Evolution of the Budget Randonneuse

I've been into randonneuring for five years now, and in each of those years I've used a different bike as my main brevet bike. I guess you could say I'm a bit of a commitment-phobic serial monogamist when it comes to bikes. With each new bike, I start off the relationship thinking that this bike is "the one." "This is the bike I'm going to grow old with," I'd think as I gazed lovingly at its slender chainstays and gracefully curving fork. But eventually something better comes along.

In 2009 I started randonneuring on a Gunnar Sport which was a light and sporty bike, but turned out to be a little small for me.

In 2010 I had a Surly Cross Check, the original "budget randonneuse." It was a good sturdy, practical bike, but it sort of rode like a tank.

In 2011 I replaced the Surly with a VO Randonneur which was lighter, livelier and more elegant, though it wasn't without its quirks.

In 2012 I rode my 1982 Trek 311 set up as a single speed. The idea was to complete the SR series on the Trek and then go back to riding my VO on brevets. But after riding that old Trek almost exclusively for the first half of 2012, I found that the VO didn't do it for me anymore. It was that humble old Trek that I wanted to continue spending my time with. The Trek fit me better than any bike I've ever owned before. The handling was exactly what I wanted out of a brevet bike. It could handle fenders and wide tires. I liked the way it looked. The only problem was that it was a single speed and I really wanted to keep it that way, but some brevets call for a bike with gears. The obvious solution was to find myself another bike just like my Trek 311, and then set it up with a multispeed drive train. It would be like having my old Trek with a convertible drive train that could flip from single speed to multispeed depending on my mood.

One of the many great things about these old Trek bikes from the 80s is that on any given day you can't swing a dead cat on Seattle Craig's List without hitting two or three of them. It took a few weeks to find the right model in the right size, but eventually I found exactly what I was looking for: a 1982 Trek 614.

The price was right (I don't remember exactly, but it was something under $300), and the condition was near perfect. It still had the original tires with plenty of rubber left so it was obvious it hadn't been ridden more than a few hundred miles in its life. All of the original parts were there right down to the bottle cage and Trek logo water bottle just like in the 1982 catalog picture.

Other than the chainstays being a centimeter longer, the geometry of the Trek 614 is identical to the that of the 311. But better yet, the 614 is built with higher quality tubing throughout, making it a bit lighter than the 311 and giving it a "livelier" ride. The difference in ride quality is surprisingly noticeable. Jumping hard on the pedals of the 614 is like plucking the low E string of a good acoustic guitar. The energy you get back is greater than what you put into it.

I went for a couple rides with the 614 in its original configuration, but as usual, it wasn't long before I tore it apart down to the bare frame and started rebuilding it with my own mongrel assortment of parts.

Some of the parts came from the VO, others are original to the Trek and a couple are brand new acquisitions.

Now days, the drive train is the same crazy mix of Shimano, Campagnolo, Sram and Suntour that worked so well on my Trek 560. None of the parts are exotic or expensive, but they all work together well and make for a very functional and reliable bike that is still easy to ride after a long day or two in the saddle.

I've ridden the 614 on a full super randonneur series this year as well a Flèche. As I had hoped, it has everything I love about that old single speed Trek 311 and more. I was able to set new personal best times on the 200k, 400k and 600k brevets. I can't say for sure that the bike makes me faster, but clearly it's not holding me back.

Will I remain any more faithful to this bike over time than I have been to the others? That's hard to say, as I'm still deep in the honeymoon phase. But for now this old craigslist Trek is the randonneuse of my dreams.

