Campagnolo 11-Speed Chorus, Record, Super Record Gruppos or What A Paycheck(s) Looks Like in Bike Parts

Campagnolo 2009 11-speed group sets, Chorus and Record are going to cost almost exactly as much as the 10-speed 2008 gruppos. This will make spending your entire paycheck(s) easier, since you already know how much you are going to have to pony up to decorate your favorite frame in fine Italian jewelry.  Velonews has good technical explanations of the 2009 Campy 11-speed Chorus versus Record differences. And on the Velonews site, you can also read about the new Super Record. If you want to hear and see the new Super Record components, Brian from Campagnolo explains the 2009 Super Record groupset in a video on Roadbikereview.com. If you owned or remember Super Record, first introduced in 1973 by Campy, forget the trip down memory lane. The new 2009 gruppo looks, weighs, and performs nothing like the old one. (Jump for more info. and photos.)

*Start drinking coffee and cutting down on sleep if you plan on entering the Wheelgirl 2008 T-shirt Design Contest. You have 48 hours left to try to win the set of Phil Wood track hubs.

 

Photos of Record 11-Speed rear derailleur lifted from the Velonews site, which in turn, were courtesy of Campagnolo. Super Record cassette photo lifted from Brian's Super Record video.

With an 11-23 cassette, Chorus weighs in at 2145 grams, Record at 2015 grams, and Super Record weighs 1964 grams. Chorus for 2009 is going to cost the exact same, and Record is expected to decrease in cost by 2 percent. (Hello?!). Campy is going to offer a 4-year warranty for these groupsets. (This helps greatly to increase consumer confidence.) In terms of offerings, you can opt for a Chorus, Record, or Super Record compact crankset and 11-23T, 11-25T, 12-25T and 12-27T  11-speed cassettes. So, weekend warriors you no longer have a good excuse to put your money into a 401K. My dear bike mechanics, please note that Campy is requiring a specialized chain tool for the 2009 11-speed chains. So, keep that in mind when you budgeting for the bench. Oh, also for bike mechanics, get yourself two slices of pizza today, according to BikeRadar, "Campagnolo’s entry-level Mirage and Xenon group sets will be discontinued."

 

MKS Sylvan Track Pedals in Anodized Colors for Fixed Gear Makeover, Watching Tour de France is Part-Time Summer Job

I am obsessed with watching every minute of the Versus coverage of this year's Tour de France. It is like a daily five-and-a-half-hour-long HBO mini-series for the bike freak in all of us. When the TdF drama is over, I am sure I'll feel disoriented and lost. Next to my bike, the DVR (digital video recorder), which eliminates the billions of commercials, is my new most favorite machine.  So the extended Tour coverage, coupled with the fact the bike shop is slammed, means that the posts are short and sweet for another week. Anyway, Roland in North Carolina emailed to ask if I had any red track pedals he could buy for a fixie he is building. (I sound like Casey Kasem on American Top 40.) The answer is yes, Roland. MKS is making the Sylvan Track pedal in red, blue, gold, and black anodized colors as well as in the regular silver finish. They cost more, but the color is a nice touch if you are designing a special bike, and the anodized color looks pretty deep on the set of MKS pedals that just arrived at the shop this week.

Photos by Wheelgirl

I Phil Good

Powder-coated white high-flange goodness. "I feel nice like sugar and spice," since the latest Phil Wood track hubs arrived last week. The pair in the glass case are pretty enough to build a bike around.  "Whoa-oa-oa! I feel good, I knew that I would, now I feel good, I knew that I would, now. So good, so good, I got you Whoa!" (Buy an "I Phil Good" t-shirt. I dare you to get the tune to that song out of your head.)

* Reminder: Those artistic cats who hit the snooze button each and every morning, wake it up! You have 11 days left to enter the Wheelgirl 2008 T-Shirt Design Contest .

