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From The ST Archive: Deathspiral of Design

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deathspiral

Our American bull-in-a-china-shop correspondent Mike Ferrentino looks at design evolutions and asks ‘Why?’ In some cases he gets an answer, in others he does not.

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Not long ago, I wrote a column for another magazine wherein I spent the entire space dancing on the grave of Tullio Campagnolo. Not necessarily the most polite thing to have done, considering the twofold ramifications of not only the man’s contribution to the sport but also my incredibly poor footwork. Even when dancing metaphorically I’m stuck with two left feet. Anyway, the basic gist of the piece was that modern mountain bike riders should really get themselves into the 21st century and stop trusting the security of their front wheels to a five- or six- millimeter thick piece of steel (or worse, titanium) that is tightened down by a rudimentary eccentric cam. It might have been the shiz-nizzle (or dog’s bollocks, depending on which continent this is being read) back in the 1920s on a road bike, but in a modern application, the old faithful quick release has become more of a liability than an asset.

Some readers may balk at this suggestion. They might argue that the kind of riding they do doesn’t necessitate anything more substantial than the old faithful, and that adding weight, increasing wheel removal or replacement time, and otherwise bulking up the bike is expense and complexity that decreases their level of enjoyment with regard to the whole cycling experience. And they’d be right, as far as their needs are concerned. But taking that sentiment a step further, as some are wont to do, and complaining that something more substantial than Tullio’s finest is unneccessary in the broader mountain biking context, that it’s just marketing hype, or change for change’s sake, well, that’s where the little red engine of well intentioned reasoning chugs merrily off the tracks and explodes somewhere way down a deep ravine, never to be seen again.

The manner in which products evolve – in any dynamic environment – is always dictated by occurrences on the edges of that given environment. In the case of the venerable quick release, that environment was stretched and effected by the following events: a) The invention of the mountain bike, which saw the same old wheel and fork interface being ridden off road, at speed, and even sometimes (gasp!) jumped. b) Opportunistic lawyers in the United States seeking to capitalize on the inherent inability of a small percentage of the riding population to correctly fasten their wheels to their bikes. c) The invention of suspension for mountain bikes, which greatly increased the torsional loads wheels were subject to at their axles. d) The application of disc brakes to those suspended, off-road wheels, resulting in still more stress at the axle. e) The evolution, partly thanks to suspension and better brakes, of off-road riding, whereby a small but growing percentage of that riding population began riding faster, cornering harder, jumping farther, and generating more forces on that poor old piece of threaded wire than Tullio ever envisioned. Sure, there are many riders who today can ride their entire lives away happily and safely with quick release front wheels. But at the ends of the bell curve, where, as they say in the movies “shit happens,” the quick release has become obsolete. And the down the line benefits reaped from what happened at those bell-curve ends improve the lot of almost all the rest of us. Except, of course, the stuff that had to happen because of lawyers.

As such, arguing that design should follow the needs of the meat in the middle – that thick swath of us that never pushes the boundaries of anything – is the kind of reasoning that leads to evolutionary dead ends. It is also precisely the kind of logic that seems to prevail in Lausanne, Switzerland, in the offices of the UCI. There are probably people there who still nod their heads in sage agreement and mutter dark repetition of Henri Desgrange’s famous quote – “Isn’t it better to triumph by the strength of your muscle than by the artifice of the derailleur? We are getting soft. As for me, give me a fixed gear!”

Come to think of it, there are probably people still employed at the UCI (that hotbed of revolutionary thinking!) who rode with Henri ‘back in the day.’ Not too sure what they think of the tight pants and mop haircuts being favored by the new adoptees of the fixed gear rally cry, or if they prefer their Oury grips to match their rims or their saddles, but that’s neither here nor there. Once again, I digress…

