The 650B Revival: Bikefanclub.com

When we see non-racers with little interest in "training rides" or "fast club rides" on modified race bikes---usually modified by spacers, riser stems, and mild tweaks in geometry---but still with short(ish) chainstays, skinny tires (which are _not_ faster because they are skinny), and short wheelbases, what we see are bikes ill-suited or, at least, less than optimal. People know and like what they get used to. They are sold what the industry and most bike shops know and that's modified (sometimes not much!) race bikes. It's not materials that matter here nearly as much as design and parts (especially tires). The 650B is not a bike for the old, fat, and dorky. It's a bike for long days, wandering country rides, and the sort of attitude that comes with "going for a ride" rather than "having goals for the season." I have a goal for this season, I tell you: it's to ride my bike a lot and to go out for long, long days with lunch in a saddlebag. 650B was originally designed (I mean the style of bike, not the wheelsize as such) for cyclo-touring. In America, for the most part, we think of touring as schlepping panniers with enough gear to make it to Tierra del Fuego but the French, for whom this sort of bike served another aim, rode them on day rides, sub-24hr overnights, and country sight-seeing rides. When you have your head buried nine inches below the saddle with a clear view of the fork crown (uhhh...most bikes don't even have fork crowns worth staring at anymore...), you aren't seeing the countryside.

I think people who like their training rides and fast clubbing are just swell. I think also that many are not interested in that and don't know about other ways to design, fit, and ride bicycles. The bicycle industry has, for the most part, done little or nothing to educate people about these other ways of riding, insisting on race bikes and their particular system of fit as the only proper way of doing things. This is because they don't understand other bikes or don't want to (for a host of reasons). That Rivendell, the Hampsten brothers, Mariposa (Mike Barry, Toronto), and handful of others (Kogswell! Gaansari!!) have notions of riding that are not racing and will build "other" sorts of bikes is a testimony to modest revival. I am not hopeful the Big Guys are listening carefully but the demographic of cycling continues to change and "riding like Lance" has only a few more years in it. Soon we will see Andy Pink Jersey riding a 650B or a longer wheelbase unmodified non-race bike (perhaps 700c, the wheelsize is not the issue) and perhaps that will put the creds in the minds of WalterMitty racerman.

I'm not sugggesting exaggerated bar heights but bar heights are too low on most modified racers (or the bikes are too ugly getting their bars closer to just a few centimeters below the saddle) nor that everyone give up their spandex (though anyone who has worn the "new" "revival" wools will soon give up stinky plastic...), but there _are_ other ways to ride a bike than just trying to look and go like a EuroRacer or American crit rider. If you like to ride like that, swell. But even most bike geek middle-agers don't really know (or even understand) the history of 650B or other sorts of riding styles.

End Rant.

dbrk