Author Archives: Dan T

The New Carbon….Carbon Steel!

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Steel frames can be lighter than carbon frames

The New Carbon….Carbon Steel!

What’s lighter than a modern carbon bike? The new 13.5 pound Rodriguez Outlaw

This morning, I dropped my old truck off for repairs, and pulled my bike out of the back to ride on in to work. The mechanic was impressed with the nice paint job. It’s always fun to have someone lift my Rodriguez S3 bike and watch their jaw drop as they effortlessly lift it chest high with just one hand. So, I handed the bike over to him and said “Lift it up”.

Well, he lifted it, and as expected, his jaw did drop. He said “I gotta show this to the other guys!” So he rolled it to the back of the shop, lifting it several more times in disbelief as he went. Once there, he handed it to the other mechanics and told them to lift it up. Needless to say, they had the same reaction as he did. I asked them all “What do you think the bike is made of?” They all said in unison “Carbon fiber…”….then, noticing that I was shaking my head ‘no’ one of them said “Titanium?” “No” I said. “This is an American made steel bike, made right here in Seattle”. The surprise on their faces was evident as they all lifted the bike several more times, and one of them even took out his magnetic ‘pick-up’ pen device and stuck it right to the top tube just to make sure it was steel.

If you ask most people why they bought a carbon fiber bike, the answer invariably comes back “Carbon bikes are lighter weight”. Well, what if that’s not true? What if that’s just something you’ve been told? What if a comparably priced steel bike was just as light as a carbon fiber bike? Would you still want a carbon bike? Now, what if a comparably priced steel bike was even lighter than the carbon bike? How about one step further…what if a steel bike was lighter, less expensive and rode faster?

Think I’m crazy? Let’s peel the layers off of the onion and get to the truth about carbon fiber mania. The fact is, here at Rodriguez we did make carbon fiber bikes, but that was 35 years ago. Yes, you read right. 35 years ago we made custom carbon fiber bikes. I’ve written a slew of info about frame materials here if you are having trouble sleeping. Material World is a 4 part article that I wrote for the Bicycle Paper a while back.

Before we start: Is weight the only consideration for spending a lot of money on a bicycle? How about fit, durability, color, ride quality or longevity? Do these matter to you at all? If so, you’ll want to read on. If weight’s the only thing important to you, then you should read on as well, because I think you’ll be surprised.

Along for the Ride
We can start with the premise that most people prefer the ride quality of a steel frame to carbon. Heck, even a lot of carbon bike manufacturers cede the argument to steel for durability and ride quality. So what if you could pay less money, have a faster riding bike, more comfortable frame, and still have the lightest bike in the crowd? Sounds to good to be true right? Well, I’m actually talking about our 13.5 pound 2013 Rodriguez Outlaw, and it’s very real! As a matter of fact we’ve converted dozens of carbon frame riders to the Outlaw by just allowing a test ride on this amazing bike! Even the most die-hard carbon enthusiast will have to admit this bike cannot be beat.

Side note here for those of you who think you have a lighter bike than the Outlaw.
I have had several people tell me they have a friend with a lighter bike than the Outlaw, but have yet to weigh one. The closest carbon bike to come in here was still 2 ounces heavier than the Outlaw, but was twice the price. Seeing is believing. We keep a scale at our front desk so that we can weigh bikes that come in, and we’ve weighed just about everything. Don’t trust word of mouth as our industry is full of….well….inaccuracy at best when it comes to weights. I know that a lot of manufacturers publish weights in their catalogs and websites that are untrue. If you want to have some fun, buy a small digital scale and carry around with you to bike shops. Ask what a bike weighs, and then pull out the scale to verify it. I’ve done it, and it’s a blast! Like to read more about that?


All right, all right, back to business

I know, I know….you’re reading all of this, but then you pick up a magazine and read a glowing review of a sweet carbon fiber bike from some giant company. How can that be? Wouldn’t they be reviewing steel bikes if steel was so cool?

Let’s have a look at the vicious ‘Cycle of Business’ shall we?
Magazines review bicycles that their advertisers send to them for review. Companies send bikes for review that they want to sell. Look through the magazine and you’ll usually find an advertisement for the very bike that got that glowing review…..sometimes just opposite the review itself. It’s no coincidence. Big companies that advertise don’t make hand-built steel bikes. That’s because carbon fiber bikes are inexpensive to build overseas, so it would make sense to prime the public to want them. Not to say that the review isn’t genuine. The reviewer probably really liked the bike. It’s just that the opportunity to ride that bike for review is not a random selection, but a selection from an advertiser. The Cycle Continues

“Well, what about the pros?” you ask. “The pros only ride the best right? Almost all the pros ride carbon fiber, so doesn’t that make it the best?” Right and wrong. You see, the pros don’t ride a bike that they expect to last year after year (durability). Heck, a lot of them don’t even require their frame and fork to last one race. So, if by ‘best’ you include durability in your criteria, a pro has no need for that.

A pro does have a need for sponsorship though, and if their sponsor is trying to sell carbon fiber frames, then carbon fiber they will ride. After all, it’s their job to sell bikes. If we paid millions in sponsorship to a pro team, then they would be thrilled to ride steel Rodriguez Outlaw hand-built bikes (but, that’s not going to happen). If your criteria is “I ride what I’m paid the most $$ to ride” then at this point in history, carbon is the best. I’m not saying that a carbon frame will not perform, I’m just saying that it is not a superior performance to steel.


Fit note: – Realize also that the pros are riding bicycle geometries designed to fit them and their riding style. When you purchase that same frame in a store, you’re not purchasing a bike to fit you, but rather a bike to fit the pro it was made for. Ask your sales person what it would cost to get that same frame made truly custom to fit your body and riding style.

Good natured sarcastic rant warning
What’s fashion got to do with it? With all of the magazine ads, pro sponsorships, certain bike shops, and even industry rags smack-talking any bike that isn’t carbon, it’s almost fashionable to ride carbon fiber. I’d say that it’s become so fashionable in some circles that you almost have to be a heretic to ride steel. One more great reason that we call this bike the Outlaw I say. Peer pressure is a powerful motivator, but we’re here to help give you the ammunition to resist…..come to the dark side……be an Outlaw….like Alice Cooper says, Flush the Fashion!

This ‘cycle’ of promotion steers the consumer to the product the manufacturers wants to sell. Now, obviously I’m trying to do the same thing, but I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is. Basically, you’ve got to verify weight if it’s important to you. I think that if you do that, you’ll find that here at Rodriguez, we can build your bike in America just as light as any overseas carbon bike. I’m confident that if you ride our bike back to back with a carbon bike, you’ll choose the Rodriguez every time….just like Steve and countless others have over last few years.

With the fashion sufficiently flushed, let’s get down to earth

I think that I’ve shown here that a light weight bicycle can be achieved through either material, so I would like to put all the hype about weight aside for minute, and talk about some things that are way more important.

1.) Fit: If your bicycle doesn’t fit well, you’re going to hate riding it no matter what it’s made out of. At Rodriguez we view fit as the most important component to any bicycle. We offer a fit guarantee with every bicycle we sell. Here’s a few articles that I’ve written over the years to back-up what I’m talking about on this subject. Ignoring fit when buying your bicycle is a huge mistake that many people make.

2.) Longevity: If you don’t care how long your new bike will last, then don’t worry about this section.

Most of our customers plan to ride their new Rodriguez for many years to come. What the consumer doesn’t realize is that our industry is steering very heavily toward a disposable product model by engineering bicycles to only last 5 to 10 years. Sure, carbon fiber frames with their short warranties are part of that model, but an even greater problem is wreaking havoc at bicycle repair shops all around the country. This is the trend of straying from industry standards to proprietary parts.

What the heck am I talking about? If you don’t know what ISO standards are, and proprietary parts are, you’re bound to end up on a bicycle that will end up in a land fill before its time. Yes, I’ve written a few things on the subject.