Photos by Wheelgirl

Big Cheese Star Handle Bar Grips by Dimension

In the shop, we often help customers put a bit of new life into their old road bike by removing the damaged and rusty derailleurs and turning these many-year-old machines into single-speed commuters. When it comes to riding in traffic on a daily basis, many cyclists opt for a more upright commuter-friendly position on the bike, so they can easily see and react to traffic. Customers usually have us replace the road drop bars with some straight bars. When this happens, away goes the bar tape, and grip style and color become discussion topics. I've written about Oury grips. (These are really comfortable, and come in solid colors only.) However, if you are a cyclist who loves a bit of flash, or if you are into astrology, currently working for NASA, or tend to hit your head a lot, Dimension makes the Big Cheese grips with stars on them. If you are visiting the Bay Area this summer, stop by and check out the Wheelgirl bike shop grip selection.

 

Photos by Wheelgirl.

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Chrome Bag Has New San Francisco Store Location, Bike Video Screening at July Grand Opening

Since the Tour De France began, the Wheelgirl bike shop has been extra slammed. (This is a good problem to have.) However, in the crazy happy chaos of wheelbuilds and custom bike builds, I forgot to post photos of my 4th of July weekend visit to the new Chrome Bag store in San Francisco. Chrome moved from their Folsom Street location to a beautiful space at 580 4th Street, between Brannon and Bryant, right near the Cal Train station. (Jump to read more, and see more photos.)

   

Photos by Wheelgirl.

At Chrome, Wyatt and Shawn showed me around the new digs. Shawn built the industrial-looking metal and wood display table, which I really like. And I got to check out limited edition bags that I had not seen before that were floating around the store. Flourescents are not at the top of my favorite color list. However, if I had to pick out the messenger bags a car driver during rush hour might most easily see on the back of a cyclist, the bright and garish flourescent mixes win hands down. So, if you are an "Autumn" and look better in browns and greens, but need to be highly visible on your bike commute,  you may want to trade your fashion sense for some safety sense, and opt for something hideously bright. (We carry Chrome bags in the Wheelgirl store, so email if you are looking for a certain messenger bag.)

The new Chrome retail space is much bigger and brighter than the old one. One wall has a giant sculpture of scrambled bike frames, a "wheelnado" (my name for it) reaches from the bag racks way up to the ceiling, and a smaller scrambled bike sculpture screens over-zealous bag purchasers from jumping up into the front windows. The store actually opened on June 24th. But there is a Grand Opening on July 31, and the winning bike video from the Chrome Bags Video Contest will be screened at that party. You can check out the video contest entries here.

 

Photos by Wheelgirl.

Pake Space Straps, Toe Straps That Remind Us Of Something Else

The Pake Space Straps are a woven nylon toe strap covered in rubbery layer of colored urethane. This past weekend, everyone who touched the strap and bought them at the bike store said the same thing, "What does this toe strap remind me of? Oh, now I know, a flea collar!" The Pake toe straps feel like they have that same kind of coating, flexibility, and strength.

The Space Straps come in three color groups: High-lighter (fluorescent green, yellow, pink, and orange); Opaque (black, duct tape silver, maroon, and white), Translucent (green, yellow, mango, bright blue, navy blue, and red). The texture on all of the various colored straps is definitely unique. A fixed riders who used them over the weekend came in today an reported that they feel pretty good, and other riders have said they feel much better than the inexpensive leather toe strap that wear and tear over time or the nylon ones that stretch out too much and then shred. Time will tell if the coating wears off or becomes gummy and/or grimy. Put up a post if you are riding with these toe straps, and let us know what you think.

If you are on a budget, and you need to do a bit of a makeover to your fixed gear, a new set of clips and straps is usually a good investment, and an upgrade can go a long way in making your fixie pedaling and skidding feel more dialed. You can check out the colors we have in the following photos, and we just ordered some more different colors today. (I think the High-lighter colors might best appeal to those who were not yet born the first time that neon colors were in fashion.)

*Reminder: If you win the Wheelgirl.com 2008 T-Shirt Design Contest, you get a set of Phil  Wood track hubs plus more. Organized creative cats are beginning to send in their entries. You've got 17 days left before the deadline, procrastinating and talented cats. All details are here.

