It’s always fun to chat with Diane Jenks on her National Public Radio show The Outspoken Cyclist. This week, we talked about our new book and about bike fit, disc vs rim brakes, and the state of the bike industry in the age of Covid.

Click here to listen to the show online. Enjoy!

Ted King won the 1020-mile Arkansas High Country Race in a 4 days, 20 hours and 51 minutes, setting the FKT (fastest known time) in the process. The previous solo FTK was held by bikepacking legend Jay Petervary. Ted also was faster than Ernie and Scotti Lechuga, who rode the course earlier this year as a pair. The pure stats do don’t this race justice, impressive as they are: The course winds through the Ouachita and Ozark Mountains, with a whopping 80,000 feet of elevation gain. In metric terms, that’s 24,000 m!

Ted reports: “I’m in awe of the diverse and varied topography and rocks we found in Arkansas. Over the course of this really sinuous 1,020 mile ride, we hit a few different mountain ranges, different types of river beds, rode through red clay, sharp shale, worn smooth rocks, sharp new rocks, and everything in between.” Continue Reading →

The vote is in, and the winner of the Bicycle Quarterly photo contest is Samuel P’s evocative B&W study of his bike during a recent trip. He writes: “I’m a LatinX cyclist from the Bay Area, California. I’ve been riding since I was five years old. I enjoy cyclotouring and commuting, and mountain rides at sunrise. My dream is to complete self-supported cycling tours across North America and Japan, and visit as many independently run bike shops as possible.”  Continue Reading →

The results are in: Hundreds of photos from all over the world were entered in the BQ Photo Contest. It was fun to see so many different photos – in style and subject – and it was difficult to selected eight finalists. Many great photos didn’t make the cut.

Here are the ones we selected – now it’s up to you to vote for the winner, who will receive a $ 200 gift certificate from Rene Herse Cycles. All finalists will get a one-year subscription to Bicycle Quarterly, and their photos and associated stories will be published in the magazine. Continue Reading →

Today I did one of the most important things I will do this year: I voted.

It’s a privilege to have a voice in deciding the future of our country. Like all rights, it’s also a responsibility. The right to vote was not won without a fight – whether it was the break-away from the British crown or the struggles that finally allowed non-whites and women to vote as well. Even today, my vote for president won’t influence the election, because I don’t live in a swing state. It’s quite possible that the candidate who I consider most qualified to lead the country wins the majority of the vote, yet loses the presidential contest. (Thank the Electoral College for that.)

And yet my vote is important. This election will likely be very close. If one party or another claims fraud based on perceived irregularities in one swing state or another, the popular vote conveys legitimacy to the candidate who won the most votes, regardless of where they were cast. As we worry about unrest and violence in the event of a contested election, the best way to prevent it is to make sure one candidate wins by a large margin that leaves no room for doubt.

The local races have their own importance – whether it’s the fight over banning plastic bags (which made it on the ballot here in Washington State disguised as a referendum over a ‘tax increase’) or voting for state leaders who will take us forward as we face the challenges of Covid-19, climate change and racial justice.

That is why I implore you: Vote! I don’t care which party and candidate you favor – I firmly believe that the one with the most votes should win. If you live in a swing state, your vote might actually determine the outcome of the election. If you don’t, it’s still extremely important to convey legitimacy and show that you care.

Because once the election is over, we’ll need to work on making the system more democratic. For the first time, there seems to be momentum gathering to abolish the Electoral College, a remnant from the past designed to enshrine minority rule. Once people feel that their voices are heard regardless of where they live and what color their skin, we might be able to return to a more respectful discourse on the real issues we face as a nation and world. Please take the time to vote! Thank you!

Covid-19 has created many challenges for the bike industry. Supply chains have been disrupted, lockdowns have stopped production, shipping has become erratic, and exchange rates fluctuate wildly. Even staples like inner tubes are in short supply.

At Rene Herse, we’ve been working hard to keep our products in stock, because we know you rely on them for your rides. Even so, a few things have been in short supply. This week, we first received a big shipment from Japan (above), and now also from France. Continue Reading →

This is just a quick note that a few popular items are back in stock. Among them are all Rene Herse fenders in polished and black finish. Continue Reading →

Now that summer officially has officially ended, we can start to look back on the cycling season. So much has happened since we started riding in late winter under clear, sunny skies! The events of 2020 have upended many plans, but cycling is the one place where we can live in the moment and restore our spirits.

The Bicycle Quarterly photo contest celebrates the joy of riding our bikes – and of sharing that feeling with our community to inspire others and be inspired by them. Entering is simple: Post your photo(s) and short stories of your rides in 2020 on Instagram and tag them #bqcontest. There’s no need to register or purchase – it’s just our way of celebrating the beauty of riding bikes. Continue Reading →

After much thought, we’ve decided to cancel this year’s Bicycle Quarterly Un-Meeting in Marin County, California. We’ve made this difficult decision together with this year’s organizers, Bicycle Counterculture. The pandemic shows little sign of letting up. To have a large number of cyclists travel to the Un-Meeting and gather does not seem like a responsible option. We apologize to all who’ve made plans and have been looking forward. Continue Reading →

We’re heartbroken to hear about the fires that are raging in California and much of the West. Our thoughts go out to all who are affected. Learning of acquaintances in the bike industry who lost their homes and workshops… Seeing old-growth redwoods and historic park buildings burn… Seeing the air above entire states filled with smoke… We’re at a loss for words, and we are thinking about what we can do to help.

—Natsuko & Jan

Rob English is not just a talented framebuilder, but also a top-class rider and racer. He recently built this bike for himself. Even though the bike is a superlight racer, it rolls on (extralight) 700C x 32 mm Stampede Pass tires – a sign how far racing bikes have come. Continue Reading →

Our friends at Berthoud Cycles in France have been working overtime, and we just received another shipment. We’ve got most saddles in stock again, as well as spare parts to rebuild your worn saddle with a new leather top, swap stainless steel rails for titanium, or replace parts that got damaged in a crash. The saddles are fully rebuildable with just a 5 mm Allen and a T20 Torx wrench. Continue Reading →

The Enve Builders Roundup is a show of custom bikes (and Enve’s components). Among all the great bikes, here are three of our favorites Continue Reading →

Keeping everything we sell in stock hasn’t been easy: Lockdowns in the U.S., Europe and Japan have interrupted production, and international shipping is taking longer than it used to. And in some cases, demand has increased as well. Temporary shortages are hard to avoid, but we’re working hard to keep everything in stock. We’ve just received a number of shipments, and many essentials are available again. Continue Reading →

Over the last few months, we’ve revamped our customer service, both because we’ve had to adapt to the restrictions that came with Covid-19 and because we want to improve your experience. We’ve added a lot of information online – instructions for our parts, specs and Frequently Asked Questions, plus links to blog posts about things like how to set up tires tubeless. This enables you to find the information you need, right away and without having to wait for a reply.

For requests that go beyond that, we had to stop using email and the phone, because the amount of spam and robocalls was overwhelming. The phone rang almost non-stop, and we had to sort through hundreds of emails to find legitimate requests from our customers. Instead, we have switched to forms when you contact us. This has the added benefit that we have all the information we need to work on your request from the get-go. Eliminating the back-and-forth means you’ll get a response more quickly. Continue Reading →

The first half of 2020 has brought unexpected changes in many ways. When Covid-19 spread so suddenly around the world, there was little time to figure out how to deal with this. We stopped everything that was non-essential, we socially distanced, we discovered face masks, and we talked about contact tracing. Just as we were reassessing what is essential and what isn’t, the murder of George Floyd made us realize that systemic racism remains a problem that needs to be addressed.

As we head into the second half of 2020, we are facing a lot of uncertainty. The virus has not been vanquished, and racism won’t stop overnight, either. Thinking about the future can be discouraging, but there’s always hope. We have to stop pretending that all will be fine, and start addressing the issues we are facing. At the same time, we must find a way to live our lives – as much as possible – with the new realities. In other words, we need to pivot from stopping everything that is non-essential to figuring out what we can do safely. Continue Reading →

In the middle of a global pandemic, delays in shipments from suppliers are not a big concern with everything else that is going on. And yet we’re happy that the situation has improved to the point where deliveries are arriving again – because this means that things are getting better for our suppliers, who are also our friends.

Over the winter, we’ve worked with Berthoud Cycles in France to design a new, bigger handlebar bag, the GB 31. It’s useful for tall riders and those who like their handlebars high – the bag spans the distance from the bars to the front rack, so it’s sized to fit your bike. We’ve not just increased the height of the bag; we’ve also adjusted the size of the pockets: a bit larger so they are proportionate with the bag, but not so large that it becomes difficult to retrieve their contents.

You can see the new GB31 in the photo above, together with the three existing models. All Berthoud bags are available in the classic blue-gray (shown) and in black with leather trim, or in all-black versions. We offer them with and without side pockets. They all include a shoulder strap for easy carrying when you’re off the bike. They’re waterproof, because the cotton fabric swells when it gets wet, and they last almost forever. I’ve used my current Berthoud bag for 9 years, 2 Paris-Brest-Paris, many wet winter rides, countless tours… and it’s still as good as new. Continue Reading →

Ted King’s DIY Gravel may have been born out of necessity – there are no gravel races right now, so why not ride our own rides and challenges in the mean time? Ted’s idea has been a lot of fun, and more than a thousand riders have risen to the challenge.

A few weeks ago would have been Dirty Kanza, the biggest and most prestigious of the gravel racing calendar. Ted King used the opportunity ride across the entire State of Vermont on backroads: 312 miles (500 km) and more than 32,000 ft (9700 m) of climbing. His team made a great video about his ride. I was struck by how the emotions of Ted adventure remind me of the great randonneuring challenges, like the Raid Pyrénéen or Paris-Brest-Paris. It’s neat to see how racing, cyclotouring and randonneuring all come together in this epic adventure. Enjoy the video!

We want to do more than just say nice words. We want to help make change that is real and lasting. With that intent, we’re renewing the tradition of Bicycle Quarterly fund drives to address urgent needs. For 24 hours, from 0:00 on June 2 until 24:00 (Pacific Time) on June 3, 2020, we’re donating $ 36 for each Bicycle Quarterly subscription to Black Lives Matter. Continue Reading →

Last year, on the train to Sacramento, we met a wonderful black couple in the dining car. They had gone to Seattle to celebrate their wedding anniversary. They had met when they were part of the civil rights movement in the South. They moved to the West Coast, because, as her husband explained about his wife: “She has a strong sense of justice. She’d have got killed if we had stayed.”

We have to remember that the suffering, the injustice, the racism continue. We have to stand against racism in all its forms, not just today, but tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. If we change our thinking and our behavior, it will change the world.
—Natsuko & Jan

Most of our customers considers their Rene Herse tires ‘essentials’ – components they need to keep riding. Knowing this, we work hard to keep all models in stock at all times. Sometimes there are unforeseen fluctuations in demand, delays in production and/or shipping, and a model or two may be out of stock.

We just received another shipment, and all tires are back in stock. Thank you for your patience!

Today would have been the Belgian Waffle Ride in California – which means that Round 2 of Ted King’s DIY Gravel is starting. We’ve got until next Sunday to do our own version of this iconic ride, which offers three versions:

All of us are figuring out how we can resume our lives safely and responsibly. How can we ride our bikes? Does it make sense to train when races and events are postponed or cancelled? How can we enjoy the community that cycling brings us? I caught up with gravel racer Ted King and asked him about life and cycling in these times.

JH: As the ‘King of Gravel,’ how have you been dealing with the current global scenario? How does riding fit into your schedule these days?

TK: Cycling is an enormous part of my life, but my cycling life doesn’t revolve exclusively around racing. 2020 is already a year that’s completely different from any in the past, because Laura and I are now a family of three, with little baby Hazel as part of the mix. We had decided to limit some of the smaller races that I typically jump into and focus on our family and the bigger events of the year. Continue Reading →

April 1, 2020: This is the time of year when we take a break from the daily news and look at areas where real progress is possible in bicycle design. Forget marginal gains – today we’re looking for revolutionary ideas!

The industry likes to crow about disc brakes and carbon frames, but when you really think about it, bikes have not evolved much at all since the 1890s. The very first Paris-Brest-Paris was won on a bike similar to the Humber above, and yet most of the Humber’s features have been carried over almost unchanged to the latest ‘high-tech wonders’! Continue Reading →

Let’s face it: Life isn’t the same as it was just two weeks ago. We’re all in this together, and we’ve been encouraged how everybody has been pulling together to face this challenge.

At Rene Herse Cycles, we’ve thought about what we could do to help. Most of us still ride our bikes – solo – for transportation, exercise, and to keep our bodies and spirits healthy. Most of us still need bike parts…

We have a sizable stash of parts that haven’t been used, but that we don’t want to sell as brand-new, either. These are parts that we’ve used for photo shoots or for testing tire fit on rims. Some are prototypes that don’t have the right stickers – we commission the molds first and make a small run of tires for testing, long before the new stickers are finalized. We always make more prototypes than we need for the actual testing, just in case.

Usually, we keep these components for our own bikes, but we’re now offering them to everybody in our Sample Sale.

Update 3/25: The Sample Sale has ended. Thank you. Continue Reading →

At the beginning of the year, we talked about our predictions of where bicycles are headed in the upcoming decade. Now, with a little time to reflect on the 2010s, it’s fun to look back and see what the last decade really has been all about in terms of cycling. Continue Reading →

When Ted King, Ryan Atkins, Eric Batty and Buck Miller rode more than 600 km in northern Ontario last winter, it was a real adventure – and they raised money for a local charity. We were happy to be involved in a small way – we supplied the entire team with Berthoud saddles, so they’d be comfortable during their long days on the road.

Now Eric has made a short movie about their incredible ride. Enjoy!

Happy New Year and welcome to a new decade, the 2020s!

Ten years ago (above), Bicycle Quarterly predicted that wide tires would become commonplace, that all-road bikes would replace racing bikes as the most popular genre, and that riders would soon venture off the beaten path and onto gravel. All that seemed unlikely in 2010, and we had to wait more than half-way through the decade for these predictions to become reality.

Now we’re heading into the 2020s, and I’m thinking about what the next 10 years will bring. As in 2010, I don’t claim to be able to see into the future; it’s just what makes sense… Continue Reading →

All of us at Rene Herse Cycles and Bicycle Quarterly thank you for your support. We wish you a wonderful new year filled with many great rides!

—The Rene Herse team

Since we’ve started Rene Herse Cycles in 2011, we’ve been working on reducing our environmental impact. We were among the first to use custom-designed cardboard boxes with inserts that hold our cranks securely. That has been part of our commitment to reduce our impact – while making sure that our parts reach our customers all over the world in perfect condition. Continue Reading →

At Rene Herse Cycles, we know that our customers rely on their bikes – for transportation, for sport and for fun. So we try to keep all our products in stock at all times. Nothing is more frustrating than needing a new tire or part for a big ride and having to hunt around for left-over stocks, because the maker or distributor is out of stock. And yet, it can happen: Demand suddenly increases, or there are delays in manufacturing. And then an item is out of stock. We just received a big shipment from Japan, and our local production right here in Seattle also has caught up, so we’ve got a lot of parts back in stock.

I got many questions about my new bike for this year’s Paris-Brest-Paris. One of the most asked was about the handlebar tape. Maware leather tape is by far my favorite. Made from pigskin, it’s thin, and it wraps smoothly. It’s soft to the touch and has just the right amount of grippiness. Whenever I moved my hands during the long 56-hour ride and felt the luxurious tape, I smiled. It’s one of the little things that make the miles pass quickly. Continue Reading →

We’ve got a job opening at Rene Herse Cycles. Are you dreaming of working on beautiful bikes, assembling dazzling cranks and brakes, and chatting about amazing rides all day long? The reality is not quite as glamorous, but we’ve got a good team, good compensation and benefits, plus the potential for long-term, stable employment.

As Operations Assistant, you’d run our warehouse, keep track of inventory, assemble the afore-mentioned cranks and brakes and ship them to our customers, plus update our web site and Bicycle Quarterly subscriber database. It’s a great job for somebody who enjoys doing many tasks and wearing many hats, yet wants stable employment (40 hours/week) with full benefits. Click here for a detailed job description.

Thank you for your patience last week while we’ve transitioned the blog to the Rene Herse web site. We’ve moved all the old contents – blog posts and comments – to the new site, so everything continues to be available.

