Bike Stability Feeling vs. Rider Position

I had an interesting ride the other day. I was on my Black Mountain Cycles Monstercross, on my way to see my mom. The BMC has a pretty normal cross geo, which in itself is pretty close to road bike geo going back before I was born. I had it setup with a Velo Orange Granola handlebar:

What was interesting was how bad this all felt.

Half Off Sale!

No, I'm not selling my bikes for half price. I'm getting rid of half of my bike fleet.

One day as I was tripping around stuff in my garage, I looked around and realized I had two of everything, bike wise:

- two 700c, steel frame, fixed gear bikes (Rivendell Quickbeam and Trek 610)

- two 700c, steel frame, medium tired all rounds (Black Mountain Monstercross and Surly Straggler)

- two 29er mountain bikes (Cotic BFE Max and Giant Trance)

- two 20" folding bikes (Bike Friday Crusoe and Bike Friday New World Tourist)

In the interest of freeing up some space and funds, I decided to unload half of my bikes. Since I had two of everything, this was theoretically simple, but some decisions were harder than others. Let's look at them, from the easier choices to the more difficult:

Round 1: Mountain Bikes: Cotic vs. Giant

The Bikes of 2024

Happy New Year to all! I feel like my bike flipping has been slowing down, but I expect writing this post may disabuse me of that notion. Regardless, here are the changes that happened to my fleet last year:

Jan: I bought a Specialized Expedition frame that I converted from a comfort bike to an adventure bike, mostly as a winter project:

2023 Mega Bike Update

Looking back over my bike fund spreadsheet, there's a lot of action to cover in my usual bike churn. More than usual, even. I don't write here much anymore, but sometimes it's useful for me to track my history and collect my thoughts about what has passed through the garage. 

With the addition of the Rapide from my last post, I sold my Ragley Marley (cheap-ish) to my buddy Marc, trying to consolidate my moutain bike fleet down to boost wheeled 29ers. I had a lot of good rides on the Marley, and no real complaints with it, but the churn is relentless. I credit the Marley with opening up my eyes to the newer geo bikes, and how well they can work:

New Custom Marino, and Various Other New Bikes

In the bike nerd corners of my internet, there is sometimes discussion about Marino bikes, an extremely affordable custom frame builder out of Peru. For less than the cost of a generic Taiwanese frame, you can have a custom frame delivered to your door. Finally, on a bit of a whim, I plunked down my $100 deposit last December. I wanted something like a steel version of my Marley, but not quite so slack, with more stack, more mounting points for stuff, and a little bit longer chainstays. And built for 29" wheels, since they have mostly taken over the mainstream mountain bike market. 

I never really appreciated the thought that goes into designing a hardtail's geo. The big question is, what length fork do you design around? If you plan to run a suspension fork (as I did), do you design around a fork length at 25% sag, no sag, or something else? In the end, I took a bit of a pass on this, and designed it around a 485mm rigid fork (eg, Krampus style fork), knowing that the sus fork would slacken the angles and raise the bottom bracket. My geo ended up like this:

Cross Check Again

My bike fleet has had a lot of churn this spring and summer. I sold the Jones, the Mercier fixed gear, bought and sold a full suspension bike, and bought the Marin frame. All of those transactions left me with a pretty flush bike fund, so when I found many online stores were out 62cm Surly Cross Checks in the new mustard yellow color, I knew it was a sign that I should order the last one I found.

This is almost a repeat for me. I had a Cross Check from around 2007 for about six years. That old black bike carried me through many miles of rides and many different builds. I had a spare rim brake 700c wheelset hanging around, waiting for another frame--which turned out to be another CC. I knew the wheels would fit, as they were the same ones from my old CC!

I received the frame on Tuesday and quickly got to work:

Fleet Update X

My bike stable is in a bit of an odd state right now. My bikes are in good form, but many of them aren't really quite right for me right now. Let's take them one by one, as usual in my rough order of preference at this point in time:

1. Ragley Marley.

It's a bit odd to put this cheap, generic aluminum hardtail mtb on the top. I'm not mountain biking much these days, except for the pond loop behind our house. Certainly nothing that will challenge this long and slack hardtail with 120mm of travel up front.

