Velo Corsetry: Rescuing Vintage Saddles

The Co-Habitant has recently acquired a gorgeous vintage Roadster. The bicycle itself was in great condition, but the B72 Brooks saddle seemed to be a goner -- hard as a rock, with cracks on the verge of forming all over the surface. Rather than give up on the saddle, he decided to try the lacing technique. Lacing can rescue saddles that have become rigid and brittle with age: It holds the shape of the saddle under pressure of the cyclist's behind, allowing the leather to slowly regain its flexibility. Here is how it is done:

A dried-out saddle should first be treated with Neatsfoot oil. If the saddle is rescuable, it will begin to soften. Take care not to use too much oil, so as not to oversaturate: Rub the saddle with a cloth or napkin, never soak.

Punch several holes on each side of the saddle, through which the laces will be threaded.

Thread the laces through the holes, overlapping them underneath and pulling the two sides of the saddle closer together -- like tying a shoe. The traditional method is to use a long strip of leather, though some use shoe-laces.

The tightness can be adjusted, like a corset, to control the shape of the saddle. Afterwards, the laces are tied in a secure knot.

This is what the saddle looks like in the end. The stiching itself can be executed in several different ways. The Co-Habitant likes the "underneath" stitch, but the side-to-side stitch is also popular.

And voila: an ancient B72 saddle rescued and happily returned to its proper place. It has not cracked after being riden on. Happy saddle, happy Roadster, and happy Co-Habitant.

More information about lacing Brooks saddles is available from Wallington Bicycle Parts.

Velo Purgatory

People who have lots of unfinished bike projects lying around must be used to this - but to me there is something sad and anxiety-provoking about having a bike at home that's missing parts, or a frame that has not had a chance to become a bicycle yet. It's as if the non-functional bicycles are in a state of velo-purgatory - crying out to be completed and ridden.



My beautiful Royal H. mixte frame came home today, and it looks like I will be building it up much later than I thought - possibly in the end of the summer, or whenever I manage to save the money. And my attempt to tackle the Sam Hillborne frame on my own over the winter did not end well. In the end I brought the frame back to Harris with the metaphorical tail between my legs, and it is only now being built up - in the very midst of the spring customer rush. Naturally, having a bicycle built at a shop is more expensive than doing it oneself, and so my plans for the Royal H. mixte are on hold until some serious financial recovery time after the Hillborne. In the meantime, I better wrap it in bubble-wrap and put it away. I don't think it's healthy to sit on the bed next to a bicycle frame and stare at it for this long.



My Mercier mixte is now also a "purgatory bike", albeit very temporarily. The large chainring is off getting "de-toothed" by a fine gentleman who is a reader of this blog, as part of my scheme to convert this bicycle to a 5-speed. The chainring will be back soon, and till then I respond to the Mercier's questioning glances by gently stroking its handlebars and assuring it that it is not being disassembled for parts but is being improved.



Ah the joys of obsessiveness, anthropomorphic tendencies and an overly vivid imagination!

Why Wye?

As I was getting ready to leave Springfield Wednesday morning (September 9th) I discussed my travel plans with my hosts. My intention at that time was to head north to Lawrence, Kansas to see what I could find on Samuel Fisher, the brother of my 2nd Great Grandmother, Louisa Fisher Phend.

However, I made a stop to purchase a few things before leaving and “something” jogged my memory – a small town in Arkansas was calling my name.

In 1985, I corresponded with Arba Phend Showalter, a daughter of Marion Ora Phend and granddaughter of Christian Phend. Her uncle, Clarence D. Phend was the fellow who wrote the early version of the history of the Phend Family.

Though undocumented and rife with errors, his version of the family history nevertheless provided invaluable information and clues for further research. I will forever be grateful to Clarence for putting it all in writing and to Arba for sending me a copy of it!

Clarence was first married on May 18, 1901 in Elkhart County, Indiana to Myrtle Clyde. It is not known whether Myrtle was deceased or if they were divorced, but, according to Arba, Clarence was married a second time to Lora West on September 22, 1908.

I haven't found Clarence in the 1910 Federal Census but in 1920 he was a 43 year old preacher living in River Town, Mayes County, Oklahoma along with his wife, Lora. She was also 43 years old and a school teacher. In the 1930 census, Clarence and Lora were found in Wye, Perry County, Arkansas. His occupation was given as farmer and she was a public school teacher. In both 1920 and 1930, he was listed as having been born in Indiana and she in Missouri.

