The Hill of Neauphle-le-Château

In the René Herse book, there is a chapter on the 1945 Omnium des Cyclotouristes, which included a climb up the steep cobblestone hill at Neauphle-le-Château near Paris. One of the riders, Paulette Porthault, remembered: “Oh it was awful, all those rough cobblestones which dated from the time of Louis XIV.”

Recently, Ivan Souverain visited the hill on his 1938 “Sans Peur” (Without Fear) 650B camping bicycle. He reports that it’s still as steep and difficult as it was in 1945.

In 1945, René André and Joël Simon were riding toward another victory for the René Herse team (top). The cobbles, the houses and the ancient wall all are still there 68 years later (above).

In 1945, many of the riders took to the side of the road, where the gravel and grass were smoother than the cobbles themselves. Above is the tandem of the Le Chevalliers, followed by Raymond Valance and his wife.

The sidepath now has been paved and is used for parking.

Ivan made it to the top, but his comment was: “The cobblestone hill is just not made for average rider like me.”

At least there is a Café nearby to celebrate his success. I have to ask Mme. Porthault whether they went that same cafe after the ride in 1945!

Bike to Work Month: Riding Safely

May is “Bike to Work” month. With winter weather behind for most of us, it’s a great time to use your bicycle more often for transportation, and not just for recreation. Cycling for transportation for most of us means that we often ride in the city. Safety is a major concern, so this month we are preparing a series of posts about cycling safety.

To start with, let’s look at one of the greatest dangers to cyclists: poor riding skills. More than half of all cycling accidents and 16% of cycling fatalities do not involve collisions with other vehicles. So how can you improve your riding skills and avoid crashing?

The biggest step is learning to control your bicycle with confidence. It may appear counterintuitive, but riding timidly makes you less safe. Not only is your bike more stable and maneuverable at higher speeds, but if you know its limits, you are better able to respond to unforeseen hazards. You can stop faster or change direction quicker without risking a crash.

Here are four things you can practice to improve your confidence in handling your bike. Do this only while riding on a traffic-free stretch of road:

1. Ride in a perfectly straight line.

• Why? Not wobbling will make you safer and more predictable in traffic.
• Where to practice: Ride on the white “fog line” at the edge of the road.
• How to do it: Relax your grip on the handlebars. Your bike will go straight, if you let it find its own way. As you sense your bike’s movements, decrease your inputs until you are riding in a very straight line.

2. Place your bike on the road with accuracy.

• Why? If you can place your wheels exactly where you want, it’s easy to avoid hazards like potholes and debris.
  
• Where to practice: To practice, go between two lane marker dots without touching them with either wheel.
• How to do it:  Your bike goes where you look: if you look at a lane marker dot (or pothole), then you’ll hit it. Focus instead on the gap between two lane-marker dots. Here, too, relax your grip on the handlebars. You only can go where you want if you don’t wobble.

3. Brake hard.

• Why? You will be amazed how quickly you can stop.
• Where to practice: Braking is best practiced on a downhill. Let the bike roll, then brake hard. Repeat and brake even harder.
• How to do it: Use only your front brake. Shift your weight back and lock your elbows to brace yourself against “going over the bars”. (This is the only time you want to grip your handlebars with force.) The photo at the top of the blog shows the correct technique.

4. Jump your bike.

• Why? Being able to jump over cracks, steps in the road or small potholes greatly increases your safety in traffic. Jumping also is helpful when faced with railroad tracks that run at an oblique angle to your direction of travel.
• Where to practice: First work on just getting the wheels off the ground a little. Then pick a line in the road and jump over it.
• How to do it: For those of us who did not grow up with BMX, this will work best with clipless pedals or toeclips. Make sure your feet are secure. Bend your knees and elbows, then launch your body upward. Your bike will follow.

Once you master these four skills, you’ll be a much more confident and safe rider. What exercises do you use to improve your confidence and ability to control your bike?