Photos by Wheelgirl. First photo is Opaque black, white, duct tape silver, then Translucent mango, yellow, and green. The close-up photo is of the Translucent green Pake Space Strap. 

Macaframa Poetry in Motion and Cog Magazine

You messy fixed gear riding cats, I don't care if you wash or match your sock. Just keep continuing to entertain me completely with your brave and unique fixed gear poetry in motion. I found an issue of Cog Magazine  at the new Chrome Bag store 4th of July weekend, and when I went to Cog's site, watching the Macaframe trailer below made me grin. Yes, Aunt Lou, it is dangerous. But as Jenny Holtzer observed in her 1983-1985 Survival writings: "Finding extreme pleasure will make you a better person if you're careful about what thrills you."  I am still saving that t-shirt with one-line Holzer truisms.

The Macaframe video site  has other really short film trailers that marry the two-wheeled grace and balance of fixed gear urban riding to evocative music. Pretty in my ears and pretty on my eyes. (Can you Macaframe guys light some candles, have a seance, and channel some of your image-to-music and machine-to-movement intuitiveness to the Discovery Channel show, How It's Made. Help them to help themselves.)

If you ride any type of bike in San Francisco, check out the short fixed gear video clips. And if you love all things fixed gear, click through Cog Magazine. Print copies of Cog were shipped yesterday. There is no charge for the magazine. It is completely free if you buy anything from the Wheelgirl bike shop. But you can subscribe if you like by visiting their site. Suggestion: Work up to difficult tricks if you are new to fixie trick riding. Gifted fixsters are usually happy to share their tips for ways to keep the blood and bones on the inside of your skin.

MACAFRAMA Trailer from MACAFRAMA on Vimeo.

Phil Wood Says You Can Radially Lace Any Hub They Make And Not Void Warranty

I just got off of the phone with Mark at Phil Wood, and then I called back and talked with Bruno at Phil Wood just to double-check (after Peter at Cog Magazine specifically asked me if this also applied to Phil Wood SLR track hubs). Cats on two wheels: Phil Wood will warranty any Phil Wood hub that is radially laced. You will not void the Phil Wood warranty if you radially lace any Phil Wood high-flange regular, SLR (the track hub with little windows cut out of the flanges), or low-flange track; road, and single-speed hubs. Bruno said he had not yet seen a Phil hub flange sheared off, since Phil uses a less brittle aluminum alloy to make their hubs and stress on the flanges causing fractures don't happen the same way they do on hubs manufactured with more brittle aluminum. The worst thing Bruno has seen are a few hubs from the 1970s and 1980s which had been re-laced 4 times over 30 years, and the spoke holes finally said that they were tired causing the flanges to warp a bit. I'll take that kind of quality any day.

According to Mark, the engineers who designed the Phil Wood high-flange track hubs design them with the thought that cyclists might want to lace their front hubs radially. If you are new to fixed gear riding, radial lacing is the spoke pattern that looks minimal and cool, since the spokes don't cross. They radiate out from the center of the hub straight into the rim.

Alright rebel riding cats, I can already hear the question: "But what if i do want to radially lace my rear fixed Phil Wood hub. Will that void the warranty?"  (Jump for the answer.)

(Example photo lifted after random Google search from Velospace.org)

The answer, according to Bruno, is you will not void the warranty if you radially lace a rear Phil Wood hub. Any hub that Phil Wood makes is warrantied for radially lacing, just as long as the spokes are tensioned to meet manufacturer stress tolerances for the hub, rim, and spoke types. This means you can't ignorantly tension your spokes so tightly that you massively deform the metals of the wheel components and expect a bike component company to pay for your inexperience. But I asked Bruno if cyclists really radially lace fixed gear rear hubs. Bruno replied, "It is silly. But it is done." According to Bruno, people do lace a two-cross on the drive side and radial on the non-drive. But if you are riding Phils on Velocity Deep Vs, you are paying for strong, inelastic, and highly dependable. And Bruno and I both agree that a 3x rear track wheel is what we ride, since we are boring and lazy and want to spend our time riding our bikes not fixing them. There are laws of physics that make radially lacing a fixed wheel being pulled on by a chain under extreme stress an exceedingly unsound idea.

