Q coo ca-choo

Humans suck. Not at everything, but at some things that really matter. Like analyzing risk. We spend billions, maybe trillions of dollars if you count the forever wars in which we are currently engaged, trying to prevent "terrorism" which, relatively speaking, is not a very big risk for most of us. Okay, if you live in Iraq you may have something to worry about.

Globally, diarrhea is far more likely to kill you. Or just being a child under 5 years old. In America,  driving a car or eating too many french fries will probably get you. But nobody advocates going to war against automobile companies, or fast food chains, even though they kill vastly more people than terrorists.

Global Death Toll

Graph courtesy of Oxfam

Why do we suck so badly at making rational decisions based on actual data? Well, "Fixed Mindsets" for one. We just plain use the wrong methods for calculating risks. We rely on habitual logical processes, even if they are inappropriate for solving the existing problem at hand.

The reason I've been thinking about this tendency to make poor decisions based on faulty assumptions informed by the full array of cognitive bias is because recently a friend started rambling about something called QAnon. Now this guy has a bit of a tendency to believe moderately nonsensical stuff like that chiropractors are medical doctors, that fluoride causes men to grow breasts and that vaccination causes autism, all of which are, pardon my French, complete bullshit. So I wasn't entirely surprised to hear that he's being drawn into some new Trump-based, right-wing conspiracy theory. But what he started to describe far exceeded anything I could have imagined. I mean this is some seriously wacko stuff.

In order to comprehend it, you apparently have to spend all of your waking hours on the internet. Ain't nobody got time for that, as they say. Here's a handy chart that explains it:

Rube Goldberg to the Information Desk. Calling Rube Goldberg...

If, like me, you don't care enough to do your own research, Jim Jefferies has interviewed a few prominent Qanon "researchers". See it and weep.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/bpzs3w/taking-a-deep-dive-into-qanon-s-claims

Fun to laugh at whack jobs, but it is sobering to think, as the piece indicates, that one of them currently occupies the white house. ZOG help us all.

Weights and Measures

Rolling out the door, my awesome low trail, 650b steel bike weighs 32.6 pounds, according to my bathroom scale. That's with two full water bottles, spare tubes, tools, snacks and a rain jacket, should I need one. That is, ready to ride. That's almost 17 pounds heavier than my midlife crisis carbon fibre superbike. Okay, not true, because the 15 pound 9 ounce Project One didn't include pedals, bottle cages and bottles or a saddle that a human being could actually be comfortable on. Every Bontrager saddle I ever tested was an ass hatchet. Anyway, for the purposes of discussion, I'm content to give the racing bike extra weight weenie credit. So, let's just say 17 pound difference between the two bikes. In bicycle terms where even casual cyclists are willing to pay thousands of dollars to shave a few grams, that is absolutely huuuuuggge...

Autumn in Rock Creek

Today you can buy a really nice Asian-made carbon fiber racing bike that weighs around 20 pounds for well under $2,000 (US). I verified this today - Performance Bike is offering a Fuji 2019 SL 2.5 Competition Road Bike for $1,699. It's a 650 gram frame with a Shimano 105 groupset. If you spend $5,000 more, you can get that weight down to around fifteen pounds. You know, DuraAce, much lighter wheelset, etc.   

One of the lightest racing bikes available, the latest Specialized Tarmac costs $11,000 and weighs around 13.78lbs (6.25kg). That's without pedals, bottle cages, computer or tool bag. My bike, without all those things, weighs about 26 pounds or about 12 lbs more. It's "ready to ride" weight is higher because I choose to make it more practical with a handlebar bag to carry useful stuff so I don't have to stuff my pockets or do without.

My bike cost $1,350 plus an undetermined amount of labor, but I'll be generous and say my "inept" mechanic's rate, plus the $150 to ship the bike from Calgary brought the total cost to $2,000. So the $9,000 price difference, divided by the 12 pound weight difference runs about $750 per pound. I can only presume it's worth it, because Rock Creek Park is filled with high-end bikes like the Tarmac.