It seems that Clarence may have been an itinerant preacher for a time. In an article found online in .. (the url is no longer valid) about the Branson, Missouri Presbyterian Church by Townsend Godsey in the White River Valley Historical Quarterly (v 9, Winter 1987) there was this brief sentence “... Revivalists, identified by the Branson Echo as Reverends Ross and Phend, began asking for subscriptions to build a church...”

Of her uncle Clarence, Arba wrote “My information is that his second wife's name was Lola Gray. I wrote to Alice Selby, pastor of the Wye and Bigelow, Arkansas United Methodist church in 1981. She wrote that the church records show that Clarence and Lora Gray Phend became members of the Wye United Brethren Church on August 22, 1943. Lora taught school in the community and Clarence did some preaching. I quote 'They lived in a little cabin about 6 miles south of Bigelow, Arkansas on Highway 113' and 'Lora was raised in Graysville, Missouri and I know that in early days, Rev. Phend was the pastor of a U. B. Church in northern Missouri which may be where he met Lora.' Clarence died on either the 11th or 22nd of March 1945. Lora died November 30, 1951 and both are buried in the Wye, Arkansas cemetery. My mother's information is that Clarence died on the 11th of March 1945 but Alice Selby writes it was March 22nd 1943 which can't be right.”

So it was to find Clarence's burial place that I headed south from Springfield instead of going north. Though I knew “about” where it was, I couldn't find the town of Wye on the road atlas that I had and, luckily, as I entered Arkansas on US Rte 65 there was a welcome center. The nice man gave me a more detailed map and even helped me find Wye, which is about 30 miles northwest of Little Rock.

Even though it was raining and overcast, I opted to get off the main highway and take Scenic Route 7 from Harrison. Route 7 winds and wends its way through the hills and valleys - it wasn't quite so scenic as it would have been on a nice sunny day, but it was still quite pretty. And it didn't rain the whole way. After turning off onto several other back-country roads and traversing their ups and downs, I eventually found myself in the small community of Wye. You can't really call it a town since there are no open stores but there are some houses. And a church. And some vacant buildings.

The half-mile road back to the cemetery is really a one lane gravel path, barely wide enough for one vehicle, with trees bordering both sides of the lane. And it was raining, again. Pouring down. But as I arrived at the cemetery, it let up some and after a few minutes slowed to a drizzle. It was about 4 o'clock. Trees surrounded the cemetery and their darkness contributed to the gloomy day.

Wye Cemetery covers a fairly large area but there aren't that many stones there. It only took half an hour or so to walk the entire cemetery. Clarence and Lora were alongside the front of a fenced in area and I had somehow overlooked them on the first pass through from front to back.




It surprised me that they were buried next to the Rev. Alice Selby. The very same Alice Selby who had provided Arba Showalter with information about Clarence!

Clarence D. Phend, son of Christian and Mary (McConnell) Phend, was born September 18, 1876 in Kosciusko County, Indiana and passed away on March 11, 1945 in Bigelow, Perry County, Arkansas. Lora (West) Phend was born about 1877 and died November 30, 1951. They are buried in Wye Cemetery, Pulaski County, Arkansas.

Note: The 1930 census shows Wye Township in Perry County, Arkansas. The GNIS database and Find-a-Grave both show that it is in Pulaski County. I haven't yet found when the change was made.

Cycling and Comfort: When Does It Hurt?

Small confession: For the past couple of days, I have been using my road bike for transportation. Not out of choice, but out of necessity - I can't spend more than 2 minutes on any of my upright or semi-upright bicycles right now without pain.



In my excitement about Marianne's conversion, I took her on her longest ride yet as a fixed gear - 28 miles. For the first 20 miles, everything was fine. The bike's geometry has never been the most comfortable, but as a fixed gear it felt better than ever and I was pedaling happily. But then, with just 8 miles to go, I suddenly became aware of a rapidly growing discomfort - not just in one area, but in several: in my shoulders, arms, back, pelvis, joints - pain seemed to be everywhere and it attacked me all at once. By the time I got home, I felt as if I had been run over by a train. I took some Ibuprofen and expected it would go away in the morning. But when I tried to ride my vintage Raleigh the next day, I felt the same pain immediately and barely managed to cycle to my destination a mere mile from home.



Mysteriously, I can still ride my roadbike with zero of the pain I experience on the upright bikes. Somehow being in the drop-bar position on the comfortable Rivendell does not activate any of the same discomfort.So, I am now in the ironic situation where I can go for 35 mile rides on a roadbike, but can't cycle for even a couple of miles on any of my city bicycles. Argh!



