BikeSnobNYC's Blog, page 4

Dance Dance Dance Dance Dance To The Radio

As you may or may not or may may not be aware, WBAI, the station that was broadcasting my radio show, has stopped broadcasting:


Hey, at least I got mentioned in the article:


Oh well, it was a good run.  Yes, my radio career was quite the thrill ride.  There I was, sitting on the couch eating Doritos a few months back, when the WBAI program director called and asked me if I wanted to be on the radio.  "Sure," I replied, brushing the crumbs off my gut and shuffling off to the shower, and the rest is history.  On one foot I'm sad that I no longer have a radio outlet on which to bloviate, but on the other foot I no longer have to schlep all the way to Brooklyn every Monday, so it all works out in the end.

Of course, WBAI is simply the latest victim in a long series of august enterprises I've successfully tanked.  For example, there was Islabikes, who sent me (well, my son) a bike to test and then shuttered their United States headquarters:


Then there was Renovo, and we all know what happened with them:


As for why this is happening, I have two theories:

1) Companies only reach out to me out of sheer desperation, and by the time they do they've already got one foot in the grave;

B) I am truly cursed and my touch causes even the ripest fruit to wither and die on the vine.

Either way, I imagine Tresca are like, "What the hell were we thinking?"


Speaking of the Tresca, while I may not have been blown away by its performance in a racing scenario, I'm not writing it off by any means, and will continue to experiment with it as time permits.  Unfortunately I don't have unlimited access to a wide variety of components, but certainly swapping wheels with my plastic bike is in order, and a saddle change as well as a swap to a longer stem with some rise would also be worthwhile.  I will say though that when, the day after the race, I hopped on my Plastic Fred Sled I was like, "Wow, this bike feels good:



Then when I hopped on my new-to-me titanium "Forever Bike" I was like, "Wow, this bike feels really good:"


I may not have a radio show anymore, but I'm in a pretty good place as far as bikes go, anyway.  And isn't that what's most important?

Finally, I've got a new column on the Outside website, and it's about how we should stop making such a big fucking deal about bike lanes already:

If the media constantly referred to toilets as "controversial" we probably wouldn't have enough of them either.

Tresca Going-Fast Bicycle: Testing Update

Yesterday, after a brief hiatus, I finally got back on the Tresca for a standard-issue New York City-area road ride:


And then, this morning, I finally had an opportunity to test the Tresca in a real-life race-type situation in Brooklyn's Prospect Park.

I am dismayed to report that I failed to complete the race.

Now, I am not blaming the Tresca for my failure.  For one thing, it's October, and ordinarily I'd never subject myself to a road race this late in the year--the only reason I did so was to try out this bike.  For another, it was cold and windy, which made matters that much more difficult.  And finally, on yesterday's ride I did feel like I was dragging ass, so I'm not surprised that this general sensation of sluggishness carried over into today.

At the same time, while I certainly didn't feel great, I must say I was not thrilled with the way the bike felt, either.  This surprised me.  Since taking delivery of the bike a few weeks back I've quite enjoyed riding it, and while it lacked a certain amount of refinement compared to my plastic Fred Sled and my new-to-me titanium "Forever Bike," I put a lot of this down to the extremely thin bar tape.  Furthermore, I assumed the bike would really come into its own in a race, given its aggressive position and overall demeanor.

This isn't quite what happened.  Instead, I found the bike lacked a bit of stability on the downhill and when reaching into my jersey pocket or down for a water bottle, which was distracting.  There are also rough sections of pavement in Prospect Park, which if you're not attentive and you fail to position yourself properly ahead of time you get forced into riding over at speed, and these moments were more unsettling on the Tresca than on the plastic bike.  Also, on the "climb" (Prospect Park has one big-ring incline you go over like 12 times at full speed, which is where I ultimately slipped off the back a little past the halfway point of the race), the bike felt kind of like a wooden block--which is ironic since the actual wooden bike I used to have felt nothing at all like a wooden block.  All of this is to say that, whil the bike wasn't even remotely terrible, I simply never felt great about the bike.