On July 4 of this year, I stepped on that same scale and the number that came up was 198+. For argument sake, let's call it 200 standard American pounds. So, as I rode my bike that day, the total package weighed in around 232 pounds. Heavyweight horsepower, indeed! Since that time I have lost a bit of body weight. The number on that scale this morning was 168.8 pounds. So on today's ride, the total package of man and machine comes to 201.4 pounds. Which is to say, I've lost just about the entire bike's weight from my body in the past four months or so. AND it is to say that walking out the door, the total package weighs over 13 pounds less than if I was riding the aforementioned carbon fiber wonder machine at my previous weight. ALL of which is to say, no matter how much you pay for a bike, you'll never shave 30 pounds.

There are a lot of reasons to buy an expensive, featherweight bike. You could want the latest in wind tunnel technology and carbon layup because Bicycling magazine told you you need it. You may watch a lot of bike racing on TV, pepper your speech with words like "roleur" and just want that "pro" aesthetic for yourself. You may have buddies with similar bikes, forcing you to keep up with the Joneses. You might have just turned 40 or 50 and find yourself, as I once did, in the throws of an irrational desire to feel young and fast and energetic. You may just be a dentist and have too much money. All good reasons. But unless you are already at your ideal weight, if you are spending over $5,000 for a bike because it's lighter, save your money. Get a cheaper bike and lay off the doughnuts, you fat bastard!

Ah, weekends...

Yellow Spot, Tulamore Dew, Scotch Bonnet and Aji Rico chiles.

Quick Release

Yep, it was definitely the rear quick release that was driving me crazy. As I noted before, I took an OEM skewer from a defunct racing bike, put it in the rear wheel, and then waited to see what happened. After a couple hundred miles, it had become apparent that the problem was resolved, and conclusively proven that:

• Forward-facing horizontal dropouts require internal cam quick releases, and
• Saint Sheldon is always right.

Honestly, just give me a set of vertical dropouts with some lovely lawyer lips, and I'll be happy.

Having diagnosed and resolved the issue, onto the next problem - a Bontrager Racing Lite quick release looks completely out of place on a classic, low trail 650 rando-style bike!

So off I went to find an appropriate looking quick release. Of course I turned to the mounting pile of discarded wheels lying in the corner of the garage. The only real candidate came from the original wheel that came with my first road racer, which had Matrix Aurora rims and Tiagra hubs. Presumably then, the skewers are Shimano Tiagra, though there's no branding to that effect. They just say Shimano. Anyhoo, the axle seems to be too thick to fit the new wheels. I thought "modern" road bike axles were universal (5 mm, right?), but apparently not. Or maybe it's bent or something. In any case, I couldn't get it in. So, off to the interweb in search of new quick releases that will be aesthetically compatible with my bike...!

As strange as it may seem, there aren't really a lot of aftermarket quick releases in classic silver. You can get affordable internal cam skewers in a Shimano 105 or Ultegra, but they only come in shades of SHIMANO branding and ever-so-cool black and gray colorways. This bike looks classic and timeless. I want components that look classic and timeless, i.e., shiny silver stuff (SSS). Amazon has some really cheap all-steel models that are marketed for use with stationary trainers, and I did try one of those, but it was super heavy and very clunky. So that's not gonna work.

After checking in at Rivendell, it occurred to me to have a look at the company that makes the wheelsets they sell - Velocity of Grand Rapids, USA. And there it was! A simple, sliver internal cam quick release that doesn't look stupid on a classic bike. Okay, the Star Trek typeface of their logo isn't particularly "classic" but I'm probably the only one who will ever notice. So hopefully this is another issue settled. 

Silver Velocity Quick Release Skewer - Nice shape, really.

For those of you weight weenies following along at home, here are the stats of the various alternatives I was working with:

- Original Equipment (Cycles Toussaint/Rimnet)(130 mm): 56 grams

- Velocity (130 mm): 59 grams

- Shimano Tiagra (130 mm): 63 grams

- Bontrager Race Lite (135 mm): 70 grams

Skewered

As I have mentioned before, I am being driven to the very edge of madness by a semi-horizontal dropout and the associated quick release mechanism that allegedly holds the back wheel in place on the back of my Cycles Toussaint Vélo Routier v2. The issue has come and gone, but has never entirely gone away and last week it finally came to a head when in an attempt to tighten the quick release for the third time in five miles of riding, the skewer itself snapped, leaving me stranded on the side of the road. Fortunately the Managing Partner was along for the ride and was able to return to the Bartlecave, retrieve the Bartlemobile and rescue me. 

