Nexus 8 - Laying back (Part 9)

Forenote: If you are a framebuilder, or frame connoisseur of somesort - look away now!.

I originally bought an extra long adjustable stem off ebay for fitting to the Hopper. But whilst it was sitting around waiting I thought I'd see what it would be like on the Nexus. The result was a bit of fun, but not really rideable on a daily basis on busy roads. The main problem being that the higher handlebars aren't compatible with the seat tube angle. It creates a strange kind of feeling where you feel like you are pedalling behind yourself. 

The solution (as Mr.C pointed out would be the case) is a slacker seat tube angle. i.e to have the saddle further back from the pedals. But thats not going to happen without starting over again with a vintage frame, or just buying a Dutch bike of some sort. The other option is a layback seat post. 

So £8 found it's way to an ebay seller and and I was the proud owner of a 'new old stock' 25.4mm layback seatpost to continue my Frankenbike Experiment.

The original seat tube angle on the frame is approximately 75.5 degrees. With the layback post the effective seat tube angle goes down to 70 and in the process makes the much taller handlebars viable.  The head tube angle was already around 70 degrees, so effectively the two angles are now parallel

This was originally just an experiment to see how it turned out, but it's so much nicer to ride that I knew I'd be keeping it setup like this after the first day's riding.

I'm under no illusions that this equates to the geometry of a classic Dutch bike, but it gives a nice mixture of the angles - which seems to work for giving that relaxed riding position but respecting the crappy vehicular context in which it's going to get ridden most days of the week.

Here's a little before and after animation, then a couple of random pics to illustrate seat angles because it's difficult to see what's going on without seeing the angles measured.

This is an aluminium Gazelle Touche, which measures at the same 70/70 that my bike is now roughly equivalent to.

Apologies to Amsterdammers for stealing & graffitiing their pictures. I'll make up for it one day by buying a bike of you.

Brooks B67

The majority of the things I own are decent second hand items, but occasionally when I do buy something brand new I like it to be well worth it. You can’t get much more worth it than an iconic piece of British handmade craftsmanship. Ok I’ve still been stingy in a way, as I could’ve gone for one of the copper hand-hammered specials, but a plain steel riveted Brooks is still a beautiful thing.

I’d been riding the Nexus with my dad’s old B17 for a few weeks, but after installing the swept back bars this bike needed something nice and wide with springs on it (both from an aesthetic and functional point of view). The way up was between a Champion Flyer or a B67. The Champion flyer is a sprung version of the B17 for touring, whereas the B67 is a wider shorter city bike saddle. In the end I went for the B67 because I figured I already have a B17 so it would be best to try something different.

I've never needed to break a saddle in before....and I still don't because it's perfectly comfortable right from the get go.so I'm not too sure about all this breaking-in stuff I think maybe it’s not the saddle, it’s your arse and your seating position. My backside is already well used to cycling, so all it takes is a few miles of cycling with an allen key and a spanner. A few stops to do some adjustments and after 2 or 3 stops the saddle is in just about the right place and hey presto I’ve got a wonderfully comfortable saddle straight out of the box. Over the course of a few weeks it should start to mould to my sit-bones, but the important thing is to have it in just the right position in the first place.

The springs needed a tiny drop of oil at either end to stop them squeaking, but other than that everything is perfect.

I have secure parking at work (back of the office), so spending good money on a good saddle makes sense, but to be honest I would be thinking twice & stick to something cheap and undesirable if I was having to lock the bike up in public all day.

Heres a good video about Brooks. I especially like the machine that makes the springs and the wobbly set-off at 2:40 - something tells me he turns the key in his Mercedes more often than he sets off on his bike.

Nexus Handlebars (Part 6)

This post is about the single best improvement I've made to a bicycle.

The vast majority of bikes available in the U.K. these days come with straight handlebars, or straight riser bars like the ones that came standard on the B’twin Vitamin (I'm ingoring dropbars as they are generally on a different kind of bike). Those are fine if you are going mountain biking on the Marin trail, but not so great if you are riding on the roads. Straight bars force you to lean forward on the bike, your centre of gravity is forward of your hips and you are taking a lot of your bodyweight through your wrists.

I had read a number of things about the benefits of an upright riding position, but a great post to read is this on Copenhagen Cyclechic which explains the benefits more eloquently that I ever could. After reading this last year I adjusted the position of the bars on my Trek to allow a more upright position and felt the benefit immediately. Equally it made me realize what it was that made the standard riding position of my M-bar Brompton so nice. However both of these bikes still left my hands in a straight position, 90 degrees away from the direction of travel. So on the Nexus I decided to do things properly and get a set of swept back handlebars like you would see on nearly every bike in Holland or Denmark. There are plenty of options out there and I had been eyeing up a set of North road bars from SJScycles until I found that Decathlon sell a standard set of swept back City Bars for £8.99.

Here are the new swept bars in a side by side comparison with the existing riser bars. You can see from this how much these bars alter your grip position. What isn’t clear from the photo is how much more freedom to refine the position is available with swept bars. With straight bars you are basically stuck with one fitting position, but the swept bars mean you can alter the angle of them ( or even flip them over) on the stem clamp and in turn quite dramatically alter the riding positions available to you. This brings up yet another drawback of the majority of bicycles available in the U.K. Many now come with a threadless stem, which offers far less adjustability than a quill stem or even an adjustable quill stem like is fitted to my Trek.

I knew from my own experience and reading that the swept bars would be an improvement, but wasn’t expecting the sheer difference it made to the experience of my commute. The Nexus is a much much faster bike with swept bars fitted, so much so that I found myself cruising in 8th gear quite easily even with the new higher gearing. The bike is more comfortable and my overall feeling of subjective safety is greatly improved by having my head raised higher and upright, giving a wider view of the road and better shoulder checking. Bumps and potholes are also much less jarring, as there is less weight over the front wheel and less impact coming through the wrists.

Here is another good post on the benefits of riding upright from Sheffield Cycle Chic which catches upon the fact that many cyclists subconciously want to sit upright on their bikes. Everyone wants a cool looking bike, be it with dropbars or straight, but if they could only see themselves cycling, they might notice that their own bodies are telling them to sit upright. The problem is their bikes don't let them.

Even now the riding position on this bike is not as upright as it could be, mainly because of the stem. So there is always the option for putting a taller shorter reach stem on as well.