Here at Rodriguez, we reject the disposable bike philosophy, and substitute our own. A Rodriguez is built to be a forever bike.

3.) Personality: Do you have a favorite color? Why not paint your bike that color? At Rodriguez, your bike isn’t built until you order it, so you can choose any color you want. Obviously this isn’t a benefit exactly of a steel frame only, but Rodriguez customers love to have their new steed reflect their personality.

4.) Made in USA: I think there is something to be said for purchasing your bicycle from a company that is committed to manufacturing their products right here in the USA. We’ve seen almost every manufacturer move their production overseas in the last 2 decades in search of those creamy profits at the top. At Rodriguez, we’ve changed our manufacturing methods to provide the

greatest value and made in USA quality. We even manufacture parts in Seattle that we ship to Taiwan companies. How many manufacturers can say that?

The fact the we make your bike right here, means that we can customize more than just the paint. We can change geometry, braze-on fittings, tubing weights, wheel color, tires, you name it, we can do it!

5.) Most importantly: Don’t buy a bike, buy a shop! Really, it’s not about the bike. I can’t stress enough how important your relationship to your shop will be for your cycling enjoyment. A good shop has mature, professional employees who spend an hour or more fitting you to a bicycle before they sell you something. You should get a fit/comfort guarantee with your bicycle as well. Can you bring it back for a refund if you don’t like it? This is important, right?

6.) Get a Guarantee!! I cannot believe how many people have expensive bikes that are only a few weeks old and they hate them (like Jane). Why don’t they get their money back? Well, the shop or manufacturer doesn’t offer a satisfaction guarantee. Realize, any bike can be comfortable on a 10 minute test ride. The real test is how you feel on it after a few weeks. That gives you time to really settle in to the fit that your fitting professional has recommended, and feel how the bike reacts to your daily riding style. If the shop, or bicycle manufacturer, you’re working with doesn’t offer free fitting (including free stem and bar swaps) for their bicycle customers after the sale, I would strongly consider another shop. A lot of shops do not offer such a guarantee, so it’s your job as a consumer to ask that question before you purchase.

If they don’t offer a 30 day money back satisfaction guarantee, then realize that you will possibly be paying hundreds of dollars for fit work at another shop in order to relieve your pains, or, like Jane, you’ll just ride your old bike and let the new one hang in the garage. Now-a-days, high quality bicycles sell for $3,000, $6,000, $10,000 or more! That’s a lot of dinero for a wall hanger!

Wow! That’s a lot huh? If you’re looking for an uber-light bike, a heavy duty commuter, or and all-around bike for any occasion, we’d love to have a shot at becoming your bicycle company. Here at Rodriguez, we realize that the most important choice you make when selecting your new ride is the people that you are working with.

Thanks for reading

Dan

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If the Shoe Fits, will your Frame Fit too?

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I’m 6′ tall, what size shoes should I buy?

Would you order shoes this way? Of course not. You know that 2 random people that are 6′ tall are very unlikely to wear the exact same shoe size. It would be ridiculous for a salesperson to even ask your height in determining a good shoe size for you, right? Maybe they can get a general sense…..6′ tall…male…..probably between size 9 and size 13, but nothing really accurate, and certainly not worth paying $100 or more for the guess. Obviously, you would want them to consider the size and width of your foot. Really good shoe stores will consider your ankle width, and maybe your arch. So that’s 4 measurements that count, and none of those measurements are your height.

How does this scenario relate to a bicycle?
Now you go online to consider a new bicycle, and the company is suggesting a size based on your height. How does that work? The answer: It doesn’t work. Your chances of getting the right bike size this way are about the same as getting the right shoe size that way. As a result, thousands of people each year pay good money to buy poorly fitting bikes. Then, they either ride uncomfortably, or even worse, hang the bike in the garage and decide that bike riding is not for them. So, I think we’ve determined that you don’t want to order shoes based on just your height, and maybe ordering an expensive bike that way isn’t such a good idea either. If not by height, how should you determine a bike size for yourself?

Who are we to write about bicycle fit?
We’re Rodriguez Bicycle Company. In case you don’t know us, we’ve actually been building and fitting custom bikes for 40 years now. 40 years is a long time…longer than most in the bicycle industry. Most of our customers are not professional racers, but ordinary people who want to enjoy a comfortable, high-end bicycle. It only makes sense to innovate with them in mind. For decades, we’ve pioneered bicycle fit, and developed our own complete fitting system (software, fit machine, and fitting tools) to better serve our customers. Most other fitting systems, if not all of them, were designed around professional racing.

I’ve written a lot on bike fit over the years, and I’ll attach some further writing I’ve done at the end of this article.

Why did I write this article?
Every year, I get several customers who ask me “I’m XX tall, which one of your sizes will fit me?” Usually, they’ve already determined that they should ride a certain size based on a height chart from some other bicycle website. I’ve probably already written this article 100 times or more in the form of emails to these customers, so I though it was about time to put it in a form I can reference more easily than trying to dig it out of my head. In fitting a bicycle, there are many more measurements to consider than when sizing for shoes. So what’s height have to with it? Read on and see….

Now Back to our Story:
Important things to consider when determining your new bicycle size:
Your body is a machine with many levers and pivot points, and so is your bike. Our goal is to get them adjusted and functioning as 1 machine. When all levers and pivot points are where they are supposed to be and working together, you will be comfortable and efficient. The length of each lever, and the placement of each pivot point effects all of the others. Inseam is important (and some shops get that right), but how about your femur length? Your femur length in relation to your inseam will determine where the placement of the pivot point (your knee) should be. This relationship will affect greatly the fore/aft placement of your bicycle seat (to get your knee in the right place). In turn, the seat fore/aft position in relation to the handle bars will greatly affect your reach to the handle bars.

Let’s keep rolling
Foot length is also important (there’s that shoe size again) as your foot becomes an extension of your leg when pedaling. Now how about torso length? This is probably the most important measurement, and also the least considered. Your reach to the handle bars is determined by your torso length (as well as other factors mentioned past and post this sentence). Probably 80% of fitting complaints come from improper reach to the handle bars. Arm length plays a strong role as well, and will determine how high or low your handle bars end up in your final fit. Now realize that all of these things play together. Your femur length affects your reach to the bars, so adjusting just for inseam and femur length will throw your bar reach out of whack. Changing your fore/aft seat position will also affect your seat height. It all plays together in determining what frame size will fit you best. If all of this were not enough, throw conditioning, riding style, and injuries into the mix. Now tell me….do you think it’s reasonable to expect a good bicycle fit from someone who considers just your height, or inseam?

Hopefully, I’m making some sense and you’re getting an idea of how it all works together?

Wow! Writing this circular description might make it sound confusing, but it’s really not if you’ve been doing it for as long as we have. Read on and I’ll give a little more down to earth explanation of why all of this is important.

We offer more sizes and custom at lower costs than other companies
It was 40 years of custom bicycle building and fitting that drove us to our 18 Rodriguez sizes. We have multiple sizes for every height of rider, not just one. Our L and S categories take into consideration whether your height is in your legs, or whether it’s in your torso. We fit around 90% of our customers on these 18 sizes, so I don’t know how folks are getting good fits from companies offering just 5 or 6 sizes. How about a custom size? At Rodriguez, it’s just $200 extra if you need a custom. This is because of our new manufacturing philosophy adopted in 2006 (but that’s a whole different story).

If you are getting a size recommendation that considers just your height, how accurate do you think it could be? I, myself, have been fitting bicycles for 30 years, and I couldn’t guess an accurate frame size based only on someone’s height.

OK, so that’s a lot of words, but what if you’re a visual person like me?