If you’ve bookmarked a blog post, the link no longer works. Replace the old web address and date with ‘www.renehersecycles.com,’ and you’ll be able to find your bookmarked posts. Below are the new links to six of our most popular posts:

• Seattle to Portland Through the Back Door. The post that started this blog back in 2010, long before ‘gravel’ became a category.
• Myths in Cycling (1): Wider Tires are Slower. From there, you can follow the entire ‘Myths in Cycling’ series.
• The Long Road to Dual-Purpose Knobbies. The story behind our knobby tires for paved rides, gravel, dirt, mud and snow.
• Why Handlebar Shapes Are Important. This post includes a guide to our Rene Herse handlebars.
• The Missing Piece: Suspension Losses. Where the energy goes that is lost when the bike is vibrating.
• Cyclodonia’s article on the J. P. Weigle from the Concours de Machines. Photos and details about the bike that we took to the French competition for the best ‘light randonneur bike.’

Make sure you subscribe to our newsletter to get updated when new posts are published. Use the box on the right side. We won’t use your information for anything else, and it’s easy to unsuscribe if you’re no longer interested.

I hope you’ll continue to enjoy this blog!

We are excited to move our blog and integrate it seamlessly with our Rene Herse Cycles web site. This will allow us to create even more exciting content. And now we can link directly between blog posts and support pages. This and other changes will improve your experience as you use this resource. If you subscribed to the old blog, your subscription will automatically move here. (You will get a message from WordPress about this.)

Please bookmark the new site. Better yet, click on the ‘Follow Our Blog’ button to receive a short e-mail when a new post goes up. (It’s easy to unsubscribe by clicking the button again.) Thank you!

Unlike most posts, this isn’t one that I enjoy writing… Over the past decade, we’ve seen a period of remarkably stable prices. In fact, it’s been more than five years since our prices have changed across the board – and back then, they went down, because the exchange rate to the Japanese Yen had become more favorable.

Things have changed over the last few years. The trade wars have caught the headlines, but they haven’t affected us directly. Our high-quality products are made in Japan, Germany, France, Taiwan and, of course, the United States – not the countries that have had big tariffs levied on them. However, the trade wars have rippled throughout the world, and they affect us as well: The dollar has lost in value, which increases the cost of the parts we make overseas.

Why not make them in the U.S.? We make many parts locally or in the U.S., but for others, there simply is no domestic manufacturer who can make bicycle tires, forged bike parts, and other high-end components.

The cost of raw materials has also increased due to tariffs and other disruptions. This affects everything from aluminum (used on most of our components) and copper (generator hubs) to rubber (tires), and it’s been substantial.

Our components are made in batches, and our suppliers buy their materials in large quantities, so these cost increases haven’t hit us all at once, but as a steady trickle. For a while, we’ve been able to absorb them. At some point, we have to pass them on to our customers. This means that over the next few months, our prices will increase. It won’t be a huge increase, and it won’t affect all our parts. And for the time being, we’re of course still taking orders at the old prices. We want to give our loyal customers a heads up, so it doesn’t come as a surprise. We hope you’ll understand.

Thank you!

I’ve been wanting to thank Bicycle Retailer and Industry News for the nice article about Rene Herse on the front cover of a recent edition. It’s not often that the media talks about the contributions of small companies, especially those without a big ad budget. BRAIN’s Steve Frothingham wrote that Rene Herse “has nurtured the [gravel] category’s growth since before it was a category.”

Steve and I met when he reported about an industry meeting, where tire and rim makers discussed new standards to address new, wider tires and rims, as well as tubeless technologies. The article about that meeting also made the front page. It shows how far we’ve come in the 13 years since Bicycle Quarterly coined the term ‘all-road bike.’ Back then, high-performance drop-bar bikes with wide tires simply didn’t exist, and we knew that without a good name, our ideas would never gain traction. Now the industry (finally) is creating new standards for these bikes!

We’re excited that what used to be a ‘niche’ is now enjoyed by so many cyclists: Rides that combine paved backroads and gravel trails, far from traffic and fully immersed in the experience. It’s a great time to be a cyclist!

Click here to read the full article on BRAIN’s web site.

We’re celebrating our 2000th post on Instagram with a favorite image. It shows everything I love about cycling: small roads off the beaten path, beautiful bikes and great riding companions.

I don’t spend a huge amount of time on social media, but I’ve been enjoying Instagram a lot: Seeing where you ride has inspired me to seek out new places; examining your bikes has made me think of new products that might be useful; and more generally, the beautiful photos just brighten my days.

Follow us on Instagram to join the fun!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve3tXQY5pFk&feature=youtu.be?rel=0&w=640&h=360]

I’ve really enjoyed the stories that have come out of last week’s Paris-Brest-Paris. Above is my friend and training buddy Ryan Hamilton’s short video, seen entirely through the eyes of his bike-mounted camera. I was moved when seeing the great big bridge that leads into Brest. My eyes welled up when seeing the food stands in the middle of the night. I smiled when I saw our friend Bruno pedal so smoothly on his chrome-plated Concours de Machines Alex Singer (in the yellow jersey). It’s these experiences and emotions that make Paris-Brest-Paris so special.

Which is your favorite PBP story? Put a link in the comments, so we all can enjoy it.

The inaugural SBT GRVL (Steamboat Gravel) race saw more than 1,500 riders at the start in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The field include the Who-Is-Who of gravel racing: Ted King, Colin Strickland and Payson McElveen and other top-level racers.

It turned out to be an exciting race over the beautiful high-country gravel roads. Attacks whittled the field first to 15, then five, then two: King and McElveen. And then Ted King crossed the finish line alone for a well-deserved win.

Ted King’s bike was a replacement, put together at the last minute after his own rig was damaged during the flight to Colorado. Rene Herse Bon Jon Pass 700C x 35 mm tires provided speed and comfort on the smooth high-country gravel.

Head over to VeloNews for a gallery of photos from the race!

Photo credits: Photowil (SBT GRVL).

Paris-Brest-Paris, the epic 1200 km randonnée in France, is coming up fast. More than 6000 riders are busy with their final training, setting up their bike, preparing their trip… To help PBP riders out a bit, we are offering a 15% discount on a set of tires for the big event. (Details at the end of the post.)

Many randonneurs choose Rene Herse tires for their comfort and speed. We want to encourage everybody to start the long ride on a new set of tires. Ride your tires for 50-100 miles to make sure that everything is fine, but don’t start such an important ride on old rubber.

In 2007 – before we developed our Compass / Rene Herse tires –  I rode on partially-worn tires, hoping to gain a little speed from the thinner rubber. It was a rainy year, and I had two flat tires. Not a big deal, and perhaps the thin tread saved more time than it took to fix those flats. (Despite – or perhaps because of – the inclement weather, that was my fastest PBP yet.)

When we developed our Rene Herse tires, we added a little rubber in the center of the tread to increase the tires’ lifespan. To make the tires more supple, we kept the tread on the shoulders thin, since that part doesn’t wear. Our testing has shown that Rene Herse tires don’t get significantly faster as they wear. That is why I’ll be starting this year’s ride on almost-new tires.

Here is what I’ll ride in PBP:

• Size: 650B x 42 mm. I prefer wide tires for comfort on the often surprisingly rough asphalt of the French backroads.
• Casing: Rene Herse Extralight. The Extralight is significantly faster than the Standard, while the puncture resistance is the same. If you really are afraid of flats, the new Endurance casing is a good choice, too.
• Tubes roll faster than tubeless (no liquid sloshing around inside the tires), so I’ll be on tubes. In my experience, French backroads aren’t littered with steel wires and glass, so the added puncture protection of tubeless isn’t worth the hassle for me. (In 5 PBP so far, the two aforementioned flats are the only ones I’ve experienced.)
• Pressure: 35 psi. Tire pressure obviously depends on your weight and the width of your tires. With supple tires, higher pressures doesn’t make you faster: The added vibrations cancel out any gains from the reduced tire deformation. I run low pressures for comfort. How low is too low? If your tires squish a lot when you ride out of the saddle – add some air until your tires feel the way you like them.

For PBP riders, we offer a 15% discount on a set of tires. Here is how it works:

1. The offer is open to riders from all over the world who are registered for the 2019 Paris-Brest-Paris. The offer is available only for direct orders from the Rene Herse Cycles web site.
2. Place your order by 8/2/2019 and pay as usual when you check out.
3. In the comments field, put “PBP Discount” and enter your PBP number.
4. We’ll refund 15% of the 2 highest-value tires you order. Please allow up to a week for the refund to appear on your account.
5. You can order as many tires and other components as you like, but the discount applies only to 2 tires, and only once per PBP rider.
6. We usually ship the same day or the following day, so you can figure out which shipping method will get you the tires in time for your trip to France.

Click here to order your tires. We wish all randonneurs a successful, safe and enjoyable PBP!

Last weekend was the 14th running of the Dirty Kanza, the famous 200-mile gravel race in Kansas. After the race, I was chatted with Ted King (TK), winner in 2016 and 2018, about what makes gravel racing so special.

JH: Congratulations to another great finish!

TK: This was my 4th go at DK, and it was the hardest edition that I’ve experienced.

JH: Tell us about the race!

TK: After the initial easy ride down Commercial Street, it ended up being a relatively slow roll-out where nobody really wanted to show their cards for the first 25 miles. At that point, with enormous faith in my equipment and tire choice, I gave it a good hard pull at the front of the group to break up the field. That dwindled the lead group from about 500 down to 50. The hours ticked by, and DK took its toll as riders dropped back from the typical places over such a tough slog: exhaustion, cramping, flat tires, or any number of other issues. 50 riders in the lead group became 25, then 10, then 8.

Colin (Strickland) rolled off the front on a hilly section and our group kept on the gas to keep him in sight. His advantage grew and grew, and it was clear that he meant business. Our pace picked up, Josh Berry went backwards from the group, and, a handful of miles later, so did I. I reunited and rode with Josh for a bit, then we separated and, with 4 miles to go, he and Kiel Reijnen caught me. We’re all buddies from our previous lives racing on the road together and amicably finished as a group.

JH: It sounds like a long, tough day. Tell us about the appeal of racing in Kansas!

TK: For me, it’s the community and who shows up. Emporia is a pretty isolated location, smack in the middle of the country, and yet it’s such a fun, friendly, welcoming community. It starts right with the founders, Jim Cummins, Kristi Mohn, and Lelan Danes. They’re doing an amazing job celebrating everyone at the race, from first place to last, whether you finish or just line up. Emporia is not a quintessential cycling town, so it’s really palpable how they’ve persuaded a lot of people to get into cycling. For example, right there on Commercial Street in downtown, there are three bike shops, just four blocks apart! Every coffee shop, ice cream shop, and pub in town has some bicycle-related aspect to it. The whole community has embraced the sport so that it really is ‘Gravel Central.’ Then, at the finish, as the party engulfes the main street, it becomes a circus. It’s hilarious and really fun to be part of. It’s a wonderful critical mass, all backed by the community.

There is also a lot of history to the race. 2006 was the first year with just 34 riders. Back then, it was such an abominably long ride, before DK was DK. It grew a bit over the years until it suddenly became the event for a long single day of racing. Now 3400 or so people are racing it, with another thousand or more who haven’t won ‘the lottery.’ What I enjoy most is this community of friendly faces. It’s coming back year after year, seeing friends and folks I haven’t seen in a year, ready for another edition of an amazing race.

I think the distance is a huge part of the appeal. I do a lot of other long races, but 200 is such an interesting distance. You couldn’t do a 200-mile race in Vermont, for example, because it’s too hilly.

It’s such an iconic event too. Not much has changed since 2006. It’s still largely self-supported. If you started an event now, you’d need to put an aid station every few hours, have sag support, provide signage, and a bunch of other things. But they’ve kept DK pure over the years, really strongly tied to its roots. I love that it’s self-navigated. Sign pollution or sign sabotage can be a big issue in events, but being self-reliant makes for a really amazing day.

JH: What is it like to ride gravel in Kansas?

TK: The whole landscape is very wide-open and exposed. You start in downtown Emporia and roll out in a mass group. This is over relatively flat terrain. Then, the further out you get, the more gargantuan the hills get. You are on top of a crest and see the next one, and you think: “Geez, that’s a big hill. Who knew Kansas had climbs like these.”

And then you get into the deep gullies, where you drop down to a creek and then back up on steep climbs. It’s 12, 15, or 18%, and it takes quite some bike handling skills to get up, with the super sharp rocks and loose surfaces. Especially with all the precipitation they had this year.

Add to that, the wind always picks up in the afternoon. And since the course doesn’t go in one direction, the wind always changes. So you are blessed with a tailwind at times, and demoralized by cross- and headwinds at others.

Cows. Barns. Farms. You see lots of those things. It cattle country. You see farmers in huge pickup trucks, but unlike in many places, they are friendly folks who just drive by and wave.

JH: What is your equipment advice for this race?

TK: What I tell everybody who shows up at DK is to be confident about their equipment. It’s too late to arrive and start second-guessing, which inevitably everybody does. They come and say “My tire is too much”or “My tire is too little,” “My gearing is too much” or “too little,” and so on. Focus on the ride and don’t worry about the bike.

JH: Tell us about your equipment choices.

TK: I’d say the biggest thing at DK is tires. You need tires that are tough enough not to flat on the incredibly sharp stones they have there in the Flint Hills. They’re truly unlike anything else I’ve ever ridden; it’s like riding on knives. I knew I was going to be on Rene Herse Endurance Plus casings, which gave me a huge confidence boost, and they performed flawlessly.

The weather was predicted to be wet, so I went with the Hurricane Ridge knobbies for the race. Then, on race day, it got really hot, and the course dried out completely. I was still happy with having knobs – there are so many corners that we took at high speed, and having extra tread gave me the confidence to stay off the brakes.

JH: This year, you use a double crank after a few years on a 1x. How do they compare?

TK: I’m a long-time SRAM athlete, and 1x has been their simple gravel setup in the past. Meanwhile, on the road, I’ve been racing eTap for half a dozen years or so, and I became a convert long ago. When the two combined, with confidence of eTap and the huge gear range with AXS, honestly, I find shifting fun with eTap. Certainly, I notice much smaller jumps between gears. Now I have 24 gears instead of 11. It’s truly fun to use, and it performed flawless out on the gravel.

JH: Why did you choose a Berthoud saddle?

TK: Mostly because I’ve used it for the entire year. It’s amazing in terms of comfort. It’s equally amazing how much attention it gets. My social media has become a forum where people ask me all the time what saddle am I using.

JH: Tell us about your new gravel ride/race, Rooted Vermont. What inspired you and Laura to organize the event?

TK: It’s a mix of a few things. After moving back east, we were immediately welcomed by the neighbors, who came and gave home-warming gifts and helped us move furniture into the house. Arriving in Richmond was truly special. On top of that, the riding is equally special: Right out of our house, we have mountain bike trails, gravel, paved roads. There’s an alpine ski area two miles away and nordic skiing maybe five miles from home. It’s an outdoor enthusiast’s paradise, and we wanted to showcase this friendly local community to the greater cycling community. Laura and I have been lucky to have experienced so many events, and we want to take the best from each of them and bring it to our home roads.

JH: I understand that this year filled up quickly…

TK: We’re excited with the popularity in our inaugural event, but come back in 2020!

Photos by Ansel Dickey (except Photo 9).

2019 will be remembered as the year when gravel racing started to be on equal terms with the great races of Europe. When Pro Tour riders appear at the Belgian Waffle Ride, you know that it’s not just a local event any longer. And yet, the fun part of the sport – above the leaders at Landrun 100 – and the ability for all riders to enter, remain undiminished.
Gravel racing forms a great counterpart to the increasingly sterile, big-money world of professional road racing. Where else can you line up alongside the big names, and even have them cheer you on at the finish?

Few riders embrace this ethos better than Ted King. Even though he’s a retired pro racer himself, he now stands out in the field, in his unbranded jersey, as the quintessential gentleman racer. It’s all the more exciting when he takes podium finishes in almost every event he enters. Recently, he was interviewed on Gravel Cyclist about how he discovered gravel racing, what he is looking for in a gravel bike and tire, and where the sport is heading.

In addition, Ted’s own series, ‘G-Road to Kanza,’ has a new video report from the Belgian Waffle Ride. See Ted duke it out with riders who came straight off the Spring Classics. Click on the images above to enjoy the podcast and video!

At Rene Herse Cycles, we support the classics, in addition to pushing the envelope as we develop our modern parts. René Herse’s bikes were prized for their beauty and performance, and today, they continue to be treasured like few other classics.

