KEEPING YOUR CLUB CONNECTED TO THE BICYCLE TRAVEL SOURCE
Dear BIKES,
As the holidays come rushing
around the corner, we wanted to send you some good will and great info
for a happy, cycling-filled new year. This issue contains some great
articles and tidbits for your winter newsletters and websites:
·
Donor clubs and shops
·
Spring tours
·
Finding the right brakes
·
Icons for the web
Ride On!
Amy Corbin
Club Coordinator
GIVE A LITTLE, CHANGE A LOT
Many clubs and shops
are strong supporters of Adventure Cycling Association. In addition to
being members, many take an extra step to support the mission of
Adventure Cycling – they make a donation. As a nonprofit 501(c)3
nonprofit organization, donations are tax deductible to the full extent
allowable by tax laws. We wanted to take a few lines to recognize these
great contributions from the last quarter.
Here are the member
clubs and shops that made a contribution of $100 or more to Adventure
Cycling Association between September 1, 2007 and December 10, 2007:
$1000 –
Chattanooga Bicycle Club,
Chattanooga,
TN
$1000
– Glacier Cyclery,
Whitefish,
MT
$500 –
Sacramento Bike Hikers,
Sacramento,
CA
$425 –
Colorado HeartCycle,
Denver,
CO
$250 –
Casco Bay Bicycle Club,
Portland,
ME
$200 –
Santiam Spokes Inc,
Lebanon,
OR
$100
– Dave`s Bicycle Repair,
Baton Rouge,
LA
These donations help
to fund many of our projects that help inspire people to travel by
bicycle and need your financial assistance. These projects include:
·
Pedal Pioneers: A
Guide to Bicycle Travel with Kids,
a
first-of-its-kind,
in-depth guide on how to organize youth bicycle trips.
·
Routes and mapping:
Create new routes and keeping them updated is an ongoing effort at
Adventure Cycling Association, and helps make sure that cyclists have
the most up-to-date information possible in order to travel by bicycle.
In the past year, we created new routes like the Allegheny Mountains
Loop (in Virginia and West Virginia); the Adirondack Park Loop in
upstate New York, and the first spur on the UGRR route – a 152-mile
route from Pittsburgh to Erie, PA. In addition, we created our
first-ever day-trip map, highlighting a portion of the UGRR route around
historic Ripley, Ohio.
·
With financial help
from members like you, we’ll complete the Northwest Quest, an amazing
set of routes that will travel through some of Washington State’s most
scenic areas including the Cascades, the Olympic Peninsula and the San
Juan Islands. In 2008, we’ll begin research on an epic route that will
follow the Pacific Crest. We’ll also celebrate the 10th
anniversary of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, the longest dirt
route in the world!
Thanks to all of you
for your support!
WARM UP YOUR SPRING
If you are seeing way
too much of your “Spin
Class”
instructor or if your bike seems like it’s
permanently attached to your windtrainer, we should talk.
We’ll let you in on a little secret:
bikes were designed to be ridden
outdoors. Honest.
Adventure Cycling has
a great option for you: we call them “Winter Warmers.” Let’s start in
Arizona this March:
a seven-day
supported vacation from your down coat in the beautiful country outside
Tucson.
Long a favorite of pro teams seeking early season rides, the Southern
Arizona terrain lends itself equally well to more leisurely paces and
sightseeing. Highlights include world-class birding sites, treasure-filled
art galleries and even a winery; not to mention fantastic riding.
In
April, we
roll into the
Hill Country outside of
Austin, Texas for a week of wildflowers, Tex-Mex and
some of the best road riding we know. (Make sure to book a little time
before or after the tour to check out Austin’s famed live music scene.)
Also in April, we’ll be doing an awesome combination of riding, history,
and sublime countryside on
Vintage Virginia.
Wouldn’t you like to
be pedaling with an ocean or desert breeze instead of a roomful of
sweating spinners? Get your gang of riding buddies together and come
join us where it’s warm. It’s a great time to trade those Sorels for
some flip flops. For our complete Tours listings, including fully
supported, self-supported and education, visit our website at
www.adventurecycling.org or call 1-800-755-2453 for more
information.
GIVE ME A BRAKE
By
Larry Diskin, former Events Coordinator for the Adventure Cycling Tours
Department
That is what you'll be
thinking when you're zooming down a mountain pass on a loaded touring
bike, counting on reliable, well-adjusted brakes. Most high-quality
models will do the job, but there are some things you should consider
before picking a brake set for your touring bike. This article will
describe the pros and cons of the three most prominent styles of brakes
and help you decide what is best for you.
Disc brakes are the most significant advance in bicycle technology since
suspension. Without question, they are the most precise and powerful
style of brake. A few of the manufacturers already have them honed in
well for bicycle use. The leader is Hayes Brake of Wisconsin, the same
company that makes brakes for Harley Davidson and Ford.
In a disc brake system, a steel rotor is bolted to a special hub and a
hydraulic- or cable-actuated caliper is bolted to the lower end of the
fork or rear portion of the frame. When you pull your brake lever,
extremely powerful pistons squeeze the rotor to provide stopping power.
Here are four advantages to disc brakes:
1. Since there is no need for a flat braking surface on the rim,
manufacturers are able to experiment with new weight-saving and
strengthening techniques to improve rim designs.