How about a real life illustration of how people of the same height will require vastly different bike sizes? Below are 3 actual fit entries from our NEXT-fit database, with an imposed image of the size recommended from those measurements. Most manufacturers recommend a size based on the Seat Tube length, so that’s the number that their ‘size by height’ chart is pointing you to. All 3 fits represent customers who purchased bicycles from us. All 3 riders are 5′ 10″ tall, and are male. Other than that, there are no similarities in their inseam, torso, arm length, etc…. All of these guys ride completely different frame sizes, and if they traded bikes, they would all give up cycling out of sheer discomfort. Pay particular attention to inseam, torso and arm measurements, and how it affects the seat tube and top tube lengths.

No need to worry. Just in case you’re a 5′ 10″ Rodriguez customer, I’ve changed the names to ‘Long Legs’, ‘Long Torso’, and ‘Medium Medium’. I don’t want you all to think I’ll publish your measurements online….and as far as we know, the NSA has no way into our database;-)

Rider 1 – 5′ 10″ Long Leg customer


Quick synopsis: Rider 1 has the long legs and arms of an ‘assumed’ 6′ 3″ guy, but then a torso measurement more like an ‘assumed’ 5′ 6″ guy. Most companies don’t make a bike for someone of this build. He winds up with a 62cm frame with a short top tube.


Rider 2 – 5′ 10″ Medium Medium customer


Quick synopsis: Rider 2 is a pretty good representation of the ‘averages’ that most companies use to build their sizes, and recommend them by the rider’s height. If you happen to be these proportions (very few people are), then the ‘sizing by height’ method may work out fairly well for you.


Rider 3 – 5′ 10″ Long Torso customer


Quick synopsis: Rider 3 has the very long torso of an ‘assumed’ 6′ 3″ guy, but the arm length and leg length of an ‘assumed’ 5′ 5″ guy. Notice that his short arms put him with an overall reach to bars about the same as the first guy with the really short torso. Although his seat tube length is almost 10cm shorter, they ride the close to same top tube length, but rider 3’s bars are much higher due to the shorter arms.



How do we do it?
‘Long Torso’ and ‘Long Leg’ are kind of extreme examples, but they are indicative of many of the customers we work with every day. If either one of these guys purchased a bicycle online by selecting from a sizing chart determining their frame size by their height, they would both have really poorly fitting bicycles. It’s important to measure your whole body in order to get the right size. Medium-medium guy would probably find that off the rack bicycles may fit him OK as far as ‘sizing by height’, but notice the seat tube angle required for his femur length. Even though his seat tube and top tube would be easy to find in a production bike, he will still end up making a lot of adjustment for his femur length, and then have to adjust for that. If it all seems overwhelming, don’t worry, that’s why we’re here.

At Rodriguez, when we’re fitting a 5′ 10″ customer, we have about 4 sizes that fit about 90% of them (that’s true for just about any height rider as well). The other 10% (of which 2 of these guys are) will wind up paying $200 extra for a truly custom size. A small price to pay for a lifetime of comfort. We work with people online, and in person every day, all day, to get them the most comfortably fitting bike they can possibly have. We have video and written instruction online to help our long-distance customers get their measurements right.

Now, if you happen to be a magic bicycle fitter that can accurately fit customers to bicycles based on knowing just their height, give me a call, I may have a job for you. You see, I spend countless hours writing emails back and forth with our long distance customers to determine the proper size bike for them. It’s extremely important to us that our customers love their new Rodriguez, and we think it’s worth the time to get it right.

If you’re considering a new bike, and you’d like to work with us online or in person to determine your next frame size, we’d be glad to oblige. We think you’ll find that we’re easy to work with, and we really love our customers….long-distance or local.

Links in this article and related links:

Weight-a-Minute…..

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2013 Update!

One of the manufacturers that I subtly refer to in this article is no longer publishing weights. I just checked their website, and the disclaimer below pops up when I ‘moused over’ weight.


Kudos for coming clean, and we whole heartedly agree with most of your advice. There are many factors to consider when buying a bike, but we feel the most important factor was left out of your advice. The most important thing to remember is…

Don’t buy a bike buy a whole shop!

I don’t read a lot of bicycle magazines, but when I do, I see advertisements for bicycles that weigh 17 and 16 pounds all the time. As you may know, we have a full service repair shop at R+E Cycles, and we repair any brand of bicycle. Quite often a bicycle model will come in for repair that I have seen advertised in a magazine as an ultra-lightweight bike. I’ve been lifting bikes since I could walk, and started to notice the ‘heft’ in some of these supposed ‘ultra-light’ bikes.

Last summer I lifted one that I’d just seen advertised at 17 pounds, and it just didn’t feel that light. I put it on the digital scale that we use to weigh our bicycles, and low and behold, it weighed 21.3 pounds! It was a $5,000 carbon fiber racing bike that weighed considerably more than our $2,800 steel Sport bike. I was perplexed, but soon forgot about it…..until Seattle Bike Expo. Something happened there that just made me say “wait a minute……”.

We built and assembled an S3 steel tandem that ended up weighing 26.8 pounds with pedals and water bottle cages and put it on display at Seattle Bike Expo. In the world of tandems, any verified weight under 35 is considered light. On Saturday, the first day of the show, our bike got a lot of attention. One guy told me that another tandem manufacturer (we’ll call them brand X) had a similar tandem on display that only weighed 24 pounds. Again, I was perplexed because I didn’t see how that was possible, so in the back of my mind I assumed he’d just misunderstood the other salesperson.

An hour or so later, I had another customer who said he had decided to buy one of these 24 pound tandems from brand X. I questioned this customer, and he knew the model, parts, weights, etc… “That was it” I thought, “I’ve got to see this 24 pound tandem!”On Sunday, I stopped off at the shop and picked up our digital scale to keep in my pocket, and then headed down town for the final day of the Expo.

When the show slowed down a little bit, I ventured off to check this thing out. When I arrived at the brand X booth, I said “I heard that you guys have a 24 pound steel tandem over here that I just have to see”.The salesperson, noticing my Rodriguez T-shirt, said, “Well, it’s really more like 26 pounds right now” as he pointed to a very nice looking tandem. Look at that I thought, it’s already gained 2 pounds and it’s not even lunch time. I looked down at the cranks and noticed there were no pedals on the tandem, so I jokingly asked”Wow, there’s no pedals on it? How do you ride it?” “OK so pedals add a pound,and the bike rides at 27 pounds” he answered. I reached out and tried to lift the tandem,but it was strapped down. I said to him “Man, I just have to lift a steel tandem that’s this light, will you undo the straps for me?” As he grudgingly knelt down to undo the straps, I pulled the digital scale from my pocket and said “but I have to lift it…..with this”.

Now, the look on his face kind of told me that this tandem wasn’t going to weigh in at 26 pounds, but even I was shocked at the final weight. As I lifted the bike with the scale the digits started fluttering like a digital scale will, and the Brand X sales person kind of backed away as a couple of onlookers gathered behind me. “Ooohhh”I said, “that doesn’t look like 26 pounds”. “What does it say?” He asked. “32.2 pounds” I answered, as the scale locked in its final weight. “You can’t really build a steel tandem under 30 pounds” came the reply. (I thought this was an odd reply for someone who just told me this bike weighed 26 pounds.) “We’ve got a 27 pounder over in our booth with pedals and bottle cages” I told him. “It weighs 27 on that scale?!” Said both Brand X sales people as they pointed their fingers at my digital scale. “You come on by the booth, and we’ll weigh it together” I said as I headed back to our booth.

Believe it or not, he did come by the booth about an hour later. I whipped out the scale, and we weighed it together like I promised we would. As the scale locked in at 26.8 pounds I jokingly said “I guess I was wrong about the 27 pounds, it only weighs 26.8”. He stood and looked over the tandem for a while and said “that’s amazing”.