But... I like cheap bikes that punch above their weight, and the Ragley is that. The bargain $80 Suntour fork works well, and the overall bike ride well, even though it's aluminum. Big tires help. I've been practicing my cornering technique (and my manuals) on our flat pond loop, learning my way around the new school geo on a trail that might work better with an older, 72 degree HA 29er.

I didn't have any major complaints with the Advent nine speed drivetrain I had on the bike, but a closeout special led me to upgrade to Box 11 speed:

Ragley Marley Intro

I've been meaning to try a modern mountain bike. Modern being long (long front center), low (low bottom bracket), and slack (slack head angle). I ended up with a Ragley Marley frame, courtesy of Chain Reaction Cycles, as a cheap way to try this. It's long (475mm reach/820mm front center), low-ish but not too low (45mm bb drop), and very slack (65.5 degree head angle). It's all modern with boost spacing and clearance for nearly full size B+ tires. Of course, I resolved to build this as cheaply as possible, so it's a parts bin special.

Rivendell Quickbeam vs. Surly Cross Check vs. Black Mountain Cycles Monstercross

My typical road bike is a steel cyclocross bike. Fat tires, strong brakes, and provisions for some useful braze ones make these attractive all-rounders. Today's post covers only my longest serving 'crossy road bikes, I've also had a Soma DoubleCross, a Velo Orange Camargue, and others. But for today, let's focus on these three and see how they compare.

I'll start with subjective stuff

Looks
1. Quickbeam (64cm)

Fleet Update VIII

Here's the latest on my fleet, as (almost) always, most to least favorite at this moment in time:

1. Jones LWB

I haven't been riding my Jones too much lately. The trails are much too soggy this spring for any serious mountain biking, so it's just been the occasional jaunt around the neighborhood.

I am trying out my new Donut Sack bag that I picked up that Ohio swap meet back in March. It's locally sewn by a fellow in Westerville, and looks to be a nice size to carry my wallet, tools, etc and let me ditch the Camelback. My only issue so far is that I wish it had an internal pocket to protect my phone from the tools, etc. that are also in the bag. Maybe an old sock will do the trick.

2. Dahon Speed 7

This little guy has moved up my charts in a big way. I didn't like it all at first, but some new tires transformed it:

Dawn of the Quickbeam Era

I've wanted a Rivendell Quickbeam pretty much since I first saw one maybe 15 years ago. I've filled the interim with a succession of cheaper replacements: my Cross Check, various vintage Treks, and lately my Black Mountain Monstercross. But here in the winter of discontent, I finally decided to take action. I put up a "WTB" ad on the Riv and iBOB lists, not expecting much response, but Howard from Virginia quickly responded with a 64cm for sale. Just my size. A deal was quickly made, my bike fund was even more underwater, and I finally had a Quickbeam in my garage.

Bikes and a Playground

Sam has been biking a bit more this fall. His usual bike ride is down the block to his buddy's house, but he's up for a longer ride now and then. Last week we headed over to the metro park:

There's a small hill in the metro park. We zipped down it only to turn it around and climb back up. "Sam, do you want to do that again?" "Sure!" So we did two intervals of hill climbing.

Fleet Update VII

Whenever I need to get my thoughts in order about my bike stable, I realize it's time for a fleet update. As I sometimes try to do, these are ranked from top to bottom in whatever the current pecking order is:

1. Riv Clem H: I tried the Clem as a mountain bike, and it wasn't great. After experiencing more modern mountain bikes, the front end of the Clem feels nervous. And after my Niner failed at the head tube, looking down at the skinny fork of the Clem doesn't fill me with confidence. It's probably fine. But since I've set aside any aspirations to ride it on trails, I can outfit the Clem for city duty: slicks, racks, baskets, and kickstand. In this build, it works well to ride around with the kids or run errands or go camping.

The Jones bars are a great spec for this build:

Far more comfortable than the stock Bosco bars, they're good for going as fast--or as slow--as I want to go. That's a rare range for a handlebar.

City Bike Update

One post in, and my Fuji America has already gotten a pretty major update. A wave of bike changes cascaded down to it:

- I sold my Trek Stache (yes, the one I just bought). 29+ wheels are really just too much for me. Too slow to turn; not agile enough. A fellow down in Dayton is really enjoying it, so it has found a good home.

