, though well produced, movie.

Race Across the Sky covers the 2009 Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike race in Leadville, CO. The race was started in 1983 as a off road running marathon by Leadvillite Kenneth Chlouber as a way to bring economic prosperity to the town when the local mines closed. The mountain bike race was added in 1994. Covering a brutal out and back off road course with over 14,000 feet of climbing at over 10,000 feet above sea level, the race quickly became one of the premier endurance mountain bike events in the world. The race’s profile was raised higher last year when Lance Armstrong entered the race and finished second to six time Leadville winner Dave Wiens. Armstrong credits this race to re-igniting his competitive drive and drawing him back to the Tour de France.

Race Across the Sky documents the 2009 race where Armstrong and Wiens went head to head again, and this time Armstrong emerged the victor. First, I will say I am impressed that Citizens Pictures was able to pull so well made a picture together in less than three months. The race occurs in mid August, and there is no hint of a rushed together movie.

This short time period does however limit the pathos of the film making it more very well made race coverage than any deeper examination of the race’s effect on the town or racers themselves. We get play by play narration from regular race commentator Bob Roll, who unfortunately is missing any of his normal humor and over the top literary devices. We don’t get any real behind the scenes footage of Armstrong or Wiens with any of the suffering or challenge. These men are presented as super human with little sense of what makes them tick.

There is the human interest story of a racer who was hit by a car last year, was in traction, and made it back to race this year. This story is an attempt to add a human face to the story but felt a little trite in presentation. The most emotionally engaging part of the movie occurs at the feed station about 1/3rd through the race. There is a time cut off for racers entering the feed zone that ends a lot of racers’ day. Seeing all the people who worked so hard to train and qualify rolling in and having their race number taken away was heart breaking and gives you great respect for both the course and the racers.

In the end, this is an above average race film but only average documentary. The filmmakers missed opportunities to delve into what drives the racers or its relation to the human condition. The analogy of the race to overcoming overwhelming odds seems obvious but is missed. This is probably due to its focus on Armstrong who is notoriously guarded with his public image. While the general viewer will probably not enjoy this film, those who mountain bike or want to someday race the Leadville 100 will likely find the film enjoyable and inspiring.

My experience:

Quality: 3/5

Utility: 4/5

Overall: 4/5

Availability:  Various Global Ride DVDs are available online at their website for $30 each or $75 for the 3 DVD set. 

Summary:

With cold weather approaching (or non-stop 100+ degree days), many cyclist turn indoors riding on a trainer to keep their fitness. After about ten minutes, even the most disciplined rider will be crawling the walls with boredom. Global Ride attempts to make the trainer more bearable with training videos taken from the riders perspective in scenic locations throughout the world. This virtual reality is a good, reasonably priced alternative to the CompuTrainer system but does require you know a bit about training zones to get the most out of it.

Quality and Utility

Global Ride has come up with a clever way to help people train on indoor trainers. They’ve gone to exotic locations around the world and filmed various courses from the rider’s perspective. This creates a sort of virtual reality for the rider imitating a real training ride. Each DVD has a 45 minute training session with 5 minute warm up and cool down montages of pictures from the film locations. Once the training session begins, it is a essentially a first person shot of the road occasional cutaways to a rider on the course.

In the session setup menu, you can choose to turn on/off their new age techno music and choose various coaches to provide encouragement as you are riding. One kind of funny thing in the coach selection is selecting by language. Your choice is Italian, American or Australian. This reminded me Clark Griswald needing his pocket translator in England! Included in each DVD is a bonus video of either weight training, pilates, or yoga.

Quality and Utility

First off, let me say I truly hate riding on the trainer. It has all of the down sides of riding with few of the positives and is mind numbingly boring. I will brave just about any weather element to avoid the trainer. I was a little skeptical of the Global Ride DVDs at first, but they really did work for me. Although the film quality is basic low level camcorder, the shots are done professionally and 10-15 minutes went by without really noticing it. Usually, I am a clock watcher on the trainer counting down the minutes until the workout is over.

I tried the American and the Australian coach voice overs. Being a fan of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin, I ended up preferring the Commonwealth accent of the Australian coach. While the coaches did help keep me focused on the ride, I do think you need to understand training and heart rate zones to get the most out of the workouts. The coaches say things like “You should be at about 85-90% right now.” I’ve done a lot of zone training, so I knew immediately what that meant, but others might not. Those just getting into training or who have never trained with zones should talk to a coach or get a book like Joe Friel’s Cycling Training Bible.

I found the course selection made a difference in how well I could forget I was on a trainer. The Maui Rollers worked well for me. It was essentially a series of hill climbs followed by downhills where you soft pedal (no coasting!) This was an interval training where you shifted up on the uphills and back down on the flats and downhills. I preferred this much more to the other two sessions Oceanside Ride and StrenDurance in Hawaii. These two focus on strength endurance, basically riding at a high steady tempo for an extended period and had more straight roads, less hills. These are necessary workouts, especially for the time trialist or triathlete, but I found that I started getting the trainer stir crazies after a while on these. The Maui Rollers kept me guessing a bit (will the hill end around the bend?) and thus engaged my brain more.

My biggest gripe with the DVDs were the cut aways backward to a rider on the course sometime for over 30 seconds. Global Ride may be doing this to mix it up a bit or to cover rough video cut transitions, but I found them extremely irritating and distracting. When I’m on an actually ride, I don’t turn around and look at the guy behind me for an extended period of time especially not in the middle of a hard climb. I found these cut aways destroyed the illusion and broke my rhythm. I’d just assume they get rid of these, or if totally necessary limit them to no more than 10 seconds.

Final Thoughts

The Global Ride DVDs are a great way to mix things up when you are on the trainer. Those challenged by the weather, whether winter or more liking in Austin mid-summer, will find these a good way to make it through. Those with children who don’t have time to get out of the house may be interested in these as well. I’m not sure Global Ride is going to get me to ride the trainer often, but when I do, I’ll definitely be reaching for one of these DVDs.