I’ve enjoyed many great rides on classic Rene Herse bikes and tandems – above in the 2003 Paris-Brest-Paris – but I also know about the challenges of keeping bikes rolling decades after they’ve been made. That is why we support the restoration and use of these wonderful machines with spare parts.

Rene Herse cantilever brakes were revolutionary when they first appeared: incredibly light and powerful. Even today, they are still the lightest brakes you can buy. Over the years, many Herse bikes were equipped with newer brakes when parts became hard to find.
We now offer the original brakes for restorations. They differ from the modern version: They are designed for Rene Herse’s proprietary posts, whereas our modern brakes fit on standard posts. Also, the straddle cable and the springs are different.

The springs and straddle cables are available separately as spare parts, too. For the straddle cable, the ends are silver-brazed onto the wire, so the length of the cable can be adjusted as needed.

We also offer the classic Rene Herse brake pivots to help restorers who want to return classics to the condition in which they left the workshop of ‘the Magician of Levallois.’ (René Herse’s nickname alluded to the part of Paris where his workshop was located.) The L-shaped braze-ons were guards to prevent the brake from rotating into the spokes in the (unlikely) case the brake cable failed.

To go with the brakes, we offer the superlight Rene Herse cable hanger, which is a great choice not just for classic restorations, but also for modern bikes like my Mule.

Many Herse bikes have been ridden huge miles, and their chainrings tend to be worn, especially since the classic rings were made from relatively soft 6000-series aluminum. (Our modern rings use harder 7000-series that resists wear.) The first Herse crankarms used smaller chainring bolts and a different interface between spider and ring. We now offer our chainrings as blanks without holes, so they can be adapted to fit all Herse cranks made since 1938. Unlike the brakes, these are not exact replicas of the originals – they use our modern tooth profile and are made from 7000-series aluminum. They are a great choice to keep a cherished bike on the road. Right now, we’re offering the small rings, which are more likely to be worn. In the future, we plan to add other sizes as well.

In our program, you’ll also find many of the custom bolts that Herse used on his bikes, plus overhaul kits for Mafac brakes and other parts.

We plan to expand these offerings in the future. It’s all part of our commitment to the 80-year history of Rene Herse Cycles.
Click here for the full range of restoration parts in the Rene Herse Cycles program.
Photo credits: Maindru (Photo 2), Nicolas Joly (Photo 8).

Today is Earth Day – a day to celebrate our planet and think about what each of us, in our daily lives, can do to protect it. As cyclists, we get to enjoy nature in immediate ways: As we pedal over hill and dale, we feel the landscape, we smell it, and we become part of it. We also can make a great contribution to preserving it.
Cycling as a commuter can replace car trips and make a significant impact on the biggest threat facing our planet: climate change. It can also do the opposite, if I ride in distant places and drive (or even fly) to the start of my rides. Few of us can live car- and plane-free lives, so I think of myself as having a ‘carbon allowance.’ If I travel overseas, I try to combine trips that meet suppliers, visit family and ride my bike. Still, flying uses much of that ‘carbon allowance.’ In daily life, I ride from my doorstep – or take the train – when it’s possible.
The things we buy have a large impact, too: Manufacturing and distributing goods takes a large portion of the resources we consume. Buying quality things that I enjoy for a long time reduces the impact considerably. Do I need five bikes? Perhaps I would enjoy one truly great bike more? This wouldn’t just reduce the manufacturing by 80%, but the great bike will last longer, too.

When we shop, do we really need same day delivery? Do we want drivers to head out from distribution centers with just our package in their cars? Or is standard ground shipping, transported together with thousands of other parcels in a fuel-efficient truck, going to be just fine?
This blog is read by many in the bike industry, and it’s important to remember that, as manufacturers, our actions have a big impact. Let’s try to make products that can be enjoyed for a long time. Let’s support them in the long run. Can we prolong the lifespan of our parts by making them easy to upgrade? Sometimes, we can: Our new Rene Herse 11-speed cranks use a chainring that can be installed on all cranks we’ve made since 2011, bringing them up to the newest spec.

An aspect that we hear little about is reducing waste in production. This starts with selecting manufacturing processes that don’t waste material. For example, forging cranks (above) isn’t just stronger, it also uses just the right amount of metal. It continues with designing our parts carefully – recalls aren’t just dangerous for customers, they also waste a lot of parts. And it finishes with supervising production to make sure all our parts meet quality control from the onset. The latter is a bigger problem than I thought: When I visited the component plants in Taiwan, I was shocked by the size of the junk bins full of parts that were rejected before they even left the factory.

Looking back at the history of Earth Day, we’ve come a long way: No longer do we suggest that selecting a paper bag instead of plastic at the grocery store has a meaningful impact. Yet in many other ways, our consumption of resources has spiraled out of control. Each of us can make a difference. This doesn’t just reduce our own impact, but also can inspire others to do the same. Because living consciously creates great joy, and that is contagious.
So let’s celebrate our beautiful Earth by going for a ride today!

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In his latest video, Ted King takes us around his bike for Land Run 100 and explains why he chose the Rene Herse Snoqualmie Pass 44 mm all-road tires, rather than knobbies, for the race across the red dirt of Oklahoma.
Click on full screen mode and enjoy!

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Gravel racing is one of the most exciting developments of cycling as a sport in recent years. It combines full-on racing with adventure and drama. Gravel races are a modern take on the roots of cycling, when racers were battling it out on the unpaved mountain passes of the Alps and Pyrenees, when bikes had to survive the entire race, and when racers were independents who had to read the race and rely solely on their own strength…
A few weeks ago, Ted King placed second at Land Run 100 mile gravel race. We were excited that he chose our Snoqualmie Pass tires (and a Gilles Berthoud saddle) for this challenging course. Now Ansel Dickey has made a movie of Ted’s trip to the red clay of Oklahoma. Switch to full screen mode and enjoy!

In recent years, there has been a lot of technology transfer from motorcycles and cars to bicycles. Modern bikes finally have tubeless tires and disc brakes, both introduced in cars as early as the 1950s!
Cyclists tend to be a conservative bunch, but it’s only a matter of time until we’ll see bicycles follow the lead of cars and motorcycles in other ways:

Spoked wheels are a total anachronism. When did you last see a race car with ‘wire wheels’? Cars made the switch to cast aluminum wheels more than 50 years ago. Motorcycles soon followed suit, and yet we’re still riding around on wheels held together by tensioned steel wires! Interestingly, carbon wheels were tried by Citroën (of course!) during the 1970s, but they never caught on. On bicycles, the switch to cast aluminum wheels is long overdue.

Another no-brainer are fenders for performance bikes. The aerodynamic benefits have been confirmed in Bicycle Quarterly’s wind tunnel tests. We’re not the only ones who figured this out: Moto GP bikes (above) have fenders to shield the tires from the onrushing air. And yet bicycles still expose their wheels to the wind like 1920s race cars!
The UCI ban on fairings may outlaw fenders for pro racers, but for the rest of us – and especially for gravel racing – well-designed fenders will increase a bike’s speed as much as a set of aero wheels.

 
Radial tires have improved traction and fuel efficiency of cars and motorbikes for decades, yet today’s bicycles still roll on old-fashioned bias-ply tires. Panaracer in Japan actually made radial bicycle tires decades ago, but a lack of interest stopped that experiment before the tires could be perfected. Improved traction and better efficiency – what is not to like?

Modern bicycles finally have electrically activated derailleurs, but the shifts are still operated manually – in fact, most racing bikes have four shift levers/paddles! How archaic!
High-performance cars these days have automatic gearboxes that learn the driver’s style and shift gears at just the right moment. Why not on bikes?

Anti-lock brakes and anti-wheelie protection are long overdue. Powerful motorbikes have it, and bicycles need it, too. With hydraulic disc brakes, it’s actually possible to flip the bike around the front wheel when braking hard (top photo). And modern bikes have so much performance that it can be hard to keep the wheel on the ground during full acceleration.

The chain is perhaps the most anachronistic part of a modern bicycle. Early cars had chains driving the rear wheels, but they were replaced by clean and silent shafts a century ago. Shaft-drive bicycles briefly were popular in the late 1800s, but conservative cyclists still resist the obvious move toward modern technology. It’s only a matter of time until dirty chains will be as obsolete as mechanical brakes.

Suspension is another obvious necessity: Cars or motorcycles without suspension are unthinkable. It’s not just about comfort, but also about traction: A tire that skips over bumps loses traction. Suspension is needed to keep the tire on the ground at all times. And yet racing bicycles still skitter over bumps on skinny 25 mm tires in a rigid frame! Suspension will change the way races are won – racers no longer will attack on the climbs, but outcorner each other on the flats and descents.

We’ve actually made some gains with regards to traction: Cyclists finally have adopted lower tire pressures. This was long overdue: Even racing motorcycles rarely run more than 40 psi, and yet racing bicycle used to roll on tires that were inflated rock-hard. We still have some ways to go: Few bike racers run pressures as low as 40 psi – the myth is this will negatively affect the handling and cornering. Somehow, it works for Moto GP bikes…
With disc brakes, tubeless tires, and lower pressures, we’ve made a start to overcome a century of stagnation in bicycle technology. Cast wheels, aero fenders, radial tires, automatic transmission, anti-lock brakes, shaft drive and suspension are just around the corner. What other innovations will trickle down from cars and motorcycles to bicycles soon? And how will that shape future bicycles?
Last edited: April 1, 2019

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Beautiful bikes, great roads, traditional Japanese inns: BQ editor Natsuko Hirose’s short clip takes you to the Izu Peninsula. It’s the first trip on her new all-road bike – a great opportunity to enjoy cyclotouring with friends.
Enjoy this preview, then read the full story in the Spring 2019 Bicycle Quarterly. Make sure to watch in ‘Full Screen’ mode!
Click here to subscribe.

Recently, Enve put out a Consumer Safety Bulletin about their carbon wheels and tires made with natural fibers. The conclusion: “Tires using natural sidewall materials with an open tubular type construction are not fit for use with ENVE carbon rims.” Natural fibers are inconsistent in their strength, and the hard edges of carbon rims can cut the weakest ones, causing the tire to split and blow out.

This had some customers worried: Are Rene Herse / Compass tires safe to use with carbon rims. The answer is an unequivocal “Yes!” 
Our tires, including the Extralight models, are made from polyester. In fact, we investigated cotton casings when we first started making tires, but we found the same thing: Cotton – a natural material – is somewhat inconsistent. Some fibers are very strong, others much less so. Polyester has the advantage of being very uniform – ideal for making thin and supple tire casings.
In the past, polyester casings were relatively coarse and not very supple, hence cotton and silk was preferred for high-performance tires. Today, modern manufacturing allows to make extremely fine polyester threads that equal or surpass the suppleness of the natural fibers.

In addition to the stronger material, our tires include a thin strip that goes around the bead. This reinforces the joint between rim and tire, and avoids problems like those reported by Enve. So whether you use carbon or aluminum rims, rest assured: Rene Herse and Compass tires equal the performance of the best ‘open tubulars,’ but they are strong enough to be used on all rims.

Our on-the-road experience confirms this: We’ve ridden our tires on Enve rims with a variety of bikes, without any problems.
The service bulletin also notes a second issue: Some (but not all) cotton tires can have inconsistent diameters and stretchy beads. As a result, they can blow off the rim. Again, this does not apply to Rene Herse / Compass tires: They are made to the tightest tolerances by one of the best makers in the world: Panaracer. In fact, Panaracer tires are specifically mentioned by Enve as a brand recommended for use with their rims.
Oh, and the much-anticipated 650B x 48 mm Juniper Ridge tires you see in some of the photos? They are on their way to Seattle. We should have them within a month.
Further information:

• Original service bulletin on roadbikeaction.com
• More information about Rene Herse tires.

We’re excited to release our new Rene Herse waterbottles. The bottles are based on the popular Purist bottles and feature the new Rene Herse logo. The new design is limited to 500 bottles. Available now for $ 10. We’re not suggesting that these will become sought-after collectors’ pieces, but we do suggest that you order your bottles while they last!

We also have stickers with the new logo. They measure 1″ x 3.5″ – perfect for your bike, your tool box, your notebook,… We’ll include one with each order over $ 50, as long as supplies last. They also are available in packs of 10 small ones and one large one (2″ x 7″), for $ 10, world-wide shipping included. Enjoy!
Click here to order the new Rene Herse waterbottle.
Click here to order the sticker pack.

It’s official: Compass has become Rene Herse Cycles. It’s a big change, with a new name and new logo for a line of products that has a very strong following. Rest assured, our philosophy won’t change, and neither will our products.

We’ll continue to make the high-performance components that we need for rides that mix gravel and pavement with plenty of adventure. This is the same style of riding that René Herse (pronounced reNAY AIRS, above) enjoyed in the 1930s and 40s, when he pushed the envelope of what we’d call all-road bikes today. His bikes have inspired us as we developed our own. As Rene Herse Cycles is reborn in the Cascade Mountains, we’ll continue to challenge the accepted limitations of what bicycles can do.

Our first Rene Herse tire, the Juniper Ridge 650B x 48 mm, combines the speed and cornering of a good ‘racing’ tire with excellent performance in mud and snow. Impossible? That’s what they said when we introduced wide tires with the performance of narrow racing rubber, too…
As with our other tires, you’ll have to ride the Juniper Ridge and see for yourself.

You’ll find that they expand what we thought possible on a bike. Suddenly, we can combine fast-paced road rides with…

… rough gravel passes in the mountains…

… and even snow. As with all our products, you know that they’ve proven themselves before they are released. Prototypes of the Juniper Ridge have covered many hundreds of miles under the most demanding conditions. The Juniper Ridge tires are in production right now, and they’ll be available in March.
There are other exciting projects in the works as Rene Herse Cycles is reborn in the Cascade Mountains. Join us as we continue our exciting journey.
Our new web site is at www.renehersecycles.com.
Our Instagram is @reneherse with the hashtag #renehersetires joining #renehersecranks,  #renehersehandlebars, #reneherserack, #renehersetaillight, etc.

SON generator hubs and other parts have been flying off the shelves lately. Some of it can be attributed to cyclists preparing their bikes for the upcoming Paris-Brest-Paris 1200 km brevet. More cyclists also realize that generator hubs provide peace of mind on long rides and commutes alike. As a result, some of the most popular hubs – especially the Wide-Body that makes for stronger wheels (above) – have been out of stock recently.

The new SON coaxial adapters also have been popular. Slide one onto the tabs of any SON hubs to convert it to the latest coaxial connectors. Then the wires are easy to plug in and out with one hand whenever you have to remove the wheel.

The Edelux II headlights, with their optimized beam pattern, also are available with ‘coax’ connectors now, making the system a plug-and-play setup that is super-easy to install on your bike.

The Splitter Box allows you to wire a USB charger or other device into the circuit from your light to your generator hub. It’s a great way to get the superior beam pattern of the Edelux II and still charge your devices on the go.

Production of all these parts now has caught up with demand, and all SON components in the Compass program are back in stock. We appreciate your patience while supplies were running short.
More information:

• SON generator hubs
• SON lights and other parts
• Why a light’s beam pattern is more important than the output in lumens

Today would have been Lyli Herse’s 91st birthday. And last Friday has been a year from her passing…

… and the 111th birthday of her father, René Herse. They continue to inspire us in so many ways. Today, we just want to remember their smiles and their passion for cycling in all its forms.

Lyli was a friend for so long that it’s hard to believe she’s gone. Until the very end, she rode her home trainer, but she told us that she dreamt of cycling in the mountains.

We miss her! She passed on her family’s legacy to us, and she told us that her father would have been happy to see so many people passionate about rides and adventures again. Together, let’s keep their spirit alive!

We are looking forward to another great year! We wish all our readers joy, happiness and many great rides in 2019. See you on the road!
—The BQ and Compass/Rene Herse team
Photo credit: Ryan Francesconi

All of us at Compass Cycles and Bicycle Quarterly wish you Happy Holidays!

What to give a cyclist? And as a cyclist, what to answer when somebody asks you to make a wish? Here are a few gift ideas that are certain to bring a cyclist joy for a long time.

You can’t go wrong with Bicycle Quarterly. Each edition covers a variety of topics and perspective, with well-written articles that are illustrated with beautiful photos and original artwork. Give a gift subscription ($36), and we’ll send a postcard announcing the gift. And when each magazine arrives, it’ll provide hours of reading enjoyment.

