Archiv der Kategorie: Bits&Pieces

Komponenten, Werkzeuge und was man sonst so alles braucht .

Dura Ace Schaltwerk RD7400

1988

Persönlich finde ich ja, dass Dura Ace heute eine Gruppe ist für Leute die zuviel Geld haben und 5% bessere Leistung oder leichtere Komponenten haben wollen als die halb so teuere Ultegra Gruppe.

Das war aber nicht immer so, wenn es denn so wäre. In den Siebzigern kämpfte Shimano gegen die Qualitätsweltherrrschaft von Campagnolo und musste Komponenten entwickeln die deutlich besser und billiger waren als der Rest der Welt. Das Ergebnis ist bekannt: Shimano regiert heute die Welt in jedem Marktsegment, Suntour, Modolo, Gipiemme, alle Franzosen etc. sind verschwunden. Campagnolo lebt im wesentlichen von der eigenen Legende und lediglich SRAM bietet, gestützt auf den MTB Markt Paroli. Vom Design her ist Shimano heute etwa gleich langweilig wie Toyota. Wirklich, wenn ich mir heute die Teil von Shimano ansehe kann ich nichts besonderes entdecken. Und die Kurbeln, die zunächst nur in der Dura Ace Gruppe waren und nun überall zu finden sind – schrecklichst. Mit überall meine ich übrigens nicht Sora und Tiagra, so tief kann man ja nicht sinken.

Um das gleich klarzustellen, ich benutze Shimano an meinen Rädern, denn technisch ist das alles astrein und die Kosten sind vergleichsweise OK.

Ja, aber früher, da hatte Shimano sehr schöne Komponenten, ohne Zweifel. Ich liebe die Golden Arrow (Vorläufer der 105) und die Arabesque Gruppen für ihr Design. Technisch ist das ja von heute aus betrachtet ziemlich Müll. Vor allem die Bremsen. Shimano wird in die Geschichte eingehen, als die Firma die erstmals eine kommerziell erfolgreiche elektronische Schaltung auf dem Radmarkt eingeführt hat. Daneben hat Shimano aber auch noch ein paar andere, leider heute unterschätzte Technologiesprünge gemacht, wie zum Beispiel die famosen Dura Ace 7403 Bremsen 1991. Die ersten Bremsen die auch wirklich bremsen auf Basis von dual pivots.

Hier ist ein anderes klassisches Designstück, das Dura Ace Schaltwerk RD-7400 von 1988. In der ersten Stufe noch für 6-fach Schaltungen, später dann hochgepimpt auf 7-fach und 8-fach. Sieht einfach top aus, mit diesem silbergrauen Finish und den fließenden Linien, eben wie ein Stück Design und nicht etwas was grob aus einem Stück Metall gehobelt wurde. Erstaunlicherweise ist das obere der beien Schaltwerkrädchen, also das, welches näher an der Kassette liegt, noch asu Stahl gefertigt. Das habe ich später nie mehr gesehen und ist vermutlich auch völlig unnötig, sieht aber spitzenmässig aus.

Und das Design mit dem Dura Ace Logo auf schwrzem Hintergrund ist ja dermaßen von der Konkurrenz geklaut.

Das Teil kommt wahrscheinlich an mein blaues Olmo, wo es ein Golden Arrow Schaltwerk ersetzen wird. Auch kein schlechtes Teil. Evolutioin drei.

 

 

 

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Eingeordnet unter 2012, Bits&Pieces, Mob, Uncategorized

Speichennippel anstatt Endkappe

Ist einmal keine Endkappe bei der Hand um ein abgelängtes Brems- oder Schaltkabel zu schließen und damit zu verhindern, dass sich diese altertümlich anmutenden Drahtseilchen aufribbeln, tut es auch ein zusammengedrückter Speichennippel.

