Spring 2015 Bicycle Quarterly
The Spring 2015 Bicycle Quarterly picks up where the 50th issue left off: After reviewing the progress of “real-world” bicycle over the last decade, we are looking into the future. How can we improve our riding experience further?
Could we fine-tune the tubing configuration of our 650B bikes to supercharge their performance and perhaps reduce their tendency to shimmy? We built a prototype and put it through its paces…
Can a titanium mountain bike equal the performance of a good Allroad bike? Jeff Jones thinks so, and he sent us a test bike to prove it. To find out, we headed out into the wilds of the Olympic Peninsula for a mid-winter bikepacking trip. We saw wolf tracks… and realized that we had to rethink some of our assumptions about how bicycles work.
How wide can you make supple tires and still end up with a high-performance bike? Asking that question, we came up with the idea of the Enduro Allroad Bike: a road bike with 26″ x 54 mm tires. How do tires this wide perform on gravel? And perhaps even more importantly, how do they perform on the road? During our testing, we were charting new territory, and inevitably, there were a few surprises.
We’ve been fascinated with Rinko, the Japanese system of packing bikes for train travel. We like that a Rinko bike has no significant modifications like couplers or wire splitters that affect its performance or cost. Yet a complete randonneur bike – with fenders, rack and lights – disassembles in less than 15 minutes and fits into a relatively small bag, making it easy to carry. To find out more, we built our own Rinko bikes and headed to Japan to put them to the test.
Of course, we didn’t just go to Japan to carry our bikes on its excellent trains. We went on a bicycle tour of Hokkaido, exploring Japan far from the hustle of the big cities. We followed this by an attempt at the Nihon Alps Super Randonnée 600 km ride. Never before have I descended passes like these, with over 150 turns on Shirabisu Pass (above). That ride was even more memorable because it happened during a full-moon night.
Bicycle Quarterly‘s adventures can be leisurely, too. Tim Bird takes you on a wonderful midsummer ramble across the Yorkshire Dales, exploring the landscape and its history from the saddle of his bike.
We also tested the Soma Wolverine for our “First Rides” (above), as well as Soma’s Cazadero multi-surface tires, and the revolutionary Velogical rim dynamo from Germany. We celebrate Jack Taylor’s life, show you how to do a track stand, and much, much more.
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