Just as popular are our past editions, whether it’s the 15th anniversary year (above) or our 4-packs on specific topics ($34). They provide a great opportunity to read up on specific topics or simply enjoy more of Bicycle Quarterly without having to wait for the next edition.

Our books also make great gifts. The Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles ($35) is one of the most influential cycling books of the last decade. In print for more than a decade, it’s a true classic that has been translated into four languages. Cyclists who haven’t read it and marveled at the studio photos of these amazing bikes are in for a treat!

René Herse ($86) tells the fascinating story of the builder whose legacy we continue today, illustrated with hundreds of historic photos from the Herse family archives. We’ve even a very small number (about 10) of the Limited Edition, which comes with a beautiful slip case and four ready-to-frame art prints of unpublished photos ($185; above).

Third in our trilogy is The Competition Bicycle ($50), which tells the technical evolution of performance bikes through the actual bikes of great champions and amateurs.  Marvel at the bikes that won the Tour and Giro, were ridden to world championships and hour records, but also to first places in Paris-Brest-Paris and in the races of the Paris newspaper couriers, and learn how bikes evolved from highwheelers to modern machines with carbon disc wheels.

Our small Gilles Berthoud bags also make nice gifts. The Bottle Cage/Saddle Tool Bag ($79) fits into most bottle cages or under the saddle. It’s a neat way to carry a spare tube, a few tools, an energy or chocolate bar and a small wallet.

The Small Universal Bag ($98) is even more versatile. It fits under the saddle or on a rack. Mount it on top or hang it from the platform like a mini-pannier. Under the flap is a zippered compartment to carry your essential.

Previously unannounced, we’re offering the ultralight handlebar bag from the Concours de Machines ($375) in a limited edition. By removing everything that isn’t absolutely needed, Gilles Berthoud has created what must be the world’s lightest handlebar bag – without giving up durability or functionality. We’re taking pre-orders until January 15, and the bags will be delivered in March 2019.
Every cyclist can use a nice bottle cage or two. Choose among three Nitto models, from the versatile T cage ($70) to the superlight R ($95) – all work really well.

Our water bottles ($10) make great gifts, too. Designed by a Japanese artist, they celebrate our two brands and add a quote that sums up our approach to bicycles. They are based on Specialized’s popular Purist design, so they function matches their appearance.

A Gilles Berthoud leather saddle is a great addition to any bike. Most riders find them extremely comfortable, but saddles preferences are very personal – check before giving a saddle! Choose between different models, with stainless steel or titanium rails ($228 – 295).

The Nitto Bike Stand ($99) is a great way to display a favorite bike. Made like Nitto’s beautiful racks, it holds your bike securely.

Still undecided? How about one of our Rene Herse Posters ($20) with favorite images from our book?
Holiday Shipping: We usually ship your order the same day it’s received, from our Seattle, WA, base. Select an appropriate shipping method if you want your order to arrive in time for the holidays.
Click on the links above to see each product, or click here to browse our entire program.
Photo credit: Isabel Uriarte (Photo 1)

The popularity of Gilles Berthoud’s new mirrors surprised us. We expected them to be popular, but we didn’t expect to sell out within days.

It’s easy to understand why customers like them, though: They are beautifully made from the best materials, and they work well with all road handlebars. They are available as simple aluminum mirrors (top), or with a leather insert that matches Berthoud’s saddles and handlebar tape (above).
Everybody at Gilles Berthoud has been working hard to keep up with demand, but since these are largely handmade, they’ll remain in short supply for a while. We just received another shipment, and all models are back in stock for now.
Click here for more information or to order.

I’ve been racing my Alan cyclocross bike since I bought it second-hand, many years ago, when I was still in college. Back then, it was simply a used ‘cross bike. Now it may seem like a relic from another era.

And yet the Alan continues to hold its own in the Pacific Northwest’s cross races. I like the way it accelerates out of corners. Alan’s aren’t as flexible as legend has it – Bicycle Quarterly’s frame flex test found it to be about as stiff as a Columbus SL frame – but mine planes very well for me.

You’d think that modern carbon bikes perform better on the uphills, but that hasn’t been my experience.

Even the Alan’s weight – 10.0 kg (22 lb) – isn’t uncompetitive. Cyclocross is the one place where the weight of your bike actually matters, as you lift it up several times per lap.

The Alan has one other advantage over modern bikes: Its horizontal top tube makes it easier to portage. A sloping top tube makes the main triangle so small that many racers now push their bikes. Dragging your wheels through the mud and leaning over to reach the handlebars is not the most efficient way to move when it’s too steep to ride.
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How about the lack of disc brakes? You’d expect discs to offer a huge advantage in ‘cross, but the reality is that you can only brake so hard when your tires have limited grip, and good cantilevers are more than sufficient.
I find that rim brakes offer more feel when the lockup point is approaching. I suspect this is because the brake lever is directly connected to the rim, whereas with discs, the feedback from the tires has to be transmitted through the spokes. Does it matter? On the Alan, I often get to the point where one wheel locks up for a split second. Feeling that point approaching, I can start to release the brake slightly before the wheel skids, rather than react to the skidding itself.

Last year, I installed our Rene Herse brakes on several bikes as part of our pre-release testing. I didn’t expect a huge improvement over the Mafacs installed before, but I was surprised. Not only are the forged arms stiffer and more powerful, but the terrible fork judder the bike displayed before at low speeds has disappeared.
I also like that the roller on the cable hanger self-centers the brake arms if they get bumped during a clumsy dismount or – heaven forbid! – a fall. By the way, falls in ‘cross are rare, but they also don’t usually hurt. Mud is soft!

I like that the Alan is a true ‘cross bike – designed for cyclocross racing and nothing else. There are no bottle cage mounts. The top tube is flattened so it doesn’t dig into my shoulder when I portage the bike. The low-trail geometry makes the bike beautifully adjustable at high speeds on slippery surfaces.

There is no way to mount a front derailleur on the bike. Back when I bought it, that was considered a drawback, as riders were switching to STI. These days, ‘One-By’ gearing is becoming popular again. The old style, with two large chainguards, keeps the chain on even in the rough-and-tumble of ‘cross racing. And if it ever does come off, you don’t have to worry about lining up thick and thin teeth with their corresponding chain links – just drop the chain into the slot and go.
The Alan originally came to me with toeclips, but I’m not interested in retro for retro’s sake. I don’t like fishing for toeclips, so I installed clipless pedals from the get-go. I still like my old Look Moabs. Their platforms are huge, allowing me to pedal even when my foot doesn’t clip in easily because my cleats are clogged with mud.

The six-speed freewheel has plenty of gears for me – I rarely use the smallest and largest cogs. And with more space between the cogs, they don’t clog up with mud as easily. The popularity of singlespeeds in ‘cross racing shows that I am not the only one who feels that way.

The one place where cyclocross bikes have changed a lot are the tires. Back when I started racing, hand-made ‘cross tires existed, but they were almost unknown. Now I race on hand-made FMB Super Mud tubulars that roll amazingly well across bumpy terrain. The width of the tires has changed as well. Back when the Alan was built, 28 mm was considered wide. On dry days, many racers were on 24 mm tires that looked like road tires. I now run 33s, but they are a tight fit. Anything wider won’t have enough mud clearance.
I’d love to use our Steilacoom 700C x 38 mm clinchers. They provide the same ride quality as my tubulars with less hassle – the extra 10% in width makes up for the tire being surrounded by the rim, rather than sitting on top of it. And with the Steilacooms performing as well on pavement as in the mud, to be able to ride to the races – even when they are as far away as Steilacoom. The FMBs are great on mud, but the small knobs squirm terribly on pavement.

It’s been fun racing the Alan. If I ever replace it, it’ll be a with similar bike. A new ‘cross bike would probably be made from steel rather than aluminum, but with similar flex characteristics and similar components. I’ve ridden modern gravel and ‘cross bikes, and they are very nice, too. But for me, the Alan just works remarkably well.
Photo credits: Westside Bicycle (Photo 3), Natsuko Hirose (all other photos).

We are glad that the HED Belgium+ rims are available again – they are the best modern rims we have found. They build up straight, they remain true, and tire mounting is a snap, even tubeless.

They come in disc brake (top) and rim brake (above) versions, in 650B and 700C (disc brake only). With a width of 25 mm (ouside), they are a perfect complement for our wide all-road tires. They have a properly-sized hook that interlocks with the tire’s bead – a useful safeguard against blowing off a tubeless tire. Of course, you can run the Belgium+ with tubes, too.

The Pacenti Brevet rims look very different, but they perform equally well. Designed for rim brakes, these are the rims we use on most of our bikes. We got Pacenti to make the rims not just with 36 and 32 holes, but also 28. With wide tires cushioning the shocks, 28 spokes are plenty for most riders, especially on the front wheel.

We also offer spoke kits to build wheels with the generator hubs we sell. With so many spoke lengths available, few shops stock all, and finding the correct spokes for your wheel build can turn into a treasure hunt. (Spokes for the 700C Belgium+ will be in stock soon.)

Remember to always use tubeless rim tape with modern tubeless-compatible rims, even if you install inner tubes. Tubeless rim tape is thin and slippery, allowing the tires to slide onto the shelf that forms the bead seat. Cloth and other traditional tapes are too thick and have too much friction, so the tire beads get hung up on the ridge that separates the well from the shelf on these rims.

When installing your tires tubeless, make sure the tire fits properly. If you need huge blasts of air from a compressor to seat the tire, the fit is too loose. Build up the rim bed with tape until the fit is tight enough that you can seat the tire with a floor pump. That greatly reduces the risk of the tire blowing off the rim.

With good rims and properly mounted tires, you can venture off the beaten path with confidence. Enjoy the ride!
All the rims and tape are now in stock. Click here for more information.

To celebrate Bicycle Quarterly’s 15th anniversary last year, we increased the size of the magazine and put together a number of truly outstanding editions. We now offer them in a special 4-pack.

We kicked off our anniversary year with our biggest edition ever. More book than magazine, this hefty volume counts 124 pages. Inside, Peter Weigle takes you through the building of his superlight entry for the Concours de Machines. Read how he designed and built this special bike. Watch as the last touches were put on the bike only the night before the event at Cycles Alex Singer in Paris.

A full report of the trials themselves rounds off the coverage of this incredible event. Find out how each of these special bikes performed on the road, and enjoy all 24 participants in beautiful studio photographs.

I’ve often dreamt of a perfect mountain pass, with a beautiful rhythm of switchbacks that tighten until the road almost loops over itself, supported by ancient stone walls. Then the road will break through the pass, where an expansive view opens to the other side. Kurakake was exactly that pass…
But Holy Grails aren’t attained easily, and traversing this pass turned into a much greater adventure than we had planned. You are sure to enjoy the stunning photos that tell the story of this ride.

BQ 62 saw a different type of adventure when we took a 1947 René Herse tandem on a tour of the Vercors mountains in France. It was a trip of beautiful roads, small villages and a tandem that surprised us with its performance.

We also visited Shimano’s headquarters in Osaka and discovered the secrets behind the Japanese giant’s rise to market dominance.

A visit to Shimano’s museum let us discover the dream bikes of generations of Japanese cyclists.

In BQ 63, we said Good-Bye to Lyli Herse. Not only was she an incredible rider who won eight French championships, but she also was a great friend. With photos from her personal archives, we brought you a very personal story of her life.

Jo Routens is best known for the amazing bikes he built, but he was an amazing rider, too. Not only did he place first in three Paris-Brest-Paris… he also was one of the first to explore the trails of his native French Alps. Studio images of his machines and historic photos from the Routens family archives bring the story to life. BQ 63 will be remembered as the definite publication on this famous constructeur.

BQ 64 took us on our most ambitious adventure yet: Nobody had ever traversed Mexico’s incredible Copper Canyons entirely by bike. A team of gravel racers rose to the challenge. The result was a great ride, and an excellent test for the superlight and aero 3T Exploro gravel bike.

The Japanese Passhunters pushed the limits of what is possible on a bike. Our editor Natsuko Hirose has been a member of the famous Yama Sai Ken (Mountain Cycling Club) for more than a decade. She researched their amazing adventures, as well as the bikes they developed in the days before mountain bikes even existed. Enter a fascinating world and be inspired by their spirit of adventure and friendship.

We also lined up a great selection of test bikes (left to right, top to bottom): Brian Chapman’s custom-built Di2 Randonneur, Caletti Monstercross, 333fab AirLandSea, 3T Exploro LTD, Rawland Ulv, Surly Midnight Special and (not shown) a Steve Rex Monstercross bike.
With almost 500 pages, there are many other articles in the anniversary editions. One reader wrote: “I hope you keep these issues in print and continue to offer them as stand-alones in your catalog.”
That isn’t possible – color print is only affordable in large quantities – but we are offering the complete set as long as supplies last. Get yours now and enjoy many hours of reading and browsing!
Click here to order your set or other past editions of Bicycle Quarterly.

Happy Thanksgiving to all readers, customers and cyclists! We’re grateful for the joys and friendships that cycling have brought us.

We just received another shipment of our Steilacoom 700C x 38 mm dual-purpose knobbies. We appreciate your patience while these popular tires were out of stock.
Originally designed for cyclocross, the Steilacoom has become a popular dual-purpose tire: As you’d expect from a tire with widely-spaced knobs, it excels in mud and snow. What surprises most riders is that it rolls and corners better than most road tires.

Leaning into a turn on knobbies isn’t something most riders expect to do. (Please excuse the blurry photo: The overcast winter skies and high cornering speed overwhelmed the camera’s auto-focus.)

The Steilacoom’s knobs are big enough that they don’t squirm. And we’ve distributed them in our unique pattern that ensures that you always have the same amount of rubber on the road. So the grip is constant and the feedback is totally transparent – unlike many knobbies that suddenly lose grip as you lean over.
What about the rolling resistance on pavement? Well, the knobs don’t squirm, so there isn’t much extra resistance. Thanks to our supple casings, the Steilacooms offer similar performance to our ultra-fast road tires. One reviewer even set Strava records on his Steilacooms…

That makes the Steilacoom not just the perfect ‘cross tire, but also ideal for those rides where you spend much of your time on pavement, but might encounter mud or snow on the unpaved sections. Best of all, the same tread pattern is available in our 650B x 42 mm Pumpkin Ridge, too.
Click here for more information or to order a set for your bike.

We’re always excited to get feedback on our tires, and when it comes from someone like Jordan Rapp, it’s especially valuable. The names of semi-professional gravel racers aren’t yet household names – Jordan used to be a pro triathlete before becoming a gravel racer. This year, he came 6th in the grueling Dirty Kanza 200-mile gravel race (above). So he knows how to ride, and he isn’t babying his equipment.

We sent him a set of 700C x 44 mm Snoqualmie Pass Extralights, and here is what he had to say:
“On dirt fire roads, the tire has admirable grip and is just screaming fast. Plus, at 35 psi, it just rolls over everything, on road and off.”

The tire made him explore great roads that he was avoiding before:
“Yerba Buena is one of the nicest climbs in the Santa Monica Mountains, but I find it generally unrideable because the pavement is so bad. But with the Snoqualmie, I rode it regularly and loved it, especially because that same bad pavement keeps cars and motorcycles off of it. If you can steer clear of pointy and sharp objects, it’s pretty close to the perfect tire.”

He confirmed what we’ve discovered:
“Riding the Compass Snoqualmie, I was shocked at the fundamental impact of contact patch. These are totally slick tires. The tread is no different, really, than what you’d find on any standard road race tire. The tires are just massive. And that massiveness – and the accompanying ability to run extremely low pressures – just gives you a ton of grip on most terrain. Loose sand is pretty sketchy, but it’s always sketchy. Overall, I was astounded at how well a tire that rolled fast on the roads performed off-road over very technical terrain.”

He pushed his Snoqualmies to the limit, and he was surprised:
“I took a fully-rigid bike with drop-bars on trails that I would previously have only considered riding on a full-suspension MTB. And I never felt that my tires were holding me back.”
I guess we should add: “Don’t do this at home!” But really, that’s just the kind of stuff you tend to do with these tires. It’s remarkable how your riding changes when places that used to be ‘barely doable’ become fun to ride. Thank you, Jordan, for the feedback!
Click here to read Jordan’s entire review on Slowtwitch.com, or head to www.compasscycle.com to learn more about our tires.

Alistair Spence and Mitch Pryor have been my friends for a long time. They both live in Paradise, CA, which was devastated by fire last week. Both are OK; they got out just in time. Their homes literally were burnt to the ground, but what counts right now is that they are OK. I’ve spoken with them, and while shaken, they are moving forward to rebuild their lives.