SuuuhhNAP!!!

The quick release skewers supplied with the Velo Routier DIY build kit are of the "exposed cam" variety which seems to be the norm these days. It's a kind of nice looking item, all silver and shiny, but it has been slipping for a while now. I think it was fine for a while, until it wore the paint off the dropout. Once there was no "soft" paint to hang onto, the shallow knurling on the bolt part just polished the dropout and it more or less started regularly slipping out of the dropout.

See the scratched paint foreward of the dropout? That's where the teeth of the quick release come to rest when it inevitably lets go of the dropout.Those are new screws, by the way - all the futzing wrecked the old ones, so I replaced them.

I put up with it because I'm lazy and didn't really know what to do about it. Then, SuuuNAP!!! So, no alternative but to head to the GoogleNet in search of a solution. And of course, the oracle of information about bikes is where I ultimately found the answer.

Saint Sheldon explicitly warns against using "boutique" exposed cam quick releases on horizontal dropouts.

The exposed-cam skewers are generally OK for vertical dropouts in back, and for forks with "lawyer lips", but should not be relied on with horizontal dropouts or plain forks.

So, the quick releases supplied with the bike are not the best choice for the dropouts. Well, I guess I'm not surprised. Though really nice to look at, it's obvious that the wheelset provided with the Velo Routier DIY build kit is a budget wheelset (ever hear of the Rimnet brand? Me neither.). I don't have any problem with the wheels - they seem pretty sturdy and though a bit to the heavy side, do what wheels are supposed to do. The problem is with the quick releases. It's a small detail, but at least for me, an important one.

So, armed with a potential solution, and in obvious need of a replacement skewer, I turned to the parts bin. The most obvious choice was to use the rear skewer from a bike that doesn't exist anymore; one that also had a 10-speed cassette. So more or less just as a proof of concept I grabbed the one from my unused pair of 2011 Bontrager Race Lite wheels. Fortunately they fit pretty well (they seem a bit long (135 mm?) with about 3/8 inch of threads extending from the nut, but they tightened up nice and snug and the extra length doesn't seem to have a negative effect. I've only been out for one ride since I set it up with the "new" skewer, but over two hours of fairly vigorous riding it seems to have stayed put. I'll leave it this way for a while and see if it resolves the issue.

In the mean time I'll be the guy riding around with a silly looking "aero" quick release hung on a vintage looking bike. Not the weirdest thing you'll see on a day of riding in Rock Creek Park. And who knows? Maybe the aero advantage of the new quick release will make me faster.

Horizontal dropout with a Bontrager Race Lite quick release!

Sapere aude

Sometimes you just find yourself looking at this. Maybe not frequently. But if you do find yourself looking at this, you could stroll downstairs (a lot of stairs, as it turns out) and stand in a room with the bodies of Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

View of the Eiffel Tower from the Panthéon of Paris

Then you could stroll along a corridor and find yourself in a room with the corpses of Pierre and Marie Curie. And another containing the bodies of Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and Emile Zola. And that's just the greatest hits.While there you can also see definitive proof of the earth's rotation.

I'm not saying you should do this or should want to do this, but if you do you should. It is a secular shrine to the Enlightenment, a classical temple of Reason, an inspirational monument to the ideals that led to the founding principles of the United States and the entire modern Western world. Plus, there's a pretty nice view of the Eiffel Tower, so long as you're not particularly afraid of heights. Favorite thing in Paris? It's up there. In more ways than one.

Four in a hundred

Yes, I'm still pissed off about it. Most of the time I'm riding my new bike, so I'm not reminded of it, but when I ride my backup bike, I have two computer mounts to choose from. After my recent exploding tire incident, I found myself on my trusty ol' aluminum steed and couldn't resist the temptation to drive myself nuts. The photo below tells the whole story. The Garmin Edge 25 is shorting me by exactly 4% on miles compared to the Planet Bike computer. I lose exactly one mile in every 25. Thanks NASA.

One of these things is not like the other

Left: Planet Bike Protegé 9.           Right: Garmin Edge 25

I like the nice small form factor of the Garmin, which is just about as small as a bike computer can get. And I like the Garmin web site and all the neat analytical tools it affords. But it just irks me that it seems to measure distance differently than any other bike computer I've ever had. It irks me even more to think that it might be the more accurate and my other computers were inflating my mileage all these years!

Pari-Moto-a-go-go

Pop goes the (rear) Pari-Moto

1,250 miles. That's more or less how many miles I got out of the stock tires that came with my Cycles Toussaint Vélo Routier v2 before a rather stout twig punctured one and ended its useful life. I might could have (as we say in the South) gotten a little more mileage out of them if I had rotated them a while back, as the rear tire seems to have worn a fair bit more quickly than the front. But benign neglect is my general modus operandi in most things, and tire maintenance is no exception.

As you can see from the photo at the right, the center section had worn down to a smooth, thin skin, so this was likely to happen soon - I've probably been on borrowed time for a while now. I had read on several forum posts that the Pari-Moto was designed as an "event" tire, and particularly given their $40 price tag, shouldn't be expected to last a long time. I had taken that message to heart and introduced a couple of ounces of Stan's NoTubes sealant into each. Stan's promises to seal holes up to about 1/4 inch diameter. That's pretty close to the size of my hole, but I think the tread was just too thin to close up. I can't fault Stan's for that. Or Panaracer/Pacenti, maker of the tire. They were billed as a low mileage tire, so no real surprise.

Reason Number 437 to have fenders on your bike: when you get a catastrophic blow out in a tire filled with sealant, you don't get sprayed with liquid latex.

So, the time has come to replace the original equipment. The cream tires always seemed a bit of a novelty to me anyway. But they looked great on the bike and they really grew on me. Still, now that it's time to replace them, the temptation to go back to black is all but irresistible. The black/tan sidewall combination just speaks to me as the classic look of bike tires. And now that Compass Cycles has converted to René Herse Cycles, I decided to pull the trigger and switch to the René Herse Loup Loup Pass 650b x 38. Jan Heine swears they are the best tires available, so I'll put him to the test. And it's a silly thing but who wouldn't want their Vélo Routier to bear the logo of the magician of Levallois.

Last of the Compass tires..?

So I dutifully ordered a pair of the Loup Loups with the extra light casing and a pair of the recommended Schwalbe xxlite inner tubes, which Jan swears will take my riding to "an entirely new level." All arrived at the house with lightning speed - kudos to the René Herse warehouse team! Though I must report that the René Herse tires I ordered came with the Compass branding.

I was eager to get the new rubber on the rims, but I took the opportunity to true the wheels which came from the manufacturer a bit wobbly and through my year of negligence hasn't gotten any better. So now with more or less straight rims I set about to install the tires. Here, beloved reader, is where the story goes all sad and weepy like. Because you see, the tubes I ordered blew to bits before either of them contained 70 PSI. I mean concussive explosions. I thought the casings of the tires might have been damaged, so violent were the blow outs. I've had defective tubes that did that before, but only very rarely and that both of them did it inclines me to think there's a problem other than that I don't know my own strength.

The more knowledgeable readers may note that the Schwalbe SV14A is actually a 26 inch tube and 650b tires are 27.5 inches. So of course the tubes are too small for the tires. True, yet the René Herse website contains the following note:

Maybe Jan and his riding buddies are all such fly weights that they only pump their tires to 55 PSI, but I'm a big boy and need more pressure. I like to have them inflated to at least the upper 60s, and that's just about where these things blew. Maybe the 26 inch tubes should have worked but they didn't. Whatever happened, it made a big boom. $32 plus shipping goes poof! I'd make a stink with Jan about it, but I can't be bothered. I'll just chalk it up to experience.

I subsequently installed a pair of Schwalbe SV21 tubes I already had in inventory and had no problem whatsoever. I have also now ordered a pair of SV21A, the xxlight version of the 27.5 inch (650b) designated tubes in the hope that they will take my riding to an entirely new level. I can use all the help I can get. I'll let you know in time.