My working hypothesis of what happened is that while riding Marianne, my legs grew tired of the fixed gear pedaling, and without realising it I began to put more stress on my arms, hands, butt, and everything else. And because the mixte is semi-upright, this damaged some joints in a way that the pain only shows up in the upright position, but not in a leaned-over position. Does that make any sense as a possibility?



But this particular situation aside, I have been thinking a lot lately about comfort, and, more specifically, about when it is appropriate to declare that a bicycle is "comfortable". Had I limited my rides on Marianne to 20 miles at a time or less, I would have thought she was perfectly comfortable. I could have ridden her this way for years, thinking that I had a comfortable bike - but I would have been wrong. And that is why it is so difficult to determine a bicycle's comfort based on the sort of test rides you take at the bike shop, or even short rides on your own. Bicycle A might feel better than Bicycle B after a short spin, but how will they compare after mile 20? mile 50? mile 100? You just do not know, until you actually ride the bicycle for that distance.

Redwood Forest

Redwood Regional Park, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

Another photo from today's visit to Redwood Regional Park. This park is just minutes from Oakland, and a short drive from the inland East Bay.

It was 98 degrees inland today; at Redwood, it was 83. Talk about relief from the heat!

Oh, This Old Thing?

The Co-Habitant teases me for my tendency to love decrepit old bicycles despite having modern options. My Mercier in particular is not only old, but quite crusty - with dulled paint, visible rust, and various other signs of wear. And yet this bicycle is so comfortable and charming, that I have been on an obsessive quest to make it "perfect" in its own unique way.

Pictured here are my latest additions: fenders, front rack, bell, and stem shifters.

For fenders, I chose the inexpensive stainless steel fenders from Velo Orange. The idea (aside from saving money) was that the plain polished fenders would go nicely with all the chrome parts on this bicycle. I think it worked out well.

And this is the tiny, adorable vintage TA front rack, designed to attach to the Mafac brakes on the Mercier. These come up for sale occasionally online and from fellow collectors at reasonable prices.

The rack, while very cute, is so small that I am not sure what I will put on it. A classic touring handlebar bag does not really fit the look of this bike, but I will keep thinking. What did the French put on bicycles with these handlebars?

Finally, we replaced the original Simplex downtube shifters with Suntour stem shifters (this part was done at Harris Cyclery, while the fender and rack installation we did at home). Downtube shifters just did not seem appropriate for this bicycle and reaching all the way down there in traffic did not feel safe. The little stem shifters are perfectly placed and very easy to operate.

In addition, I have begun converting the Mercier to a 5-speed - so the left shifter (leading to the front derailleur) is no longer connected to anything. The left shifter and front derailleur will come off once I get the situation completely sorted, and a vintage French chainguard will be installed. I will explain why and how I am doing this in a separate post - but hopefully it will work out.

All of this does sound like a lot of fuss about an old bike. But in a way, it is the Mercier's decrepitude that liberates me: Had the original paint been in better condition, I would not have dared re-paint the lugs by hand to this nice green-gray from the original black. Had the components been higher-end, I would not have been willing to experiment with a 5-speed conversion. There is a lot of fun to be had with an old bicycle. The main thing, is that you like the ride quality and care enough to gradually improve the rest.

Colour Theory for Bikes

As someone who deals with colour all the time - taking pains to get it "just right" for paintings and photography setups - I am fascinated by the role of colour in bicycles. Choosing colour is not just a matter of "what matches what." It is a matter of understanding the psychological mechanisms involved in human colour perception and processing - which to me has always been interesting. But taking it down a notch from the realms of art-speak and neuro-psychology, here are some thoughts on colour choices as they pertain to setting up bicycles:



Handlebars and saddle

My go-to standard for handlebars and saddles is the brown family.The reason I like to use brown as opposed to black, is that brown enhances the colour of the bicycle frame, whereas black tends to "deaden" it. Being neutral, brown will not compete with the frame colour, just as black will not. But it will make the colour more vibrant, more emphatic - whereas black will leave it flat.



This works especially well on "cool" frame colours - such as blue and silver. And using twine and bits of leather on other parts of the bike (chainstay protector, kickstand, waterbottle, saddlebag straps) will further enhance the "warming" effect.



Brown can also make a black frame look less intimidating and more "personable" - as well as bring out the details in what would otherwise be an expanse of black-on-black.



