To make a long story Shultz, it's time for bikes!

Welcome back to the Lounge! We have another guest speaker this week. So I'm gonna go take a nap in the back of the Lounge, behind the plant, while you can have a seat as Matthew stumbles in with a bunch of bikes and a bulletin board that makes him look like a conspiracy theorist.

Apparently guest speakers are an official thing now?? I'm cool with that I suppose, it means less work for me. Matthew's disclaimer is as follows:

Me: Is it gonna be funny? 

Matthew: Part of it is. 

Me: Oh lord. 

Matthew is a pretty funny person, but his comedy can be a bit hit or miss. So maybe this isn't exactly a completely funny post, but it might be informative to say the least. So learn something I guess? You learned about hot sauce so now it's time for bikes. Usually you only learn about my inner ramblings and about squirrels eating Chick-fil-a sauce, so maybe this is a bit better. I'm mainly posting this right now because Matthew is making Sheppard's Pie for me, and I'm a big fan of that. Anyways. It's time to make a long story Shultz, it's time for bikes. 

Hi everyone, as you may or may not know, I’m Matthew and I love bikes. I have relatively recently discovered my love and obsession with these incredible machines. I’ll let you in on a little background story from my childhood: I learned how to ride a bike at a pretty normal age, maybe five or six years old. I could never get the balance quite just right - it took me a long time to get over the fear of riding without training wheels.

One time, during my Padawan training, my dad took me on a walk around the neighborhood. However, this time, we went to The Hill™. Now, one unique thing about kids bikes is that they typically don’t have hand brakes until you get into the 24” wheel size. I was riding a 16” wheel, smaller than a 20” BMX stunt bike, so the brakes were coaster style - on or off and actuated by pedaling backwards. I also had training wheels on. If you’re starting to get a picture of what happened, don’t worry it’s just as good as you’ve imagined.

As we approached The Hill™, my dad reminded me to stay on the brakes early as it was legitimately a flipping steep butt hill (no swearing on my good Christian Blog - Leah), to which I responded by pointing straight down and ignoring his sage advice. Not 10 seconds later, I immediately realized my mistake and was going too fast to handle. I panicked, and locked up the rear wheel, which immediately made me lose control and turn suddenly, throwing my weight onto the training wheel which collapsed and dropped me onto the asphalt. Now, on a flat road a small crash like this would have been over quickly, but oh no this one was just getting started. The bike tumbled a few times down the hill as did I, rolling and skidding on my hands, elbows, and hips. Thankfully, I was wearing a helmet but did get a bit of road rash on my face. To add insult to injury, there was still sand on the hill from the snow storm a few weeks prior, so I got a ton of debris in my fresh road rash. Ouch.

Needless to say, I was done riding for awhile, and I didn’t get back on that bike for a long time. I actually got to ride my cousin’s Walmart bike on a camping trip when I was around ten which reminded me how fun bikes were to ride, despite my horrifying crash. I pleaded and pleaded with my parents to get me a bike and finally got a 24” Mongoose 21 speed full suspension bike from Walmart for Christmas one year. Oh man, what a beauty. It was a blast to ride around the neighborhood and on Scout trips in Northern Arkansas. I really fell in love with Mountain Biking on a Scout trip at Shore’s Lake where we rode our not very good (no swearing Matthew!) bikes down a power line right of way, then had our dads shuttle us back up. Yeah, we basically had lift-access downhill. A couple of my friends got mountain bikes in high school and we started riding legit mountain bike trails in town and that’s how I got hooked.

With (some of) the back story out of the way, let’s talk about the main reason I’m writing this piece. I want a new bike. Imagine that! But, this isn’t just any bike, this is going to be a very special bike used for a plethora of trips, commuting, the like. I’m very particular about how my bike functions and wanted to share some of what goes into selecting a custom made bike.

Let’s start off with the function: what the hell is this thing going to be subjected to?? Well, as I already have two mountain bikes, it’s not necessary to be trail rated. I want to be able to ride this bike on the road for hours at a time and be comfortable. I enjoy sightseeing, and speed isn’t a necessity, especially since I usually travel with other people (He means me. I'm slow.) I also need the bike to be able to ride on gravel roads, as they constitute a lot of mileage out west. It’s also nice to ride places where pricks won’t flip you off for riding on a road with a 45 mph speed limit. I have a pretty heavy background in outdoor recreation, so I’d also like to carry an ultralight setup (which is a cult) (extremely low weight and volume tent and sleeping bag) from time to time to do weekend trips.

Alright so we know what the bike needs to do: be comfortable, all-road oriented, and have room for gear. Let’s talk about some of the things that help make that possible.