Here are the build details for you gearheads:

Frame/Fork: 1982 Trek 614 (Reynolds 531 main triangle, Ishiwata Magny 10 Manganese stays and fork blades, Ishiwata CCL semi-sloping fork crown, Nikko lugs, Suntour GS forged dropouts)
Headset: Original Trek Micro-adjust
Rear Wheel: Ultegra hub/Mavic Open Pro rim 32 spokes
Front Wheel: Schmitt Son28 hub/Mavic Open Pro, 32 Wheelsmith XL14 spokes
Stem: Original SR Custom Alloy
Handlebars: Original SR Custom Alloy
Brakes: Tektro "standard reach" dual pivot calipers (brake bridge and fork drilled to allow modern recessed nut attachment)
Shifters/Brake Levers: Campagnolo Veloce ErgoPower 10 speed levers
Crankset: Sugino Alpina compact crankset with 48/34 rings
Bottom Bracket: IRD
Front Derailer: SunTour Cyclone Mk II
Rear Derailer: Shimano 105
Cassette: SRAM 8 speed 11-28 PG-850
Tires: Continental Gran Prix 4 Season 700c x 28
Seatpost: VO Grand Cru
Saddle: Brooks B17
Fenders: VO polished aluminum 45mm
Front Rack: VO Rando rack mounted with P clamps
Lighting: Rear: PB Superflash. Front: B&M IQ Cyo mounted on the front rack
Bar tape: Black cork
Pedals: Shimano SPDs
Handlebar bag: VO Campagne
Computer: VDO MC 1.0

The High Spark of Low Trail Bikes - Part 2

As all three of my regular readers will have noticed, I took a long break from posting on this blog. I have various reasons (or excuses) for taking the break, but none of them have anything to do with a loss of interest in randonneuring, cycling or anything vaguely bicycle related. I'm still as cycling obsessed as ever, though admittedly a complete neophyte compared to some of my riding partners. Anyway, it's time to jump back into the blog world.

Many months ago, I wrote a post about "low trail" front geometry and my Trek 311. Since then I've completed an SR series on that bike, not to mention countless just-for-fun rides and literally thousands of commuting miles, so I now have a lot more experience with the handling, both with and without front loads. With that additional experience, I thought I'd write some follow-up thoughts on the old Trek 311 and its low trail front end geometry.

But before I say any more I should warn you, I’m a lousy bike reviewer. There’s nothing rigorous or scientific about my reviews. These are just my thoughts on a bike I own, and I find that I almost always like the bikes I own. Even when they are $75 Craig's List finds (which the Trek 311 is). I may not like everything about them, but I usually find something to like because… well, because they’re mine and because in most cases I built them up myself from a bare frame and a bunch of parts. Furthermore, I tend to ride old “junkers,” so what do I know about good bikes, right? I've ridden a few nicer modern bikes here and there, but for the most part I ride bikes that are either old (Treks from the 80s) or new-ish, but using old designs and technology (VO Randonneur). I love combining an old steel frame with a mix of old and new parts to make a bike that is comfortable and highly functional for me. My bikes aren't vintage museum pieces and they aren't state of the art racing machines, they’re just my vision of good, useful and relatively inexpensive bikes. So, if you’re interested in a thorough and objective review of a bike that’s relevant in today’s market place, you may want to go here or here or maybe even here. But if you’re interested in one randonneur’s esoteric equipment choices and what he thinks about them, please read on.

I reread that last post from February and realized that after a lot more riding, my first impressions haven’t changed much at all. Specifically, I find that the 311 has stable, yet responsive handling both with and without a light to moderate front load. Without a load it’s a little quicker to respond to input, but barely. I prefer the handling with some weight on the front. For commuting, I often take the handlebar bag off altogether (so I don’t have to worry about the bag being stolen while the bike’s parked at work), and it’s just a bit twitchier than I like that way. The couple of pounds of tools, tubes and other crap I usually have in the handlebar bag for most rides seem to stabilize the ride just enough so I’m less likely to swerve off course when looking over my shoulder to make a lane change, for instance. Even with heavier loads like the 7 – 8 lbs I typically carry on a long brevet, the steering is still responsive when I need to avoid an obstacle, but extremely easy to ride in a straight line or hold steady through a fast turn. I almost never carry more than a few lbs in my handlebar bag, so I can't say much about how the bike handles a heavy load on the front.