An Impromptu Adventure

Ryan’s e-mail started like this: “I haven’t cycled on the San Juan lslands for a long time. We could leave in the afternoon and catch the 10:30 PM ferry to Orcas. We would be on top of Mt Constitution by 2 AM…”

I didn’t need to read any further. Instead, I picked up the phone: “Count me in!”

Climbing Mount Constitution at night sounded romantic. Add ferry rides, riding on empty backroads and eating good food… It had all the ingredients for a perfect day-and-a-half outing. That is, despite the weather forecast predicted a front coming in.

We met at 3:30 p.m. and left Seattle on familiar roads and trails (above). We crossed the Skagit River Delta through powerful head- and crosswinds. We explored a new bike route into Anacortes in the dark, which took us on an amazing pier across the bay. After 160 km (100 miles) on the road with a single, brief stop, we had an excellent dinner at the deli of a grocery store. Once again, we marveled at how efficiently good randonneur bikes can cover large distances.

When we reached the ferry terminal shortly after 10 p.m., there was a ferry at the dock, but we were the only people there. A sign on the toll both read: “Will be back at 4.” Huh? We double-checked the schedule and discovered the fine print: The 10:30 ferry only runs on Fridays.

Fortunately, the waiting area was open. The janitor showed up for work just as we started to get comfortable, and soon turned off the lights without asking us to leave. So we slept there. It was drizzling outside, so this was probably more comfortable than bivying in the forest on Mount Constitution.

We took the first morning ferry at 5:30. I had only cycled on Orcas Island during summer weekends, when the roads and ferries were crowded with tourists.

Today, we had the roads mostly to ourselves. The few local drivers were friendly and returned our waves. After the long winter, it’s amazing how green spring is. The early foliage has a more yellowish green hue, and the mist made it seem even more vibrant. The evergreen trees’ tips were also lighter, where this year’s growth is coming out.

After the dips and rises of island’s interior, the road wound its way along this magic bay, into a surreal landscape shrouded in fog.

We reached the turnoff to Mount Constitution almost before we knew it. From here, the road winds its way up the mountain to gain a total of 730 m (2400 feet) in elevation.

We had the road to ourselves, except for a single car that passed us on the uphill. We wondered what happened to it, since there is no turn-off, and it wasn’t at the top.

We pushed the pace, since this was our first mountain pass for the year – important training for the rides we have planned for the upcoming season.

The last bit was a steep gravel footpath. Nobody was around, and we rode up that as well.

At the top is an observation tower, built during the 1930 depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps, which put unemployed people to work. Usually, the tower offers grand views of the surrounding islands, the Cascade and Olympic Mountains, and even Vancouver in British Columbia. Today, all we could see were fog and clouds. Deserted and cut off from the world, it was perhaps even more special.

The downhill was exciting, and then we took a different route that led us through Eastsound, Orcas’ largest town. With some time until the next ferry, we decided to enjoy a good meal.

Orcas has enough locals to support their infrastructure without tourists, so we had no trouble finding a bustling café. We ate a multi-course meal that really made Eastsound a destination. Then we caught the ferry back to Anacortes.

On the ferry, Ryan learned that his presence was required at home, so we split up. While he headed to Mount Vernon, I continued with our original plan of riding across Whidbey Island.

I explored a new backroad on the way to Deception Pass (above), then headed along the coast of Whidbey Island, avoiding the busy highway that runs through the center of the island. The coastal roads are very hilly as they climb and descend one bluff after another. As a result, there wasn’t time for photos, but my pace into the headwind and rain had to increase the further I went.

I caught the ferry to Port Townsend with minutes to spare, and enjoyed a brief rest while the boat crossed the choppy waters. I love having all my stuff in a handlebar bag. While other cyclists fuss with their luggage, I just pull the bag out of the decaleur and head to the heated seating area of the ferry. (Except on this day, I was the only cyclist on the boat.)

Soon the charming town of Port Townsend came into view, reminding me of many wonderful vacations spent here.

This afternoon, my visit was limited to an early dinner at the excellent food co-op, before I took to the road again. Instead of taking the busy and relatively flat roads back toward Bainbridge Island, I re-acquainted myself with the wonderful roads that traverse the peninsula.