HOWEVER, it's important to keep in mind that my perception was no doubt tainted (and possibly even totally undermined) by the fact that I simply wasn't feeling it this morning.  I also have no idea if something as simple as, say, a proper set of race tires would have made a significant difference in how the bike felt.  (The Tresca has Continental Grand Sport Race tires, with which I have no experience, and which are on the heavy side.)  And let's not forget that before this morning I hadn't taken part in a bike race since the end of August, and that I hadn't taken part in a bike race in Prospect Park since April.  So maybe what I was interpreting as a lack of stability was just me needing to find my footing after over a month of leisurely solo riding.

Still, as lousy as I am at bike racing, and as rusty as I am at the moment, it's fairly unusual for me not to finish a race in Prospect.  Also, I've never had moments where I doubted my plastic bike in a race; if anything I'm always stricken by how well it performs, even when I don't.  (It's easy not to like the "S" company but they've clearly figured out how to make a race bike.)  And even my Milwaukee with its filthy, balky 10-speed 105 drivetrain felt like a perfectly competent race bike the time I pressed it into service for a wet Prospect Park race:


So while I'm hesitant to criticize the Tresca for what could easily be simple matters of component choice or the fact that I was an even bigger mess than usual out there this morning, I also felt what I felt.  Maybe it's as simple as fit: the Tresca comes in S, M, and L, and while I'm pretty much smack in the middle of the height range Tresca recommends for an M, the bike's certainly smaller in pretty much every dimension than what I usually ride.  (Looking at the L, I could probably ride it with no headset spacers and a short stem, but I don't know that this would be an improvement.)  Regardless, sizing is certainly another reason they'll have a hell of a time competing against aluminum bike makers such as Cannondale.  (A CAAD13 with 105 costs $1,800 and comes in eight sizes.)

In any case, you never really know a road racing bike until you, you know, race it.  A great race bike isn't there: you're focused on the wheels around you and the road surface and not getting dropped and feeding yourself and all the rest of it, and you really only notice the bike if it mis-shifts or something else about it bothers you.  So whether it's just a matter of the sizing (most likely, the more I think about it) or the components or something else, I didn't quite get there with the Tresca today.  I'm sure if I changed some parts around I could get almost there--or maybe I could even all the way there--but as it is out of the box it's not the bike I would choose for my sad middle-aged park exploits.

New Outside Column And More!

Firstly, I've got a new Outside column, and it's about how hard it is to buy a lousy bike:

At the same time, it's also truly hard to buy a great one, and certainly the preponderance of nearly-identical and eminently adequate "genre" bikes means upstarts like Tresca have their work cut out for them:


By the way, if you're wondering how things are going with the Tresca, the next phase of testing will involve riding it in a sanctioned bicycle race, which I plan to do this weekend.

Secondly, I was also on the radio waves again yesterday, and you can listen to that show here:


A number of people have asked me if the show is available as a podcast, and the short answer is "no."  As for why it's not available that way, you'll have to ask the radio station, because I have nothing to do with that stuff.  I just show up, sit in front of a microphone, and set my brain to "bloviate."

And finally, while I've been riding my Midlife Crisis Fixie to the studio on Mondays, yesterday I rode the Jones SWB instead so I could drop it off with the winner of the essay contest!


Please note this is not how the bike looked yesterday; rather, it is a photo of the last time I washed it, which was quite awhile ago.  Rest assured the winner received a fairly dirty bicycle.  I did, however, add sealant to the tires and replace the chain before riding it down to Brooklyn and turning it over.

Since doing a back-to-back comparison between the SWB and the LWB I've been on the latter pretty much exclusively, so when I hopped on the SWB to head down to Brooklyn I was immediately stricken by how much smaller and more playful the SWB feels--as I'm sure I've mentioned, it has a sprightliness that belies its considerable heft.  That certainly doesn't make one bike better than the other, and indeed I'm committing to the LWB over the SWB because I value its overall composure.  (I like the longer wheelbase on the road, and I like the additional pedal clearance on the trail.)  But certainly in an ideal world where space weren't an issue I'd happily go back and forth between both bike--and in a really ideal world I'd have an LWB in titanium with really light wheels and parts, because a bike like that would be truly amazing.

Hey, maybe we'll all get lucky, I'll get that titanium Jones, and I'll have an LWB to give away. 

Wait, It's Friday Already?

Firstly, I'm wildly remiss in filling you in on who won the Jones SWB:


The short version is the winning essay involved a thrilling tale of international intrigue, and ultimately the Jones will be embarking upon a thousand-mile journey from the Black sea across the Caucasus and Zagros Mountains.  Or something.  I'll share more later.