Mitch Pryor doesn’t need an introduction to readers of Bicycle Quarterly and this blog: He is one of the best-known constructeurs of randonneur bikes in North America. I saw Mitch not long ago, because he dropped off BQ‘s latest test bike. We had to coordinate a tight schedule: Just one week after traversing the crest of the Cascade Range twice in a single night (above), the latest MAP was due to be shown at the Philly Bike Expo. (That bike safely was delivered to its customer just before the fire.)

I’ve known Alistair even longer than Mitch. He’s been part of our Seattle crowd forever. He’s helped me with many projects. In recent years, he’s assembled our Compass taillights. He moved to Paradise a few months ago. He just had set up his workshop again and sent us a batch of taillights.
To help Alistair and Mitch while they figure out the next steps, friends have set up GoFundMe campaigns. Mitch and Alistair have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support, and they asked to cap the campaigns. Many in the cycling community want to do more to help, and both Mitch and Alistair now have reopened the campaigns to help other victims. All donations beyond the (already attained) limits will go to fire relief causes. Being on the ground, Mitch and Alistair know where the donations will make the greatest positive impact.

At Compass, we’ll do what we can to help both Alistair and Mitch while they rebuild their lives and their workshops. We’re grateful that they are OK, and the rest will work out. And we’re glad that we’ll continue to enjoy the work of these great craftsmen in the future!
In the mean time, please donate to Mitch and Alistair’s campaigns to help other fire victims. Thank you!

• click here to donate to Mitch’s campaign
• click here to donate to Alistair’s campaign

Fitting wide tires and/or fenders between road cranks can be a challenge. René Herse was a master of frame design, who curved his chainstays ‘just so’ to create the room he needed. On the tandem above, not a single millimeter is wasted, and the result are perfect clearances for 42 mm-wide tires, fenders and cranks with a narrow Q-factor.

The first step toward replicating Herse’s mastery in modern bikes was to make a bottom bracket shell with the correct angle for curved chainstays. We already offer this shell for standard-diameter tubes. Brand-new is the same shell for oversized down tubes. These parts eliminates the need to ‘blacksmith’ the chainstay sockets of BB shells designed for straight chainstays.

There are many ways to bend the chainstays. To obtain easily replicable results, Hahn Rossman machined dies that fit perfectly over the chainstays. They create a beautiful curve without kinks or bulges. We’ve developed the exact shape through CAD design and the experience of building numerous bikes with curved stays.

Curving stays is a labor-intensive process, to say nothing of the time and effort to make the dies, but it’s almost a necessity for modern all-road bikes.

We now offer the curved chainstays ready to go. They also are indented slightly on the inside to increase the clearance further, without creasing them as you often see on older bikes. The curved chainstays are a perfect match for the Compass bottom bracket shells. They are available separately or as part of the complete tubesets that we’ve developed  in collaboration with Kaisei, the Japanese maker of top-quality steel tubes

Also new in program are lighter-gauge chainstays, which balance the stiffness of our ‘Superlight’ tubeset.

As a final part of the puzzle, Hahn also made a gauge that visualizes the required clearances for a Rene Herse crank (177 mm length) with a 48×32 chainring combination. If the gauge fits, then your cranks will work with the recommended 110 mm bottom bracket. And since Rene Herse cranks have one of the narrowest Q-factors and a standard road chainline, other cranks will fit as well.
If the gauge fits, then smaller chainrings and shorter crankarms will fit, too. If you need more room, space out the cranks with a longer bottom bracket spindle. This gauge takes the guesswork out of the parts you need to order.
The photo above shows a fillet-brazed frame, because the new bottom bracket shell for OS tubing wasn’t available yet. With the new BB shells and curved stays, standard road cranks, even those with a narrow Q-factor, will fit, unless your rear spacing is much greater than 130 mm.

When I built my Mule (above), it was intended as a prototype for a modern all-road bike that can travel with speed and comfort over any distance, on any road and in any weather. Over the last few years, we’ve productionized most of the parts used in this build. Creating a custom all-road bike has never been easier!
Further reading:

• A series of blog posts about our Kaisei tubesets
• Information about framebuilding parts in the Compass program

Mount Rishiri-Dake (1721 m) is a popular hiking destination.

Bicycle Quarterly editor Natsuko Hirose takes you to Rishiri Island, off Hokkaido’s coast in northern Japan.

From the northernmost town in Hokkaido, Wakkanai, there is a ferry that goes to Rishiri and Rebun Islands. These small islands are the northernmost inhabited parts of Japan, and many cyclists dream of cycling there once in their lifetime. So did I!
Cycling around the islands is not difficult, but finding the right time is! During the brief summer season, the Rishiri Island is popular with hikers. It’s also famous for its great seafood, amd the few hotels are usually booked.
At the end of September, it starts snowing in the mountains, and storms often cancel the ferry. By October, most hotels and pensions close. It’s difficult to find a time when cycling is possible, but there are no crowds.

Leaving Wakkanai on the ferry to Rishiri Island

With the uncertain schedule of the ferry, my friends cannot join me on this trip, so I travel alone. It is a different kind of fun.

The ferry takes two hours to reach the island. The first thing I look forward to is seeing the sun set into the Sea of Japan. It is cold on the boat, but I am excited to head to the island.

There are bike paths on the island, and a road goes around the perimeter. The distance is 55 km (35 miles), and the map doesn’t show much up-and-down, so it seems quite doable in a day – unless it is very windy. I pray that the wind won’t be too strong.

This bike path was built specifically for cycling, rather than being a converted railway. It has some nice ups and downs, and there are great views. It is fun. I imagine that during summer, the flowers will be beautiful, too.

This bike path even has viewpoints. Cycling along the sea, you often travel only at low levels, so it feels special to get to such a great view.

The path is deserted. I feel a bit lonely, but it is nice to have the place to myself. It’s one of the advantages of visiting during the off-season.

The bike path ends, so I take the road. There aren’t many cars, and the wind isn’t very strong. It makes for nice cycling. Except it is very cold. The sun is shining, but it is too low in the sky to provide much warmth.

Tonight, I will stay on the island, so I don’t need to worry about ferry or bus schedules. When I see something interesting, I can just stop and enjoy it. It feels very special.

When I ride with my friends, I often focus on cycling. When I go alone, I try to visit local museums whenever possible. I want to feel the history of the places I visit. It adds another dimension to exploring the landscape on my bike.

The Rishiri Island Museum is housed in the old village hall that was built in 1913. It’s well-known in Japan that Rishiri Island does not have brown bears. That makes hiking here easier and safer. At the museum, I see an old newspaper article: Many years ago, a bear swam 20 km (13 miles) from the mainland to the island!

The sky is so big here, and the air so cold. It really feels like an island far, far in the north.

I stop at Lake Outatomari, which means “inlet with sand” in Ainu, the language of the native inhabitants of the north. I am glad to see Mount Rishiri free of clouds, so I take a photo.

When touring alone, I don’t cover much ground. There are so many places to visit, so many photos to take. This morning, 55 km didn’t seem like a lot, but now the sun is low, and I am nowhere near my destination.

I am back on the bike path when the sun sets. I wanted to return to the hotel before sunset… Even so, I stop, because the sunset is beautiful.

Soon dinner will be served. And it’s getting cold and windy. I shiver.
I really want to get to the hotel as quickly as possible. But I can’t resist to climb up to the viewpoint to enjoy the sunset. It is very beautiful… and cold.

When I get to the hotel, dinner is already served. Traditional Japanese hotels serve dinner and breakfast as part of the accommodation. It is nice not having to worry about finding a warm meal. The meal consists of local specialties: fish, scallops, vegetables, prawns. It tastes great!

My friends ask me whether I feel lonely when I go on solo bike trips. The answer is yes – it can get lonely. This creates an opportunity to talk with local people or others I meet. We talk about local things, the weather, where we come from. It’s fun. Meeting people is an essential part of cyclotouring for me.

All night, it rains hard. When I wake up, I worry that I may not want to go cyclotouring today.

Looking outside, I see the first snow of the year on top of Mount Rishiri. Now I know why it feels so cold here!

I was tempted to climb to the top of Mount Rishiri, but with the snow, it is impossible. I don’t have enough equipment.

Instead, I decide to hike up Mount Pon. It’s only 441 m (1446 ft) high, so there is no snow. In my handlebar bag, I carry my backpack, hiking map, rain gear, headlamp, emergency food, compass… everything I need to hike up the mountain.

The hiking trail is steep, and I get warm from the effort.

When I reach the top, it’s so windy that it almost blows me away. In the background is Mount Rishiri. Later, I meet a hiker who reached the top. He said that it was very cold, and that hail stones covered the ground.

Even here, it’s too cold to stay and eat lunch. I drink hot tea from my thermos, then hike back down.

When I return to the foot of the mountain, the blue sky and red autumn foilage look so different from up there. I’m only 400 m (1300 ft) lower, but it’s a different world. I also realize that I was lucky to see Mt. Rishiri yesterday.

Afterward, I decide to explore other roads on the island. I want to eat lunch at a Ramen shop recommended by a friend. The lady at the visitor center told me that the Ramen shop is only open until 2 o’clock now, so I have to hurry.

When I reach the Ramen shop, it starts raining. The forecast was for sunshine, but on the island, the weather is unpredictable. The Ramen, with its soy sauce base and strong flavor, warms me on this cold day.

After I eat, I wait for the rain to stop. I meet a German tourist who rented a bike and is riding around the island, too. He asks me how to find the entrance to the bike path.

Today, I have much time, so I decide to ride with him. I’m no longer a solo cyclotourist – it’s a nice change!

I wonder why he could not find the bike path. There are many signs! For me, it is clear – I read the Japanese Kanji symbols, but it should be fine for him, too: There is an English translation on each sign. Then I realize that the English text says ‘Jitenshado’ – the Japanese word for ‘cycling road’ has been transcribed into the Roman alphabet, but not translated into English. Now I understand why the German cyclist could not find the bike path!

I am happy I could help the German tourist.

He tells me that he likes Japan very much and describes the places he has visited. Unexpected encounters also are part of the fun of cyclotouring.

He will leave the island on the last ferry. I suggest that he visit the public bath before taking the ferry… With some time before dinner at my hotel, I decide to explore the island a little more. I enjoy the view of the harbor with Mt. Rishiri in the background.

The following day, I take the ferry to the next island. It’s alway been my dream to go from island to island by ferry. It seems very romantic to me.

Rishiri Island recedes in the distance. I’ll come back some day to climb Mt. Rishiri! But now I am heading to Rebun Island. Read Natsuko’s previous post, about her cyclotouring reunion in Hokkaido.

[youtube https://youtu.be/Hmltrz9xfXI?rel=0&w=640&h=360]
The MKS Allways pedals are back in stock. The video above shows how the super-smooth cartridge bearings make these spin almost forever. The slightly concave platform allows optimum pedaling efficiency without the need for foot retention. Made in Japan, these may be the best platform pedals ever made. Click here for more info or to order.

We also offer the MKS Rinko Adapters separately, so you can use the same pedals on multiple bikes, or run different pedals on the same bike. Changing the pedals takes just a few seconds – no tools required. Simply turn the ring and push it inward; then you can remove the pedal.
Most Rinko pedals in the Compass program use the “EZY-Superior” Rinko system (above), but the US-S (spd-compatible) pedals use the “EZY-Standard” couplers. We now offer both as separate parts. (Unfortunately, they aren’t interchangeable.)

Also back in stock: Kaisei ‘TOEI Special’ fork blades – as used on most of our bikes. To read how these fork blades improve the comfort and speed of your bike, click here.
The fork blades in this shipment are a bit shorter than we’d like – 405 mm as used by Japanese builders, rather than the 420 mm we usually specify. They work fine for 650B bikes, but the 420 mm blades give builders more leeway in trimming them to length. We will get the full-length blades again in January or February. For more information on fork blades and our other Kaisei tubing, click here.
We appreciate your patience while production caught up with demand on these popular items.

Many years ago, a big magazine published a note about Honjo fenders, which were just starting to trickle into the United States, and noted: “We are charmed by the idea that there actually are fender snobs.”
Those days are long over: Today fenders are recognized as an integral part of many performance bikes. Those of us who ride year-round need fenders that not only keep us and our bikes dry and clean, but also don’t rattle, resonate or break prematurely. We also want them to offer as much performance as possible.
Tens of thousands of miles of riding with fenders have shown us what works and what doesn’t. Honjo’s aluminum fenders keep us drier and are lighter and more aerodynamic than any plastic fenders we’ve tested.
The fenders Compass sells are made by Honjo to our own specifications. The most noticeable detail is the added coverage: 165° on the front and 200° on the rear. On the front, that means no spray on your feet and bottom bracket/chain (further helped by a short mudflap). On the rear, the fender can extend beyond the bottom bracket to keep the chain dry and clean even in crosswinds. These are small details, but they make a large difference.

One reason why we’ve found Honjo’s fenders so superior is their stays. They run all the way around the fender, rather than connecting to flimsy flat brackets. This makes them stiff and strong. The fenders we sell at Compass come with our own Rene Herse eyebolts (above). Not only is their rounded shape more elegant, but the threads are 7 mm long – exactly the right length, so the bolt doesn’t stick into the fender any further than needed. And the special ‘Tensiloc’ nuts we use prevent the fender bolts from loosening.
That hardware adds a little to the cost, but it means that you can install these fenders and forget about them. I’ve yet to re-tighten a fender bolt on my current bikes, even though my Urban Bike has seen more than a decade of hard use in the city, and my Rene Herse that has done 2 Paris-Brest-Paris, 2 Raids Pyreneens, the original Oregon Outback and countless other challenging rides.

To save weight on my Herse, I used tubular fender stays. I found the raw material among the stocks we got from Lyli Herse when we bought Cycles René Herse. They were left over from the 1940s Concours de Machines technical trials! My tubular stays have been 100% reliable, and they save 35 g, so we’ve asked Honjo to make tubular stays for our fenders (above).

Starting today, the tubular stays are available as an option on all fenders we sell. We also offer them separately as a retrofit.

We’ve got more fender news: The Gilles Berthoud fender stays are modeled on a style found on many Jo Routens bikes. It’s an elegant design that is also useful if you are fighting toe overlap on your bike.

The flat section on the rear of the stay attaches directly to the fender. That eliminates the eyebolts that stick out a few millimeters. It can make the difference between catching your toe or not.

Berthoud fender stays come with a matching bolt kit (not shown). You can also rivet these stays directly to the fender to save a little weight.

We also stock plastic R-Clamps from Gilles Berthoud to attach the fender stays to the frame or fork. These are useful if you want a safety release on your fender stays: The stay will pull out of the plastic clamp if a foreign object gets caught between fender and tire. This is useful if your fenders are mounted with less-than-optimal clearances, as it reduces the risk of the fender collapsing and jamming into the fork crown.
 

Why not use the plastic R-Clamps on all bikes? When you ride on rough roads, the stays can work loose over time. Check them periodically to make sure.

Since our bikes wear their fenders year-round, and we ride on gravel and in the forest, we take fender safety seriously. We’ve researched this, and here is what we’ve found: If you have the recommended 20+ mm clearance between tire and fender, objects that are small enough to be picked up with great force will go through the fender without causing any harm. Large objects have too much inertia to accelerate to a speed that allows them to do much damage. The fact that aluminum fenders is far stiffer than plastic ones helps in this respect. Wider fenders are stiffer than narrower ones, making them even safer.
During our research into fender safety, I asked all the old randonneurs I know in France about fender-related accidents. Nobody remembered any, even though these guys and women rode tens of thousands of kilometers a year – fast. I heard about all kinds of crashes, but everybody agreed that their aluminum fenders were completely safe.

If you have sufficient clearance between tire and fender, we recommend the metal Honjo R-Clamps. (Our fenders come standard with them.) They are more elegant as well as more secure. They will never come loose. You can use either clamps with all fender stays we sell.

Often overlooked, yet very important: a third attachment point for the front fender. Every fender needs three attachments to stabilize it in three dimensions, so it’s silent and doesn’t resonate on rough roads. With just two attachments, the fender can twist and flex, which can bring the fender’s trailing end in contact with the tire. Then, the tire pulls along the fender, which risks collapsing and jamming into the fork crown.
Many randonneur bikes have racks that incorporate the third attachment point for the fenders. (All Compass racks do.) If you don’t plan to use a rack with a fender attachment, we sell single Honjo fender stays to stabilize the front of the fender. The single stay comes with two R-Clamps and a single eyebolt to attach it to your fender and fork. The most elegant solution is to mount the stay to mid-fork eyelets (above), but you can also run it stay all the way down to the dropout eyelets as well.

