Cannondale – CanooterValve

Tweens

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Oct 042012

Can’t help but spend a few paragraphs taking issue with a reprehensible letter Specialized sent to their dealers, urging them to keep drinking the red (I believe that’s trademarked?) Kool-aid–oh, and just happening to mention that Cannondale sells their bikes at Costco.

Yes, as independently reported by yours truly, Cannondale bikes did make an appearance in Costcos. But the actions of a rogue distributor selling bikes against the company’s policy–a distributor Cannondale has since reportedly shut down–is clearly not the same as Cannondale selling bikes in Costco. For Mike Sinyard to attempt to kick Cannondale in the nuts while they were already hurting would come off as shockingly poor taste, if we hadn’t come to expect it.

Specialized clearly wants to boot all other brands out of brick and mortar shops, and constantly issues the mantra-like refrain that these companies don’t have the best interest of independent dealers in mind. They’re very straightforward about wanting to take over the majority of brick and mortar stores. I suppose that’s why there so many Specialized dealers in the city of Portland. (Why, they’re do dedicated to the LBS that they just have to open up the guy down the street from you, too.)

But the lengths to which they’ll go seem strained lately, as in this Cannondale thing. Really, guys? Did you really feel good about writing that letter? Yes, Cannondale has supply chain issues, and, hey, I guess they deserve them. That’s what you get for making your bikes overseas, whereas Specialized, they, um, well . . . .

To accuse Cannondale of selling in Costco based on an unauthorized incident might be tactically opportunistic, but it’s also just cheesy. Following the criteria Sinyard applied to Cannondale, Specialized is selling their frames direct to dealers on-line. Sure, they’re counterfeit knockoffs, but–following Sinyard’s reasoning in attacking Cannondale–a bike brand is always responsible for the actions of others, regardless of whether those others are selling product to big box stores back into the U.S. without your knowledge, or selling knock-offs on the internet.

Anyway: cheesy. Believe it or not, I think more of Sinyard and Specialized than I let on, but they continue to do things that just strike me as beneath them. I’d be cool to see Specialized apologize for that letter, but I don’t think that’ll happen.

In other news, I’ve avoiding discussion of 650b bikes lately–for no apparent reason, other than I’m just waiting for them to catch on. Like everyone else.

I’d’ve thought I’d come back from Interbike bearing tales of 650b domination. Hoardes of 27.5-inch-wheeled bikes descending on Las Vegas and 26-inch-wheeled bikes on life support. Thing is, it didn’t happen this year.

Sure, there were 27.5 bikes around–some quite nice, but it was also pretty clear that this wasn’t the year. Next year could be a whole different story.

The challenge, of course, is figuring out where we’re going with all these wheel sizes. Given the amount of full-suspension bikes capable of fitting a 27.5-inch wheel into their current molds and geometries, it’s inevitable that they’ll have a much bigger presence soon.

We’ll know they’ve arrived once we see them in Costco.

Eleven-speeds of Hate and Beyond 9000

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Jun 012012

Barely have we had time to process the deranged majesty of SRAM’s 1×11 drivetrain and freakishly large 42t cog, when already 2013 Shimano Dura Ace Di2 is upon us. While all the social media channels were lighting up with links to “sneak peeks” of the new stuff, I was quietly trudging through a few of the several hundred pieces of product copy I’m working on these days and just so happened to have Shimano’s web site open in a separate window. There, not particularly concealed, was a big graphic with a link to 2013 Dura Ace Di2 11-speed–studio photographs and product information and all.

I admit, viewing everything in glorious detail right there on the manufacturer’s site felt a little stale and lacked the excitement of seeing it covered in black tape or dirty and logoless on a test bike, but it was pretty useful from a “Hey look, here’s detailed photos and text about new Dura Ace” standpoint. If you haven’t seen it yet and are interested, you can check it out on the Dura Ace site. I’ve only skimmed the details, but what I saw suggested Dura Ace was following in the steps of Ultegra with more of a “junction box” and separate individual wires model. Looks like Shimano’s 11-speed chain–like Campy’s had before it–loses some of the cut-outs and stuff once it narrows to 11-speed. Otherwise, it’s an 11-speed.

I like that Shimano has quit screwing around with “7900” mechanical Dura Ace numbering and went straight into the 9000s for 2013 Dura Ace Di2. Suggests a lot of confidence on their part that this might be the last gruppo they’ll need to design for a while. Or that the Mayans are right. I’d post a questionnaire on here to ask how many of you plan to switch to 11-speed or electronics, but I’m pretty I know the adoption rate there would be in the negative numbers (indicating a half dozen of you will be driven to become permanent single-speed riders only).

Anyway, general consensus on the SRAM 11-speed was definitely “depends on what it costs,” though there were some solid haters out there, too. By definition, if you follow this blog, you’re probably a little salty and prone to be critical anyway, so tough to say what kind of focus group we represent. There’s at least some chance the industry would do well to read my posts and just do the exact opposite of everything I write.