Anyway, there were a number of deserving entries, but none matched the nuanced backstory and sheer ambition of the one I ultimately deemed the winner.

Of course my own Jonesian outings are quite pedestrian by comparison; indeed, they're not particularly adventurous by any standard.  Nevertheless, I sit before you feeling tired yet satisfied after my latest Friday ramble astride the Jones LWB:


Before I go any further, I should mention there's some douchebag out there who's always leaving comments on how I'm a shill and a sell-out because of my professed love for the Jones as well as my enthusiasm for other bicycle-related products.  My response to that is, "Bite me."  I'm [redacted] years old, I've got nothing to prove anymore, and I love riding too much not to be honest when I'm enjoying something--and the Jones (in both SWB and LWB versions) has brought me a tremendous amount of cycling enjoyment.  Certainly it was the Marin Pine Mountain that set me on the path, but the plus-sized tires, dedicated rigid geometry, and upright position of the Jones have been nothing less than a revelation for me.  I'll probably always want to get on a road bike and hunch my aging body over a set of drop bars at least some of the time (some of us just have Fredliness in our DNA), but the rest of the time the Jones is the bike that lets me just ride.  A little pavement, a little dirt, a little singletrack...  For me, drinking the Jones ayahuasca has been the culmination of a long process that began with my moving from Brooklyn to the Bronx back in 2012 and thus acquiring ready access to terrain that previously required me to slog through the city for two hours or else (gasp!) drive in order to ride.  But from here, I've got mixed-terrain riding right out my back door, and can do the sorts of rides that most people don't associate with living in New York City.

Anyway, the point is I'm in a very good place with my riding life, and the Jones is no small part of that.

Moreover, my current place of residence is situated on what is slowly shaping up to be the premier cycling route in the New York City area.  Not only are they paving the mud bog that is the Putnam Trail through Van Cortlandt Park, but up in Yonkers they're now installing bicycle repair stands along the South County Trailway, which blew my mind:


From here, soon you'll be able to ride over the Tappan Zee (sorry, "Mario M. Cuomo") Bridge to all the Fredly routes on the opposite side of the river, which means by next year or so you'll be able to do a great big trans-Hudson loop, either paved or unpaved depending on your mood, and I'll live right on said loop.

As for my ride today, it included a foray into the forbidding Trails Behind The Mall, which owing to car-induced sprawl I often access by means of a sidewalk--where, oddly, I came across another new bike repair stand:


This is hardly a bicycle thoroughfare, and thus is a highly unlikely spot for a bike repair stand.  Given this, I have two theories:

1) The City of Yonkers is involved in some sort of kickback scheme whereby they bought a shitload of bike repair stands and they're just installing them wherever;

B) The City of Yonkers is genuinely attempting to be bike-friendly, so they bought data from Strava to see where people are riding--and because I visit the Trails Behind The Mall so frequently, they've mistakenly identified this as a heavily-trafficked bicycle thoroughfare, so essentially this bike stand is just for me.

If the second scenario is indeed the case, I'd like to thank the City of Yonkers, because this pump is ideally situated so that I can drop my tire pressure before hitting the Trails Behind The Mall, and then top them back up again for the ride home.

In any event, from the Trails Behind The Mall I took in a couple of other lesser-known spots.  I could easily have kept going all day, but familial responsibilities compelled me to come about and steer the good ship Jones homeward:


All in all, it was a successful outing, and I can highly recommend moving to the Bronx and purchasing a Jones.

New Radio Show, New Jones Owner!

Hello!

Don't get too comfortable, this is just a quick update.

Firstly, I was on the radio again this morning, and here's the show for your listening...well, for your listening:

Secondly, I have no second item.

Thirdly, the Jones SWB officially has a new owner!


It was a really hard decision, and I'll share more later once I've consulted with the lucky winner, but let's just say for now the bike's new curator has some very, very, very big plans for it.

Back In The Dirt

It's impossible for me to overstate what a fantastic time of year it is to ride a bicycle here in the New York City region.