We have to say that we are quite excited about the fender news here at Compass. Does that make us ‘fender snobs’? Ask us when we hit a rainshower on a long ride that crosses multiple mountain ranges and continue without undue suffering!
Click here for more information about Compass fenders.

One of the less-noticed results of the ‘Wide Tire Revolution’: Our tires last a lot longer these days. When I rode 20 mm-wide tires, I rarely got more than 1300 km (800 miles) out of a set of performance tires. For long-distance races, I put on new tires for every event.
Now it’s rare that my tires need replacing. Even for challenging events like the 360-mile Oregon Outback (above), I only put on a new tire (on the rear, above) because the old one had seen a lot of hard use. There are three reasons for this huge difference:

• Wider tires spread the wear over a much-larger area, so they wear much slower.
• Modern rubber compounds wear much better. In the past, we had to choose between grip or wear resistance. Today, the best tires combine both.
• Compass tires have a little extra rubber right in the center of the tread to increase the wear resistance. This adds only a few grams and doesn’t measurably change the rolling resistance, but it doubles the tire’s tread life. The shoulders of the tire don’t wear, so we keep them thin and supple.

How do you know when it’s time to replace your tires? We’ve designed our Compass tires so the center tread (longitudinal ribs) serves as a wear indicator. (The chevron tread on the shoulders gives you extra grip in corners.)
On the tire above, you can see how the longitudinal ribs are starting to show some wear. This tire has been ridden, but it still has many miles (or kilometers) left to go.

This tire is ready for replacement. The center tread is completely worn off. When the rubber gets much thinner, the risk of flats increases. And if you wear all the way through the tread, your tire can suddenly blow out. That’s a risk not worth taking to get a few more miles out of a worn tire.
The tread also allows you to check whether you have been running a good tire pressure: All the longitudinal lines should disappear – as on the tire above. If you get wear only in the very center, your pressure is too high. The footprint of your tire is smaller than ideal, and you get more wear, less traction and less comfort. (And no additional speed.)
If the wear goes far into the chevron tread on the shoulders of the tire, your pressure is too low. You’re stressing the casing more than is ideal (in extreme cases, you’ll see individual broken threads in the sidewall), your tire can collapse under hard cornering, and you may even give up a little bit in speed.

How long does a Compass tire last? This depends on several factors:

• Tire width: Wider tires spread the wear over more rubber, so they last longer. The 38 mm Barlow Pass (above) has 11 ribs in the center; the 55 mm Antelope Hill (below) has 23. With twice as much rubber touching the road, the Antelope Hill will last roughly twice as long.
• Weight: Tire wear is directly proportional to the weight of rider/bike/luggage.
• Power: High power outputs increase the wear on the rear tire.
• Both power and weight are the reason why the rear tire wears faster than the front one. If your rear tire wears significantly faster, you can rotate your tires from front to rear roughly half-way through their lifespan to even out the tire wear. I sometimes do that on bikes I use for hill intervals.
• There is no difference in the tread between the Standard and Extralight versions, so both last equally long. (The Extralight’s casing is more supple, which further improves the tire’s performance and comfort.)

Other tips for increasing the lifespan of your tires:

• UV light makes rubber deteriorate and crack. High-end tires contain more natural rubber, which is especially susceptible to UV damage. If possible, don’t store your bike in direct sunlight.
• Ozone damages rubber. Electric motors emit ozone, so don’t keep your bike near refrigerators, freezers, heater furnaces, etc.
• The shelf life of tires is very long, if they are stored in the dark with moderate humidity. I recently found an old set of tires that was ten years old, and they were as good as new.
• In the past, there was much talk about aging tires to increase their puncture resistance. It’s true that rubber should cure for optimum performance, but at least with our Compass tires, that takes only about a month. By the time Compass tires arrive from Japan in our Seattle warehouse, they are fully cured.

What does all this mean in practical terms? I expect about 5000-6500 km (3000-4000 miles) out of a 650B x 42 mm Babyshoe Pass. For high-performance tires, that is quite remarkable, and it’s dramatically lowered the cost-per-mile of high-end tires. There is no longer a need to reserve them for special events – I enjoy them even on my Urban Bike.
Click here for more information about Compass tires.

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Most of us remember when we learned to ride a bike. The incredible feel of balancing on two wheels – it felt like flying. Over the following days, months and years, our skills improved. First we learned to ride without wobbling. Then – in my case – to start without anybody holding onto my saddle…
And yet there is always more to learn. Some skills are useful, like being able to stop without putting a foot down, others merely amusing, like being able to do a cyclocross mount. They all make you a better cyclist, as you control your bike more fully.
We learn new skills through visualization and practice. To help with the former, every Bicycle Quarterly includes the ‘Skill’ column, which describes an everyday skill and how it works. In the current edition: ‘Ghost Riding’ – riding with two bicycles at once. It’s useful when you need to transfer a bike over a short distance, for example, to drop it off at a bike shop. The video above shows it in action.
Subscribe to Bicycle Quarterly to read how ‘Ghost Riding’ works, how to learn it and how to do it safely. Interested in the other ‘Skill’ articles? Check out our back issues!
Warning! Use appropriate caution when attempting new skills, including Ghost Riding.

Our Rene Herse cranks are available with chainrings from 24 to 52 teeth, in single, double and triple configurations, including 11-speed compatible versions. We even offer tandem cranks. That way, riders can benefit from customized gearing, but it also means that we stock a lot of chainrings. We try to keep all ring sizes in stock, but sometimes, demand outpaces supply. We’ve just received a new shipment, and all chainrings are back in stock.
It’s easy to see why the big makers limit their chainrings to a few combinations, but the downside is that most riders find themselves with gearing that doesn’t work well for their riding styles. It’s not just that the gears are usually to large, but also that you need to make far too many front shifts.

Why are front shifts so disruptive? With a 50 x 34, the small ring is 32% smaller than the big one. That is a huge step. You probably need a gear that is 5-10% smaller, not 32%, so you shift 3-4 cogs on the rear to compensate until you finally arrive in the gear you need. Multiple shifts take time: Your speed drops, and your rhythm is gone.

To solve this problem, you could make the step between the chainrings smaller, like the 46 x 36 found on some cyclocross cranks in the past. Front shifts now are 22%, and you only need a single shift on the rear to get back to your optimum cadence. The drawback is the limited gear range: A 36-tooth small ring is fine for ‘cross, but most riders need smaller gears when climbing mountain passes.
However, the smaller ‘big’ ring of the cyclocross setup provides the answer to the original problem. If we select our big chainring so that we ride in the middle of the rear cassette during normal riding, we can respond to small changes with just a few shifts on the rear. Pick up a tailwind? Click and we have a bigger gear. A small rise in the road? Click-click-click – a few seamless downshifts as our speed drops, and we are over the crest. No front shift required!
With a 46-tooth big ring, I can surge across gentle hills with just a few shifts on the rear. That means I can select my ‘small’ ring so that I can climb even the steepest mountain passes. For me, that is a 30-tooth. Now the large step between chainrings is OK, because I don’t shift on the front unless I get to a really steep hill. A hill that steep breaks my rhythm no matter what.

Your ideal gearing depends on a number of factors: your cadence, your strength and speed, and the terrain where you ride. From your current setup, you know which gears you use when riding on flat roads. Select your big chainring so that these gears are in the middle of the cassette, and your riding will be much smoother. That is the secret behind custom gearing. The small chainring can be up to 16 teeth smaller, because that is the maximum that modern derailleurs can handle reliably.

We offer our Rene Herse cranks with so many chainrings because we recognize the need for custom gearing. Click here for more information about Rene Herse cranks.
Photo credit: Nicolas Joly (Photo 4).

The Compass Swift Campout photo contest has been a huge success with almost 500 entries! With so many amazing photos, it was impossible to select just 8 finalists, so we finally settled on 10. We selected photos that show different aspects of the contest theme ‘Cyclotouring off the beaten path.’
Now it’s up to you, our readers, to select the winner among the finalists below. We present the images without context so you can enjoy them for their photographic qualities alone. Then please choose your favorite at the bottom of the post.

▲ Photo 1

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▲ Photo 3

▲ Photo 4

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▲ Photo 6

▲ Photo 7

▲ Photo 8

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▲ Photo 10
[polldaddy poll=9955940]
 
The winner will receive a $200 gift certificate from Compass Cycles, and all finalists will enjoy a one-year subscription to Bicycle Quarterly.
The polls close on Sunday, July 15, at midnight. Results will be published next week, and all finalists and their stories will be featured in a future issue of Bicycle Quarterly. Also check out the many other great entries in the #swiftcompasscontest.

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The Summer 2018 Bicycle Quarterly caps our 15th anniversary year, and so we’ve put together a very special issue. In our most epic adventure yet, we headed south to the incredible Copper Canyons of Mexico. The video above takes you right into the action. Make sure to enjoy it in full-screen mode!
Click here to subscribe to Bicycle Quarterly and read the full story of this adventure, plus the many other exciting articles of this 112-page edition.

Some new products are much more popular than we anticipate. Even though we try to keep everything in stock at all times, production can take a while to catch up to the increased demand. Recently, that has affected a few products.

The first batch of our 11-speed Rene Herse chainrings sold out quickly. They’ve received rave reviews from customers. These riders enjoy shifting on par with the very best rings, but with more useful 46×30 chainrings. Add the elegance and light weight of our Rene Herse cranks, and you can see why they’ve been popular.
The new chainrings work just as well with 9- and 10-speed drivetrains. During our testing, we’ve found Shimano’s Ultegra chains to offer the best shifting, so we designed our tooth profiles for this chain. (If you run 9- or 10-speed, use the appropriate Ultegra chain.)
The 11-speed cranks are in stock for single bikes and tandems. Click here for more information.

The MKS Allways pedals take this popular platform style to the next level. They feature the super-smooth cartridge bearings found only in top-of-the-line MKS pedals. Just as importantly, the platform is slightly concave to provide a better grip for your foot. The Allways pedals are available both with standard spindles and with the EZY Superior system that allows removing your pedals without tools in seconds (above). Click here for more information.

The Ostrich frame covers are back in stock, too. They protect the frame when you travel with your bike. Unlike thick foam tubes, these covers are small enough to easily fit in your handlebar or seat bag. That makes them ideal for trips where you’ll put your bike on a bus, on a train, or in a car for part of the trip. New is the ‘oversize’ version for the large-diameter tubes of carbon, titanium and aluminum frames. Click here to find out more.

Our handlebars are back in stock in all sizes. Their shapes were developed when stages were long and roads were rough. Now we offer them for standard-diameter and oversized stems, so you can enjoy their all-day comfort on modern bikes.
Why are classic handlebar shapes more ergonomic? Human bodies haven’t changed, it’s only that modern races are shorter and speeds are higher, so modern racers can get away with less-than-optimal shapes. For the rest of us, the classic shapes make a remarkable difference in the comfort of our bikes. Click here for more information.

And finally, we are excited to announce a new fender. We now offer Honjo’s fluted fenders in a 47 mm width for 700C wheels. This is ideal for tires between 32 and 36 mm wide.

Like all our Honjo fenders, the new model is custom-made to our specifications. Front and rear fenders are longer than standard to provide better coverage. We supply all fenders with our elegant Rene Herse eyebolts (above).

We also sell extra fender stays separately for bikes without a front rack, where the second fender stay stabilizes the front fender ahead of the fork crown. Not only does this guarantee that the fender is quiet, it also improves safety and longevity, as it reduces flex and the risk that the fender breaks. Click here for more information about our fenders.

If you have visited the Compass Cycles web site in the last few days, you’ll have noticed that it has a new look. On the home page, you’ll see a slide show with the three parts of the Compass story.
The first slide links to the story of the ‘Wide Tire Revolution’ – how we realized that wide tires could be as fast as narrow ones, and how we developed our pioneering allroad tires.

The second slide talks about the philosophy behind our components: classic in appearance, but 100% up-to-date in their performance. And compatible with modern bikes.

Much of what we do at Compass Cycles draws on the experience of René Herse. Read how we became the successor of the great constructeur.

We’ve also updated our menu to make it easier to use. ‘Shop’ and ‘Support’ put all the information you need in one place. ‘About’ gives you direct links to the slides with our story. There are links to our Instagram and YouTube contents, and the flags give you access to the translations of our web site into French and Japanese. (The translations are works in progress…)

When you click on a product category (like ‘Bags’ above), you see an overview of the parts we offer. The pull-down ‘Read the Back Story’ explains why we use (and sell) these parts. For example, on the ‘Bags’ page, we explain why we prefer handlebar bags, and why we feel that leather and canvas outperform synthetic materials.
Go to www.compasscycle.com to start exploring the new site.

Recently, The Pedaler interviewed me for the blog of Quoc Pham’s eponymous cycling shoe company. We chatted about the origins of allroad bikes, the inspiration of the mid-century randonneurs, and what makes Compass Cycles different from other companies.
Click here to enjoy the full story.

During the last week, Bicycle Quarterly and Compass Cycles have been mentioned in several news stories. The popular web site www.bikepacking.com featured an article about converting a 700C bike to 650B. They wrote: “The benefits are fairly obvious. Wider tires offer more floatation, a more supple ride, and are all around better suited to dirt and gravel surfaces. They can also be just as fast as road tires.”
They equipped their bike with Compass Switchback Hill 650B x 48 mm tires, and we talked about some of the things to consider in these conversions: clearances, bottom bracket height, gearing, etc. The article is a great introduction if you’ve looking into running 650B wheels on your disc-brake bike.

It’s not every day that you get a call from Matt Wiebe, the editor of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News: “We’re working on a cover story about big car tire brands like Pirelli and Goodyear entering the bicycle tire market. We’d like to talk to Compass as one of the established smaller brands in the high-end tire market.”
In the article, Wiebe explains how Goodyear is proud to offer 100 SKUs (Stock Keeping Units), while Pirelli plans to expand into gravel tires, quoting their head of sales: “Gravel is growing in Europe, and I think it will quickly be a big part of the road market.”
Matt Wiebe contrasts this with Compass, explaining how our program “grew out of the tires we needed to do the type of riding we liked — long rides in the mountains on road and dirt surfaces.” The article shows how the industry is trying to catch up with the trend toward high-performance tires – a trend that caught them by surprise because it originated with riders and not with the industry.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBMNGpPPHVw?rel=0&w=640&h=360]
Global Cycling Network has brought the latest research about tires into the mainstream. In a recent segment, they looked at why you need lower pressures to make wider tires perform better. They talk about suspension losses – crediting Bicycle Quarterly (Thank you!) – and test different tire pressures on cobbles. No surprise: When the going gets really rough, the lowest pressures roll fastest.
Earlier, GCN took three bikes to the same cobbles: a racing, a cyclocross and a mountain bike (below).
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvO74sZxVs4?rel=0&w=640&h=360]
Again, readers of BQ and of this blog will not be surprised: The bike with the widest tires was fastest. In GCN‘s test, it was the mountain bike, even though the data showed a lower power output when the riders were on the mountain bike. The explanation is simple: The lower suspension losses more than made up for the mtb’s wider Q factor, lack of ‘planing,’ etc., that limited the tester’s power output.

Now imagine if GCN had tested a true allroad bike instead of the mountain bike! A bike like my Firefly (above), which enables the rider to put out the same power as on their racing bike and which has tires as wide as their mountain bike, plus its more supple tires reduce rolling resistance and suspension losses even further. From our own on-the-road experiences, we know that it would easily outperform the mountain bike. Perhaps we’ll see that test in a future episode – for now, GCN already is pushing the limits of what a mainstream cycling audience finds believable…
With all this exposure, it’s nice to see that many of the ideas we’ve championed over the last 15 years are getting widely accepted. Click on the images above to read the full stories!

Seattle, April 1, 2018: Compass Cycles is proud to introduce the new René Herse quadruple and quintuple cranks. We are one of the few manufacturers of triple cranks with a wide selection of chainrings, and we’ve received requests for even more choices.