It’s all fun and games when a fishermen exaggerates to his buddies the size of the fish he caught, just like nobody gets hurt when someone exaggerates to their friends how light their new bike is. Those exaggerations are called something else when advertised to the public, and this is one local company who’s tired of competing with those ‘exaggerations’ unabated. Be careful you guys when you quote those weights, ’cause I’ve got my digital scale, and I’m not afraid to use it. I like making light weight bikes, and we build some of the lightest bikes around, but I’m never going to recommend that someone sacrifice a comfortable ride, or a good fit in order to make their bike lighter weight. I would also encourage all of these companies not to sacrifice the truth to try and sell a bike, and if they do, I’ll be therewith my digital scale.

If you want light weight, a comfortable high-performance ride, affordable price, and the quality that comes with a hand-crafted bike made right here in Seattle, then I hope that you’ll give us a chance to show you our new S3 frames. Call today to make an appointment to see one, we know you’ll love it.

Thanks for reading
Dan
Originally written June, 2008


Have You Heard of Us?

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Dan
August 2013

Yesterday a customer of mine from Kansas (let’s call him Robert) sent me a review that he’s writing on his new Rodriguez Makeshift bicycle that he recently purchased. He’s submitting the review to a popular touring bike magazine, and he wanted me to look it over for any inaccuracies on the specifications of the bicycle. As I read the review, I noticed a mention that he had searched high and low for a bicycle company before ordering, and he had never read nor seen a review of a Rodriguez touring bike. He’s correct. Even though we’ve been making bicycles here for 40 years (that’s longer than just about any custom bike company still in the business) we don’t get requests from magazines very often for a bike to review. It does happen once in a while, but you won’t see nearly the press interest as in other companies. In the world of bicycle reviews, it becomes important to advertise in those magazines to be considered for a bicycle review. Simply, they may not even know that we exist.

It’s been a few years since I’ve explained our philosophy on this, so it’s time for a quick post to tell you about our manufacturing model, and our method of ‘getting the word out’.

If you’ve heard of us, it’s not because you saw us in an expensive magazine advertisement, or glossy magazine product review. Magazine ads and reviews take a lot of time and money, and don’t improve a company’s product or service. In reality, consumers are paying for those ads in the price of their bicycle. We prefer what’s called a ‘product focused’ business model. This simply means that we choose to focus our efforts (and money) on developing new products and improving our existing products. We also choose to work directly with our customers (no dealers or distributors). This provides us with direct, immediate feedback, and helps us improve our product in a more effective manner. Another plus for the customer is that our pricing can be extremely competitive, as there is no middle man.

If you’ve heard of us, we hope it’s because someone you ran into along the way….a friend or an acquaintance perhaps…. recommended our shop. (Many thanks to all of you who are getting the word out, like Robert.) A lot of folks find us on the web, and read through our collection of articles that we’ve written through the years for the newsletter (we used to print one back in the days of paper and ink).

We feel that a recommendation from a friend or acquaintance is much more valuable than a recommendation from a magazine. This is why we focus our efforts on making top-notch products and satisfying our customers rather than ‘getting press.’ We know that this is an unconventional approach to running a business in the highly competitive market, but it’s been a successful model for decades now, so I think we’ll stick with it.

Who are we?
As you look through our website, you’ll notice that we manufacture more than just bikes. You’ll notice that we write software, manufacture highly specialized bicycle parts, and made our own phenomenal adjustable fitting machine. All of these products were designed, engineered, and produced right here in our shop by people who have dedicated their lives to the bicycle business.

A lot of people are surprised when they learn that we are just 13 people, fitting, selling, manufacturing, and servicing bicycles all in one shop in Seattle’s University District. The truth is, the talented people that work here do it because of their love for bicycles and our customers who ride them. Everyone here is a long-term employee. We have several employees who have been with us for a decade or more, and some who have been here even longer.

Hey Magazine Guys!
If you are with the magazine in question, and you happen to be reading this, I encourage you to print Robert’s review. If you have any questions for me, I’m easy to find. We’ve been in the same place now for 40 years and running.

When you buy a bicycle from us, you’re buying the whole shop. We promise to do our best to make that the best value of all!

Thanks for reading, and have a great cycling season!

–Dan

Links in this article:
Our Home Page
Mr. Rodriguez
Rodriguez Makeshift Bicycle
Rodriguez Historical Tour
The Best Value in the Industry
Customer Testimonials and Letters
Meet the Staff

Bike and Pike: Best Party Ever!

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Thank you all for coming!

I can’t express enough how much we all appreciate your support for our Bike and Pike event. The whole team here had a great time. Seeing you all was a great start to the 2013 cycling season! Bike and Pike has become a special even for us here at R+E Cycles, and this year it was more successful than ever. We raised almost 40% more than last year for Food Lifeline….enough for almost 10,000 meals to local food banks. Thank you all for attending and making this year a great success.

‘R+E United’

It had been almost 30 years since Angel Rodriguez and Glenn Erickson had seen each other. It was a special sight to see them reminisce, catch up on life, and share photos over their phones and various electronic media. A big thanks to both of them for making the trip for the 40th anniversary. We were all thrilled to see them both. They had a great time catching up with customers from the 1970’s, and meeting our new customers as well. I hope that you all enjoyed seeing them as much as they enjoyed seeing you.

“Will we see you at Seattle Bike Expo?”

Customers often ask if they’ll see us at Bike Expo, NAHBS or some other exposition show that other custom bike companies attend. We do not attend these shows any longer. We’re not crazy though, read on.

2013 marks the 5th year that R+E Cycles and Pike Brewing Company have put on our own fundraiser event instead of attending other exposition type events. The first year, we had some trepidation about doing this, but since then we’ve learned that we can serve our customers and our community better this way. Doing our own event means that the show comes to us, and we continue our mission of serving our customers relatively uninterrupted. Now we don’t have put our customer’s bikes on hold in order to spend a week or two building and painting special show bikes for display, only to close the shop for a weekend so that we can show them off. Instead, we can keep building and painting the bikes that have already been ordered, thereby keeping our delivery schedule on track. Customers with bikes on order can come by and see their bike in progress during the event, and know that they are truly our first priority. Add to that the fact that we can raise thousands for a local charity, and it really seems like a no-brainer.

With the smashing success of this year’s event, we know that the Bike and Pike is going to be around for a long time. Thanks again for your support. Have a great cycling season!

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Mission: Impossible

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“Why didn’t I see you at Seattle Bike Expo?”
This time of year, customers often ask if they’ll see us at Bike Expo, NAHBS or some other exposition show that other custom bike companies attend. So many customers have asked me that over the last 9 years that I thought maybe they were due an explanation. We do not exhibit at these shows any longer. Although that would have seemed like a crazy decision to me just 10 years ago, business models change to suit the needs of their customers. After more than 4 decades in business, we’ve learned a thing or 2 about what our customers want from us. We’re not crazy (at least I don’t think so)….read on and find out why.

Mission: Impossible
The story of a customer focused business trying to operate in a conventional way

Imagine trying to put together a bicycle display that will compete with Specialized, Trek, Cervelo, and all of the other national and international bicycle companies. Sounds like a big task right? Well, let’s keep going. Now, imagine trying to put that display together while at the same time running a full scale bicycle shop. You have to keep fitting customers for new bikes, selling new bikes, answering the phones, answering your email, and working the sales floor just like any other day. Sounds a little harder right? Well, that’s not all. In your shop, you have to keep welding, painting, and assembling the bikes that are already sold. Now, you also have to keep the ordering going full time so that parts are here for those sold bikes, and don’t forget, you have to run a full service bike repair shop too.

If all of this weren’t enough, assume that you’ve developed a large parts manufacturing business throughout the last decade. You have to do all of the previous stuff while at the same time manufacturing thousands of parts that have already been promised to overseas customers. After machining, these parts will have to be anodized, fully assembled, boxed and shipped to the customers.

