Leila's new bike

Meet Leila. Yesterday she picked up her new bike at BikeNüt.

Her bike is a Giant XtC Advanced hardtail frame.

Once again, bicycle manufacturers select the weirdest names for their bicycles. They make sense to the engineers in the company, but the rest of us have to translate them into something more generally meaningful. XC, of course, means cross country, but I will freely admit that I haven’t the faintest idea what the “t” in the middle stands for. I know, however, that the name Advanced is assigned to Giant’s most advanced (duh!) composite technology. I tend to believe their claims. Giant is the only manufacturer that controls production from the raw materials to the finished bike. That goes for road racing bicycles, too.

There wouldn’t be any spectacular difference between Leila’s bike and other Giant bikes if it weren’t for the paint job she requested. The frame was stripped bare, the shock absorbers disassembled, and a beautiful, sharp, pearlescent white glossy paint was sprayed over it. Now, this bike is truly Leila’s, and nobody else has one like it.

The paint job may make the bike visibly unique, but Peter, the BikeNüt mechanic who worked on this custom build, installed a number of pretty cool components. The wheels, 26 inches in diameter, employed DT Swiss rims, spokes, 240s hubs. DT Swiss is a company that is justifiably renown for their reliability, high construction standards, and a reasonable balance between price and quality.

The brakes are by Marta SL magnesium, known for their efficacy in technical, nearly acrobatic, off-road conditions. 

The company that makes them, Magura, is located in German city of Bad Urach, about 80 miles east of Strasbourg. I have no idea why they chose the name Marta for this particular series of components.

The drivetrain components are Shimano Deore XT, once again extremely reliable on all kinds of terrain and wet or dry conditions.

Finally, the pedals are extremely light platforms, made by Wellgo.

This is the kind of unique bikes of which BikeNüt is particularly proud, something put together with a lot of thought and care. It’s understated, but once you know what went into it, you go “Wow!”

This is a bike that is at home on city streets but also outside the city and off the roads. Leila seems happy with it. I hope she enjoys is for a long time and many, many miles.
Happy 4th of July!

Ryan's bike

It is almost a given that anyone working in a bike shop would be deeply passionate about bicycles and cycling. Why would one do it, otherwise? And yet this is not all there is to it, especially for the BikeNüt folks. Owning a bike, especially a racing bike, requires engaging in a never ending process of tinkering. We search for that perfect moment, that sweet spot of nearly frictionless, almost silent rolling, when body and machine are one. As a result, the bike evolves almost daily. Of course, that moment never quite materializes, or, if it does, never lasts more than a minute or two. And so the process continues.

Take Ryan, for example, who started riding seriously in 2006, when a roommate gave him a heavily used bike. He liked the physical exertion of riding it and the freedom that bicycles offered in ways car drivers couldn’t even imagine. Soon he was addicted to cycling and began thinking of ways he could make his newfound interest the center of his life. He worked as a bike messenger, what else?

Ryan expanded the scope of his cycling and began racing. His favorite type of racing is the criterion, a short, furious race, usually held on urban circuits, on typical streets with all the usual potholes, railway tracks, sidewalk curbs, and sudden corners, where good reflexes and killer instincts are just as important as athletic talent. For bike messengers, even former ones, these races are just another run through the city.

He became acquainted with BikeNüt through a fellow bike messenger and started working here. He had graduated to a Trek 5000 bike, but it couldn’t last—too much bike candy around the shop! In 2009, he upgraded to a brand new Giant TCR Advanced, a stiffer and lighter frame. The frame, however, was just the beginning of a process of transformation.

First, naturally came new wheels. Not all wheels are equal, we know that. Wheels are almost the mirror of the rider’s personality: they reflect the type of riding one does, the chosen line between lightness, stiffness, comfort, and reliability. The choices are almost endless. For Ryan, the perfect combination consisted of a set of DT Swiss R 520 alloy rims, 240s hubs, laced with DT Champion spokes. This is not the lightest combination available, but Ryan is a big man and likes to ride his bike hard.

Indeed he managed to crash, once, and cracked the top tube of the bike frame. He fixed it and now doesn’t worry about it.

Naturally, he also thinks about the brakes. For the past week, he has been testing a set of Revl carbon brakes, manufactured by The Hive, a Petaluma, California, based company. He likes the stopping power and the gradual control they offer. Will they become permanent part of the bike?

He has installed a SRAM Force gruppo. Ryan likes its lightness and the quick response of the shifters. He has made one change, however, a standard set of DuraAce chain rings instead of the SRAM ones.

What’s next? Perhaps, in a few months, he’ll get a new frame. For the moment, he has his eyes on a Giant TCR Advanced SL with an integrated seat post. The frame geometry would be different, more compact, lighter and stiffer than what he rides at the moment. Also the bottom bracket, a BB30, would be slightly different, further reducing the weight but adding to the stiffness and providing a better fit between rider and bicycle.

What are his other plans for the future? I asked him this question and had the distinct impression that he didn’t quite want to put all of his cards on the table. I’ve seen him in action. He is unfailingly polite with customers, knowledgeable, and quick to offer assistance to neophytes. He seems content: he likes what he does, the shop, the work, his colleagues, and the BikeNüt ethos—high standards, no stock answers, constant search for better ways. 

 

Wheels

We take a lot of pride in our craftsmanship. It’s true, we don’t actually manufactures the frames, rims, tyres, shifters, derailleurs, and so on. We put all of these components together in a complete bike, ready for the road. It is in this deceptively simple set of operations, putting things together and making sure that they all work, that we choose to manifest the quality of our craftsmanship and our creativity.