If you take the notion of several convergent dynamic factors being the key to design evolution, much of what has already come to pass as currently accepted bicycle design makes sense. At least, it does so in retrospect. Likewise, if you then apply these factors, or what we can surmise those factors to be, to what is occurring right now from this year to next, it becomes a hair simpler to separate the evolutionary wheat from the marketing hyperbole chaff. For example, let’s look at 1.5in headtubes. Seems like a good way to make a bike fat and ugly, but… That giant headtube allows for a much larger surface area to weld to (in the case of aluminium) or wrap fibre cloth around (in the case of carbon fibre). This in turn makes it much harder to rip the front of a bicycle frame off when landing on the wrong side of something. Headtubes ripping off became an issue about when forks started getting enough travel to exert substantially more leverage on frames than they had been able to when shorter. And, coincidentally, steerer tubes became stout enough to resist bending just enough to pass that stress on to the frame. If you are the type of person who gets a lot of air at high speed, a 1.5in headtube probably seems like a sound insurance policy, given the alternative. If your wheels never leave the ground, it’s overkill.

Apply that same logic elsewhere – slightly more material, greater surface area, much greater stiffness or strength – and the results usually pan out. Oversize handlebars, yep. Oversize, thinwall frame tubes, uh-huh. Massively oversize bottom brackets with proprietary bearings and spindles, ummm, sure, I guess. This is where we get to the wheat/chaff side of things. In many instances, the evolution of a given product has come about because there was a need, somewhere, somehow, for that evolution. There was a shortcoming that had to be addressed for a small slice of the market. In the case of the ever-expanding bottom bracket spindle diameter, we’re witnessing something else entirely. Once upon a time, bottom bracket spindles were slender and had tapered, squared off ends. Bearings tended to last forever, but really big and really strong sprinter types could sometimes snap spindles off. When people began jumping and doing other things that the half-century old design standard hadn’t been built for, there were more breakages. Sooo, Shimano came out with a nice big steel pipe of a spindle that fit cranks via some nifty castellations. Breakage and flex issues fixed, hey presto!

Not quite. Unfortunately, the increase in spindle size dictated a concurrent decrease in bearing diameter, and as a result, bearing lifespans went in the toilet. And, since the design was patented, some people had to source a similar but slightly different design to compete with it and avoid paying patent royalties. More unfortunately, the bearings on that design were even worse. A few years later, and the spindle increased in size slightly again, and the bearings moved outboard, into larger diameter retainers. Problem solved? Not at first. Since they weren’t very well sealed, bearing life was still an issue. However, NOBODY, anywhere, anyhow, was complaining about spindles or cranks breaking anymore, nor were they whining about perceived stiffness issues. And, after some time, the seals got better. Sort of. At which point, the needs of everyone had pretty much been met. And, those needs were met with a design that fitted all prior and existing bikes (pat on back, lads!).

That being said, we are now witnessing the embryonic stage of yet another, even more oversize than ever before, bottom bracket standard. A truly massive 30mm diameter spindle (getting up toward 1.5in headtube territory there), rolling on similarly large bearings that need to be pressed into a proprietary shell that the bicycle has to be uniquely designed for. So long, threaded bottom bracket shell and a hundred years or relative interchangeability (didn’t phase me when I was dancing on Tullio’s grave, so why now?), bye-bye sensibility. In this instance, as with any design decision, the over-riding question has to be: “Why?” That is how to separate the wheat from the chaff. It doesn’t matter how many ads tell you Awesome Component A is cool, or how a catalog will tell you that Wondrous New Design B will make you a faster rider, at some point, the question has to be asked: What does this solve? What is the reason for this product’s existence?

And there better be a good answer, even if it doesn’t apply to you personally. Through-axle forks, I get it. 1.5in headtubes, roger that. 30mm bottom bracket spindles? Welded titanium handlebars? I-beam saddles? Start your list. Ask the question. Find the wheat, let the chaff blow away.
Mike Ferrentino

Orange Switch 6er. Stif Squatcher. Schwalbe Magic Mary Purple Addix front. Maxxis DHR II 3C MaxxTerra rear. Coil fan. Ebikes are not evil. I have been a writer for nigh on 20 years, a photographer for 25 years and a mountain biker for 30 years. I have written countless magazine and website features and route guides for the UK mountain bike press, most notably for the esteemed and highly regarded Singletrackworld. Although I am a Lancastrian, I freely admit that West Yorkshire is my favourite place to ride. Rarely a week goes by without me riding and exploring the South Pennines.

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