Early on when I started riding the Trek with a front load I noticed it had a slight tendency to shimmy under certain circumstances. I've read a fair amount about shimmy being a common problem with low trail front geometry, and my Trek seems to support that. But to put it in perspective, after nearly six thousand miles I've only experienced shimmy a few times. It seems to happen when: a) the handlebar bag is very heavily loaded, like maybe more than 10 lbs, and b) I'm cold. No, really! If I'm cold and especially if I'm shivering, the frequency of my shivers seem to match the bike's oscillations and together we get into a shiver/shimmy feedback loop. Talk about being in sync with your bike... It's never been so bad that I felt at all out of control, and trying to relax my upper body and pressing a knee against the top tube does a good job of dampening the shimmy. I've read that a roller bearing headset can fix the problem, but honestly it's never bothered me enough to do anything about it. But, if you're the kind of person who gets freaked by any shimmy at all (and I wouldn't blame you if you were) then you may want to steer clear of the old low trail Treks.

In the earlier post, I talked about the Trek having a trail measurement of about 45 mm. While that’s lower than the typical mainstream road bike trail number by 10 mm or so, I should point out that it's not as low as most of the true French constructeur influenced randonneuring bikes that often have trail measurements in the 30s*. So, perhaps it would be more accurate to describe the Trek as "mid-low trail". Whatever you want to call it, the trail of my Trek is considerably less than almost any modern mainstream road bike you can buy.

My Velo Orange Randonneur (which I no longer own) had very similar front-end geometry to the Trek. Both bikes have a head tube angle of 73 degrees. The Trek's fork offset is 55mm, while the VO's is 53mm. That works out to about 2mm more trail for the VO than the Trek. For the metrically impaired, 2mm is about the thickness of a US nickle, or in other words, not much at all. The Trek and VO feel somewhat different on the road, but they both handle well with or without a light to moderate front load. My guess is that the differences in handling characteristics can be attributed more to other differences in geometry (chainstay length being the most significant), and differences in set up (stem length, handlebar width) than to the slight difference in trail.

Speaking of differences in setup, I've experimented a little with handlebars of different widths over the past year and was surprised to find that handlebar width seems to affect handling at least as much if not more than differences in trail. The extra leverage provided by a 44 cm wide handlebar vs. say a 39 cm handlebar makes the steering feel much more responsive. On some bikes that's a good thing, but I find that my Trek 311 feels better with narrower handlebars. It just seems much easier to ride smoothly in a straight line, or to hold a steady line through a turn with the narrower bars.

Conclusion
Yeah, well I'm not sure I have much of a conclusion (I told you I'm not much of a reviewer) other than: I really like the way my Trek 311 handles. So much so, that I bought another similar old Trek with the exact same front-end geometry to replace my VO as my main geared randonneuring bike (more on that in another post). But does the Trek's low-ish trail really make a significant difference in the way the bike handles a front load? It helps, but I don't find the difference to be huge. Overall, I think some of the old steel Treks from the 80s make outstanding randonneuring bikes, but it's much more than just front-end geometry that make these old bikes work so well. Tubing choices, quality of construction, overall geometry and design all contribute to make for a fun, smooth riding, well mannered and high performing bike.

* Here are a few modern production bikes to check out that have true low trail geometry:

• Boulder Bicycles All-Road and Brevet
• Ocean Air Cycles Rambler
• Soma Grand Randonneur
• Rawland rSogn/Stag and Nordavinden

I Love Craig's List

Found in Craig's List:

Trek bike - $250 (Puyallup/ South Hill)

Date: 2012-07-28, 3:53PM PDT
Reply to:

I have a Trek bike for sale. I cannot answer any questions, as I am not a bike person--although I DO know that this bike won the Tour De France in '68. Please see pics, and if they aren't good enough, I can take more for you, or measure the bike's dimensions if you need that information. I am asking $250 OBO I would like to sell this bike soon. PLEASE make it obvious in your email that you are not spam, or I will not respond to you, out of fear of my computer exploding. Include your phone number, and don't ask me if I still have it, I will remove this ad after watching it get loaded onto it's new owner's Subaru.