73. Speichennippel eines Bottecchia Sprinter 1991

73. Speichennippel eines Bottecchia Sprinter 1991

Messing eignet sich hier vermutlich besser als Aluminium als Material. Ein neongelb eloxierter Nippel wäre zum farblichen Gesamteindrucksabrundungsprozeß auch besser geeignet gewesen.

 

 

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Eingeordnet unter 2012, Bits&Pieces, Bottecchia Sprinter 1991

Leather on the bike

Apart from leather grips as on the Olmo handle bar, there are also various other places where leather can be used to upgrade the functionality of a bike.

This application is in particular handy for people living in the „Viertel“ („The quarter“) of Bremen. Sure, it should include Becks (Greenies) bottles instead of Pilsener Urquell. The Viertel is the part of the town where it is considered uncool to walk around without carrying a bottle of beer.

Before leaving one’s home, one need to check: Key in the pocket? Spare change? Mobile phone? Bottle of beer? I used to live there in the summer of 2010 close to a supermarket that is opened until midnight. Quite rare in Germany still. But basically not necessary as well: Some crates of Becks placed in front of the cashier would have created the same turnover after 8 PM.

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Eingeordnet unter 2011, Bits&Pieces, Bremen, Mob

New Wheels

It such a nice past time to come home after work and built-up a wheel. In the office one has worked with paper on abstract processes but here the end result can be touched and looked at.


For the past three months I have worked on the built of a new wheel set for the Olmo frame. It took a while to acquire the right components and as usual I made some mistakes. During the last week I started to built the wheels after work. It is nice to sit in the evening on the balcony outside the kitchen with a glass of red wine and work patiently on the truing. It very much helps me to relax and after a wheel or so I am much nicer to my family. One glass of red wine although is enough.


Both wheels (the second set I did on my own) are now completed and I took some photos in front of the „Ajisai“ in our garden. In Japan „Ajisai“ are blooming during the rainy season., however in Bremen they tend to bloom between April and October what is equivalent to the rainy season here.

The hubs are Shimano 600 AX from the mid-Eighties, the time of the first aerodynamic cycling craze. In the next photo you can see that the flange of the hub is not flat but has little cut-outs to accommodate the spoke heads. 

This has been designed to prevent the spokeheads from protruding from the flange, thus making the whole component more aerodynamic. It also defines which spokes run on the inside, and which on the outside of the flange.


The spokes are standard off the shelve Swiss revolution 2.0 mm spokes, with 1.5mm main section.


The rims are from new Rigida, type DP18 in silver with braking surface. Today the variety of new rims offered in the market is surprisingly low. There are a bunch of Mavic types, notably Open Pro, Open Sport, CPX22 and CPX33, some DT Swiss, some Rose and some Rigida but not much more. The same is true for spokes. Apart from DT Swiss and Sapim there isn’t much left in the market. Riders and OEM manufacturers today tend to buy System wheels which is a pity.


I included (invisible) standard blue Schwalbe rimtape, my favourite one due to the color, thickness and flexibility and Continental race tubes. Tires are again from Schwalbe, type Durano which is available in many colors and not that expensive. The valve caps are eloxy type which brings luck – my personal „o-mamori“.


The total cost for this is about 180 Euro, including the tires. This isn’t exactly cheap, one can easily get a Shimano system wheel set for the same amount of money. But the pride and the opportunity to fully customize the set makes it worthwhile.

Here we see the 5-speed Uniglide cassette from Shimano. This used to be the predecessor of today’s Hyperglide system which is now widely adapted. The Uniglide was only popular for a short period when makers shifted from screwed cassettes to freewheel bodies.

Next week the Olmo frames will arrive at my house and I will work on the new bikes with the new wheelset. I hope they will be ready for riding next weekend.


