As a once-relevant bike blogger whose email address is still lingering on the mailing lists of certain PR people who haven’t gotten around to removing it yet, I occasionally receive notice of EXCITING NEW BICYCLES that are SO EXCITING they’re UNDER MEDIA EMBARGO. Now, I’d never run afoul of someone’s media embargo, even if it is a little obnoxious (“Hey, here’s a shitload of information from a complete stranger you didn’t even ask for in the first place. Now don’t tell anybody about it!”), but sometimes they’re just SO EXCITING I can hardly keep my mouth shut. But I do anyway, though what I can share about this latest one I just received is that the bike is for “adventure” riding and it has:
- Drop bars
- Disc brakes
- A suspension fork
- Fat tires
So in other words it’s EXACTLY LIKE EVERY OTHER NEW BIKE MADE IN THE LAST FEW YEARS IN EVERY WAY. But I can’t tell you any more until the embargo is lifted, by which point I promise I will have forgotten all about it. Instead, being the resolute contrarian I am, you can find me riding a deliberately weird bike, like a front-shifted multi-gear singlespeed with rim brakes and a Biopace chainring:
If you ask me, which you didn’t, one of the best things about singlespeeds is that they’re so easy to tinker with, though if you’re a tinkerer the best and worst thing about this one is that it’s especially easy to tinker with thanks to the potential for front-shiftability, which makes it hard to stop. I’ve already ridden it as a singlespeed with the Choco bars:
And as a two-speed with the Choco bars:
And as a two-speed with drop bars:
And then with a triple instead of a double:
And now it’s back to a singlespeed again…which I really enjoy, and arguably every cyclist should have at least one singlespeed, except as I rassled it up a steep climb the other day I thought to myself, “Maybe I’ll turn it back into a dinglespeed again.” I haven’t yet, but at some point I’m sure I will, which is why I haven’t even bothered to remove the artisanal chainring protector:
It’s made from reclaimed inner tubes and it cost me $150 (not including $35 for installation), which sounds like a lot, but you really can’t put a price on sustainability.
Speaking of tubes, in addition to having one wrapped around the chainstay the Roaduno also has one in each tire, though maybe I should go “faux tubeless:”
This basically involves gluing your inner tube to your tire, or something, though you can still get pinch flats:
The minuses are that faux tubeless is still prone to pinch flats, as with a standard tubed setup, and you can still get punctures that the sealant or a tyre plug won’t seal.
Clearly we can take faux tubeless one step further by sewing the tube up inside of the tire and then gluing the whole thing to the rim.
Wait–
Goddamn it, I think we may finally be running out of concepts to reinvent–though here’s something new and exciting:
Apparently they chose aluminum due to the extreme desert heat:
Most outdoor tracks use concrete for construction to withstand various weather conditions. In southern Arizona where typical summer temperatures exceed 100°F (37°C), aluminum was selected as the track surface to endure the high heat and allow for year-round use, which was noted by Canadian Cycling Magazine earlier this year.
It will also be coated in a non-stick surface, and there will be an omelette station at turn three where they’ll be made to order and cooked directly on the track surface. Or, after the race, you can simply eat your tires:
That’s assuming your tires are made from soybean oil and rice husk, of course:
On display was a pale-tan T50 prototype, for folks to see, feel and, yes, smell. Gone is carbon black, the compound that gives most tyres their dark colour, as well as synthetic rubbers and chemical compounds. In their place are natural rubber, organic cotton, soybean oils, rice husk silica, natural latex and recycled nylon yarn spun from discarded fishing nets.
By the end of an omnium on a hot aluminum track they should be seared to perfection, just season to taste and enjoy!
But yes, the aluminum velodrome does sound pretty cool…though in a season or two they’ll somehow rationalize upgrading it to carbon fiber.