As you know, for the past week I've been deep in a Fredly spiral of frenziedly comparing road bikes, attempting to parse the subtleties of vintage titanium, modern crabon, and prototype aluminum by riding more or less the same route over and over again.  And while I love riding road bikes, and I'm also quite fond of the route on which I've been riding, I was long, long, long overdue for the type of mixed-terrain Lycra-free ramble that reminds you what life is really all about.  And that's what I did today:


What's best about this time of year is that not only are the trails dry, but the atmospheric conditions are such that you can head out in shorts and a t-shirt without drenching said t-shirt in sweat.  Also, while I certainly needed a change of pace from road riding, all of those Fredly miles I've been cramming in this week made my legs feel rather snappy, so between that and the near-perfect weather I felt like I could have ridden all day.  However, I cannot ride all day owing to my familial responsibilities, and so I settled for riding here:


 Where I parked my bike in its customary spot and treated myself to $20 of locally-grown, farm-to-table, kitchen-to-douchebag artisanal foodstuffs:


In all, the ride was just under 50 miles of dirt trail, quasi-secret singletrack, and rolling road, and it would make a fantastic Fondon't course if I ever got it together to lead one again.  And of course the star of the ride was the Jones LWB, which allows you to easily string together terrain that might otherwise be mutually exclusive--and yes, it even feels great on the road.

Speaking of the Jones, last Friday was the deadline for submissions to the Jones SWB giveaway competition, and you'll be pleased to know I've now narrowed it down to three (3) contestants:


I'm not going to share those contestants with you, because I don't want anybody attempting to corrupt the decision-making process by offering me bribes.  Instead, I will do much soul-searching over the weekend, and on Monday I will announce the winner.

I'm sure you can hardly wait, even though you didn't win.

New Outside Column!

Firstly, here's my lastest Outside column, which is about why I love riding a bicycle in the city:


Every so often I complain about this particular city and someone comments that I'm an idiot for living here--and while that is undeniably true, perhaps this missive will offer you some insight into my delusion.

Secondly, further to yesterday's post, a number of commenters questioned the pricing and overall viability of the Tresca I'm currently testing:


These questions are certainly valid.  I've since delved even deeper into the retail landscape and though more about it and yes, why order a Tresca over the Internet when you can spend the same (or less) money and buy a Cannondale in person?  As good as the bike may be, they don't seem to be offering the same no-brainer pricing as other Internet-based bike sellers like Canyon, which is ultimately what tempts people to take the leap of faith that buying a bicycle online requires.  (Also, the Trescas aren't even shipping yet, which means you can't have one anyway.)

All of this is to say that Tresca certainly have their work cut out for them.  In the meantime I will continue to ride and enjoy the bike and provide my honest feedback, but the rest is up to them.  And hey, there are companies that emerged during the fixie boom I never thought would survive, but some of them have since become well-established and continued to thrive.  (I mean I assume they're thriving; they've got a website, don't they?)

Finally, I invite you to ponder this baffling image, which I came across awhile back while researching bike pricing:

This will forever remain one of the greatest mysteries in cycling

Obsessing Over Bikes Is The Ultimate In Escapism

Arguably this is the very best time of year to ride a bicycle here in this particular part of the world:


And for this reason I've been very grateful to have a new excuse to do so.  After all, I am a semi-professional bike blogger, and I've got to review this Tresca!


Today's ride was 30 miles up and down "River Road," where yesterday I took my plastic Fred Sled.  So how do the two bikes compare?  Well, my first thought upon hopping on the Tresca was, "Yeah, the plastic bike is definitely smoother."  However, I soon forgot about all that, and the rest of the time I was mostly just thinking, "This bike feels great!"

It makes sense that overall the Specialized would feel a little "nicer" than the Tresca.  It's lighter, it's crabon, and it's got Dura Ace on it.  (Sure, the difference in feel between 105 and Dura Ace is pretty small, but it is there.)  At the same time, the retail price on the Specialized when new would have been a whopping $4,000 (it's a 2018 model that has long since vanished into the Specialized archives), whereas the Tresca is about half that.  So while the Specialized does come off as a bit more refined, and really is an excellent race bicycle, there's no way that refinement is worth two grand.  Indeed, depending on what you're after and who you are it may be worth nothing.  Anyway, of course you've always got the option of spending $4,000 for the Dura Ace version of the Tresca, which comes with crabon wheels and the whole schmear, though honestly I have no idea why you'd bother given how well this bike performs in its budget guise.

