TheBicycle Quarterly yard sale was a success. Not only did it clear out our workshop and storage areas, but it also raised a little over $ 3,500 (which we rounded up to $3,600) for charity, in part thanks to people’s generous bid on ebay.
We will make donations of $ 1200 each to Doctors without Borders, Save the Children and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Thank you to all who contributed to making this a success!
When the owner of a bicycle magazine also runs a company that develops and sells bicycle components, the words “conflict of interest” inevitably come up. Does Bicycle Quarterly only like products that Compass Bicycles sells, and disparages those of other companies? Is the magazine blind to the flaws of Compass Bicycles’ products?
Some people think that we like what we sell, when in fact, we sell what we like. There is a crucial difference between the two.
Bicycle Quarterly began selling things other than magazines when we found excellent products that were not available in North America. It started with books, and today, we bring you a number of excellent books, many of which otherwise would not be available to most of our readers. We sell these in very small numbers, and there isn’t much profit in it, but we consider it a service to our readers to make them available. (The photo above includes books that we used to sell, but which now are out of print.)
Then came the wonderful Grand Bois tires, and nobody wanted to distribute them in North America because the profit margins were too small, so we started importing them. As we did more and more research, we had new ideas about products we wanted, but which nobody wanted to make, like the René Herse cranks. We finally started Compass Bicycles to pursue these projects.
It’s obvious that we like most of the products we sell – otherwise we wouldn’t sell them! As a retailer, we can sell pretty much any product. The latest example are the Hutchinson 650B x 32 mm tires. These tires directly compete with the Grand Bois Cyprès 650B x 32 mm tires, which we distribute in North America. We gave them to a reader to evaluate, in addition to riding them ourselves.
If the review of the tires had been negative, then some might have thought: “Of course, Bicycle Quarterly doesn’t like anything that competes with the Grand Bois tires.” Fortunately, the Hutchinsons are excellent tires, and we decided to add them to our program. Now some may think that we like the Hutchinson tires only because we sell them… You can’t win that one, can you?
What if a product we sell does not offer the performance we expect?
When the Mitsuboshi 650B x 38 mm tires were discontinued, I had an idea for a stop-gap replacement: What about using the mold of the Panaracer “Col de la Vie,” but with the Grand Bois casing and tread material? The result was the Grand Bois “Ourson.” Unfortunately, the “micro-knob” tread pattern of the Col de la Vie dominated the experience of riding the Ourson: It was not as fast as the other Grand Bois tires, and the knobs squirmed and flexed, making the Ourson less than ideal both in a straight line and in corners.
Others did not share our concerns, and raved about these tires online. It would have been easy leave it at that, and not review the Ourson at all, but that would not have been honest. The review in Bicycle Quarterly was harsh: “We do not feel that the Ourson warrants the extra cost [over the Col de la Vie].” When we did this, we knew that sales of these tires would collapse. Our stocks of these tires remained in the warehouse for years, until we finally closed them out when the completely new and excellent Grand Bois Lierre was announced.
With the products we develop, like the René Herse cranks, we go through many prototypes to make sure they are flawless both in their performance and in their appearance. If they are tested in Bicycle Quarterly, we will give them to readers, who are not involved with the magazine, in addition to riding them ourselves. (From the Ourson tire experience, it appears that we are harsher critics of our own components than most other users.)
At the same time, we are careful to evaluate other companies’ products honestly. It does not matter whether they compete with our products or not. This means that we can be highly critical of one product, and then give another product from the same company an excellent review. We simply call it as we experience each product.
The conflicts of interest never will go away, but we work hard to ensure that they do not influence our editorial content. In fact, it’s much harder to criticize a product made by others than a product we sell. We easily can stop selling a product we don’t like, but it’s much harder to repair strained relations with other makers, many of whom are personal friends.
For most of these products, if we did not sell them, they would not be available at all. That is not a pleasant thought: My new bike (above) uses Grand Bois Hetre tires, Grand Bois Randonneur handlebars, a Grand Bois fork crown, Kaisei fork blades, the spindle from an SKF bottom bracket, and now has been fitted with the new René Herse cranks. Without these components, my bike would not offer the performance and comfort that I enjoy so much.
