Tandem Updates

Pages about tandems and tandeming Sheldon Brown and family on home-built tandems[/caption] have been updated. We have more about disc brakes, brake levers, Gates synchronizing belts, and details about upgrading a cheap beach-resort tandem to ride with a child.

Sheldon Brown and family on home-built tandems
Sheldon Brown and family on home-built tandems

Updates to chainline and frame-spacing pages.

As of 2018, fatbikes and disk brakes have led to several new axle-length standards. The problem of disk brakes’ pulling the hub out of the front dropouts  has been addressed with thru axles, which insert into a fork with a hole rather than a slot at the end of each blade. Our chainline page and cribsheet as well as our frame spacing page and cribsheet  are now updated to cover these developments.

Chainline diagram
Chainline diagram

Video of aluminum bicycle frame presentation

Now, a video to go with Harriet Fell’s article recently published on sheldonbrown.com: her presentation on the MIT aluminum bicycle frame project at the 2016 International Cycle History Conference.

MIT aluminum bicycle project, 1974

Marc Rosenbaum's 12 1/2-pound aluminum track bike, 1974
Marc Rosenbaum’s 12 1/2-pound aluminum track bike, 1974
Harriet Fell rides her aluminum bicycle, 2005
Harriet Fell rides her aluminum bicycle, 2005

New post: the MIT aluminum bicycle project, 1974, where modern aluminum bicycle frames got their start as student Marc Rosenbaum’s thesis project. sheldonbrown.com site owner Harriet Fell built one of the original MIT aluminum bicycle frames, it came to be an exhibit in a Klein vs. Cannondale lawsuit — and she still rides it!

Bottom bracket of Harriet's bicycle
Bottom bracket of Harriet’s bicycle

Unthreaded bottom-bracket update

Ashtabula bottom bracket
Ashtabula bottom bracket

Major update to the unthreaded bottom bracket cribsheet: several additional ones covered, broken links repaired. yes, everything from Ashtabula one-piece crank BBs (as shown in the photo) to the Klein Team Super to eccentrics for tandems.

Customizing a fatbike

Bruce ingle on his customized fatbike
Bruce Ingle on his customized fatbike

Bruce Ingle customizes a fatbike —

Fatbikes are intended for use on soft, muddy, sandy, snowy surfaces but they need customization to make them truly practical for such use — in particular, fenders, wide-range gearing including ultra-low gears, and a way to carry baggage. Our new article will help you to customize a fatbike, but also gives you a look into customizing bicycles, in general.

The article is taken from a running e-mail discussion in which Bruce contemplates choices, decides on a bicycle purchase, and describes the various steps of customization and how they worked out.

Bicycle frame fatigue-resistance testing

Testing machine at EFBe laboratory
Testing machine at EFBe laboratory

The groundbreaking article about fatigue-resistance testing of bicycle frames — the results surprised even the people doing the test — now in a much-improved new translation from the original German.

Chirridos, Crujidos y Chasquidos…Creaks, Clicks & Clunks

Ahora también en español:

Chirridos, Crujidos y Chasquidos

¿Tu bici hace ruidos extraños cuando montas? ¡Este artículo intentará ayudarte a hacer que se calle! Traduccción de Pablo Zumárraga.

And also revised in English:

Creaks, Clicks & Clunks

Does your bike make strange noises when you ride it? This article will try to help you make it shut up!

Raleigh Twenty page additions

raleigh-twenty-8-01Additions to the page on Raleigh Twenty bicycles — more detail on bottom-bracket replacements, headsets, brakes, handlebars. This page gives specific ideas about customizing the Twenty, and highlights Sheldon’s do-it-yourself approach in general, taking advantage of the strong points (in this case, the frame) of a run-of-the mill bicycle to upgrade it into a one that performs, and looks great too.

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