There is a historic precedent for this: Alex Singer showed a bike with quadruple cranks at the 1973 Salon de Cycle in Paris (above). The idea never caught on – back then, cyclists were conservative and unwilling to try new things. Now, I feel that the time has come to go beyond three chainrings…

But why stop at four? In addition to quadruple Rene Herse cranks, we’ll offer quintuple configurations, too. (In the photo above, the chainring teeth reflect in the polished surfaces, making it look like there are even more chainrings!)
As always with our cranks, you can freely choose their chainrings between 52 and 24 teeth. Converting existing cranks is easy, too: All you need are extra spacers and longer chainring bolts. A bit more difficult is fitting the cranks on your bike: You’ll need a longer bottom bracket spindle and a front derailleur that moves further outward to span the four or five chainrings. Both these essential components are under development – the photos show prototypes.

We have tested the quintuple cranks for many thousands of miles on several bikes. How do they ride?
Obviously, the appeal isn’t to have 55 gears (if you use a modern 11-speed drivetrain), because nobody needs that many… The advantage of multiple chainrings is that you can always ride in the middle of the cassette. If your speed changes due to terrain or wind, simply shift a few cogs on the rear to keep your cadence in its optimal range. And if you do need to make a front shift, the steps between chainrings are small – no need to ‘compensate’ on the rear, just shift and keep going. And with the chainrings spanning a huge gear range, you can use a closely-spaced cassette with very small steps between gears. After riding them for a few months now, I have to say, quintuple cranks are a gearhead’s nirvana.
I set up my prototype with a 50-44-38-32-26 combination, because the evenly spaced chainrings really highlight the beauty of the Rene Herse cranks. On the road, the 50-tooth chainring is perfect for those jam sessions on a slight downhill with a tailwind. Instead of being at the bottom end of my cassette (with a 46-tooth ring), I now can accelerate at will, knowing I’ll always have a bigger gear if I need it. The 44-tooth is perfect for fast ‘normal’ riding at 18-22 mph. The 38T is for days when I feel a bit less sprightly. The 32T gets me up most hills, and the 26T is for those really steep ones that I encounter only rarely, but where I used to walk my bike.

Drawbacks? Apart from the need for a custom BB spindle and front derailleur, quintuple chainrings add a little weight. This isn’t the crank to use for the Concours de Machines! Fortunately, the basic design of the Rene Herse cranks is so light that even the quintuple configuration weighs only 603 g – not much more than most 1980s mountain bike cranks.
The Q factor is a bit wider, but at 177 mm, it’s no worse than many modern ‘gravel’ cranks. Chainline can be a concern, but realistically, you’ll use the bigger chainrings with the smaller cogs of the cassette, the middle with the middle, and so on. It helps to use a tandem-spec rear hub with 145 mm spacing, as that moves the chainline outward to match the crank.
When can you get one? Testing of the prototypes is complete, and the longer BB spindles and chainring bolts are in production. We are now working on 11-speed compatible chainrings with ramps and pins to make the shifts even smoother. Front derailleurs are in the works – in the mean time, you can ask your builder to make a custom one, or just move the chain by hand. If you want to use brifters, we are working with Wolf Tooth on an adapter that will get four and five clicks out of a standard STI, Ergopower or DoubleTap lever. If you prefer electronic shifting, it’s easy to reprogram the software to offer more steps.
Quadruple and quintuple chainrings are fun. Why don’t you try them on your bike? And if you don’t like them, you can always convert them to a triple or double – that’s the beauty of Rene Herse’s timeless design.
Click here for more information about Rene Herse cranks.

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I love the unscripted spontaneity of live interviews, where neither side knows the questions and answers in advance. When I sat down down with Russ Roca of Path Less Pedaled, we talked about how Bicycle Quarterly got started, what inspires Compass products, and how the bikes we ride have changed dramatically in recent years. Click on the image above to watch the interview. Enjoy!

“A supremely grippy, comfortable, fast tubeless tyre with no downsides” is the verdict of the popular British web site www.road.cc. Tester Mike Stead goes on to explain how he used the Barlow Pass tires: “After months of trying, I smashed a 1km Strava sprint segment, knocking five seconds off my previous best and setting a KOM benchmark that the previous holder is going to be hurting to regain.”
Of course, Compass tires aren’t just known for their speed, and Mike enthuses about the “supreme comfort” and “prodigious amounts of grip for cornering and braking.” Reading this, you might think that he’s a friend or relative, or that we paid him to review these tires. But no, all our British distributor Sven Cycles did was send a set of tires.
When Mike went “properly off-road into rooted and rocky singletrack,” he found that “the super-supple casing deformed around and gripped to trail irregularities with amazing ease.” When I read this, I really wanted to join Mike Steed on his rides. It sounds like he was having a lot of fun on his Compass tyres! But instead of telling you more about the review, why don’t you read it yourself?
Further reading:

• TOUR magazine showing Compass tires among the 5 fastest in the world
• Cyclingnews.com panel discussion about wide tires and performance.
• Information about Compass tires

Last weekend’s North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS) was a great success by all accounts. I’ve especially enjoyed the beautiful photos of John Watson (aka The Radavist) from the show. With his permission, I am reposting a few of them here.
J. P. Weigle’s bike (above) for the 2017 Concours de Machines in France was never intended as a show bike, and yet it won ‘Best Road Bike,’ ‘Best Lugged Frame’ and was the runner-up for ‘Best of Show.’

I think Peter can’t build a bike that isn’t beautiful, and even after hundreds of hard miles on two continents – not to mention very rushed Rinko-style disassembly – the bike still looked good enough to impress the judges. Congratulations, Peter!

Speaking of Rinko, Peter showed his ‘backup’ bike from the Concours in disassembled Rinko form. He reports that many visitors couldn’t figure out how a bike without couplers could become so small. I wish Natsuko could have given demonstrations of how to disassemble (and reassemble) the bike in less than 12 minutes.

Next door in what became known as ‘Rando Alley’ was Brian Chapman with his amazing and very different take on the ultimate randonneur bike. Where Peter’s Concours bike was all about function and classic aesthetics, Brian created a unique combination of black components with 1970s racer-style ‘drillium.’ True to form, it appears that he even hand-crafted custom cranks for this bike. A stunning machine!

A showpiece of a different kind was this Mosaic titanium bike – built to showcase Jpaks, a new brand of bikepacking bags. Titanium allroad bikes can be great fun, and I’d love to have a go on this one! I’ll ask Mosaic whether a Bicycle Quarterly test is on the cards.

Another bike I’d love to try is Chris Bishop’s ‘Item 4,’ a more affordable model with TIG-welded main triangle and fillet-brazed rear. Equipped with 700C x 38 mm tires, it’s a thoroughly modern road bike with a beautiful steel frame, available with rim or disc brakes. (I’d like a centerpull brake option, but that is difficult to do with a stock carbon fork.)
These are just a few of the interesting, beautiful or just plain crazy machines that were on show at NAHBS this year. Head over to www.theradavist.com for the full gallery, and then tell us in the comments which one is your favorite.

If you are in New England this weekend, I highly recommend a visit to the North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS). From Friday until Sunday, dozens of builders from North America and beyond will show their best bikes in Hartford, CT.

This year, constructeur J. P. Weigle (above) will exhibit a number of bikes, including the superlight machine he built for last year’s Concours de Machines in France (top photo). See for yourself how he created a randonneur bike that weighs just 9.1 kg (20.0 lb) with fenders, rack, generator-powered lights and even the pump.

The Weigle is just one of the many beautiful bikes you’ll be able to see at the show. Another exhibitor is Brian Chapman, whose amazing Di2-equipped ‘Light Tourer’ (above) we tested recently. I am not sure whether he will bring the BQ test bike, but whichever creation he will bring, you can be assured it will be an amazing bike. NAHBS is definitely worth a visit!
More information:

• NAHBS details, tickets, etc.
• Illustrated list of Bicycle Quarterly‘s test bikes.

In Seattle, we are lucky: We can cycle year-round. Rarely is it so cold or so icy that cycling becomes difficult. Our cycling season usually starts with the new year. “What about the rain?” you may ask. It’s not a big deal if you have the right equipment.
Last weekend was the middle of winter – halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It was a good excuse to celebrate with a bike ride. The weather forecast was for ‘showers’ – as good as it gets around here this time of the year. At least we wouldn’t get snow like we did when we ventured into the mountains last week!

Busy schedules meant that only two of the BQ Team could make it. Steve and I met at 6 a.m. to take the ferry to Bremerton. We rolled on quiet backroads through the hills to Belfair.

There we had a second breakfast – knowing that this was the last opportunity to obtain food for a few hours.

From here, we headed into the Tahuya Hills. To me, even the name sounds romantic, and the hills always live up to our expectations.

North Shore Road goes along the water of the Hood Canal, a fjord carved by the glaciers of the last ice age. On the other side are the Olympic Mountains, but on this cloudy, rainy day, we only saw glimpses of the snow-covered peaks.

It’s an amazing gravel road that winds its way in and out of the many little ravines in the mountainside.

At the same time, the road is relentlessly hilly – it was built with minimal earthworks because it wasn’t worth making big improvements for a road that sees very little traffic. This combination of attributes – minimal ‘improvements’ and little traffic – made it perfect for our ride!
[youtube https://youtu.be/ubclniV3_KA?rel=0&w=640&h=360]
It’s a course that challenged our leg power as much as our bike handling skills. The road dives into each ravine, turns sharply, and immediately heads steeply uphill again. The more speed we carried through those gravel turns, the less we had to pedal on the next hill.

Back on pavement after a few hours, we climbed high above the water, only to drop back down and roll along the shore. It was great fun.

The clouds opened briefly to hint at the views we would have enjoyed on a sunny day. We smiled at each other as we got in the aero tuck to maximize our speed on the downhill, remembering at the last second that the turn at the bottom has a wickedly decreasing radius, which caught both of us out the first time we rode it. No problem today: The low-trail geometry of my bike allowed easy midcorner adjustments of my line.

After a few hours of riding on deserted roads, we reached Seabeck on the other side of the Tahuya Hills, where we enjoyed a sandwich at the store. It had been raining on and off, and the gravel was a bit muddy, but you’d never know it from looking at our bikes. Remembering the days when we rode with plastic fenders, it never ceases to amaze me how clean and dry both rider and bike remain with a set of really good fenders. There only was a little dirt on the fork blades where the brake pads had sprayed the water they had scraped off the rims. The chain didn’t squeak, and my feet remained dry even though I didn’t wear booties.
Steve was riding his Frek, the old Trek he converted into a randonneur bike, with similar features as my bike. Neither of us even bothered putting on rain jackets, because we would have overheated on the steep climbs. Keeping the road spray off our bodies was key; our layered wool jerseys took care of the comparatively little water that was falling from the sky.

The hardest part of the ride was yet to come: the incredible Anderson Hill Road with its 14% stairstep climb. We made it up that just fine, and then we upped the pace on the last few miles back to Bremerton.

We boarded the ferry, parked our bikes, and enjoyed the scenic boat ride through the islands back to Seattle.

The Tahuya Hills course makes a beautiful 80-mile ride that goes along the water for much of the way. It sees very little traffic apart from the first and last kilometers near Bremerton. Easily accessible from downtown Seattle via a direct ferry, it’s a ride I highly recommend!
Click here for a link to the RideWithGPS route with a detailed map of the course.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH_AL4rxrp8?rel=0&w=640&h=360]
Global Cycling Networks just published a video in which they did an experiment that many of us have been talking about: Load up a frame with flex, and then release that energy. The rear wheel turns as the energy is returned to the drivetrain. It’s nice to see it in practice…
Also nice to hear: “I wonder whether frame flex is going to be the new tire pressure. Go back 10 years, and we all knew that harder tires rolled faster. And you could feel it as well. Except that now, we know that lower pressures can roll faster.”
Watch the video above, or click here to see it directly on YouTube. Enjoy!
To read our recent post about how frame flex actually can contribute to making you faster, scroll down or click here.

For us, cycling is part of our lives. Our bikes are the most important tools we own. We use them for transportation, and we use them for enjoyment, often combining the two. That means our bikes need to be ready at a moment’s notice. If we can’t get a part, it leaves us stranded. The same applies to most of our customers, who consider the components we sell essential.
That is why we work hard to keep our parts in stock. Usually we are successful, but sometimes an item runs out before a new shipment arrives. It might be that demand is greater than we anticipated. Or there could be a delay at the manufacturer – often because a supplier is running behind schedule. Or a shipment can be held up somewhere. We’ve encountered all these issues in recent months, but we are glad that 98% of Compass parts are back in stock as we prepare our bikes for the next cycling season. Here are a few things that just arrived:

As one of the key contact points, good handlebars are key to a comfortable ride. Many modern bars are very shallow and short, leaving your hands cramped and uncomfortable during long hours in the saddle. The classic handlebars we offer were designed for long days on rough roads, where comfort is paramount. The Maes Parallel (above) give you lots of room to roam, and the Randonneur provides a super-comfortable position on the ramps.
All Compass handlebars are available with 25.4 and 31.8 mm clamp diameters. If you have a 26.0 mm stem, we offer a shim to reduce the diameter to 25.4 mm. We have added wider models, so all our bars now come in widths between 400 and 460 mm.

Saddles are the other important contact point with your bike. We’ve found Berthoud saddles to offer superior comfort and quality. The composite frame is lightweight and flexes a bit to improve the comfort of a traditional leather saddle even further.
Berthoud’s leather quality is second to none. We carry the medium-width touring and the narrow racing saddle, plus a shorter women’s model (above). They are available in different colors, with titanium or steel rails, and also in an ‘open’ version to alleviate pressure. All models are in stock again.

Handlebar tape is a matter of personal taste. Riders with a light touch on the bars often prefer thin bar tape, but most modern tape is heavily padded and too thick for our liking. Maware’s beautiful leather tape is made in Japan from pigskin, so it’s thinner than the others we’ve tried. It’s also superlight, so we used it on the J. P. Weigle for the Concours de Machines technical trials last summer.
Compass now distributes Maware’s bar tape and their leather frame protectors in North America, but the small company was overwhelmed by the demand. Now they’ve caught up, and all products are in stock again.
And if you prefer thicker handlebar tape, we also stock Berthoud’s excellent cowhide tape.

Tires change the feel of your bike more than any other component, and tires are why we got into the component business in the first place: There were no wide tires that offered the ride and performance we wanted. We offer tires in many sizes and models, and a few of them have been in short supply lately. We always make sure that at least one or two models in every size are in stock, so your bike won’t be left immobilized for lack of tires. In time for the new season, all models are on hand again.

We developed the new René Herse cantilever brakes for the Concours de Machines, where the prototypes helped J. P. Weigle’s bike win the prize for the lightest bike. We began to offer the production version last autumn. These are made in small numbers, and sometimes, demand overwhelms supply. They are back in stock, but since they are assembled to order, allow a few extra days for delivery.

We appreciate your patience while some of these components were in short supply. Most parts are back in stock now, and we’ll work on keeping it that way, so you can enjoy your cycling season without worrying about spare parts. Click on the links above for more information, or click here to go directly to www.compasscycle.com.

Gilles Berthoud’s are my favorite under-seat bags: lightweight, beautiful and functional. Since using one on a tandem in the 2003 Paris-Brest-Paris, I’ve found them useful whenever my handlebar bag doesn’t have enough capacity, or as the only bag on bikes without a front rack. Berthoud now offers a version that attaches neatly to their saddles with the KlickFix system. We’ve added these bags to the Compass Cycles program.

Like the other Gilles Berthoud bags, the saddlebags are made from waterproof canvas and edged with leather. These traditional materials work well, keeping the contents dry even during my rainy 50-hour ride in the 2007 Paris-Brest-Paris, a year that remains infamous for its wet conditions. The canvas is lighter than most ‘modern’ materials, too – the Berthoud saddlebag weighs just 242 g (254 g for the KlickFix model). And yet it has enough room for two spare tubes, a spare tire, a few tools, a wallet and a pair of arm warmers. The elastic loop closure is easy to open with one hand. I usually run both ends of the elastic loop through the hook for an ultra-secure closure.

The KlickFix attaches to Gilles Berthoud saddles (except the superlight Galibier) with two screws. The saddlebag then slides into the attachment and locks firmly into place. A strap around the seatpost further stabilizes it. To remove it, you open the strap, push the two red tabs inward, and then pull the bag upward. It’s an elegant solution that is simple to use. The second version attaches to the saddle rails of (almost) any saddle with a toestrap.

Like all products we sell, we’ve tested these bags for thousands of kilometers – including the Volcano High Pass Challenge – to make sure they work well even on the roughest roads. I’m sure you’ll find them as useful as I do.
Click here for more information about Berthoud bags.