The Hard Part:
Now here’s the hard part (I bet you thought you’d already heard the hard part). You have to do all of this on a small business budget with the same 15 staff members that work at your shop all year long. Looking back on it, it doesn’t sound hard as much as it sounds crazy. The truth is, we couldn’t do all of what we do well, and do an expo display well too. If you want to read more about what the last expo we attended was like, read on…
…the inner workings of preparing for an expo:

Going to an exposition sets us back about 3 weeks. There’s no way to do an expo without putting orders (parts and bikes) already placed onto the back burner. It doesn’t seem fair, but that’s how it is.

Here’s a quick timeline of how an expo worked for us:
After several planning meetings, various departments were assigned to do things to prepare for the show. These meetings were expensive, and so was the booth at the show ($4,000 the last time we attended) so it was important to make a big impression….at least it seemed important at the time.

Ignoring what’s really important:
First of all, we started preparing for an expo a few months ahead of time, by making room in the build queue for some special ‘show bikes’. By ‘making room’ I mean putting customer’s bikes on the back burner. Then, about 10 days before the show, we did nothing in the paint shop except paint show bikes. Again, customer’s bikes would have to wait. The repair shop was kept busy assembling bikes for the show, and helping me build whatever booth fixtures we had designed. Before you knew it, we were backed up in the repair shop too (even repair customers had to wait).

On Thursday before the event, we would need to pick up the rental truck to haul all of the show bikes and custom displays that we had built. Most of the staff spent Thursday and Friday carefully wrapping the bikes and loading the truck, only to unload it again at the event a few hours later. Customer repairs and fitting appointments were not allowed from Thursday until the next Tuesday. This was because our trained staff would all be at the show trying to make a good impression on all of the show attendees. The actual store would be staffed with temporary volunteer ‘friends’ until we returned on Tuesday.

The show:
Now, we’d been working non-stop 10 ~ 12 hour days the week before the show, and now we would work 3 more 12 hour days in a row. Saturday would start early and would be a 12 hour day of standing on concrete floors and shaking hands. It’s really great to see the customers, but it was also a little embarrassing when someone with a bike on order would ask “How’s my bike coming?” Obviously, they had a bike that was put on the ‘back burner’ while we prepared for the show.

Sunday (usually a day off for everyone here) would be another 10 hours on the concrete floor, and then a long night. After the show closed, we carefully wrapped the bikes and loaded all of them and displays back onto the truck. We then drove back to the shop, and hastily unloaded everything. I usually took the staff out for pizza at this point before we all went home and collapsed in our beds.

Monday (usually our other day off for everyone) was spent putting everything back in order on the sales floor, returning the rental truck and any other rented items, and trying to assess the state of the bikes and parts on order (How far behind were we? Who do we need to call to tell them their bike will be late?).

Doing an exposition means that most of the staff loses their 2 days off that week, and we start the next week in a stupor. All of this, while putting our customers on the ‘back burner’ just didn’t make sense anymore.

What are we doing?
If you’re still reading, then you’ve just read a brief synopsis of our last expo (back in Feb. 2008). Imagine going through all of that effort to discover at the last minute that your booth would not be in the prime location that you reserved several months in advance, but rather in the back of the event. In short, you got ‘bumped’ for a larger company. This is what happened to us time after time, and it really lead us to examine what our mission was as a company. Our mission is to ‘exceed our customer’s expectations for service’, but were we doing that?. After analyzing the amount of effort put into that show, we couldn’t get away from the fact that we were being drawn away from our mission when taking part in these expo type events. How were our customers being served by being ‘bumped’ for ‘show stopper’ bikes?

While it was disappointing to be ‘bumped’ to the back of the room, it was no different than what we were doing to our customers 🙁

Redirection Required:
It was after our last Bike Expo in 2008 that we decided to do something very different, and the Bike and Pike was born. The Bike and Pike Event is our way of celebrating Seattle, cycling, and the customers who make our business possible. We can do this in a way that doesn’t disrupt our daily work, and in fact, we build bikes all the way through the show. No staff member misses their days off, so we continue on fresh the next week. Attendees have a great time, enjoy some incredible Seattle brews, bikes and more. No special bikes have to be built, as ‘the show’ is watching us build the bikes that are in process already. That’s more fun anyway, right?

Supporting the Seattle community:
The Bike and Pike offers two important things for Seattle

1.) A low cost way for new Seattle businesses to show their stuff. Seattle small businesses that are friends of the shop like Willie Weir, Pike Brewing, Pagliacci Pizza, T’s Leatherworks, Jenise’s Jammers, and others get to display their products to attendees and we don’t charge them a dime for the booth. We see it as a way to help them get their businesses off the ground.

2.) Giving back to the community. Before the first Bike and Pike, Charlie and Rose Ann of Pike Place Brewing Company and I got together and discussed what type of event we would like to have. It was great to have an inexpensive way for small Seattle businesses to get the word out, but we also thought we should find a way to raise money for a local charity. Food Lifeline has been a great resource here in the Northwest for local food banks, so we decided to put 100% of any money raised on the event to them.

It’s a keeper!
The success of Bike and Pike was sensational! After 9 years, we’ve decided that Bike and Pike really fits our mission, and has allowed us to present our true product to attendees. That product? Dedication to service and to those customers who put their trust in us as their manufacturer, bike shop, and friend. Thank you all for choosing us, and here’s to 44 more great years in Seattle!

Thanks for reading – Dan

We’re Turning 40!

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We’re 40 and we’re thrilled!

Our 40th year in business has started off with a BANG! Here it is, only February 7th, and we already have 15 sold tandems in progress! That’s a tandem every 1.7 days for every day that we’ve been open in 2013. This is a record number of tandems to have on order this early in the year. Amongst this record tandem trend, we have huge number of touring, sport and race bikes in progress as well. If that weren’t enough, we are also on track for a record Rohloff year. Yes indeed, we’re off to a very busy 40th anniversary year!

Make it a Double
As 2013 marks 4 decades of business here in Seattle for our company, it also marks a major anniversary for me as well. 2013 is my 20th year as owner of the company. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years, but I checked my watch and it’s true. Time flies when you get to work with great people I suppose. I really believe that we have the best staff in this industry, and the best staff that has ever been at R+E Cycles. I wish that everyone had the chance to work with the people that I work with on a daily basis. I’m not just talking about the staff though.

I would also like to take just a moment here to thank all of you who’ve given us the opportunity to be your bicycle company. Unlike other manufacturers, we don’t buy expensive advertising in magazines, and word of mouth is really our main form of attracting new customers. All these years you’ve been telling your friends and family about us, and that’s really what keeps us going. Each day here in the shop is like a family reunion as we recognize most customers by name. Year after year we see the same faces. I don’t want to forget about the new members of the Rodriguez family either….the long distance members. Over the last 5 years the internet has really brought a lot of new folks to the team. About 50% of our bikes are now shipped out across the U.S. or even to other countries. Even though you guys can’t make it to the shop, we still value your patronage and hope that we have been able to serve you as well as those who visit us in person.

