We have a new Rawland model in.  It’s called the rSogn and for me, it’s the most exciting Rawland to date.

For those that missed our last Rawland post, Rawland are a small American company that design bikes and have them made in Taiwan in the same factory that makes Surly and others.  Rawland bikes are always designed around wide tyres, and are meant to be versatile go-anywhere bikes with off-road capabilities, potential for touring and frames light and comfortable enough to be used for long fast randonneur rides.  Many of them are designed around the 650b wheel size.

The latest model, the rSogn is typical of their bikes in all of theses respects.  It is designed around 650b wheels, with cantilever brake bosses, touring braze-ons in abundance, room for big tyres and fenders, or even bigger knobby tyres and can easily be set up with relatively high handle bars.  Read on if this is the sort of bike you’re interested in.

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Why would an adult want to spend their leisure time riding round and round a muddy, grassy field on something that looks like a road bike?  It defies explanation.  And yet, as we’ve said before – Cyclocross is cool.

CX in Melbourne continues to grow and here we have a grab-bag of tid-bits of news about it, photos of bikes we’ve built for it, and info about where to go and do it.  Read on if you like the idea of slipping over in the mud and hurting yourself.

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If you’ve looked at the Bicycle Victoria site, or gotten the BV newsletter you could be under the impression that the brakes on Long Haul Truckers and Crosschecks sold in Australia are faulty.  The way the issue was reported is, unfortunately, both misleading and alarming, and this is not the case.

The issue is that some bikes were shipped from the Australian distributor without a straddle cable catcher.  This is a little hook that sits under the straddle cable.  It is there so that in the unlikely event that the main brake cable snaps, it can catch the straddle so that it cannot fall onto the tyre.  In the worst case scenario without the catcher, the tyre (if it had nobs on it) can grab the straddle and apply the brakes, which could cause an accident.

This is a far cry from BV’s coverage, which, from the way it was phrased, claimed that the brakes supplied with the bikes were faulty.  Firstly, the problem applies to only some of the bikes, not all of the bikes.  Secondly, the brakes are not faulty, but rather a secondary safety device was not supplied with all bikes – a safety device that does its job if another part of the braking system has already failed.

The majority of the Surlies we have sold cannot be affected by this problem, because mud guards, reflector mounts and fork crown mounted lights all do the job of a straddle catcher.  Both stand between the tyre and the straddle and make it impossible for a broken brake cable to cause any harm.

The Australian distributor has announced a voluntary recall (see image).  If you have bought a Surly (either from us, or from somewhere else) and you are not sure whether the missing part applies to you, then please drop in.  We’ll take a look and if there is a problem we will remedy it.

We’ve gotten a few Gilles Berthoud products in.  Among them is a saddle that I’m very excited about.   The saddle is a Gilles Berthoud.  It looks at first a little like a Brooks, and it’s this similarity that excites me.   The Berthoud is made from very thick high quality leather, which is screwed down to the saddle body.  Where the Brooks saddle body is all metal, the Berthoud has metal rails and a plastic back (called a cantle).  The plastic cantle is reputed to be amazingly strong and is designed to have a tiny bit of flex for extra comfort.  The looks of the plastic might put some people off though.

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Wheel building is one of our favourite jobs.  As well as being rewarding work to get the wheel true and strong, it’s satisfying to figure out the best combination of parts and best set-up for a particular customer.  As well as the rims and hubs, the spokes and nipples are important things to think about, and choosing the right ones will make a real difference to the reliability of the wheel and how well suited it is to its intended use.  Being able to tailor all of these choices to a particular rider is what puts custom wheels ahead in the hand-built vs factory-built debate.

We’re one of the few bikeshops in Melbourne who specialise in custom wheel building and sell far more hand built wheels than factory built wheels at the medium to high end.  This post is intended as a discussion of some of the variables involved, and hopefully the huge range of possibilities will highlight why hand built wheels which are custom-built for a particular application are going to do that job better than factory-built wheels.  This post is long, and has some technical discussion of both component choices and then of the process of building itself, but it is not a how-to guide, so only click on read more if you’re keen.

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Commuter cycles is excited to be sponsoring Damon Rao at the Bike Polo World Championships in Berlin and the London Open Tournament. He’ll be riding a custom made polo bike, a Symes Whiskey. He’ll be heading off tonight for two weeks in Europe and then competing in the Australian Championships in Brisbane with it later in the year.

Symes Whiskey - Photo by Damon Rao

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