Strong suggestion: Don't radially lace any hub unless the manufacturer designed the hub flanges to withstand radial lacing. Your questions about lateral versus torsional strength and comparisons of radial and 2x, and 3x spoking patterns are moot if the wheel components are not engineered as a system to support certain lacing patterns. What happens, rebel cats, if you go against the rules? You can pull off the hub flanges (seen it); break off the flanges in little chunks by the spoke holes (seen it); and due to consequences of your rebel lacing actions, spend way too much time riding a couch watching day-time TV while your bones knit. Yes, I have read lots of accounts of people who radially lace a hub that is not designed to be laced this way and do just fine. But metal parts are engineered with particular strength and stress factors in mind for the job the hub is expected to perform. You have fewer reasons for a wheel to failure if you respect the technical design and specifications associated with specific wheel components.

We build lots of custom wheels on Phil Wood track hubs usually laced to Velocity Deep V rims. You certainly get what you pay for. They are long-lasting, bomb-proof urban riding hoop on which you can roll and race for many years. If you want your front Phil Wood track hub radially laced, stop by the shop or email. Before shipping anything, email, and check to see that we have the rim you want in stock. (The non-machined Velocity Deep V rims in colors go like hotcakes.) If the rim is in stock  we can usually lace your hub to a Deep V and put your new wheel into UPS within 5 days of receiving your hub.

Download Free PDF of Urban Velo Bike Magazine, Read and Recover From Your Great July 4th Weekend

You had a great July 4th weekend. You rode your bike around the excellent and happily empty city streets of San Francisco, since tens of thousands of people left town during the holiday weekend. You've thanked your lucky stars for the invention of corn on the cob. Now it is time to go back to work and to make your summer bike commute through the city even more enjoyable. Step 1: Download the PDF of the latest issue of Urban Velo magazine. Step 2: Read about people like you who love riding their bikes in city environments. The PDF is a scan of the exact magazine. Stop by the shop and check out the printed magazine, which should be available in a few days. Suggestion: Read Urban Velo #8 from cover to cover. You are not going to get any real work done until tomorrow anyway.

(Yes, Wheelgirl does have an ad in Urban Velo reminding people that there are only 25 days left to submit a winning design to the Wheelgirl 2008 T-Shirt Design Contest and win a set of Phil Wood track hubs. You got skeeels? Bring home the Phils.)

(Photo of UrbanVelo Issue 8 Cover lifted from the UrbanVelo site.)

Soma Velodrama and IRD Superdrome CrMo Track Bars in Powder-Coated Colors

If you love the curves of Deda's Velocita track bars, we just got in some Soma Velodrama CrMo track bars. These bars have a 31.8 center and come powder coated in white or pink in sizes 38cm, 40cm, 42cm. The Velodrama track bike handlebars have a reach of 94mm and a 176mm drop. They retail on the Soma website for $79.99. We have a set of white Velodrama 40cm bars you can wrap your mitts around in the shop. The Velodrama bars are modeled after the IRD Superdrome and made of Tange steel.

So, if you are partial to stealth black track bars, you might want to opt for the IRD deep-drop, black powder-coated track bar, the Superdrome CrMo made with Tange steel. Available in a 31.8 clamping diameter, these bars are also available in a chrome finish. The reach is 94mm with a 176mm drop. The black Superdrome bars are available in 38cm, 40cm, 42cm, and 44cm. Most of the fixie and track riders who come into the shop prefer a narrower bar, but if you are a broad-shouldered cat, IRD has you covered with the 44cm. These retail on the IRD site for $81.99. We have a set of black 40mm Superdromes in the shop you can grasp and nod toward if they feel just right.

If you want a set of these track bars shipped to you, send an email. Suggestions: Make sure your stem has a clamping diameter made to fit a 31.8 bar center. Ask a bike mechanic friend if you are not sure.

Remember: The countdown begins, and you have 32 days left to enter the Wheelgirl 2008 T-Shirt Design Contest. If you win, you get a set of Phil Wood track hubs.

(Photos by Wheelgirl.)