One of my favorites is Old Eaglemount Road (above).

We will head the other way on these roads during our Flèche 24-hour ride soon, so I got a preview in reverse.

I reached the 9:45 p.m. ferry at Bainbridge Island with barely enough time to buy a sandwich at the grocery store. Then, on the way home from the ferry in Seattle, it had stopped raining, and I had the first tailwind of the entire trip! By 11 p.m., I was in bed, after an exhilarating 30-hour vacation.

1980 René Herse Randonneuse

This René Herse Randonneuse is one of the last bikes made by the famous constructeur. It came to Seattle to be photographed for our book René Herse: The Bikes • The Builder • The Riders, and so I had the chance to study its many details.

René Herse died in 1976, and his son-in-law Jean Desbois took over the shop. Desbois had been among the very first employees of Herse, and he made many of the finest frames of classic René Herse bikes. When this bike was made in 1980, he had developed his own interpretation of the classic René Herse randonneuse – faithful to the original design, but carrying the signature of a new craftsman.

Most noticeable is the change to the iconic stem. The two-bar design remains, but the tops are fluted now. The reinforcement lip around the handlebar hole is deleted. Together with the Allen bolts, this gives the stem a much more modern appearance.

The fork crown has a much longer and less sculpted tang, and the top slopes slightly. However, the lugs retain their classic shape on this bike. (Others have a simpler shape.) And of course, the braze-on mounting of the Mafac brakes and front rack with Herse’s special bolts remains as before. The straddle cable hanger with its roller is a design Herse used from the first to the very last days.

A René Herse cyclotouring bike would not be complete without the iconic cranks. The last models feature one minor change: Instead of the letters being recessed into the crank, they are inset in a square. This required a new forging die, so it’s safe to assume that the old one dies either wore out or were lost.

René Herse was a small maker, and cranks were forged in sets of 500, which meant that they didn’t place orders very often. Forging shops don’t keep dies around very long if you don’t place orders. On this bike, the cranks are coupled with three chainrings and Campagnolo “Superlight” pedals.

Jean Desbois was a practical man, and he felt that a brake quick release was a useful addition. Rather than bolt on the clumsy Weinmann releases, he made a braze-on hanger that incorporated the quick release parts.

The signwriter who had painted the René Herse signatures by hand had died, so Lyli Herse had decals made. I like the old Art Deco lettering, but the 1980s were not a time for nostalgia, and this logo looked more up-to-date.

This is Jean Desbois’ interpretation of the Herse dropout treatment. The scallops are longer than before, giving the joint a lighter, pointier appearance. Most of all, the clean workmanship shows Desbois’ mastery with the torch. Desbois also made the dropout out of steel plate, using saws and files.

The beautifully thinned lugs and the crisp execution of the seat cluster are typical for Desbois’ work. There aren’t many builders who can braze a frame like this. This photo also shows the reinforcement for the fender at the seatstay bridge. René Herse came up with this design in 1951 after his daughter Lyli and Robert Prestat were disqualified from the Poly de Chanteloup hillclimb race when their tandem’s rear fender broke.

Desbois told me that he did not feel the need to make proprietary parts when excellent components were available, so he replaced the traditional René Herse bottom bracket with these Edco cartridge units. The bottom bracket shell has been built up with brass to smooth the sharp creases and give it more strength.

Maxi-Car hubs remained the hub of choice – in fact, their performance and reliability have not been surpassed even today.

Many riders in the 1980s opted for modern handlebar tape, but this bike retains its shellacked cloth tape.

The rules for randonneuring no longer required generators, and many riders preferred battery-powered flashlights that had less resistance and more power. Batteries now were available at the controls. Desbois reinforced this flashlight before mounting it alongside the front rack.

The taillight also is a battery unit, suitably reinforced and mounted to dedicated braze-ons.