I'm not sure if the seller is referring to this specific bike or just the model when s/he says that "this bike won the Tour De France in '68". The bike pictured appears to be an early '90s aluminum Trek 1100. This has me wondering if maybe Jan Janssen, the '68 Tour winner, had been visited by a young Michael Fox driving a modified De Lorean sometime before the '68 Tour.

Hmm... maybe time-travelling bike technology will be the new doping.

Three Volcanoes 300k Pre-ride: Better than Perfect

Mt. Adams from Babyshoe Pass

Can a bike ride be too perfect? I was mulling over this question, and the nature of perfection in general (gettin' all filosofical and shit) as I did the pre-ride for the Seattle Randonneurs Three Volcanoes 300k last Saturday.

Lonely Roads - Approaching Elk Summit

The Three Volcanoes 300k has everything I love in a good long bike ride. The roads are as remote and car-free as anything you could hope for in this part of the world. Views of snow capped volcanoes and sparkling streams abound. A variety of climbs, some short and steep, some long and relentless, others with occasional rest stops as they step up in gentle stages keep you physically challenged. Thrilling winding descents pay you back (plus interest) for your sweaty investment in the climbs. Mossy old massive Douglas firs keep you shaded and cool when the sun comes out.

Descent from Babyshoe Pass

But in addition to the things I love in a ride, the 3 Vs also throws some challenges at you. About 10 miles of unpaved road as you climb up and over the summit of Babyshoe pass is rutted and dusty. 9% grades with loose gravel over nasty washboard make it tough to keep traction. On the unpaved descent from Babyshoe, the loose gravel gets deep enough in places to make a skinny-tired road bikes whimper. Occasional cracks and potholes in the paved sections hide in shade and threaten to swallow your front wheel whole if you don't pay attention.

Mt. St. Helens from Near Elk Summit

As I was struggling with the climb over Babyshoe pass I was thinking about how without the dusty unpaved 10 miles, this ride would be so perfect as to be downright boring. It would be like a rose without thorns. Like a big wad of cotton candy dipped in hot fudge, way too sweet to stomach. But there was Babyshoe pass with its deceptively innocent sounding name. The wasabi on the sushi. The olive in the Martini.

It's the the 3 V's imperfections that make it a perfect ride.

Wait a second... That makes no sense at all. Perhaps I should stick with randonneuring. My filosofer skillz aren't so great.

Anyway, whether you call it perfect, or perfectly imperfect, or just fabulously flawed (like most of my favorite people), I have to say that the Three Volcanoes 300k was among my favorite bike rides ever.

Remembering Michael Wang

This Saturday it will be one year exactly since Michael Wang was hit and killed by the driver of an SUV at the corner of Thomas and Dexter in Seattle. The driver left the scene of the accident but was eventually apprehended and charged.

Michael Wang was a husband, a father, a talented photographer, a great guy by all accounts, and he enjoyed commuting to work by bicycle.

Nearly every weekday I ride by the corner where Wang was killed, once on my way to work and once on my way home. A couple of days ago I was riding up the hill on Dexter on the wheel of another bicycle commuter. As we approached Thomas street the cyclist in front of me sat up a bit, crossed himself and then gave a little two-fingered salute toward the corner where Wang died. My mind was somewhere else at the time, so at first I didn't understand what he was doing. Then I remembered the ghost bike that had been chained to the street sign for much of last fall.

The ghost bike is long gone, and sometimes it's easy for me to ride by with my thoughts elsewhere. So, thanks to the commuter in front of me who helped me remember Michael Wang.