Me, though, I would use that. I would use the shit out of that 1×11, though I’d be sad to find we have a new cassette body standard and probably a wheel with even worse triangulation than what we already have. But I suspect that if I could run a 37 or 39-tooth chainring and still have less than a 1:1 ratio I’d be pretty happy. Oh, and the chainring would also have to be quiet. If I need a noisy guide on there or anything, then I’d rather just forget it.

Speaking of forgetting things, I got to see a very old friend last night, and a very nice couple was staying with him after just arriving (literally a few hours before I got there) from a 1,000-mile ride up to Portland from San Francisco. Bill, who owns BikeFlights.com now, had worked with me long, long ago, and the couple had been Speedgoat customers. So here was a bunch of old Pennsylvania bicycle folk gathered in a home in Portland, talking bikes, and out comes this, fresh from a 1,000-mile ride up the coast.

Yes, that is a Cannondale jacket, still functional, back from when Cannondale clothing–like everything Cannondale–was made in the U.S.. These are different times, but economies are always changing. Maybe we’ll see something like the original Cannondale again one day. And who knows what happens once Shimano hits five-digit model numbers.

All Ball Bearings Nowadays

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May 082012

All Ball Bearings

One advantage to simultaneously working forty-two different jobs within the bike industry is the connections you get to make. Not just between people, but between ideas. At this point I have a different hand in retail; wholesale and manufacturing; design and engineering; and media and journalism. Actually, some of those are feet, maybe a nose, and an ear. It’s quite the game of Twister I have going on.

But that degree of “fly vision” I have lately–a weird kind of 360-degree view of how things are working–makes wearing the many hats pretty interesting. I might notice a cause one place, the effect in another. On the surface, none of the things I’m doing seem to have anything to do with one another, but the patchwork starts to make sense when I step back from it, and you can really see trends and movements. One day I may even be able to see the imaginary construct that is the bike industry as all Neo-green ones and zeros.

One of the intersections I have going on right now involves organizing product categories, writing product copy, and thinking about current “standards” for frame bottom-brackets and head tubes, and the more I look at each of these things, the more I realize something about where we’re headed as an industry.

Standards are going away.

I mean that literally, mechanically-speaking, not as a kind of moral judgment (though there are definitely some shady characters in the business). From a design standpoint, I think we’re approaching a time when each bike is going to be its own unique animal, with fewer and fewer options for swapping parts between bikes. We’re talking about the extreme extension of “system engineering” here, and depending on your perspective, that’s either the key to having the strongest, lightest bikes possible, or a hell unlike any of us have ever experienced.

It all starts with ball bearings. Consider how ridiculous it would be if companies manufacturing full-suspension bikes had to buy their pivot bearings from SRAM or Shimano. So why do they bother buying headsets and bottom brackets? For now there’s still an advantage to letting somebody else worry about making those, but the window on that seems to be closing. Poor Cane Creek and Chris King make about 700 variations of internal, external, zero-stack, straight, tapered, mix-tapered and holographically chamfered headsets, but none of them fit a Ridley, because why the hell shouldn’t Ridley just make their own even more ginormous diameter lower bearing? Carbon fiber has largely changed the way we think about bicycle frames: if you’re spending the money on a mold anyway, why not just have it include almost everything you need–everything but the bearings themselves?

And even if you don’t make your own headsets and bottom-brackets, what’s really left to engineer and market about a Press-fit 30? How different can one brand’s BB30 be from another’s? About all you can do is release a ceramic bearing option–the headset and bottom-bracket manufacturer’s version of adding another child to a sitcom family.

It’ll all start with the ball bearings. Everything else will take a while, but try to think of a component a bike manufacturer hasn’t yet tried to make.

Disc brakes? Remember AMP? Any poor Coda owners still out there?

Crankset? That design Specialized bought from the recumbent company seems to be working out just fine for them.

Stems, bars, saddles, seatposts and tires? Bontrager.

Suspension fork? Cannondale banged their head against that wall until it finally cracked (ambiguity there’s entirely intentional so’s to appeal to both fans of Lefty forks and to the detractors, but you have to admit, they’re here to stay). Even Specialized keeps wrapping Fox and RockShox guts in their own shells, and that’s exactly how proprietary is going to happen. You won’t see Fox and Shimano going out of business. Your shit just won’t be able to move from one bike to another any more.

And maybe that’s not such a big deal. You don’t buy a Honda CRF frame and then build it into a full bike (well, most of us don’t, anyway). But the key is that this stuff has to work. If system-engineering proprietary parts are where we’re headed, there should be a noticeable advantage in things like performance and durability. Look at what Santa Cruz did for suspension pivots. They redesigned the shit out of an otherwise standard issue generic bearing, but the result was way better pivots, so nobody’s bitching (or if they are, they should take Santa Cruz up on the free replacement offer).

It’s all ball bearings nowadays. Let’s hope that if proprietary happens, it actually makes life better. Jury is still very much out on that one.