Comfort: A lot of comfort on a bike comes with the geometry, or how the bike is geometrically arranged. Measurements like wheelbase, chainstay length, bottom bracket height, reach, stack, head tube angle, trail, and seat tube angle are all important in determining the characteristics for how a bike handles. Bikes with shorter, tighter, and aggressive geometry are used as race bikes, such as bikes in climbing or sprint stages of Le Tour (Of France, probably??). Likewise, bikes with more slack, long, and relaxed geometry are used as endurance bikes in long stages of Le Tour or events like the Tour Divide race, Race Across America (RAM), or a more local event like Stillwater, OK’s Landrun. For this bike, if a full on race machine is a 10 and an ultra endurance mile crusher is a 1, I’m looking for about a 4. Not something incredibly sluggish, but again not a race bike. I’ll take this into consideration by looking at similar models of frames from different manufacturers. Think about it like comparing cars, Civic vs Corolla vs Cruze vs Altima, etc (I know nothing about cars but go off). In this comparison, I’ve looked at both frames and complete bikes from Specialized, Trek, Kona, Salsa, Surly, and All-city.

Allroad: One important aspect of the frame of the bike is what it’s able to be outfitted with. Wheels for road bikes have come in a number of different sizes, but now usually come in two sizes: 700c and 650b. These are somewhat relative to the diameter, or size, of the wheel but the numbers don’t actually correlate to direct measurements. It’s French, so blame them. 700c is typical of race bikes, usually seen with 19 to 28 mm wide tires (about 1 inch for our non-metric burgers out there). 650b is a bit smaller in diameter, but typically runs wider tires of about 33mm to 50mm (about 1 inch to about 2 inch). Frustratingly, 650b tires swap to English measurements at the 50 mm size. A 650bx50mm tire is the same exact size as a 27.5x2.0. It’s pretty simple to explain though, Mountain Biking started in California and Road Cycling has been a staple in Europe ever since the bike was invented… Anyways, the bike should be able to fit big tires. Big tires = more comfortable = less pain in my butt (C'mon Matthew). I’m looking for the sweet spot of a max tire size of 700cx42mm.

There are some other considerations like frame material too. There are three main materials used in frame building - Steel, Aluminum, and Carbon Fiber. Steel is incredibly durable, strong, comfortable, and is the primary choice of worldwide touring bikes due to the repairability. Aluminum is less dense than steel, but is not as durable, requires mass manufacturing processes, and has issues with vibration damping. Advancing up the scale is Carbon. Carbon is unique in that it is not isentropic (Wow you must have taking MTE-271 in college huh) - meaning it has different material properties depending on the build direction. This means that there is an added level of usability - Carbon frames can be made strong where they need to and thinner where they don’t. Carbon can be as comfortable as steel while having higher strength than aluminum. There are downsides though: carbon is expensive, carbon is hard to mass produce and requires lots of quality control, and carbon has hard failure and needs to be used within limits (Sounds like carbon is trash then? I kid, carbon is awesome!). That being said, carbon bikes present the most performance out of all types and are not prone to failure like the early days of carbon. I will likely go with a carbon frame, but steel is a close second.

Room for gear: This one is pretty simple. Things can be carried on a bike in a few ways: strapped directly to the frame (Voile straps), carried in bags attached to the frame, or if you’re a masochist, directly on your person. Obviously, we want the bike to be carrying as much of the weight as possible, so it’s advantageous to have more methods to carry stuff on the bike. Bikes can have racks front and rear, as well as bottle cages, and special ‘anything cages’ which are a bit bigger. Most bikes have one or two bottle cage mounts inside the frame, and occasionally a rear rack mount. However, it’s possible to have up to 8 hard mount points - two anycages, three bottle cages, front rack, rear rack, and a ‘bento box’ mount near the handlebars. At minimum, I’d like to have at least 3 bottle cages and the availability to use either a front and/or rear rack. Obviously, the more mounts the better. Carrying stuff on a bike is not as easy as shoving everything in a backpack and the overall carrying capacity is only about 35L (compared to about 50-60L of most backpacking bags).

So, that’s some of the basics out of the way. We now know that the bike needs to be able to fit a certain sized tire, have lots of gear mounting points, and have a lightweight, comfortable frame. Sweet, now we can start shopping, right? Well… sort of. We still need to talk about the kit that goes on the bike. Bikes at this level can either be bought as a ‘build’ in different levels or as a frameset, which includes just the basics. Since this is a truly custom build, I’m assuming I get to build the bike myself. I’ve built a few bikes over the years and nothing really makes you feel as content as getting to choose every single component on the bike. Truly custom. There’s a lot of nitty gritty details, so I’ll throw down a quick build list. (Who is this man Matthew?)

• Wheelset: Carbon rims, about 25mm internal width for extra tire support. High engagement hubs, likely going to be an Industry 9 prebuilt set. Easy-peasy (A technical term for cyclists) with warranty.
  