Of course the best comparison to the Tresca for testing purposes would be something like a Cannondale CAAD13 105, which is aluminum, equipped similarly, and also slightly cheaper at $1,800.  I have not ridden an aluminum Cannondale since owning one a full nine (9) CAADs ago (it had one-inch headtube for chrissakes), but I will say I remember it being a great bike, and based on what I've heard the CAAD[X]s still are, at least in terms of ride quality.  On the other hand, the latest Cannondales do have BB30 bottom brackets, which scare me, and are enough to sway me towards the Tresca without even trying the Cannondale.  But on the other other hand, you buy a Cannondale through a bike shop, which is absolutely a selling point if you want in-person technical support, fitting advice, and all the rest of it.

All that aside, with over 100 miles now on the Tresca, I still think it's excellent.  And while I reserve the right to put forth critiques and criticisms as I continue to get to know the bike, if I were a paying customer I'd continue to feel quite good about my purchase.  Of course I still need to try the thing in an actual bicycle race, and fortunately I'll have the opportunity to do just that in the not-too-distant future.  I'll keep you posted.

Testing Bikes Is Very Hard Work!

As you know, since late last week I've been subjecting the Tresca TCA-1 to an intensive testing process:



Now, before I go on, at least one reader was wondering where the name "Tresca" comes from.  Well basically, Henri Tresca was a mechanical engineer who devised the Tresca failure criterion.  So basically it's a nod to all the engineering Freds out there.  Now you know.

Anyway, this Tresca testing ("Tresting" if you will) now moves into a new phase, and I began by recalibrating my scranus yesterday:


If you're not a semi-professional bike blogger like me you may not realize this, but your crotchal region adapts to whatever bicycle you were riding last, and it holds that adjustment until you ride another bicycle.  This is why, for example, your road bike will feel way faster after you ride a Citi Bike for awhile, even if you've made no changes whatsoever to said road bike.  Therefore, when testing bikes, I'm always careful to establish a scranial baseline before moving forward.

To that end, by way of zeroing out my scranus, yesterday I commuted to my radio show in Brooklyn (you can listen to it here, by the way) aboard my midlife crisis fixie:


If you're wondering why I'm riding a $299 mail order fixie, it's because Bicycling asked me to write about it and I've since grown quite fond of it.  In fact I've been riding it to Brooklyn every week, carrying my laptop and sundries in a Two Wheel Gear pannier briefcase, which is also working out rather well:


Now that I've ditched the incredibly painful Vans grips that came on the State (as I've said, they basically feel like someone's standing on your hands while wearing Vans) the bike is perfectly comfortable, and while there are times I wouldn't mind shifting, in New York City it's always good to have a bike you can throw up against a pole, lock up, and walk away from without worrying too much.  I am a little self-conscious about the white wheels, which are unbecoming of a gentleman of my age and stature, but they're suitably tank-like for my bombed-out urban environment and it's certainly not worth the effort to change them.

Anyway, as you can imagine, this Generation Z special with its straight-gauge high tensile tubing, foamy saddle, and a single gear ratio that's at least two teeth too high for a gentleman of my age and stature was a perfect tool for scranial calibration, and by the time I got home I basically had a flat EQ situation between my legs.

Now, the next step in testing a bike is to have a "control" bike with which to compare your test bike.  In this case the appropriate control bike is my plastic Fred sled, inasmuch as that's my dedicated racing bike and the Tresca is nothing if not a race bike.  Alas, as I mentioned in my last post, the Fred sled was in need of a new chain, and so I tested it against my new-to-me titanium "Forever Bike" instead, which was something of an apples-to-slightly-different-apples comparison.

Therefore, on the way back from Brooklyn yesterday, I stopped at Master Bikes on W. 72nd St. and purchased a brand new chain and a brand new cassette, and installed both on the Fred sled forthwith.  Then this morning I headed out for a ride:


Every time I get on this bike I think about what a shame it is I don't ride it more.  If it wasn't for the "Forever Bike" I would ride it more--in fact it would be my go-to road bike--but because I do have said forever bike I wind up saving the plastic bike for races instead, employing the logic that this way I'm saving the tires and so forth and won't have to replace stuff very often.  In practice however this is stupid, because when you ride a bike often you're good about maintaining it, whereas when you don't you wind up having to change the chain and cassette prematurely because you never bother to clean the drivetrain after drizzling perspiration and sports hydration mix all over it.