In the end, this wonderful bike was not included in the book. We simply had too many lovely machines for the chapter on the 1980s. How could we not include a fully chrome-plated camping bike with internal cables not only for brakes and derailleurs, but even for the generator’s remote control? Or the curved-tube Chanteloup tandem that was built specially for the Salon de Paris? Or Lyli Herse’s last racing bike, a superlight machine made by her husband as one of a matching pair? So I am presenting the bike here, and hope you can appreciate the craftsmanship and design that makes these last Herse bikes so appealing in their own right.

Instead of returning the bike, the owner asked me to sell it for him, so it is currently listed on ebay.

Click here for more information on the René Herse book, which includes similar studio photos of 20 René Herse bicycles, in addition to hundreds of historic photos, and the story of this famous constructeur and his riders.

Chainring Choice or Shifting Ramps?

The chainring choices of our René Herse cranks are not limited by dedicated shifting ramps, so you can use any gear combinations you like. We have optimized the chainring tooth profile to shift well at all times, and not only twice per crank revolution when a ramp and pin are aligned correctly.

During the development of our cranks, we spent a lot of time testing different prototype chainrings (above), as well as the ramped-and-pinned cranks of other makers (below).

Modern chainrings have ramps and pins on the backside below the teeth. The ramps and pins are located where there is an optimal path for the chain from one ring to the other. For that reason, modern chainrings only work in sets of two (or three for triples).

If you put a small chainring with a different tooth count on the cranks shown above, then the ramps of the big ring no longer line up where they should. That is why the large rings are marked not just with their own size, but also with the size of the small ring that is part of the set. In the photo below, the large ring is a 50/34 ring, with ramps that don’t work with other small chainrings, like a 39-tooth ring.

Most component makers offer very limited chainring choices, otherwise they would have to develop a multitude of chainring pairs. Most double cranksets today are available only with 53/39 and 50/34 chainrings.

Some smaller manufacturers offer ramped chainrings that are not designed in pairs. (They are easily recognizable, because they don’t specify for which small ring they are designed.) These ramps are not very effective and mostly serve to reassure customers who see ramps as an important asset of chainrings.

For many decades, chainrings did not have ramps and pins, and yet they shifted fine. Ramps and pins serve only as “insurance” against bad shifts that occur when the rider doesn’t push the lever far enough, or when they forget to let up on the pedals during the shift. Most of the time, the rider initiates the shift when no ramp is aligned correctly, and the chain just moves to the big ring without the help of ramps and pins. (An exception are Shimano STI triples, which don’t work without ramps and pins.)

For the new René Herse cranks, we had to make a choice: Design a few chainring combinations with ramps that offer insurance against bad shifts, or offer almost unlimited chainring choices without ramps. (The third option, to provide “cosmetic” ramps, was not considered.)

It would be prohibitive to provide ramped chainring pairs for each of the dozens of chainring combinations possible with the new René Herse cranks. We would need to develop no fewer than six 48-tooth chainrings, depending on whether you want to use a small chainring with 32, 34, 36, 38, 42 or 44 teeth. And so on for each chainring size! (Now you can understand why even big makers offer only very few chainring choices.)

Instead, we focused on the tooth profile to make sure the chain has an easy path onto the chainring – not just in a few places where there are ramps and pins, but at any spot in the pedal stroke. We tested a number of tooth profiles with a variety of derailleurs to determine how to optimize the shifts without ramps. In the photo above, you can see how the chain runs diagonally between the teeth at the onset of the shift. We use an asymmetric tooth shape that provides more room for this shift. (The teeth bear the chain load only on one side, so there is no need to have as much material on the other side.)

Here’s a bad shift, just what we don’t want, where the chain rides up on the chainring at first, and only engages after half a chainring revolution! This “prototype tooth shape C” was not selected for production…

The downshift to a smaller chainring is relatively simple (above). The chain simply drops down onto the smaller ring. It works every time, without any ramps, pins or special tooth profiles. Small rings wear faster than big ones, so ours use a different tooth profile from the large ones, one that is optimized for durability.

You probably will not notice the optimized chainring tooth profiles when you install your René Herse cranks, but we hope you will notice the difference once you ride them on your bike. Click here for more information about the René Herse cranks.