2. Rim brakes actually wear out rims over time by grinding away at the
braking surface of the rim. This will cause some rims to crack.
3. If the wheel goes out of true a bit, the performance of the brake
will not be hindered and the wheel will turn freely, instead of rubbing
on the brakes.
4. On most models, the performance of the brake does not change with pad
wear.
Wet, dry, muddy, dusty, hot, or cold, a good set of hydraulic disc
brakes will outperform any other type of brake. Once properly installed,
you might get a year or more of heavy use with no maintenance at all.
However, installation and maintenance can be quite complicated and
definitely requires expertise, unless you are a hard-core tinkerer.
Linear-pull or V-brakes are an evolved version of cantilever brakes that
provide more power through increased leverage. Two things make this
happen. The brake lever is designed to pull more cable, and the brake
arms are longer and at a different angle. V-brakes are currently the
most widely used style of brake. They are still cable-actuated but far
easier to adjust than traditional cantilever brakes. Pads are also much
easier to replace than those on cantilever brakes. Since linear-pull
brakes require that the lever has increased cable pull, if you want to
use them in conjunction with a road bike-style brake lever, you will
need to install an additional, but inexpensive, adapter to facilitate
proper function. There is a new original-equipment-model road lever that
can work with both linear-pull and cantilever brakes, so it may not be
long before linear-pull road levers are available for after-market
sales.
Cantilever brakes are rapidly being replaced by linear-pull brakes.
Cantilevers were once cutting-edge and have proven to be adequate for
loaded touring for many years, but now most manufacturers are now
focusing their developmental efforts on linear-pull and disc-brake
technologies. This is especially true regarding mountain bikes. Most new
suspension forks are not made with the proper cable hanger for
cantilever installation; it's not even an option anymore in many cases.
These forks are designed for linear-pull and disc drakes only.
Installing and adjusting the pads is much more difficult on cantilever
brakes than it is on linear-pull brakes. Cantilevers are, however, the
least expensive brakes and have been the touring standby for years. And,
of the three styles discussed here, cantilevers are the most compatible
with standard road levers; no adapter is needed.
Right about now you are probably thinking, that's great information,
Larry, but how do I decide what I should use? I'd have to say that the
all-around winner is a good set of linear-pull brakes. They provide
excellent stopping power, are reasonably priced, and are the lowest
maintenance of these three options. Linear-pull brakes are not likely to
leave you completely brakeless, and, if you do have trouble while
touring, any bike shop will be able to help you adjust or fix a
linear-pull brake.
Linear-pull brake components like levers, cables, and pads are usually
interchangeable between brands. This increases parts availability, and,
if your brakes are not repairable, the bike shop will likely have an
appropriate, affordable replacement set on the shelf that can be
installed in a jiff. If, however, you are using a set of road brake
levers that are not designed for linear-pull brakes, you may want to
stick with cantilevers to avoid the hassle of using the required
adapter.
There is no question that hydraulic disc brakes are the most powerful,
most precise, and, therefore, the highest performance. I have a set on
my mountain bike and wouldn't have it any other way. However, potential
maintenance issues make them a bit of a liability for touring purposes.
They tend to work very well or not at all. When you go to a bike shop to
get them fixed, there is a higher chance you'll hear the mechanic say,
"I've never worked on this brand before," referring to your disc brakes.
Variations between brands can create a problem in this sense. Another
issue is that disc brake systems require levers, calipers, rotors, and
sometimes even cables that are all part of a unique system and not
interchangeable between brands. If your brake lever fails, for example,
you will need to replace it with one that was made for your system. This
can create significant part-availability issues. There may come a day
when disc brakes are the standard, but we are not there quite yet.
If you simply must have disc brakes for your touring bike, consider a
model that is cable-actuated rather than hydraulic. By using a
cable-actuated rather than a hydraulic system, your brakes will be less
prone to rapid failure and more easily serviceable by the average
mechanic. Cable-actuated models will provide at least as much stopping
power as linear-pull brakes and will still provide the previously
described advantages associated with non-rim brakes.
Note for Tandems:
Blair Winter, the bicycle product manager for Burley Design in Eugene,
Oregon, feels that the most tried-and-true setup for loaded touring on a
tandem is linear-pull brakes used in conjunction with a rear drum brake.
The drum brake is activated by a thumb shifter on the handlebar and
provides adjustable drag to control the extra weight on long descents.
The most popular drum brake is made by Arai and requires a special rear
hub with threading on the left side of the hubshell. Two of Burley's
top-of-the-line tandem models come disc brake-ready in anticipation of
the day when there are disc brake models designed specifically for
tandems.
ADVENTURE CYCLING CLIPART
As colder weather
prevails, find some fun inspiration with clip art from Adventure Cycling
in your next newsletter. Images like our “Snowy Head” can be found at
www.adventurecycling.org/library.
You can search for
images along with much more to include in your next newsletter or on
your website.
BikE-News is a monthly publication of Adventure Cycling Association (www.adventurecycling.org)
which comes out the second Tuesday of each month. Our goal is two-fold:
·
to provide you with industry
information and graphics to share with your members and
·
to connect your club with
others from around the country for your benefit.