All of this is to say it's a really nice bike.  Yes, it's easy to dislike Specialized.  Obviously there's the lawyer stuff, and on top of that the bikes are everywhere and if you're of a certain disposition you have an adverse reaction to ubiquity.  (90% of the riders headed over the GWB on any given weekend day are wearing Rapha jerseys and riding Specialized bicycles.)  Be that as it may this bike feels great--and it has a threaded bottom bracket and it's black, though if you get in closer you see it's really full of stars:


By the way, not only did the bike feel great, but it also had a new chain and cassette on it, which mean the shifting was absolutely perfect and overall the drivetrain had that feeling you get in your mouth after you get a tooth cleaning.  (After a tooth cleaning you gratuitously run your tongue over your teeth all day, and after a new chain and cassette you shift a lot for no reason.)  Soon I was at what we here in the greater New York City metropolitan Fredding region call "River Road:"


At which point I stopped to adjust my saddle position, which is a completely ridiculous thing to do on a bike you've had for almost a year, but everything felt so damn perfect and for whatever reason after all this time I felt like another three millimeters of saddle height would make it really perfect.  (And no, the seatpost isn't slipping, I mark all my seatposts with tape.)

Of course, Specialized being Specialized, instead of a regular seatpost clamp (all bikes should have regular seatpost clamps and threaded bottom brackets, no exceptions) this bike has an integrated wedge-type arrangement, and there's a tiny rubber plug for the hole where you access the binder bolt.  As I removed the tiny rubber plug I thought to myself, "You better not lose this!"  I was going to put it in my jersey pocket but I thought maybe I'd drop it by accident while rummaging around back there.  So instead I placed it carefully on top of the saddle, which was an exceedingly stupid thing to do because the next thing I knew it was gone:


I'm a strange person.  I will ride my bikes for months without cleaning them.  I don't care if they get scratched.  And yet the idea of riding my bike without this tiny rubber plug which serves no purpose except to cosmetically fill a hole (I mean sure, I guess technically it also keeps water out but let's get real) was utterly unacceptable.  Desperately I scanned the area, but it was impossible to discern a tiny rubber plug amid all that gravel:

(Should have used a gravel-specific plug.)
I wandered around in circles, trying to remember the shape and consistency of the tiny rubber plug in order to forensically calculate its trajectory.  Would it have bounced?  Rolled?  Skittered away like a bug?  I couldn't find it anywhere.

"Maybe it never hit the ground," I thought, wondering if maybe it had fallen through the scranial channel in the saddle and gotten lodged in the seatpost hardware:


Nope.

Clearly my bike was now ruined, especially when you consider it's also missing the stupid plastic front derailleur cap that holds the excess cable:


I have already obtained replacements, but the little tab from the original cover is still lodged in the bolt and I can't see how to get it out (at least not without removing the binder bolt altogether, which now that I've got the front shifting all perfect I'm not prepared to do), and so instead I simply tuck the cable end into the derailleur tab like a folkie too lazy to cut the ends of his guitar strings.

By this point riders were passing me and asking me if anything was wrong, as you might if you saw someone frantically circling a tiny area like a dog looking for a place to relieve himself.  Eventually I was forced to acknowledge defeat, and I remounted despite a strong impulse to turn around, go home, and order 50 replacement tiny rubber plugs immediately.

But a funny thing happened.  Within moments I decided I felt good that the tiny rubber plug was gone.  "This was what I needed," I thought.  "Now that there's this gaping hole in the top tube I can just flog the bike regularly without fussing over it anymore."  This put a real spring in my pedal stroke, and I relished the sensation of speed as I big-ringed it up some inclines, rocking the bike back and forth and reveling in its whiplike feel.  Oddly however the bike suddenly started feeling a lot less whiplike, at which point I realized I had a flat.

Between the lost tiny rubber plug and the flat I felt dispirited, but I possess an incredible amount of mental fortitude, and its precisely this strength of character that enables me to continue riding my bike in the middle of a beautiful Tuesday while the rest of you schmucks are working, despite monumental setbacks such as these.  Ultimately I completed the route I had set out to ride, and there were no further setbacks.

I'd also like to say that I overcame my irrational feelings about the tiny rubber plug, and that I've since let it go.  However, my return trip brought me past the site of the disappearance once again, and with fresh eyes I surveyed the ground one last time--and there it was!