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Eingeordnet unter 2011, Bits&Pieces, Bremen, Mob

A Tribute to the Sambi Family in Ravenna

As the older and distinguished members of the Positivo Espresso club are virtually all connoisseurs of Italian road racing bike manufacturers (Olmo, Ciocc, Moser, Legnago, Daccordi, Somec, Gimondi…) and know the history of Italian racing idols very well I should probably not repeat it here, but among the many famous figures that left their imprint on the history of cycling, Luciano Sambi was one of the most remarkable.  
Not that he could count many great victories in his three years as a pro rider with the Italian Legnago team between 1965 and 1967, but he won the Giro di Lombardia and made a 78th place in Milano – San Remo; small victories and founded his fame as „Il geopardo di Ravenna“ as he is still called today in his hometown close to the Adriatic Sea. 
He was further influential in making Ravenna one of the most cycling friendly cities in Italy, or „La Portlando d’Italia“ as it is sometimes called.  Together with his son Christian Sambi, who worked as a bike mechanic with Nagai-san on the Fasso Bortolo team in the Nineties, he now runs a fabulous bike shop on the outskirts of Ravenna.  His prizes and trophies from his racing career are nicely integrated into the shop layout and displayed with pride. Reason enough for David and me to intentionally break the spokes on our rear wheels to find a pretense to visit his shop and ask for his services.
We arrived in Ravenna yesterday after a short rest in Arco and a ride along the Garda lake and a lunch of pizza at a cafe high over Lake Garda.  Ravenna is, according to world-travelling cyclist Rick Steves, not a town worth to stay a night but good enough perhaps for a day trip. Apart from this rather harsh statement one might add that the town possesses some UNESCO world heritage sites and is obsessed since the 6th century with producing mosaics. There is even a school where one can learn how to restore mosaics. 
Bicycle Town Ravenna
First thing in the morning we went to the Sambi family store on the Via San Mama 148. Many nice bikes of all kinds were neatly lined up inside and the whole store was in impeccable order. They had some spare parts on display, like handle bar tape from the Eighties that can be sold for substantial amounts of money as NOS on ebay in Germany. With the eye of a real pro mechanic Christian Sambi took a look at our both wheels and said „Cinque Ora“ which is Italian and means that all of this will take some time to repair probably and anyway there is a lunch break between 12 and 4 so we should come back at 5 when the wheels would surely be ready.

Yes, she is the postman on her bike and she doesn’t ring twice.
As we had nothing else to do and cycling without a rear wheel seemed somehow too dangerous and complicated, we decided that we should indulge in art and culture and took a look at the Basilica di Ravenna and some other assorted monuments. Art and culture can be very stressful and after a nice and big meal of pizza that ended with a „Cafe Normale“ (which is Italian and means a Cafe Espresso that is extremely small and strong and something else than what Germans would consider as normal when it comes to coffee – and we have Tschibo, Jacobs, Darbhoven and other famous roasters within the borders of our country) we retired to our hotel room where we fell asleep while watching stage three of the Tour de France.
About 9 km before the finish all cyclists were reeled in and we could watch Thor Hushovd leading the Garmin-Cervelo train for a sprint victory of Tyler Farrer.  A great tour so far for Garmin-Cervelo!
After that we headed back to the Sambi shop, only to find our both wheels completely untouched. Our personal presence brought some action and pulled Christian away from other urgent projects and friends who were hanging out and chatting about Italian cycling in the 1960s, and within no time and for almost no money our two wheels were fixed.  We cleaned our bikes and made a wheel testing trip to the sea at Punta Marina where we had a good dinner of pizza. 

Then we rode back to our hotel in the darkness which was fun. Tomorrow we will continue our bike adventures in the old medieval town of Urbino. Both of us hope that they will have an excellent, stylish and somewhat disorderly bike shop and a good pizzeria, both of which seem highly likely based upon our trip so far.

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Eingeordnet unter 2011, Bits&Pieces, David, Mob, Transalp

Mob’s big box of small wonders

I have started to buy, repair, restore and sell old bicycles just a few month ago, mainly as a hobby to spend the long cold winter days in Bremen doing something meaningful. But even in a few months quite an assortment of interesting bike parts has gathered.