The Grand Bois M-13 racks now come in two versions: One for bikes with narrow clearances (usually for 700C tires) and one for bikes with wider clearances.
With this choice of two racks, it becomes much easier to fit your existing bike with a front rack, provided it has cantilever brakes.
The frontal view above shows the difference between the two versions best: The “narrow tire” rack (on the left) is for bikes with narrower fork crowns (and thus fork blades that are closer at the cantilever posts) and less tire clearance (distance from cantilever posts to fork crown). Remember that you can adjust the rack fit slightly by bending the diagonal supports.
The Grand Bois racks are fillet-brazed from steel tubing by Nitto, with many small details that make them nicer and more durable than Nitto’s basic M-12 racks:
The Grand Bois racks come with custom hardware. We especially like the bolts that replace the bolts of your cantilever brakes (center and top left). Instead of sandwiching the rack and brake on the same bolt, these bolts feature a smaller forward extension onto which the rack is mounted with a nut and lockwasher. This pretty much eliminates the risk of the bolt coming loose from the vibrations as you brake. There also is a domed nut to attach the rack to the fork crown, and a nut and leather washer to attach a front fender to the rack. The bolt on the lower left is for attaching a “hanging” Edelux headlight to the rack, if you want to equip your bike with lights. You also can attach other lights using a longer bolt and spacer that we sell separately.
Speaking of headlights, the light mount on the M-13 rack now is on the left side, which many riders prefer in countries where traffic drives and rides on the right. The light mount is positioned so that a “hanging” Edelux headlight bolts directly to the rack, without a spacer. This reduces the risk of the light coming loose from the vibrations of the road.
The first “hanging” Edelux lights had the wire exit on the right (above right), so they were ideal for mounting on the left side of the rack (as on the new Grand Bois M-13 racks). To make the lights more versatile, we asked Schmidt to have the wire exit in the center (above left), so they work on either side. For now, we offer both versions.
To go with these racks, Compass Bicycles now carry Gilles Berthoud handlebar bags. These bags are classics that have proven themselves over decades of hard use. My own Berthoud handlebar bag has been in almost daily use since 2000, yet it still remains waterproof and fully functional. Where synthetics often look shabby after a while, these bags acquire a beautiful patina.
The first day of our yard sale was a success. Most items are gone, and we’ve raised a nice sum for charity. We found a few more items, and list them below (underlined), together with those that still remain available.
Updated 4/25 with the items that still are available.
A few brand-new or collector-interest items are still on e-bay:
These items are used. Most of these were used for our technical articles, so they have about 50-150 miles on them. There is some “shop-wear”, but functionally, these items are as good as new. (A few items are new or have more use, this is clearly marked.) Unless noted, only one/one pair of each item is available.
The prices do not include shipping. Payment is by PayPal only. First come, first serve – e-mail (heine94 at earthlink dot net) with your list of items you want to buy, we’ll confirm what we still have, you pay, we ship. It’s that simple. The prices are low, so things will go fast. No photos, sorry.
Bikes
650B Tires
700C Tires
Handlebars/Stems/Seatposts
Rims/Wheels
Cranks
U.S. shipping:
Prices are good until sale ends. We’ll update the site periodically to show what remains available. All proceeds will go to charity.
Time to clear out our workshop, so we are selling a lot of bicycle components that are surplus to requirements. All proceeds will go to charity.
These items are used. Most of these were used for our technical articles, so they have about 50-150 miles on them. There is some “shop-wear”, but functionally, these items are as good as new. (A few items are new or have more use, this is clearly marked.) Unless noted, only one/one pair of each item is available.
The prices do not include shipping. Payment is by PayPal only. First come, first serve – e-mail (heine94 at earthlink dot net) with your list of items you want to buy, we’ll confirm what we still have, you pay, we ship. It’s that simple. The prices are low, so things will go fast. No photos, sorry.
Note: Apart from Grand Bois products, none of these carry any warranty from Bicycle Quarterly or Compass Bicycles.