Further reading:

• How Ramped Chainrings Work. Bicycle Quarterly Vol. 11, No. 2.
• How to Choose Your Chainrings.

Our Books Around the World

Maybe if you are traveling abroad this summer, you’ll find our books in the local language! The world-wide response to our books has been very rewarding. Recently, a German acquaintance sent me this photo from his local bookstore in Göttingen. In the center of a display on cycling books were the German editions of The Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles and The Competition Bicycle.

The Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles also has been quite successful in Japan. To fit on Japanese bookshelves, the size had to be reduced a bit!

Last week, we received the first bound copies of the French edition of René Herse: The Bikes • The Builder • The Riders. It is printed by the same printer as the English version, to guarantee the same high quality.

It’s especially moving for me to see the book translated into French, since many of the riders featured in the book are still alive. When they saw the English version, it was great to see them remember their formative years. Few of them speak English, and I am especially excited about them reading the French edition and finding details they had forgotten or never knew. I am also glad that with this edition, French cyclists and collectors can appreciate the wonderful cyclotouring culture that their country spawned, which has been an inspiration for us all.

Title photo credit: Reinhold Schoon.

The Jack Taylor Story

Some stories are too big for a regular magazine article. They could just about fill a book! In those cases, we dedicate almost an entire edition of Bicycle Quarterly magazine to a single topic.

The Jack Taylor story in Vol. 7, No. 4 is a good example. My friend Mark Lawrence became friends with the Taylor Brothers during his university years. The brothers had achieved world-wide fame for building touring bikes and tandems that rode wonderfully, yet were relatively affordable.

We decided that their story had to be documented, and Mark was the person to do the job. He spent many hours interviewing the surviving Taylor brothers, Ken and Jack, as well as Jack’s wife Peggy. The brothers gave him full access to their photo archives with wonderfully evocative shots of racing in post-war Britain, of the “works” (their shop), and of the bikes they built.

What emerged was a fascinating insight into the world of three “working lads” who started making bicycles in 1936. Their whole lives revolved around cycling: its social events, rides and races. The brothers were fascinated by European-style racing, and were suspended for life from their local club when they entered a renegade massed-start race. Back then, Britain’s official cycling bodies only sanctioned time trials. Undeterred, they rode in the first Tour of Britain (above). Ken Taylor is the third from the right, with the white cap.

I was most fascinated by their stories of going to the Paris Bicycle Show. They were blown away by the components and bicycles on offer in France. They came home loaded down with bike parts, and from then on, their machines were inspired by the French constructeurs. They started making custom racks, stems, tandems with oversize tubing, and even a copy of the Goëland trailer (above, Jack Taylor is chatting up a model during a photo shoot.)

When the Taylor brothers visited the Goëland shop, Louis Moire, the owner, asked them whether they could make trailers for him, too. He found trailers too labor-intensive to make a profit!

Later, the Taylors were discovered by American cyclists, and suddenly found themselves with dozens of visitors camping on the lawn near the works, wanting to visit and order bikes!

In the interviews, the Taylors talked about bicycle geometry and tubing, and many other aspects of what made their bikes special. Ken Taylor also related the secret of how Daniel Rebour made his famous drawings; the two had met many times at the various bike shows and bonded over their common interest in Leica cameras.

That issue of Bicycle Quarterly also included a photo feature of a Jack Taylor tandem in their typical “flamboyant” paint, and a ride report on that machine in an eventful 300 km brevet. From the Taylors, we learned that the “Mondrian” decals were designed by one of their first American customers, Audrey Radmore, who visited the works during a round-the-world tour.

Even after much editing, it was still impossible to fit all the great photos and stories into a standard issue of Bicycle Quarterly. So we extended the issue by four pages, making it our largest ever. (Our printer had problems with the binding and asked us please not to do it again!)

To make this wonderful story more accessible, we’ll offer Volume 7 at 25% ($ 8) off until April 22, 2013. The discount for Volume 7 also applies if you order all back issues. The 20th order receives their copy of the Jack Taylor issue autographed by Ken Taylor. Click here to place your order. (Sale price will be applied at checkout.)