Shimano’s Golden Arrow series, the predecessor from the Eighties of today’s 105 series is one of my favourites. So is the Shimano 600 Arabesque series, which is slightly older and influenced by arabic design elements, something not that much in vogue today. Generally I prefer Shimano over Camapgnolo: Less model changes, cheaper and easier to get and better functionality. „Cheap“ is important, as I repair the components and assemble them on my frames, making a lot of mistakes. So if something goes wrong, I don’t loose a lot of money on the spot. Today, for example, I learned that a 1“ cone for a headset that is mounted directly on the fork can be different depending on the type of fork. There goes another headset.

I bought also some components from lesser know brands. My Lyotard pedals are a good example, my Maillard and Normandy high flange hubs, a Modolo Stem (with the Mosburger Logo) and a very nice ITM stem.

Before I repair, adjust and clean all of this stuff, I keep it in a box which is the big box of small wonders.

Now one of my recent purchases has been a complete set of Shimano 600 AX components.
Shimano launched the 600AX group in 1981 in response to the aerodynamic craze in cycling. In many respects I feel it is the equivalent to the Japanese bubble economy era: Bold, gaudy, baroque in design, expensive looking and not really useful. Take a look at the bottle cage for example: This one is designed for a special aerodynamic bottle that is much higher than wide (not a circular section) so that it offers less wind resistance.

(By the way, if you own such a bottle, please let me know).

Nice. But basically useless. And of course Shimano wasn’t able to set a new standard. The same is true for the crank set. Shimano tried to set a new standard for a new, bigger pedal thread. They failed to convince the world. Today it is extremely difficult to find matching pedals.

In theory this would allow me to completely retrofit a frame with Shimano 600 AX with the exception of head set, bottom bracket and chain, as there were no 600AX parts developed in their cases. Theoretically, as some of the components are in bad shape (rubber hoods of the shifters for example) or not that practical. Take for example the brakes. These are probably one of the most beautiful bicycle brakes ever designed. Some people say this about the Campagnolo Delta brakes but I would disagree, they look comparatively bulky.

Both, Shimano AX and Campa Delta brakes have two things in common: They are incredibly difficult to mount and to adjust and, even worse, they tend not to brake too much.

Here are some more nice components. Some of them I will use to built up two Olmo frames I have purchased recently. These are replacements for the Moser Leader AX evolution frame I wanted to work on some month ago but that turned out to be too small for me. Yes, Olmo is the brand of choice for the time being.

But today the weather is beautiful an daylight until 9 PM allows me to go riding after work and early dinner.

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Eingeordnet unter 2011, Bits&Pieces, Mob

The love for new things old and old things new

During the dark and cold winter months in Bremen I developed a love for old bicycle parts. The magic letters are N.O.S.  the abbreviation for „New, old stock“. 


It seems that people or history tends to forget small things.. And that suddenly, these small and insignificant things from the past turn up in the present and now they have become significant for some of us. Well, perhaps not to the same scale as we would welcome the return of the original amber room from the palace in Petersburg that went missing in 1944 or 1945. And our previous girlfriends (3 or 4 in my case) will not return in their original shape and age. Luckily. 
However, there are batches of batches of old cycling parts somewhere out there  and it is rather tempting to buy them like pieces from an old puzzle and hunt for the remaining puzzle pieces. And finally one will be able to see the complete picture.


Here are some examples from recent purchases.

Lyotard pedales. Not sure which type or year.

Lyotard was one of these French companies. They invented a special pedal (Marcel Berthier) in the twenties and basically continued to produce the same designs well into the eighties until they went belly up. This will be a nice addition to any of my old steel frame commuting bikes.



An older Olmo stem from 3ttt with the Italian flag engraved in the upper side. Italian brands are my favourite. Not Pinarello or Colnago, but smaller steel frame builders such as Botecchia, Chesini, Ciocc, Somec and many others. I still have an old Moser frame in area 51 and wonder what I should do with it. The handle bar clap on this stem can be completely opened, so one doesn’t need to fiddle the bare handlebar through the hole. This allows also for different handles with premounted brake levers to be assembled on the same bike. I love this piece so much that I am going to assemble a bike around this stem. 