Basking in the sense that all was now right with the world, I plugged the hole in my frame, and in so doing I also filled the void of my soul:


So there it is.  The scranus is now tuned to the plastic Fred sled, so the next ride will be on the Tresca.  Stay tuned.  (Or, if you prefer, never ever read this blog again.  Can't say I'd blame you.)

Tresca Aluminum Going-Fast Bicycle: First Impressions!

Firstly, I want to thank you all for your Jones submissions.  They are making for highly compelling reading.  Please be patient while I determine a winner, as I received even more applications than I expected.

Secondly, here's where I am on the Tresca:


That joke never gets old.  Never!


Okay, so on Friday I nipped out for a 40-ish mile jaunt.  Of course riding a new bike means you're going to stop every now and then to tweak stuff and so forth, which can be distracting.  So while my first impressions were quite favorable overall, I refrained from drawing any sweeping conclusions about the bike

On Saturday, I headed out for a ride of similar length on my beloved new-to-me "Forever "Bike:


It would have been more appropriate to compare the Tresca to my plastic Specialized, inasmuch as the latter bike is my dedicated park racer, and the overall demeanor of the former is quite sporting.  (Note saddle-to-bar drop, for instance.)  The Litespeed on the other hand is my middle-aged-guy-reliving-his-20-something-dreams bike, and it has come to occupy a special place in my heart.  You may think it ugly--the decals admittedly are, and the silver-to-crabon fade on the fork is embarrassingly turn-of-the millennium--but sweet hairy Jeebus do I love this bike.  It's been awhile since I've had a road bike I felt compelled to dote on as opposed to just maintain, but this is it, and lately I've been doing stuff like replacing the brake hoods and changing the brake pads.  (So far the SwissStop greens I just got feel great and I think they'll be even better once I run them in.)  All of this means it's not the ideal bike with which to compare the Tresca, but basically the Specialized needs a new chain and I haven't gotten around to installing it yet.

So how did the Tresca compare to the "Forever" Bike?  Well obviously I liked the "Forever" bike better, it would be weird if I didn't.  But it was hard to say how much better I liked it since my first ride on the Tresca had involved all the typical new bike futzing.  So on Sunday morning I headed out on the Tresca again and did the exact same ride I had done on the Litespeed:


I liked the Tresca even more this time.  I mean yes I still like the Litespeed better of course, but I had also kind of expected the Tresca to be a huge letdown in comparison and this wasn't even remotely the case.  One reason for this is that by now I had everything pretty much dialed in so I could just ride without thinking about it.  Another reason was this:

Gloves.

See, I ride without gloves--unless it's cold of course.  I also generally use cork handlebar tape, and the tape on the Tresca is (according to the spec sheet), something called "Fizik Microtex SuperLight (classic)."  While I do like the texture, it is also pretty thin stuff, and by the end of that first ride my hands felt kind of fatigued.  So I wore gloves this time, which solved the problem.  At the end of the ride I felt great, and I felt great about the bike.  Obviously at 80 miles its still wildly immature to make definitive pronouncements, but let's just say that if I'd bought this bike I'd be feeling very good at my purchase right now.

Speaking of which, why would you buy this bike?  Well, firstly, you'd buy it if you wanted a road racing bicycle.  This is not an "endurance road bike" or anything like that--which is not to say it's uncomfortable, far from it.  It's just that, as you can see from the fit, this is a road racing bicycle with a short head tube that puts you in a fairly aggressive position.  The bike I'm riding is a size medium, and at 5'10" I'm pretty much right in the middle of the height range they recommend:


The sizing feels great to and I'm right where I'd want to be for racing, but if I wanted to be more upright I'd have to flip the stem--not that there's anything wrong with that, but if you're starting from scratch with a new bike and you want your bars higher you'd obviously go for a frame with a different fit.

So again, we're talking race bike here, and it's on this basis I'm evaluating the bike.  Sometimes people are tempted to lump all drop-bar bikes together, and they start making critiques like, "It doesn't have enough tire clearance," or "the head tube's too short."  So let's not do that.

Secondly, if you're going to consider a Tresca, you not only want a race bike, but you want an aluminum race bike.  So why would you want an aluminum race bike?  Well, on balance aluminum race bikes are cheaper than crabon, while still being plenty light and all the rest of it.  Yes, there lots of relatively affordable crabon bikes out there now, but it's still fair to say if you're looking for a go-fast bike you'll get more for your money from aluminum.