  

• Tires: This one is subjective to where I’m riding the bike, but I’ve been eyeing the Vittoria Terreno Dry 700x38c as it leaves a bit of room for fenders. If I end up needing a rowdier tire, the WTB Riddler is a good alternative. Tires will be set up tubeless to eliminate pinch flats and allows me to run lower (more comfortable) tire pressures.
  
  

• Handlebars: One of Salsa’s flared drop bars, in carbon.

• Pedals: Shimano XT Trail, no question
  
  

• Stem: I like Thomson (He sounds like a cool dude).
  
  

• Seatpost Collar: I like Thomson. And they’re based out of Georgia so go USA.
  
  

• Saddle: I’m keen to try the new Specialized Power saddle but it’s incredibly expensive. I’ll probably end up throwing a Brooks C15 or C13 on there as I’ve had good results with Brooks on my hardtail MTB.
  
  
  

• Seatpost: Specialized CG-R if the frame is the right size. Yes there are different seat post diameters, it’s frustrating.

Let’s talk groupsets real quick. For the uninitiated (Everyone reading this), there are currently two main companies that supply like 90% of all OEM bikes - SRAM and Shimano. Shimano is a Japanese company that’s been in the game for a long time, huge production capability, incredibly well manufactured equipment, and doesn’t change much between generations. Shimano sets the standard and everyone else has to play along. SRAM, on the other hand, is a conglomeration of many different industry leaders to make a more cohesive product. They’re always pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the world of cycling and own companies that produce wheels, suspension, brakes, among others.

Recently, Shimano has had a bit of a falling out with independently owned bike shops. Due to the sheer quantity of equipment Shimano produces, as well as actually being several entities (Shimano USA, Europe, Asia), it’s possible to buy parts online at a fraction of the cost of what the MSRP is in the US. There’s some weird legal loophole that makes this happen, but either way it makes getting Shimano equipment about 50% cheaper online rather than buying it through a shop. I’ve personally ordered groupsets for half the USA MSRP from the UK and had a guy in a DHL truck deliver it to me in three business days. For that reason, amongst others, many shop owners prefer to work with SRAM. However, in an objective sense, the quality of the product is very comparable between the two. They both offer competitive products with their own unique features.

Personally, I like working on Shimano equipment a lot more, but rather enjoy using SRAM equipment. I also have SRAM kit on my other bikes, so keeping it SRAM makes sense for maintenance purposes. For this specific build, I’m likely going to go with SRAM Force 1, which is a 1x11 hydraulic road groupset. This means there’s 11 cogs in the back, one in the front, and comes with hydraulic disc brakes. Rim brakes suck, and you can’t change my mind about that. Mechanical discs have their uses, but hydraulics are all around better to use. Why 1x instead of opting for a front derailleur? Disregard front derailleurs that’s why. Being rational though, it saves a bit of weight and functions pretty much the same. That being said, 12 speed stuff exists right now and is really good, but it’s also about 500 bucks more expensive. Not about it. Did I mention wireless shifting?

So then, I’ve decided on pretty much everything at this point besides the frame. I’ve narrowed it down to a few that meet my specs, the Salsa Warroad and the Salsa Warbird.

Salsa Warroad

Salsa Warbird

These frames both tick all the right boxes, carbon, tons of mounts, correct seatpost diameter, and ability to run large tires. The only thing different between the two is the geometry and the paint-job. The Warroad is described as an ‘endurance road’ bike, and handles very much like a long distance road bike, just with bigger tires. The Warbird is described as a ‘gravel race’ bike and trades some of the agility of the Warroad for stability and comfort for long days in the saddle. Both, then, are great options. The only thing left to do is to find someone with one of these bikes and ride it.

Thanks to all who have entertained me enough to read (or at least skim through) this post. To be honest, this is nowhere near how much information goes into this process, as I’ve spent the last few days reading reviews and narrowing down different framesets. I know some of you are going to be thinking “but why” to which I reply with “because I can and it makes me happy.” Some of my greatest trips have been on a bike, from New Mexico to Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and West Virginia. Cycling helps me get outside, stay in shape, see new places, and meet new people. So thanks for reading, loyal fan, and don’t forget to ride your bike.

Awh this is a cute pic. This post was a big change from the usual but I hope you enjoyed. Some of y'all FAKES informed me you only skimmed through my Steve the Noob post, despite me reading so many books of Minecraft Fanfiction. "But Leah, no one asked you to do that". That was my cross to bear so allow me to relish in that. Go back and read that post. Anyway, Matthew is my sweetheart and he came all the way to Texas with me, so you ought to read above. Or not. Idk. Not a cop. Come back to the Lounge next time, I'll make you a coffee and everything!