But of course, black has its place as well. Black accessories make a bike seem more aggressive - which can look good on some bicycles. And depending on the "personality" of a particular bike (lady's military bike?), you might not necessarily want the frame colour to be overly vibrant.



And when it comes to racing bikes, an aggressive or sporty look is usually more fitting than an "earthy" look. This can be achieved either with black, white, or brightly-coloured saddle and tape combinations (ideally in a contrasting colour to the frame). Bright and high-contrast colour schemes are exciting and suggest high energy, fast movement. If that is what you want your bike to communicate - go with it. And if not, you can tone it down with browns and neutrals, as I have done to this bike.



TiresIt goes without saying that performance and not colour should be the first consideration when it comes to tires. But assuming that you can get equally well-performing tires in a variety of colours, it can be nice to play around with that element as well. While I do not hide my crazed preference for cream tires, I do not suggest that they are "the best" option.



Cream tires can look elegant if you are going for a delicate look and have taken pains not to include any black on your bike. Here they make the bicycle look a lot more "serene" than had I used other tire choices.



And they can also look elegant as a contrast to the frame.But there comes a point - and for some it arrives much sooner than for others - where cream tires can be just too much and overwhelm the rest of the bike (I think that here I am dangerously approaching that). I also don't think that cream tires look good on a cream or white bicycle. It is too low-contrast and reminds me of "ghost bikes." Achielle does the cream-on-cream look better than others, and if you go in this direction adding prominent brown accessories to break it up a bit is the key.



A good, traditional option if you are looking for classic tires, are "gumwalls" - which are tires with back tread but tan sides. The tan fits nicely into the "organic" saddle and handlebar colour scheme, without the tires competing with the rest of the bicycle for prominence. I also like it how the alloy rims, the tan sidewalls and the black tread create the visual impression of 3 circles, one inside the other.



Bags and accessories

I am very conservative when it comes to bicycle "luggage," so perhaps I am not the best person to ask about this one. Mainly, I don't like it when bicycle bags are too distinct in relation to the bicycle itself - whereas the trend now (especially for accessories targeted at women) seems to be brightly coloured luggage with prominent graphics. It's not that I am "against" flowers, polka-dots, curly-cues, and the like. It's more that I want my bicycle to be the main focal point and not the bag. So I prefer to get subtle, classic accessories in neutral colours. As with saddles and handlebars, I think that the brown/olive family works well for a nature-exploring sort of look, whereas black works well for a more aggressive or racy look.



Decorations

Unless intentionally using decorations to distract from the rest of the bike, the colour of the decorations should not stand out too much from the other colours on the bicycle. Otherwise, the eye will get drawn to the decoration itself, with the rest of the bike an afterthought.



Frame Colour

If you are getting a bicycle frame re-painted, or are trying to choose a colour for a custom bike, the colour selection is of course a matter of personal preference. But based on my own experience (and conversations with others), keep a few things in mind:



1. Speaking very generally, super-bright colours work better on sporty bikes, whereas subdued colours work better on touring and transportation bikes.



2. True white is very harsh and almost never looks good. Even if a bicycle you like appears white to you, the actual colour is almost definitely a pale cream, a very light gray, or an off-white. Think twice before asking for a true white paintjob.



3. If you are getting the paintjob (especially powdercoat) done at a "budget" type of establishment, beware of asking for metallic colours. They are easier to mess up, and flaws in them are more visible than with regular colours. Flaws in lighter colours are also more visible than flaws in darker colours.



4. Prepare yourself for the fact that the colour never, ever looks the same on the bike as it does on the tiny colour chip, let alone on the online colour sample. I have seen some pretty amazing discrepancies, where after the person spends a month wringing their hands about the "perfect" shade, the colour on the bike does not even look like the same colour family as the chip they chose. One thing you can do, is give the painter a sample of the colour you want and ask them to find the closest match. They have experience with the way the colours actually looks on a bike. Alternatively, you can find out the colour code of a bike you like, and ask for that exact one.



There are those who take bicycle aesthetics very seriously and start to pull their hair out in despair if they cannot find the exact shade of orange handlebar tape they wanted. And there are those who could not care less about the details, and just use whatever components and accessories are available. I see myself as somewhere in the middle, leaning perhaps just a tad towards the former. (What? You think it's more than just a tad?...) While I enjoy setting up my bicycles in a way that is aesthetically pleasing to me, I do it quickly and intuitively, without dwelling on it too much. Then I ride the bike and get it filthy beyond all recognition - which is part of the fun, at least for me.