40th Rodriguez anniversary, my 20th anniversary as owner…….I figure that’s really a double cause for some major upgrades around the shop as we venture into our 5th decade of serving our customers. Even though we are busier than we could have anticipated this winter, we’ve still cooked up some incredible projects around the shop to celebrate. Here are just a few things that we’ve been up to:

  • Historical Rodriguez Display is in place
    For 20 years I’ve wanted to put up a historical Rodriguez bike display. We have several Rodriguez bikes that people have donated over the years, and I’ve been storing them until I had the time to put together the display. Well, I didn’t have the time, but this winter I committed to it anyway and we got it done!
  • Rodriguez tandem review in 2013’s first issue of Recumbent & Tandem Rider Magazine
    Recumbent & Tandem Rider Magazine wanted to review a Rodriguez tandem. I told them that the big difference in tandems is the manufacturer’s relationship with their customer. To highlight that relationship, I wanted them to review the whole process of creating a custom Rodriguez tandem. From Fit to Finish, they took me up on it, and we built a custom tandem for their reviewer. The review is very thorough and covers the fitting process, the paint selection and everything that our customers experience when they order a Rodriguez custom tandem.
  • Angel Rodriguez and Glenn Erickson both attending our open house celebration
    There are not many custom shops that last 40 years. The legacy of R+E Cycles is a long one here in Seattle. For our Bike and Pike celebration this year, we wanted to have both R+E founders here to mark the occasion. I contacted both Angel (my old boss) and Glenn, and they’re both up for the event. Join us on Saturday, March 2nd and you’ll get to meet them as well as many other Seattle bike legends.
  • In-store slideshow image displays
    We have thousands of photos from the past and present that now live on a photo server here at R+E Cycles. We have three monitors mounted around the shop that are continuously displaying the images in a slide show fashion. It’s truly amazing the memorabilia a trip to the crawl space can produce when you’ve been around for 4 decades! I actually found boxes of photos and magazine articles hidden under the floor boards since the 1970’s. I’ve caught myself almost hypnotized watching the photos roll by, so be careful.
  • New R+E Cycles T-shirts
    I almost took this one off the list for 2013, but then out of the blue, our T-shirt screening company called and asked if we wanted to run T-shirts this winter. When I explained that I was too busy to go out there and put together the order, Darla offered to meet us here at the shop. Well, just this morning the first new R+E t-shirt design in over 15 years was delivered in the form of t-shirts! Lots of ’em and they look great! They’ll be on sale at the shop for $19.99. Act now, and get one at a special retro price of just $14.99 until our open house on March 2nd.
  • A huge collection of Rodriguez bike photograph galleries on the website
    Beau has been snapping photos like a wild man over the last few years. With about 1,000 photos of the Rodriguez bikes we’ve built just over the last 2 years, it was getting difficult to sort through them on the website. Jeremy put together a sortable database of the image galleries that you can now access on our website. It should make looking through pictures of Rodriguez bike models more fun than ever!
  • The Rodriguez on-line customer scrap book is now sortable and easier to view
    Since the website went up in December of 1994, the on-line customer scrap book has been growing and growing. This winter, Jeremy put together a database of the scrap book entries, and made it searchable. Now you can view the adventures of Rodriguez owners in a more ordered way that relates to the topics that you want to see. It was a trip down memory lane to format the letters and photos for the scrap book, and lots of fun times were churned up in my mind. You’ll have the same experience I’m sure, so you should check it out.
  • 40th Anniversary coffee mugs and pint glasses

    We had some special coffee mugs and pint glasses made for our 40th anniversary as well. They will be on sale in the shop for $6 each or $20 for a set of 4. All proceeds up until and during our March 2nd open house will be donated to Food Lifeline.

  • Last and least
    We’ve given the shop some needed deferred maintenance. Along with all of the other goodies, we’ve refinished the floors, painted the frame shop, and had a new sign made to mount above the entry door.

So there you have it. We’ve been very busy this winter and we hope that you enjoy some of the improvements that we’ve made to the shop and the website. Really though, it’s all about bicycles here at R+E Cycles, and now I’ve got to get back to the business of designing bikes so we can get them built. I do enjoy writing a bit, and I’ve enjoyed this time out to tell you about what we’ve been up to, but the CAD program beckons me to continue yet a few more tandem designs (one for a California customer and one for an Oregonian). Now let’s get that 5th decade underway, shall we?

Thanks for reading

– Dan

Rainer Beer!

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How much do you love your favorite beer?

Do you love it enough to design a tandem bicycle after it? Check out this amazing tandem that will be turning heads all over town! The owners, local to Seattle, really appreciate Rainier beer, and they ordered this bike fully customized to match a Rainier can. Every component was hand-picked, from red bar tape to gold spoke nipples, and we even had custom decals made in the Rainier font!

Look Ma! No Derailleurs!

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Look Ma! No Derailleurs!!
(As originally published in The Bicycle Paper in Summer of 2011

Rohloff Speedhub illustrationsOver the last 8 years or so, we’ve seen a lot of interest in internally geared rear hubs (IGH for short). A bike with an IGH has all of the gears housed inside the rear hub instead of using traditional cogs, derailleurs and chain rings. Remember your old 3-speed (or your parent’s old 3-speed)? It’s like that, but with a lot more gears. IGH technology is an old one (over 100 years old actually), but with the invention of derailleurs, the 3-sp IGH was abandoned by most cyclists for the unlimited gearing options of the derailleur. I don’t see the end of derailleurs anytime soon, but for those who are investigating IGH, we’re trying to help you with your homework.

When Todd Bertram, a master frame builder here at R+E Cycles in Seattle, returned from Germany in 2003 he brought with him something special. It was a finely crafted piece of German engineering known as the Rohloff Speedhub. He’d spent almost two years in Germany, worked in the Rohloff factory, and had seen a lot of these on bicycles throughout Europe. He had a sneaking suspicion that soon, this engineering marvel would capture the eye of American cyclists as well.

A Rohloff hub has 14 speeds instead of just 3. Now the IGH rider could have the same range of gearing that would be found on a traditional 27-speed touring bike. A bicycle equipped with a Rohloff Speedhub has no derailleurs to worry about, and is virtually trouble free as far as shifting goes.

Since 2003, news of the Rohloff Speedhub slowly made the trip around the world to the United States. What used to be a curiosity is now an accepted design. Because of its trouble-free reputation, it has become a popular item with touring cyclists, and ‘go-anywhere’ cyclists. Building Rohloff equipped bicycles has become an industry in and of itself. The special hub calls for some special frame design to make life easier for the rider though. Custom frame builders all over the U.S. are trying to design adaptations for their touring bikes to accommodate customers who are requesting this new hub.

As the builder of Rodriguez Bicycles, we got lots of questions from curious adventurers, but we didn’t start getting a lot of orders until 2009. Since then, sales have ballooned. We’ve seen our sales of Rohloff equipped bikes double each year over the last 3 years. As of November 2011, Rodriguez Bicycles has become the number one builder of Rohloff equipped bicycles in the United States as confirmed by Cyclemonkey, the exclusive U.S. Rohloff importer. (Probably the reason we were asked to write this article).

Who wants an IGH? While most of our Rodriguez Touring bikes are still equipped with derailleurs (just Shimano these days) higher end touring cyclists have been looking for alternatives to derailleur equipped bikes. This is because Campagnolo, SRAM and Shimano have all but abandoned the high-end touring market. Instead, the big 3 have focused their advertising and development on racing equipment that’s expensive, doesn’t hold up for touring, and limits the gearing ratios too much for touring. Shimano still has a some great derailleur options for the sub $2,500 bike market, but for the high end, a lot of folks are now considering the move away from derailleurs.

Another customer who has interest in IGH is the urban commuting customer. Commuters are very hard on their equipment, and some of them are very attracted to the idea of a bike specifically designed as a trouble-free commuter.

What are the IGH options? With the worldwide popularity of the Rohloff Speedhub on the rise, Shimano has taken notice of this new market as well. Shimano has been building some IGH hubs for several years, but their offerings have always been suitable for more of an urban commuter bike rather than a serious touring bike.

Shimano Alfine illustrationsLast year, Shimano introduced their first serious entry into the field of IGH touring hubs, the Alfine 11. Now that Shimano is making a run at the high-end IGH market, that has spawned a lot (and I do mean A LOT) of IGH questions from around the world. People (as well as us) were hoping that the new Shimano hub would give them Rohloff performance at Shimano prices. As a major Rohloff builder, a lot of those questions have come to us.

When the The Bicycle Paper asked me to write an article comparing IGH hub options, Jeremy and I were actually in the middle of answering those very questions in the form of an FAQ series on our website. So, as it happens, we have the answers:

In addition to Rohloff equipped bikes, we have now built and sold several bikes with Shimano IGH hubs on them as well. Our experience with the different hubs shows us the best use for each.