This is a process, not a single operation, and is anything but simple. All of these parts were not made by a single manufacturer but by many from different cultural backgrounds, standards of quality, and objectives. And so we must select the components that are most appropriate for specific purposes, such as for example, go for the wheel spokes that make the ride smooth for commuting, rather than those that would be the pick for speed. How important is weight? How relevant is durability? What is the bottom line? Once these components coexist in a coherent whole, they must be pleasing to the eyes of our customers and, of course, our own.

Our customers are like us: not entirely satisfied with what comes off the shelves, they want to put their own stamp on things. We like experimenting, trying out new components, tinkering with them, talking to manufacturers about their next new big thing, getting prototypes into our shop and putting them on our bikes. Knowledge and experience are dynamic.

Take these two sets of wheels, for example. The wheels made by Ambrosio, an Italian manufacturer, have an outstanding reputation for reliability in the world of pro cycling. For years, they were a regular presence in the Paris-Roubaix spring classic race.

We have taken their rims, made of alloy with finished braking surfaces, and laced them with DT Swiss aerolite white spokes. 

These spokes are double butted and bladed, ensuring elasticity (read comfort) together with aerodynamic efficiency on the road. We also rely on DT Swiss hubs, our workhorse, that is light, sturdy, pleasing to our eyes, affordable, and extremely reliable.

Not all of our bikes are road machines. A large section of our customers also rides on the dirt trails of the Bay Area and elsewhere. Some of us, not all, even prefer mountain bikes to road bikes. The world of mountain bikes is in no way simpler than that of road bikes, and its lexicon is, if anything, a tad more complex.

Jumping over boulders or doing wheelies on the trails is not something we typically associate with carbon-fiber wheels. Understandably, these riders don’t want something that requires particular attention and withstands the stresses of the ride. During the past few years, however, carbon-fiber has infiltrated the mountain-bike world, traditionally populated with alloys.

The main feature of this wheel set is their carbon-fiber rims, made by DT Swiss. They are XRC 330, their cross-race rims, where the C stands for carbon fiber. No, you won’t find this particular model either online or in the DT Swiss catalogue. We managed to get hold of a set of them. We laced them with DT Swiss aerolite spokes and also equipped them with DT Swiss 240s hubs.

Why are wheels so important to us, that we are willing to spend so many hours making sure they are what we need and want? The canned answer would be that wheels are important because they connect us to the surface of the earth. In reality, there are no parts in our bikes that are more important then others. We need our wheels as we need our frames, handlebars, and everything else we need; we want all of them to be just right. Yet, we can't help thinking that, everything else being equal, it is the wheels that make the difference in the way we ride.

An entirely customized Giant TCR Advanced SL

Here’s a philosophical question. Let’s say you buy a road bike from a well known manufacturer. At last, you have taken the bike out for your first, long anticipated spin. It’s great, but it could be better. First thing you do, you buy new wheels, much, much lighter than those that came with the bicycle. The tires are not so great, either, and you install new ones. The saddle hurts; out it goes. We are just warming up. The drive group could be made lighter and smoother: cranckset, derailleurs, shifters, cables, all of them made of smaller parts, assembled with titanium screws, milled out of the toughest alloy available, and each of them carefully researched and selected out of a short list of the lightest components. Then you start looking for other weight-saving parts: new light-weight, hand-made, expensive brakes; pedals; cable housing; front stem; handlebar; and chain, of course. OK, here’s the quiz: at what point in this process do you still have your original bike and when do you begin to have an entirely new bike?

This is exactly what we do at BikeNüt; we’re kind of obsessive. We transform bikes, from standard to highly specialized machines for the most exacting requirements. You might say that we don’t actually make bikes, but, in a way, we do. We take the bike that arrives in a box, disassemble it, and put it together in a new way.

This is our latest construction: the frame is the limited edition of a Giant TCR Advanced SL. I know, they could have chosen a sexier name.

Let’s just say that this not an off-the-shelf frame: it’s their latest generation, has internal cabling, and is especially set up for the Shimano DuraAce Di2 Group. Giant has made only 161 of these limited-edition frames, all of them numbered, and this is no. 94. The color scheme is unique.

I know, nobody’s jaw is going to drop when you mention the Shimano electronic group. There have been so many raves out there, that I’m almost convinced I should have one. Almost. It shifts so precisely and so effortlessly. Even when going uphill, off the saddle, when you wouldn’t dare shifting with a normal, old-fashioned group, you just have to apply the smallest amount of pressure.

The list of unique components to this bike is long. It includes a pair of EE Brakes, by EE CycleWorks, and anodized to match the color scheme of the bike. With my brakes, I know I have to plan ahead; with the stopping power of these, I could just improvise.

This is a racing machine, no doubts about it. It’s an instrument that can handle a big amount of power. Just to see how much, it’s been equipped with Shimano 7900 SRM wireless power meter, that keeps a record of things such as power, speed, cadence, heart rate, and so forth.

The wheels are also an assembly of parts from different manufacturers. The rims are Velocity Aerohead, 22 mm. deep; the hubs, both front and rear, are DT Swiss 240S, and the spokes are DT Swiss Aerolite.

Tour pros’ bikes have absolutely nothing on this one. Down to the smallest components, such as the wheel quick-release skewers, this has the best the industry has to offer.

This is a set of Carbon Ti X-Lock Special skewers, made in Italy, with the axles and the axle-ends made of 7075 aircraft-grade aluminum and levers made of high quality titanium. By the way, the axle ends have been anodized to match the color scheme of the frame. The weight for the set is about 60 grams.

Does anybody really need all of this? Probably not, only somebody who likes to push himself and can live only with the best.

Could we put together bikes that are just as good but, shall we say, a bit more affordable? Oh, yeah!