All of us at Compass Cycles and Bicycle Quarterly wish you a Happy New Year and many great rides for 2018.

All of us at Compass Cycles and Bicycle Quarterly wish you Happy Holidays!

At Compass Cycles, we’ve been excited to see interest in our components grow all over the world. We now work with more than 500 bike shops, as well as a number of international distributors. However, some components are difficult for shops to stock. Our cranks are a typical example: They are available in three lengths, as singles, doubles or triples, with dozens of chainring combinations. And then there are the tandem cranks… Every crank is custom-assembled to order here in Seattle. It makes for a great product, but it also means that it’s difficult for most bike shops to stock all the parts needed to build these cranks.

This means that ordering directly from Compass Cycles often is the most practical solution. To make this easier for our international customers, we now offer free shipping worldwide on René Herse components. This offer includes big components like cranks and, soon, the new cantilever brakes, but not small parts like bolts, chainrings and cable hangers.

For our less specialized components, like Compass tires and handlebars, as well as the parts we distribute from Gilles Berthoud (saddles, bags), Schmidt Maschinenbau (lights, generator hubs), Honjo (fenders) and MKS (pedals), we encourage you to buy from local shops that carry these products.

Update (April 13, 2020): Due to the difficulties of international shipping, we cannot offer free shipping on Rene Herse cranks and cantilever brakes any longer.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAwXw_GGtY4?rel=0&w=640&h=360]
Open made a video to introduce their facelifted U.P. wide-tire racing bike. They went for a beautiful ride in the Alsace Mountains of France, coincidentally the same region where the first post-war Concours de Machines was held in 1946.
A few months ago, we sent Open’s Andy Kessler a set of Compass 650B x 48 mm Switchback Hill tires for testing. He put them on the new bike and featured them in the video. How did they perform? Andy’s comment:
“Funny enough, I was downloading a MTB loop to my Garmin that was described as difficult. OK, we had to push our U.P.s for 5 minutes as the trail was big rocks and drops, but all the rest can be done with an U.P. also.”
Seeing the video makes me want to head out for a ride in the hills. Enjoy!

When Bridgestone USA closed in 1994, many mourned the loss of what they saw as the last bastion of sensible design in the quickly changing world of bicycles. They rejoiced when later that year, Bridgestone’s marketing manager Grant Petersen started Rivendell Bicycle Works. The new company’s first project were three hand-built frames, the Road, Mountain and All-Rounder.

Looking back, it is hard to appreciate the significance of these first Rivendells, because what they championed has become commonplace. They were a turning point in the decline of custom steel bicycles in the U.S. By the early 1990s, steel was rapidly being replaced by aluminum and titanium among high-end bikes. Almost overnight, steel was relegated to inexpensive production bikes. Sure, custom builders still built beautiful steel bikes, but more and more, they seemed like hold-overs from a glorious past when great champions still won big races on steel bikes. It was a dying craft – the idea that young cyclists might pick up the torch and become framebuilders seemed almost laughable.

Then along came Rivendell and made steel cool again. “Steel is still the best choice for frames,” was the message, “and now steel is better than ever before!” It was a breath of fresh air welcomed by all who harbored doubts about the “newer is better” ethos that had taken over the bike industry. For Grant Petersen, it may have been the logical next step – to take the customer base he had built at Bridgestone in a more up-market direction – but it also legitimized and revitalized the entire genre of hand-built steel bikes.

The Rivendells were also the first bikes in more than a decade to feature a headbadge. Fitting for a purely ornamental part, the headbadge was perhaps the most over-the-top part of the frames, with cloisonné inlays that were devilishly difficult to produce. In the days before Internet marketing, Rivendell published the Reader, a zine that detailed all the trials and tribulations of the young company. It is telling about Rivendell’s influence that headbadges have become a must-have accessory, even on mass-produced frames.

During his Bridgestone days, Grant had been a defender of lugs against the encroachment of less-expensive TIG-welding. At Rivendell, he coined the slogan: “I ride lugged steel, and I vote”. The lugs of the first “Road” frames were based on a design Richard Sachs had carved for Bridgestone. They had lingered in a drawer for years, perhaps because they would have been too difficult to braze on a production line. Playful and yet elegant, they’ve rarely been bettered. They were perfect for a bike named after a mythical place taken from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. With that headbadge and those lugs, it almost seemed like the frames were made by elves.

The elves who made the first Rivendells lived in Waterford, Wisconsin, where Richard Schwinn had resurrected the old Paramount shop after the first of Schwinn’s many bankruptcies. The Rivendell frames were built to order with a wide choice of sizes, braze-ons and colors. The basic frame design was fixed, an evolution of the much-loved Bridgestone RB-1. To many, the early Rivendells were the bikes that Bridgestones should have built, had price not been a concern.

These first Rivendells were dream bikes of their era. The tubing was the best of the best, Reynolds’ mythical 753, the first “supersteel”, custom-drawn to Rivendell’s specifications. Grant even had special stickers made, with French lettering referring obliquely to the great French constructeurs, recently discovered by another Grant (Handley), in whose bike shop Planetary Gear Grant Petersen sometimes hung out.
The early Rivendells were as sensible as they were beautiful. They were designed for performance. Clearances were optimized to fit the widest tires with the then-available brakes. A head-tube extension enabled a comfortable riding position. Braze-ons for racks allowed converting the bikes for touring. These were bikes intended to be ridden, bikes that promised to go wherever their riders wanted to take them – racing, touring, exploring, even commuting.
Everything that followed – the steel bikes from Surly, Soma, All City, etc.; the renewed popularity of handbuilt custom bicycles that since has swept the world; the comeback of classic components; even Compass Cycles – can trace its roots to the moment when Grant Petersen stood up and said: “I love steel and lugs. Why not?”
Further reading: The full story of the first Rivendell Road lugs is told in the Summer 2017 Bicycle Quarterly.
P.S.: The frame featured here is for sale on ebay.

Allways pedal
At Compass Cycles, we sell only parts that we want to ride on our own bikes. It’s important that we can rely on the components we use to carry us through all conditions, problem-free. This is why we offer the top-of-the-line pedals from MKS.
Each of the MKS pedals we offer features silky smooth cartridge bearings, beautifully finished bodies and elegant design. Our most recent addition, the Allways platform pedal, is a great choice for urban riding, when you don’t necessarily want to wear cycling-specific shoes.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5jPiFAjbV0?rel=0&w=640&h=360]
When I saw the prototypes of the Allways pedals this spring in Tokyo, I was impressed by their light weight and silky-smooth bearing. When I spun the pedals, they seemed to rotate forever. Then the engineers from MKS explained the other features behind the pedals: The large platform has a slightly concave surface so that your foot doesn’t slip. Removable pins provide further retention of your shoe. They told me that the name  “Allways” is a play on the fact that these pedals are intended to be used “always” and on “all ways and roads”.
 
Allways Rinko pedal
The Rinko version of the Allways pedals allows removing the pedal without tools in just seconds with the EZY-Superior quick-release system. It’s convenient for travel, to store your bike in tight spaces, or if you want to ride with platform pedals one day and with clipless pedals the next.
Click here to learn more about the Allways and our other MKS pedals.

Compass is now offering two new leather handlebar tapes: one from Gilles Berthoud in France (above) and another from Maware in Japan. We’ve also restocked several popular items.
Berthoud’s leather handlebar tape is made from a luxurious cowhide in seamless strips dyed to match their high-quality saddles (except cork). Riders who appreciate a bit of padding will prefer this tape.

For riders who prefer thinner bar tape, we have Maware of Japan’s durable and weather-resistant tape made from pigskin (above). This tape has plenty of stretch for a perfect wrap. Available in dark brown, black, and tan, Maware handlebar tape comes with lightweight plugs, covered in matching leather.
Click here to shop Berthoud and Maware handlebar tape.

In addition to bar tape, Maware makes a wide range of leather goods for bicycles. We’re also offering their frame cover, in colors that match the tape, to protect your frame from getting scratched by bike racks or posts.

Light mounts are back in stock, for threaded eyelets and for adjustable struts, to fit all Compass racks, as well as many others. These mounts make it easy to attach a standing or hanging generator light to your existing rack. Our carefully designed hardware lets you adjust tension perfectly to keep the light in place on rough roads, but still adjust the light angle by hand, without tools.
Click here to learn more or buy a light mount.

Knickers are back in stock for sizes 30 – 36 and 40. We’ve enlarged the pocket openings, so it’s now easier to get your hands in and out. Designed to fit over bike shorts or bibs, our knickers are light and durable, equally at home on or off the bike.
Click here to learn more and shop the Compass Knickers

Our very popular 700C x 38 mm Barlow Pass tires are back in stock in all casings and colors. They’re now tubeless-compatible and measure a true 38 mm wide. This is a great tire for pavement, gravel and mixed-terrain rides.
Click here to see the Barlow Pass and other 700C tires from Compass.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TQA54V913k?rel=0&w=640&h=360]
The container with Compass tires has arrived, and all sizes are now available again. We thank you for your patience as we continue to work hard to keep all our products in stock. Enjoy the little video of our Elk Pass 26″ x 1.25″ Extralight tires in action!
Click here for more information about our tires.

We try to keep our products in stock. For us, bicycles are necessities, and their parts should be available at all times. So we are really sorry that some of our tires have been out of stock. We simply hadn’t planned on demand in Europe taking off as it has. And making tires by hand takes time, so we couldn’t just ask Panaracer in Japan to make more at the drop of a hat. Fortunately, our most popular sizes have been in stock all along.

We are glad to report that the NYK Nebula that carries the container with our latest tire shipment from Japan has docked in Tacoma. After unloading and customs’ clearance, the shipment will arrive at the Compass warehouse next week. Then, Compass tires will be in stock again in all sizes, including the new tubeless-compatible Barlow Pass 700C x 38 mm.

Many customers have asked to be alerted when the tires arrive. We are now taking pre-orders, so that you can be among the very first to get your tires. Your credit card will be charged now, and your order will be shipped as soon as the tires arrive. At that time, you’ll receive a shipping confirmation, so you know your tires are on the way.
Or you can just wait until the tires are in our warehouse. We’ll make another announcement then.
Click here to order your Compass tires.

7 Questions with Jan Heine, of Bicycle Quarterly

We always enjoy to learn how others see Compass Cycles and Bicycle Quarterly. Paul Component Engineering has been making CNC-machined bike components in Chico, California for over 25 years. Like Compass, Paul focuses on quality, craftsmanship and making parts that last a lifetime.

Paul’s monthly email newsletters show how their components are made, provide stories of rides and events, and interview leaders in the bike industry. Past interviews have included Steve Rex, Curt Inglis, Mark Norstad (Paragon Machine Works), Ira Ryan and others. When Paul Components asked to interview me, I was delighted to say yes. Some of the questions were quite unexpected. Here is the interview as it appeared in the Paul Components newsletter. Enjoy!

Paul has been a fan of Jan’s for a long time, especially after discovering a shared interest in vintage sports cars and, of course, vintage bikes.

Bicycle Quarterly has great photography, it’s never dumbed down, and that’s one of the main reasons people like Paul love it – because it’s smart.

Because Jan gives scientific explanations as to why something works or doesn’t work. It’s a slightly more serious, more technical publication, a niche much appreciated and needed. You learn things from reading Jan.
So we want to learn a few things about him:

1. Your original magazine was Vintage Bicycle Quarterly – Where did the idea come from for starting that magazine?
I wrote for a bunch of other magazines back then as a hobby – Bicycle Trader, On The Wheel, Rivendell Reader. One by one, they stopped publishing, but I had all those amazing stories about French cyclotourists, builders and their bikes. I wanted to share them, so I decided to put together a little newsletter for a few friends. Grant Petersen published a note underneath my article in his Reader, and I had 150 subscribers before I even had put the first word to paper. I realized that a xeroxed newsletter wouldn’t do, so I took the plunge and made a real magazine. Over the last 15 years, it has grown steadily from there – we now have more than 15,000 readers all over the world.
2. One of your biggest campaigns was that skinny, high pressure tires don’t roll any faster than a fatter low pressure tires. How does it feel to be vindicated on this?
It feels good that so many people enjoy their rides more, because they don’t have to choose between comfort and performance any longer. The latest “Allroad” bikes we test for Bicycle Quarterly are so much fun to ride, because they can go on any road – paved, gravel and even single-track – without giving up anything in speed to a classic racing bike with narrow tires. This has changed how we ride, and it’s gratifying to share this experience with cyclists all over the world.
3. Tell us a little about the progression from writing about bikes to actually producing and selling products? What inspired you to take that leap?
It’s easy to be a critic, much harder to do things better. I love riding bikes, so instead of bemoaning that the parts I wanted to use weren’t available, I decided to make them – starting with supple high-performance tires in useful widths, and continuing with handlebars, cranks, racks and other parts. Each product we sell or import starts with our own riding experience, where we ask: “Wouldn’t it be neat if we had a part like this?” And then we make prototypes, test them, modify them, and finally OK a new component for production.
4. Did you come from a publishing background and then acquire the business acumen later or was it the other way around?
Actually, I came from a science background. For my Ph.D., I studied climate change on a fellowship from NASA. And I have always loved riding bikes. So it was natural to do real scientific studies of how to make better bikes for the type of riding I love. I really don’t know much about business. Compass just makes the parts that we need for our own adventures, and we hope that others want them as well. We make them to the highest quality possible, rather than to a pre-determined price. That is our entire business plan, and so far, it’s worked out OK.
I also know very little about publishing, so I started a magazine that is financed by subscribers rather than advertisers. Everybody says that is the wrong way around, but it is liberating not to worry about advertisers when writing articles or doing research. We did our first tire tests during the Lance Armstrong years. I doubt a mainstream magazine could have asked the question whether wider tires roll as fast as narrow ones, when the bike industry was pushing narrow-tire racing bikes.
5. Where did your love of vintage bikes come from and was it a tough move to move into more contemporary bikes?
I love riding bikes. That is really what has inspired all my work. I love the stories and photos of riders on lonesome gravel roads high in the mountains more than vintage bikes that you also see in these photos. Even our best-selling book about the French constructeurs – The Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles – is really about the stories that these bikes tell, and not so much about the bikes and their components.
These stories have inspired us to seek out old gravel roads in the Cascades, and we’ve found that sometimes, classic components work better for this type of riding than new ones. That is how I came to discuss centerpull brakes with Paul, which led to the development of the Paul Racer… Or we discovered that certain classic handlebar shapes work much better for long rides, so Compass offers them again.
Now that modern bikes once again are suitable for the type of riding I love, it’s natural that you see them in Bicycle Quarterly more. It’s not about modern or classic – what I want is a bike that beckons me to seek out little mountain roads that lead into adventure.
6. You’re a lover of vintage sports cars – have you worked in that field at all? Do you currently restore old cars or have other project on the burner in that area?
My love for cars is almost entirely platonic. I admire the beauty and creative engineering solutions of many great old cars. A friend is restoring an amazing 1940s Cisitalia that is made from bicycle tubes – the first car with a spaceframe, which revolutionized race car construction. I have a similar appreciation for steam locomotives, but owning one of those would be even less practical than owning a classic car. For photoshoots and book projects, I do get to work on classic bikes. I love the machines made by the great French constructeurs: René Herse, Alex Singer, Jo Routens, Daudon. They have taught me a lot about bicycles, and especially that the current way of doing things may not always be the best!
7. On a scale of 1-10, how afraid of the dark are you?
Zero. I love the dark. I love riding my bike across the mountains during full moon nights. Sometimes, I turn off my headlight and ride by the moonlight alone. I am a great fan of the night-time photography of Ansel Adams, Winston Link and Jim Shaughnessy (the latter two photographed steam railroads).

Further reading:

• Bicycle Quarterly, the magazine about the passion of cycling.
• The entire Paul Components newsletter, which includes the story of Paul Price’s first frame and other topics.
• The Compass Cycles story on our web site.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUvHudzx8VE?rel=0&w=640&h=360]
Bicycle Quarterly took the Open U.P. to Odarumi, one of the highest passes in Japan. How does a carbon bike for wide tires handle the 2000 m (6600 ft) paved climb? And how does it do on the challenging gravel descent? We made a little video to take you right into the action. Join Bicycle Quarterly in this amazing adventure!
Click on the image above or watch at this link. Make sure you watch it full-screen!
Subscribe to Bicycle Quarterly and receive the Spring issue (BQ 59) with the full story of this adventure!