- That left me with just one mountain bike, my Niner ROS9 B+. That's all well and simple, but I like to have a second mountain bike to give me some variety on the trails I've been riding for 20 years. I rebuilt the KM from a city bike back to what Surly intended, a rigid single speed 29er. One of my favorite bike types.

- I still needed a practical bike for running errands and pulling the kids around. My first thought was to convert my Black Mountain Monstercross over, as I had done in the past.  I took it for one last ride as a fixed gear drop bar road bike:

New Tires, Pedals, Bars

I haven't been doing much riding this winter. We're sitting in the unfortunate intersection of not cold enough to freeze the trail hard, but not warm enough to make soggy road rides enjoyable. And with Henry and Jodi being sick for much of the last month, I've been mostly sticking around the house. Actually, maybe that's a reason to get out of the house.

As riding weather draws ever closer, though, I've been puttering a bit with my fleet. On my Black Mountain Monstercross, I changed up the drop bar for a Jones Loop:

New Ride: Traitor Wander

I've been on a bike buying binge this fall. I spent most of the summer selling bikes: the Raleigh Pardner went to Indianapolis, the Raleigh Kodiak went back to Raleigh, the Rockhopper became a winter beater for a local, and my old Raleigh Technium is hanging from the garage rafters, waiting in vain for another Technium fan. At one point this year, I was down to just two bikes: my Karate Monkey and my Black Mountain Monstercross.

Of course, that situation couldn't last. As mentioned in my previous post, I picked up a Niner ROS9 to handle my hard charging mountain biking duties, and now the KM is back to its normal rigid and single lifestyle. For a while, I ran my BMC as my city/camping bike, but that didn't take. I like to have a lightly loaded road bike for solo rides, and something good for running errands: upright position, racks and fenders and baskets, that I don't mind banging on bike racks.

Which brings us to my latest buy, a Traitor Wander frameset.

Traitor bills this as a touring type bike, built around a modern semi-compact geometry and disc brakes. My build leans more towards an upright city bike:

Black Mountain Cycles Monstercross

Regular blog reader(s) may have noticed that I've mentioned the Black Mountain Cycles Monstercross frame several times in the past.  After selling my Jones (!) a month ago, my bike fund was flush enough that I finally paid down for one. In a way, the BMC is very similar to my Cross Check, a bike that I enjoyed over many years, but with a bit lighter weight tubing and what looks like better fitting geometry.

Here we go:

The color looked more classic red online, but it's really more of a brick red, slightly orangish. I like it:

Fleet Update (Again)

A recent post on the Rivendell Bike list asked what is the ideal number of bikes. I should have three:

1) a mountain bike for fast single track riding

2) a road bike for sorta fast solo road riding

3) a city bike for camping, family rides, grocery runs, etc


So how did I end up with seven? I feel another downsizing event coming on. But here's the latest, this time in categories:

Mountain Bikes:

1a) Surly Karate Monkey:

I've tried to sell this bike a few times. The Jones is clearly a more premium bike, the Niner is better with B+ wheels... but I like the way the KM rides over either of them. Quick handling, a responsive frame, and dead simple technology is a winning combination for me. It's my favorite bike.

By the way, the left grip is spare orange bar tape. I ran out of grips during this build. No expense spared for my favorites!

1b) Niner SIR9:

B Pluses and Minuses

With this weekend's amazing weather, Alum P2 was actually dry enough to ride. It was in great shape, actually, when I took my B+ shod Karate Monkey out this afternoon:

Mostly good times with the B+ Monkey, but a big issue with my 650b Raleigh.

Christmas Day: Raleigh Updates and a New Niner

First off, Merry Christmas to all my B&P reader(s). We had an unusually warm Christmas day, so after opening presents (making the kids wait until 7:00am), playing new board games, etc., I headed out after lunch for a quick spin and some quiet. Jodi got me some new medium-heavy riding gloves that were just right for our temps in the low 40s (I now have four different pairs of warm gloves to span riding from the 50s to the teens).

I've done a bit of updating on my mid 80s Raleigh Technium: