Attack of the N+1 monster

You may find yourself at the corner of Hull and East 35th Street s in Richmond Virginia. DON'T be fooled by the friendly, inviting colors of the buildings. Whatever you do, don't go in there. It's a trap!

What a lovely, colorful building...

Gee, I wonder what's behind that door...

No, don't. Do not ring the bell!

Trust me, if you go in there, it will cost you dearly. This is where the N+1 monster lives. You will only be able to leave once you have spent a lot of money and given your heart to yet another magical steel bike. You don't need another bike. You don't need another set of lightweight 650b wheels, especially not a set with a dynamo hub. Do yourself a favor. Just turn around a walk away. 

Shit. I bought another Crust Lightning Bolt. This time in Light Sea Green. Oh, for Kröd's sake. 

Light sea green N+1 monster

Crust Lightning Bolt Canti - It's Alive!

If you have been following the Crust Canti Lightning Bolt build bouncing ball, you will no doubt have been on tenterhooks waiting for the latest installment. Well, here it is. 

2022 Crust Lightning Bolt Cantilever - complete

The build took a bit longer than I planned, which of course I knew it would. But it's finally done and roadworthy. 

As can be seen in the photos, I tended toward a modern build with a mulletish drivetrain, employing the Avid Shorty Ultimate cantilever brakes and re-using a pair of Bontrager carbon fiber bottle cages. The front derailleur and headset are both by Campagnolo, the rear derailleur and shift levers are by MicroShift, the cassette is a Shimano Deore 11-42, and the crank is VeloOrange's 46t/30t. That's right, it has a low gear of 30/42. That's not a bicycle drivetrain - that's a stevedore's winch! I used an existing Selle Italia "Man" saddle and a set of Origin8 Classique brake levers I bought some years ago in anticipation of the end of sensible componentry.

Here's a list of the components for reference:

Weights and Measures

The weights above are pretty close. Without water bottles, but WITH a saddle bag containing everything I need for roadside repairs plus a small cable lock, it comes in right at 10.9 kg or exactly 24 lbs in old money. It's got to be the lightest production steel frame in existence, combined with some pretty darned light components. No doubt it could be shaved down some more, but to what end? Even in my hard bike case, the package should come in just under 50 pounds, so I should be good to go for Europe when the time comes! 

The Lightning Bolt, ready to ride, weighs just over 24 lbs!

Brakes

Okay, I don't know shit about cantilever brakes. Makes you wonder why I would buy a bike made specifically for this type of brake. Save the rim brake, I guess. I'm hoping to live my entire bike life without evolving to disk brakes, hydraulic components, or an electronically controlled drivetrain. Not so much retro grouch as technophobe. I was sorely tempted to try Rene Herse cantis, but man, the price. After much time scouring the web for reviews, I settled, as noted earlier, on the Avid Shorty Ultimates. They seem to be kind of the most "modern" interpretation of the cantilever, are super lightweight, look appropriate with the black frame and derailleurs, and judging from about 360 miles of riding with them, work great. 

 

Avid Shorty Ultimate cantilever brakes

Cockpit

Handlebars

I kind of backed myself into a corner by deciding I needed to try one of Nitto's B132 Grand Randonneur handlebars, reputed to be one of the most comfortable long distance bars ever made. The GR has long 120mm reach compared to more "modern" bars, so I decided I needed a shorter stem. On my current bike I have a 70mm Nitto stem and the Olympiade B114 handlebar which has 100mm reach. That 170mm combination feels about right. So, I decided I needed a 50/60mm Technomic stem which, with the 120mm handlebar reach and the Lightning Bolt's slightly shorter reach, would give me a position similar to what I'm used to. Simple, right? 60mm normal stem and a Nitto B132 handlebar. How hard could it be? Well... 

Nitto Grand "Raund one ur" B132 handlebar

I only just noticed they misspelled Randonneur! Not on the Nitto web page, not on the package, but on the engraving on the handlebar itself. The misspelling is literally etched in aluminum! Glad I'm not the only one who can't spell French words. Nevertheless, it's this one:

Nitto B132 handlebar specification

I went narrow, because according to GCN I'll shave valuable aero watts! https://youtu.be/muMYrFJkmWM

Stem
I didn't want the 225mm "tall" stem (I haven't entered my Rivendell "tallux" years quite yet). The handlebar's clamp area is 25.4mm and I didn't want to have to use shims on a stem with a 26mm clamp diameter. No kludges. I want exactly what I want and don't want to compromise, dammit! So it took a while to get the necessary parts together. I ordered the "standard" Nitto Technomic from Rene Herse. Took a while, but it was worth the wait!

So there it is in a nutshell. There were a lot of little decisions and details along the way, some of which I may write about later, but this lays out all the essential parts. So far I am super happy with it. It feels both "faster" and more stable than my Velo Routier, which I'm sorry to report I haven't touched since I got the Crust finished. I'll provide my impressions of the differences and ride quality after I've had a chance to spend more time on the bike. 

Coming Soon - Crust Cantibolt build

OneDrive informs me that one year ago today I took delivery of a new bicycle frame, a Crust Lightning Bolt Cantilever. I had bought it completely as an impulse purchase, based, as I'm sure is common on the insanely positive review in Bicycle Quarterly combined with the slick "Galaxy" colorway. 

OneDrive photos of the newly arrived Crust CantiBolt

Because I hadn't really intended to buy the bike, I wasn't really prepared to actually put it together. I just didn't want to miss out on getting one of these extraordinary frames in my size. So until the last few weeks the frame has just been sitting in its box waiting to be turned into a frame. 

Since that time I have collected a bunch of the necessary parts to complete the build. Lingering covid-19 supply chain problems have caused delays and increased expense, though last week I had the frame prepped and headset installed by the fine team at Just Riding Along Bicycle Shop in Laytonsville, Maryland. Really great shop, and they speak "steel".  

In the coming weeks I'll be writing up a detailed description of the build process and spec. For the moment, here's how it's looking:

Crust CantiBolt with headset, bottom bracket and seat post installed 

The stem is not what will ultimately be installed (it'll be way shorter), the seat post is not set to the correct height (it too will be way shorter), but I wanted to put enough of the pieces together to make it start looking like a bike. 

Nothing else to report just yet, but for those of you interested in such things, there will be more to come soon. 

Crustaceous sky fire

There's an entire hemisphere of my brain that can't believe I bought a Crust Cantilever Lightning Bolt. It's the side that drew me to graphic design with an emphasis on the written word. The hemisphere that makes me a font-weeny that pours over The Elements of Typographic Style, and have opinions about the differences between Helvetica and Arial. Christ, I obsess over typefaces even when writing utterly unimportant documents. Note for the Amazon guy to leave a package on the porch? Definitely Garamond. So how on earth did I end up with a bike whose model name is rendered in some kind of faux graffiti-esque face?

Crust Lightning Bolt Canti

And don't even get me started on the brand's pink Rocky Horror Picture Show typeface, book-ended by literal lightning bolt clip art and South Beach pastel colored banding. Dear Kröd.

Crust brand name in pink "grunge" typeface

Is it supposed to be some kind of skate punk thing? Homage to BMX? Don't get me wrong. I've been known to defend even the much despised Comic Sans typeface. Horrid in most places, but perfectly appropriate in a comic strip. Likewise the Lightning Bolt's type/iconography. It would sort of make sense on a skateboard or some of the brand's other models - the bikes that look like you'd naturally see them popping above the coping of an empty swimming pool. The Scapegoat maybe? Dude. Brah. Radical.

But on this bike? The Lightning Bolt's frame is a modeled on Jan Heine's classic French Réne Herse Randonneuse. Not exactly the heritage you'd expect from this typographic styling. All I can imagine is that the Crust guys came up with the name Lightning Bolt because they expected this lightweight to be fast, and the rest just followed from that. What a shame. But look, a bike designer gets to choose whatever graphics they want on their bike. I get it. If this is an expression of Crust's sensibility, why should they care what I think? Buy the bike or don't, pops. 

So given all that, what was I thinking? How could I bring myself to plunk down so much cash for a bike that irritates me every time I look at it? Well, it's precisely because it seems to be such a GREAT copy of that 1952 Réne Herse that I could not resist. Matt is obviously seriously into bikes. You'd have to be to think it's a good idea to get into such a crazy industry. And as a dedicated non-competitive, Path Less Pedaled, "Supple Life" type disciple of Bicycle Quarterly, he built a super-light, thin-walled, low trail, 650b Rando bike. But he did it his way. And his way, if the packing tape on the box in which the Lightning Bolt was shipped is any indication, is a bit zany. Tropic punk? Psychedelic metal? Nerdcore?

Will Ferrell in Wedding Crashers w/ Crust logo on forehead

Crust's packing tape expresses their sense of humor

So, who am I to judge? You want the bike or not? Okay, yes. I want it. By the time it became available, I wanted it a lot. Maybe the result of perceived scarcity following the long wait associated with the pandemic supply chain issues of the past two years. Maybe the pre-sale note saying, "things are looking a bit dicey for Crust". Maybe just N+1 syndrome. Maybe the return to a horizontal top tube, combined with the sparkly black "Galaxy" paint job that got me. Probably all of the above. But in the end, it is the prospect of the bike itself that forced my hand. 

Cycles Toussaint Vélo Routier, Version 2

You may recall that in Spring of 2018 I bought a Cycles Toussaint Vélo Routier. Like the Lightning Bolt, it is a Taiwanese, low-trail, 605b bike. It is, by its makers' own admission, an "entry level" bike, though I think that is so only in the sense that the components that came in the DIY build kit were entry level. The frame and fork have a couple of unique and glorious design elements that set the bike above and beyond every other production bike in it's category, the most striking of which is that it was spec'd for direct-mount, long reach, center-pull brakes. Unheard of. Even the tubing chosen for the Vélo Routier was as light as made sense for a production bike, using "oversize" (1 1/8") 4130 Cro-moly steel in .8/.5/.8. Honestly this a bike that could only have been built by a fanatic who didn't need the money. 

But Taiwanese builders are used to building mass production bikes to safety standards that assure they won't get sued, so that "light" steel, roughly equivalent to Reynolds 531, is still stiffer than the .7.4.7 Jan recommends for bikes that "plane". You want that kind of steel in a production frame, you gotta sign a waiver. Legend is, Matt Whitehead is just crazy enough to sign such a waiver, and spec a fork that is much more slender than the one on the VR. Word is the Lightning Bolt is basically the same spec as Jan Heine's Mule. Whatever the case, the Lightning Bolt frame and fork weigh about 180 grams less, over half of which (93 grams) is in the fork. 

The other, perhaps more significant difference between the Vélo Routier and the Lightning Bolt is in the geometry. Though Bike Insights shows a calculated trail for the VR at a ridiculously low 18.8mm, Cycles Toussaint themselves claim 30mm. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. But even the 30mm is very low by conventional standards. The Lightning Bolt comes in at 40.2mm (for the 42mm tires I plan to ride). The Lightning Bolt's wheelbase is a bit shorter, as is its chainstay. The bottom bracket is also a bit higher on the Crust. In theory, all of these very minor differences should yield a bike that is quite similar to my old one, but with possibly a little less "twitchy" feeling due to the higher trail. But other elements can have an effect too, like handlebar width, crank and stem length. I haven't gotten the build worked out yet - the frame was a bit of an impulse buy, so I haven't thought through the components yet. Any way you cut it, I expect the differences to be subtle. Time will tell.

Crust sticker included in the box in which the bike shipped!

Lastly, there are a couple of elements floating around in my brain. First, there is still no brake attachment on the chainstay bridge. Not a deal-breaker by any means, and it probably saves weight - but they are elegant for any center-pull brake set-up, and the original prototype had them, so I can't help but be a bit disappointed. BUT, and I shouldn't be so excited about this, the Lightning Bolt has vertical rear dropouts. Now this is just about the most persnickety little thing, but the Vélo Routier has horizontal dropouts. Not a huge deal, but it caused me a lot of trouble early on, requiring me to purchase internal cam quick-release skewers, and it makes changing a rear tire difficult when the bike has fenders.Again, not the worst thing in the world, but I'm genuinely happy to see the more typical dropouts on the Crust.

Okay, enough for now. I'll post more as I start to think about the build. It's my intention to use a few parts from the ol' Parts Bin, mixed with some new "dream bike" parts that I'll have to save up for. Stay tuned.

...like you’re the star of the Brevet, leading everyone into a marshmallow and ice cream victory meal.

Oops, I did it again...

2022 Crust Cantilever Lightning Bolt

I couldn't help myself. After Jan Heine's glowing 2020 review of the pre-production model in Bicycle Quarterly (BQ70), I really wanted one. Then there was the über cool Ultra Romance coverage, e.g., The Radavist and CXMagazine. I was sold. Sure, I was put off by the skate punk typography and profane mermaid/centaur head badge (but hey, to Crust's credit, it's a real head badge!). I could live with the silly text if I could get a Heine-worthy frame/fork for less than the latest Campagnolo Chorus Groupset. And even kind of liked the green "crackle" paint. But then the production model came out. 

It was brown. It had a sloped top tube. There was no seat stay cable hanger. Blech! It had gone from aesthetically marginal to downright ugly. Was I willing to buy an ugly bike in the hope its ride quality was so ethereal it made me forget how it looks? Ugh. I dithered until Crust sold out of the "canti-bolt" and the decision made itself.  

No big deal. I really like my Cycles Toussaint, don't need another steed and don't really know what I'm missing anyway. So I let it go without too much regret, went about my life, watched the entire fucking world descend into chaos and death, and hoped Crust would come out with another bike I like. 

And they did. In February I got an "Only Fans" email saying they had some sample frames with a prototype "fancy" fork crown for sale, and hinting that a new model Cantilever Lightning Bolt ('22) would probably arrive in March. And the photos of the bike? Black paint and horizontal top tube!

I jumped for the "special" fancy, but there were only an extremely limited set of "samples" and they were gone by the time I clicked the link. Then on On March 3, 2022 came another email saying the following:

Well...we're doing it, we are breaking our rule of no pre-orders, no holds. We are usually hard and fast on this rule, because we are so small and keeping track of all the pre-orders can become fairly difficult on top of the day-to-day wildness of running a small business. Alas, things are looking a bit dicey for Crust, and we are fairly certain the Lightning Bolt's are due within the month (March), so we are opening them up for sale out of necessity. We will hold back on just a handful of each size, but we are pre-selling 99% of what's to come.

Again I jumped. I did a quick look at Bike Insights in the hope that I could verify the size, and sweeeeeeet!, they had the updated numbers! With 42mm tires, the stand-over height of the XS is within a millimeter of my current bike. So I pulled the trigger instantly. The order was placed on the 3rd, and the bike was delivered March 22. So let the adventure begin anew. To the parts bin!

Lightning Bolt Mermaid/Centaur Head Badge