We’ll compare 3 different hubs (the 3 we’ve built with): The Shimano Alfine 8-speed, the Shimano Alfine 11-sp, and the Rohloff Speedhub 14-sp. Shimano does make some lower end 8-sp IGH hubs (Nexus), but this article is ‘geared’ toward the more serious cyclist.

You’ll need to be familiar with a few terms:

Gear Range: This is the % of gearing change from the lowest to the highest gear. A good range % between high and low is important for touring. ie. the higher the better. Unlike a derailleur system, for the IGH the gear range is forever. A standard modern day touring bike will come with a gearing range of about 450%. It can easily be adjusted to about 600%, but the 450% gives us a good starting point. By comparison, an old 10-speed bike from the 1970’s would come with a range of 250% or so.

Gear Ladder: Another thing to consider is what we call the Gear Ladder. The Gear Ladder is the % of distance between each individual gear change. On a derailleur system this is adjustable by using different cogs or chain rings, but for an IGH, you bought it, you got it.

First up – The Shimano Alfine 8-sp:
We’ve built several urban commuter bikes with this hub, and even a few sport/fun tandems.

  • This hub is limited to 308% gear range. More than the old 10-sp, but not really enough range for serious touring.
  • The Gear Ladder is very uneven. Ranging from 1st gear, it looks like this: 23%, 16%, 14%, 17%, 23%, 16%, 14%.
  • Wheel attachment is bolt-on only, so no quick release rear wheel.
Shimano Alfine 11-sp:
The gear range is 409%. It doesn’t quite get you to the range of a stock touring bike, and nowhere near the range of the Rohloff.

  • Although Shimano originally planned an evenly spaced Gear Ladder, the final result was disappointing to many rabid IGH fans.
  • The spread between first and second gear is a whopping 30% jump. The ladder runs even 17% and 18% for the rest of the gears, but that first 30% jump is really big.
  • The absence of a quick release makes this hub less desirable for many serious touring cyclists as well.
  • Also, for you belt drive fans, use of a belt drive on either Alfine hub will limit your tire width as well.
Rohloff Speedhub:
The King of the IGH! For the truly serious touring cyclist, the choice is the Rohloff Speedhub. We’ve built touring bikes, mountain bikes, and serious tandems equipped with Rohloff Speedhubs.

  • The Gear Ladder is a uniform 13.6% all the way through the range.
  • The Speedhub can also be ordered with a quick release axle or a bolt-on axle.
  • The design allows for better belt drive/wide tire compatibility.

All in all, the Rohloff is better suited for the customer who wants an IGH, and wants a real replacement for their touring derailleur setup.

Summary: The Alfine 11 is not really the alternative that we or the IGH touring cyclists were hoping for. While it’s a great hub for an urban commuter, our touring customers want more than it has to offer in many ways. Rather, the Alfine 11 is an alternative to the Alfine 8 for the commuter that wants a bit wider gearing range.

The serious touring cyclist will still have to choose between derailleurs or the Rohloff Speedhub.

Since a high quality custom touring bike will run you about $2,000 in our shop, a serious IGH touring bike turns out to be quite a bit more expensive. Even so, many folks are choosing to go that route in order to have the convenience and low maintenance of the Rohloff. We run about 70% derailleurs, and 30% Rohloff for the touring bikes at this point.

If you’re considering a Rohloff or other IGH equipped bicycle, the FAQ section of our website has a dozen or so articles comparing, contrasting, and listing all of the pros and cons of each design.

Disco Fever

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In our industry, products from the past seem to re-appear quite often. Bicycle disc brakes are one such item. Like a Phoenix, they’ve risen from the ashes a 3rd time in just the last 40 years. Since their acceptance as

Article Overview
In our industry, products from the past seem to re-appear quite often. Bicycle disc brakes are one such item. Like a Phoenix, they’ve risen from the ashes a 3rd time in just the last 40 years. Since their acceptance as a superior brake for the mountain bike, it seems that more and more people are asking about them for their road bikes. Most manufacturers are happy to just slap them on, but is there more to consider? Are they better for every type of bike and every type of riding? Let’s follow the history a bit, and see.

This article is for those who want to learn more about bicycle disc brakes. It’s not to convince the reader that disc brakes are good or bad. My purpose is to let you all know that disc brakes have been around a long time in our industry, and there are upsides and downsides to them. We’ve built hundreds of frames over the last 40 years that are designed for disc brakes (over 100 in 2012 alone). We also run one of the largest bicycle facilities in Seattle (since 1973) and we service disc brakes of all types on a daily basis. We have more history and experience than most to draw from. So, if you’re ready to separate the fact from the fiction, put on your dancin’ shoes and boogie, this is the article for you.

Disco Fever
November, 2012

It was the 1970’s! The BeeGees were ‘Jive Talkin’ all over the music charts, and all the kids wanted to be Vinnie Barbarino (Welcome Back Kotter). I was the resident bicycle kid in my Junior High class, and I rode my Raleigh Rampar all over the area all of the time. So, imagine my surprise when my buddy Barrett showed up at school on a new ride…..one with all the candy! He was excited to show me his new bike, but class was about to start and we didn’t have time to go back outside and look at it. I got a quick verbal description (including hand motions) painting a vivid picture of this futuristic 10-speed. “It has numbers on the gear shifters to tell you which gear it’s in….like a car!” he said as he motioned the international ‘stick shift’ hand signal that all boys of my generation understood. “But, that’s not all! My bike has disc brakes like a car!” Could it be? I thought. Disc brakes on a bicycle? Wow! How cool is that?

What Barrett had purchased was a Western Flyer 10-speed at the local auto parts store (Western Auto) in our small town. After school, we looked at his bike together, and he did indeed have a bike with all of those features.

As it turned out, in 1975, Shimano actually had just released 2 versions of disc brakes for bicycles. One hydraulic, and one cable-actuated. Here’s the page from the 1975 Shimano catalog showing both types of Shimano bicycle disc brakes.


Note:
I know a lot of people, even people in the bicycle industry, think that bicycle disc brakes weren’t even invented until the 1990’s. There are probably older versions of bicycle disc brakes, but from my historical perspective, life began in the 1970’s shortly after the invention of the wheel, so that’s as far back as I’m going to reach in this article.

Back to the story
Now, finding out that he had a Western Flyer eased my jealousy quite a bit (Western Flyers were just Huffies by another name). I proudly rode a Raleigh from a bike shop in a neighboring town (our small town had no bicycle shops).

As the 1970’s disco’ed on, so did the introduction of more and more bicycle disc brakes. Bridgestone, Japan’s largest bicycle company, introduced their new cable actuated disc brake, and Phil Wood came up with a super high-tech disc brake that we here at Rodriguez used on tandem bicycles.

Just a quick note: Some people think that we at Rodriguez bicycles are anti-disc brake. As you can see, we’ve used disc brakes on our bikes since the 1970’s. Most of our customers choose cantilever brakes for touring and tandem bikes because they like them better, not because we don’t offer them with disc brakes.

Good Money Gone Bad!
All that money spent on R&D, but the bicycle disc brake would die in the early 1980’s along with disco. Now, everyone knows that disco burned itself out, but why didn’t the disc brake stick as a bicycle component through the 1980’s?

A lot of people will say “Well, those old disc brakes didn’t work well” but those people would be wrong. They may not work well by comparison to disc brakes of today, but comparing them to rim brakes at that time, they worked great! The industry was behind them, and they spent tons of R&D cash to develop, manufacture and promote them. So, why didn’t they catch on? Eventually, the disc brake was sent to the scrap heap of ideas gone bad.

The ‘Road’ to Failure
In the 1970’s, every bike was a road bike. The fact was, even though disc brakes worked well, they were a lot heavier, and a bit noisy. Add to that the fact that they were harder to adjust, and parts (like pads) were hard to find at your local bike shop. For road bikes, rim brakes worked fine and they were lighter as well as less expensive, and any bike shop or sporting goods shop had pads in stock for them. In short, the benefits of the disc brake were outweighed by sacrifices….at least as far as road bikes and tandems of the 1970’s were concerned. The need for a disc brake really didn’t exist until the introduction of the mountain bike a decade later. Besides, we all needed to save our money for some new dancin’ threads.