A Shimano 600 AX series front wheel hub. This is a piece from the first aerodynamic craze in the Eighties. It is set that the arrangement of spokeholes which determinates which spoke has to be on the inside and which on the outside is made in such way with the wave shaped rim, to allow for minimum air resistance. What nonsenses, but it surely looks good.
In addition to the hub which I am thinking to use to built up some extreme aero wheels, I have purchased a complete Shimano 600AX group set last week.



And last but not least one of my favourite, a clamp type shifter from the Shimano Golden Arrow groupset the predecessor of the 10-5 series.

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New Parts

I just love the moment when I come home from works and a new parcel with some bicycle parts has arrived at my home during my absence.

This is part of the new handle assembly for my Peugeot Galibier. It will replace the current bullhorn handle bar. I am just waiting for the stem, so that I can replace the whole unit. I will keep the bullhorn with levers and cabling so it will be relatively easy to swop both assemblies. I just love the Tektro brake levers for its simplistic, light design.

New wheels. My Campa Zonda rims have been reduced to less than 1 mm width due to extensive braking in the mountains of Bremen. I was looking for something very light and a reasonable price that would be a match for my (body) weight. These wheels are advertised by Nelson Vails, so they should be just fine.

This one is not for me. Unfortunately. And with frame size 52 cm it is too small for me anyway. But I mange to buy this blue Chesini Criterium frame from 1996 for Hiroshi of C Speed who will covert it into something even more beautiful, I am sure of. Europe is a heaven of old steel bike frames.

I just love the headbadges of Italian bikes. My favourites are Bottecchia, Olmo, CIOCC and Chesini. The Chesini headbadge consists of a metal badge glued to the steering tube and a rather rough engraving with white paint above and below.

There is a bike show in Bremen on March 12 and 13th with a special exhibition about Italian classic steel bikes. I will send some photos later.

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Eingeordnet unter 2011, Bits&Pieces, Chesini Criterium, Moser Leader AX, Uncategorized

Heavy Stuff

Today I got a SMS from my local bike store. They finally deassembled the Maillard rear hub.


Good news indeed. As I wrote previously, I was so stupid to remove the hub from the wheel before removing the cassette from the hub. Which is a minor glitch if it happens with todays technology, is a major pain with the technology of yesteryears. It’s almost as bad as trying to eat a marmalade sandwich while playing soccer on playstation 2. Believe me, everything can happen in that situation.

On the weekend I went to a DIY shop bought a large plank and some steel screws and nuts to construct something to counter the cog but it didn’t worked out when we tried at the bike shop. Luckily the good people there were so moved by my engineering efforts that they agreed to give it another try later: When I am away and I couldn’t take a peek at their trade secrets.

The guy told me today that he built up the bike again to counter the removal tool which was connected to the wheel. Then finally he was able to unscrew the cassette. Which is actually not only a cassette, but a cassette with an integrated freewheel. Probably a Dura Ace FA-110, if you are interested in the details. Coming home I started to clean and polish the hub and de-assembled it completely. I was surprised how small the ball bearings were, I thought the balls would be small on the front and bigger on the rear wheel because of the forces that needs to be transmitted. No. These balls are very small. And luckily I know that there were 9 balls on each side, which limited my efforts to look for the ones which have rolled down from the table right on the Flokati carpet. This was similar to the search for Dr. Livingstone but me, Stanley, I made it finally. I had an even worse Flokati carpet when I was a teenager and I am sure that if it had been stored at my parents home, one would perhaps be able to retrieve today many of my belongings and drugs lost before I came between 18.

Also I thought that the hub would be heavy, but in fact it is the freewheel that accounts for most of the weight. Wow, almost as heavy as a Cervelo project California frame.

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Eingeordnet unter 2011, Bits&Pieces, Bremen, Mob