A few brand-new or collector-interest items are on e-bay:
650B Tires
700C Tires
Rims/Wheels
Cranks
Drivetrain
Brakes
Lights
Other
U.S. shipping:
Prices are good until sale ends. We’ll update the site periodically to show what remains available. All proceeds will go to charity.
Should one grease the tapers of bottom bracket spindles before installing the cranks? Few topics spur as much controversy among bike mechanics as this question.
In the old days, Campagnolo not only recommended mounting the cranks dry, they even suggested degreasing the tapers. The concern was that grease might facilitate the crank slide up further and further on the tapers. And since many of us learned about bicycles when Campagnolo was the undisputed king of components, the word from Vicenza was treated as gospel.
More recently, I worked for Race Face as a technical writer and translator, and their engineers disagreed. They advised: “Grease the tapers, but make sure you only tighten the bolts once, then leave them alone.” Their tests had shown that a “dry” spindle/crank interface did not result in a consistent press-fit between the parts.
As we developed the new René Herse cranks, we discussed this topic without coming to a conclusion. In the mean time, our engineer mounted the first test cranks without grease, and found that they had unacceptable levels of runout of the chainrings – the chainrings didn’t run as true as we would have liked. (“Unacceptable” means that the runout was visible even if it did not affect the function or performance.) When the runout changed each time he mounted the cranks, we realized that the cranks were not seating uniformly on the taper.
What exactly was happening? Imagine the crank and spindle surfaces as tectonic plates that slide past each other as the crank bolts are tightened. If you grease the interface, they will slide smoothly until you stop turning the bolt when it is tight. If the interface is “dry,” the crank catches on the spindle. This builds up tension, which then is released in an “earthquake.” Even with the same torque, the crank will sit differently, depending on whether the tension has been released or not, before you stop turning the bolt.
What about the crank arms “migrating” further and further onto the spindle each time you mount the cranks? To test this, we mounted a crank, tightened it to 25 Nm (the recommended value), then took it off, mounted it with 30 Nm … we repeated this 5 times, increasing the torque by 5 Nm each time until we reached 50 Nm. The goal was to find out when the crank would be destroyed. To our surprise, the crank did not move any further onto the spindle. We could not destroy the cranks in this way. A 1990s Campagnolo C-Record crank that we tested for comparison slid further and further onto the crank. We stopped the experiment early to avoid breaking the classic Campagnolo crank.
The difference between the two cranks appears to be that the new René Herse cranks have a forged taper. This makes that part of the crank assembly much stronger. The C-Record crank appears to have a machined taper. Every time the crank gets mounted on the spindle, the aluminum moves – in fact, mounting the crank acts in the same way as a forging process. It is likely that this process would stop eventually, but I’d rather not experiment with a classic crank.
So for our René Herse cranks, we recommend that you lightly grease the crank spindle. Also grease the treads of the bolts. Then tighten the bolts to 25 Nm. That is it. If you like, you can check after your first ride that the bolts are tight. Thereafter, leave them alone.
Crank bolts can loosen over time, but that does not mean that you should re-tighten them. Instead, remove your cranks every couple of years and inspect them for cracks. (You should do this with all cranks, no matter the brand.) Then put them back on, and enjoy them some more. Treated like this, quality cranks will last most riders for decades.
See the blue medallion in the upper left corner? Compass Bicycles introduces Free Shipping to addresses in the U.S. on orders of $ 200 or more. Free shipping is automatic – simply place the order with shipping to a U.S. address, and the shopping basket will not charge shipping. There are no coupon codes, fine print or exceptions.
For all other orders, we charge shipping at cost. Our shopping basket calculates the shipping charges based on the weight and volume of the items you buy, plus insurance. We do not charge for “handling” and we don’t make money on our shipping. The shopping basket calculations are approximate; in the rare case that there is a significant overcharge, we automatically issue a refund.
We ship international orders frequently to places all over the world. When you check out with an international address, we suggest you try the different shipping options in the check-out window. Sometimes, a “flat rate” postal rate is significantly less expensive.
We want to make our excellent product selection more readily available to you, and hope you’ll take advantage of it!