Also, not to be reductive, but there's also just something cool about aluminum bikes.  Certainly some people find them objectionable, but I happen to be one of those people who has always liked them, and who prefers the overall sensibility of metal to crabon.  (Again, I fully acknowledge I'm being purely emotional here, but it would be foolish of us to discount the emotional nature of our bicycle purchases.)  In fact, when I was looking for a dedicated park racing bike I fully intended to get an aluminum one, but as I've mentioned before the plastic Specialized practically fell into my lap, and when a crabon bike with Dura Ace falls into your lap you don't push it off just because you think aluminum's "cool."  Also, the Specialized came in black and it has a threaded bottom bracket shell, so despite being plastic it checked pretty much all my other boxes.

In any case, speaking of my boxes, when I was surveying the market for aluminum road racing bikes I found there weren't that many of them that checked them all.  In fact there weren't very many aluminum road racing bicycles period, which I gather is why Tresca thought they could start a new bike company.  I didn't much care whether the bike had 105 or Ultegra since all that stuff works pretty much the same, but one important one was a threaded bottom bracket.  I liked the idea of the Specialized Allez, but I believe it had a press-fit bottom bracket.  I also liked the Cannondale CAAD-whatever-they're-up-to (I've owned three Cannondales over the years and loved them all), but they also have some kind of wacky bottom bracket.  Same with the Trek Emonda.  At a certain point I just reconciled myself to the fact I'd probably wind up with some sort of newfangled bottom bracket, and told myself maybe they're much better now and I was just being characteristically retro-grouchy.  (I'm sure someone will chime in with other awesome aluminum bikes I overlooked, but frankly after the plastic bike fell into my lap I stopped caring.)

All of this to say that if you're me one year ago, and if plastic bikes with Dura Ace don't fall into your lap, you're a potential Tresca customer.  I'd certainly have considered one if I knew about them back then, and when they asked me if I wanted to try one I said "Yes!" for precisely that reason.  Certainly pricewise they compare favorably to the other bikes I mentioned above, and I also appreciate the following:

The Threaded Bottom Bracket: Evidently they originally designed the bike with a PF30 but decided to go to a threaded to avoid potential creaking.  This is good, because you really can't go wrong with an old-fashioned threaded bottom bracket;Rim Brakes: I have no problem with disc brakes.  I fully acknowledge this is the way road bikes are going and that one day I too will probably have a road bike with disc brakes.  At the same time, as Tresca points out, rim brakes work, and they work well.  I'm sure for plenty of people a rim brake road bike is a deal-breaker, and I also know there are people out there who really benefit from discs over rims.  At the same time, there are also plenty of people like me who are in no hurry to change, who have bins full of rim brake components and accessories, and who aren't doing rainy 10-mile high-speed mountain descents on crabon rims on a regular basis.  In other words, it is possible to acknowledge discs as important technology while at the same time thinking rim brakes are a selling point;Component Choice: Tresca proudly point out they spec all brand-name stuff on the bike.  Frankly I'd be surprised if there was any difference in quality between the Fizik bars and stem on this bike and the Specialized-branded stuff on my plastic bike.  At the same time, if you're a paying customer and not a jaded bike blogger, there's no denying it's nice to have a bike with parts you recognize on it.  It's all stuff you can look up online, read reviews about, price check, etc.  This is even true of the cheapest bike, which is what I'm riding.  (By the way, it's hard to see why you'd go beyond the cheapest bike, since the 105 stuff is great, it's as light a bike as you could possibly need even without anything fancy on it, and you might as well save the extra money for a second set of wheels.)General Compatibility: The frame has newfangled internal cable routing, but what with electronic shifting and all the rest of it, in 2019 I don't think it's possible to market a bike without it.  Other than that, the bike takes standard parts.  There are no D-shaped seatposts or proprietary cockpits or anything like that.  This is good if you're a home mechanic, or a longtime racer with lots of parts at home.So there it is.  As I mentioned, with only 80 miles of riding on the bike I've barely gotten to know it, but so far I've only got good things to say about it.  I still need to ride it back-to-back with my plastic race bike, switch wheels, and all that stuff.  I also need to try it in an actual competitive Fredding event, and as luck would have it there's still one more park race this season.  Anyway, I'll keep you apprised, and if you have any questions feel free to ask.