The Metal Years
Fast forward to the late 1980’s. Disco is dead, Poison, Motley Crue, and other bad boys (that looked like girls) topped the charts, and a few high-end mountain bike companies are looking for brakes that will work even if the rims are bent and covered in mud! I know! How about disc brakes? Yes, the disc brake is resurrected in the late 1980’s by a few high-end mountain bike companies.

Now, one would expect to see the Bridgestone, Shimano and Phil Wood discs simply re-appear…..right? Well that’s not how we do things in the bike industry. Even though these would’ve been great starting points, we started again, re-inventing the same designs that used to exist. Here’s an example of a 1980’s mountain bike with a set of Suspenders hydraulic/cable disc brakes. There were a few different high-end disc brakes in the late 80’s. Most of them were expensive and difficult to adjust. Some of them worked alright, but some didn’t really cut the mustard. Shimano put out the V-brake (yuck!) somewhere in the early 1990’s, and that really became the brake of choice for most mainstream mountain bike customers. Only the really high-end specialty mountain bike ran disc brakes…

A quick deviation into the 1990’s tandem world
As is custom in the bicycle industry, tandem builders tend to think that something made for a mountain bike will work great on a tandem. Don’t ask me why, but for some reason there are people that see a correlation between a 180 pound guy trying to stop while riding through a muddy stream at 20mph, and a 350 pound tandem team trying to stop while screaming down a mountain pass at over 60mph on asphalt. I fail to see the similarities, but none-the-less, as high-end mountain bikes started using disc brakes in the 1990’s, tandem people requested them on a regular basis. Here at Rodriguez, we used a lot of the Hope disc brakes in the 1990’s on tandems. We only used them as an auxiliary brake, and never as a primary brake. As a matter of fact, I still have 2 of these brakes sitting here beside my desk as I type this. I can tell you many stories of mythical tandem disc brakes (sometimes resulting in very aggravated customers), but suffice it to say that this brake was not at all capable of stopping a tandem, just slowing it down.

The point of this deviation is: Mountain bikes use disc brakes not because they work better, but because they work better on mountain bikes.

..So, as a high-end mountain bike brake, the disc brake limped along through the 1990’s, but never took off as a standard to be used as primary brakes on tandems or touring bikes. Really, that’s not what they were designed for, so that makes sense right?

Home Sweet Home
The disc brake finds its home in the new millennium
Benefits Galore! To the mountain biker, the disc brake is a gift from above. Now the off-road rider could bash his/her rims completely out of true and their brakes don’t rub. They can ride through a muddy stream and their brakes don’t clog up. They don’t have to worry about sand and grime all over their rims getting trapped in their brake pads and damaging their rims. The mountain biker is willing to trade the noise and extra weight for these benefits. Noise doesn’t matter much because off road riding is pretty noisy anyway.

As companies embraced the disc brake, lower cost versions of cable actuated disc brakes developed and the V-brake could finally all but disappear from the industry. Not soon enough I say…the V-brake was the worst of both worlds really, but that’s a whole different article.

Now we see almost all mountain bikes with disc brakes (as we should) and we see the tandem and road bike companies offering them as well. We offer disc brakes on any bike we make. The question often asked of us is “why not use disc brakes on all bikes?” Believe me, it would be easier for us to just use disc brakes on all bikes and tell people the same thing that are reading in the magazines…..ie. that disc brakes solve all your problems and are the perfect solution for every type of riding. We do have an obligation to the truth though, and the truth is that there are certain applications where a disc brake is preferable, and certain applications where they are not the best choice.

The theory goes “If they work better on a mountain bike, won’t they work better on a road bike or tandem as well?” Gee…where have I heard that logic before?

One size does NOT fit all
In reality, there are applications that are better suited for disc brakes and there are applications that call for traditional brakes. When you think about it, all bicycle brakes are disc brakes. A disc brake uses a disc brake caliper attached to the frame to grasp a spinning disc (rotor) attached to the hub. A traditional brake is a caliper that uses the rim (also a spinning disc attached to the hub) in place of the rotor. This eliminates the need for the second spinning disc (rotor). I’ve got an anecdote about this theory if you want to take a break from this article. There are benefits and drawbacks to disc or traditional depending on your riding conditions and desires.

It’s Important to Be Careful
Improper assumptions by you, a bicycle manufacturer, or a bike shop can result in serious injury or even death. Want some proof? Here it is.

What should I do?
We’ve come full circle with the disc design, and they look a lot like those 1975 Shimano brakes don’t they? There are very good cable actuated and hydraulic disc brakes. Even so, the benefits and drawbacks remain the same as they did in the 1970’s. Nothing’s changed in terms of road bike uses. The mountain bike brought on a whole new style of riding and with it, many innovations that wouldn’t have come around otherwise. The disc brake is proof of that. The mountain bike brought the disc brake back from the dead, and it’s the perfect application for it.

Controversy where there should be none
I had some reservations about even writing this article, and I’ve put it off for a couple of years. I’ve actually had some people get mad at the fact that we see any downside at all to the road bike disc brake. It seems that over the last few years, magazines and blogs have been buzzing with glowing reviews about road bike disc brakes and one who dares to suggest that there is anything but perfection in the design is labeled a ‘retro-grouch’ and shunned. Well, maybe shunned is too strong of a word, but there have been occasions when I’ve had discussions with folks who seem to get angry at the fact that most of our road bike customers prefer a rim brake.
Here’s a quick story about one such occasion.

As it turns out, paper doesn’t refuse ink, keyboards don’t refuse fingers, and the internet doesn’t refuse opinions of those who have vested interets. Its up to those who have decades of experience building and servicing bicycles to bring the facts to the surface (facts are stubborn things).

I decided to go ahead and write the article though, and I hope I’ve done so in such a way as to not offend the true believers. Being the kind of shop we are, we won’t try to push you into one style of brake or another. Instead, we’ll just put together a list of the benefits and compromises attached to each type of brake and you can decide yourself which brake suits your style of riding and budget. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen: Behold…The List!

The Upside of disc brakes:
Avid BB7 Disc Brake

  • Work the same if your rim is straight or if it’s bent
  • Shops with very young mechanics know how to work on disc brakes (not so much with rim brakes)
  • Work better if you’re riding through a stream
  • People will say “Cool! Disc brakes!”

The Downside of disc brakes:

  • Disc brakes can be noisy. Not a problem off road, but on a quiet road ride the constant scraping sound drives me nuts.
  • The bike equipped with disc brakes will weigh 1 ~ 2.25 pounds more than rim brake version of the same bike
  • Hard to find brake pads or rotors if you’re touring in remote areas (make sure to carry spare pads and rotors)
  • Hard to tell what brake pad wear is
  • Can suffer from ‘hard to diagnose’ inconsistent performance
  • If your bike is a travel-bike, the disc brakes make packing and un-packing much more difficult

The Upside of rim brakes:

Campagnolo Chorus caliper brake

  • Quiet
  • Lighter weight frame, fork and wheels can be used (save up to 2.25 pounds)
  • Lower cost. ($200 ~ $500 less)
  • Longer pad wear and lots of pad options available
  • Replacement pads are cheap, available everywhere, and last longer than disc pads
  • Pads are relatively easy to replace

The Downside of rim brakes

  • Younger, inexperienced mechanics may get ‘creative’ while adjusting your brakes.
  • Rub the wheel if you break a spoke or bend your rim
  • Poorly maintained, can wear out your rim prematurely
  • Don’t work if you’re riding through a stream
  • People will say “Why didn’t you get disc brakes?”


Thanks for reading,
– Dan