Soma Stanyan Reissued

It's been a while since Soma announced any new lugged frames. Well the wait is over at last. For 2017 Soma will be producing a limited number of totally redesigned Stanyan lugged road/audax framesets in black and white color schemes.

So there are a couple of changes since the last time, most notably the steerer tube is 1" threaded. That means the lugs are a teensy bit lighter and you can use the Soma Sutro quill stem (or one of the hundreds of Nitto options).

Another new feature is the rear dropouts. We went for a medium length semi horizontal dropout with adjustment screw. We chose this for two reasons. A. because it allows you to adjust the wheel position a smidgen, which can be useful when trying to squeeze the biggest tires into 57mm brakes with optimal fender clearance. And B. because we're not bringing back the Van Ness and we know there are a lot of folks who want to use single speed or internally geared drive trains.

The forks now have a little fancier blades than before. We kept the mini rack mounts from the last generation to allow you to mount small handlebar bags, as well as light mounts or long fenders up front. We didn't do anything to the geometry, so if you're worried that we frenched up the handling, chill, we didn't. That's not to say you shouldn't use a handlebar bag, just don't go full Manny and try to carry a lawn chair or something  and it should be ok.

If you've never ridden the Stanyan before, just imagine the ES with slightly livelier tubing. If you normally ride road bikes it will feel pretty familiar. If you prefer wider tires it will probably feel a bit more nimble than your touring or CX bike.

They do have rear rack mounts, but we don't really intend to load them down too much. If you really need to do some cargo hauling somthing like the Nitto 27r with low set panniers will work well, otherwise somthing minimal like the Soma Champs Elysees will work better. Just like the original Stanyan these have fender eyelets on the brake and chainstay bridges.

If you are in the bay area and fancy taking a spin on either bike be sure to stop by American Cyclery's Halloween Basement Crypt sale before somebody snatches them up.

If you were hoping for Fogcutter info, don't worry, you should be getting good news very soon.

New Albion Privateer x Champs Elysees Low Trail Fork

I've had a few questions about the bike we featured last week, so here's a few more detailed shots.

The New Albion Privateer is my daily driver. This build is what we in the biz call a "mechanics special". Aka, the bike that I ride every day, but rarely service.

The great thing about having a bike like this is any time I have a new prototype or sample part I just throw it on. That gives me an excellent base line for comparing iterations of products that aren't ready for mass production.

For instance, this bike has seen every version of the Tanaka Decaleur. As a result it's slowly evolved into an almost flawless commuter bike. The tape is Soma Thick & Zesty in Camo Brown. It's a little funky, but it's growing on me.

The Champs Elysees Low Trail forks were designed to fit a variety of frames, but paired with the Privateer's 72mm headtube it yields 45mm of mechanical trail. This works out nicely for larger handlebar bags that tend to hang over the front hub.

The blades on these 65mm offset forks are a bit springier than the 45mm Classic Curves, but that certainly doesn't preclude you from loading it down a bit. I typically use 2 front panniers in addition to my Ostrich bag.

While it adds a bit of extra, weight I love that I can slap on pretty much any rack I happen to get a hold of due to the selection of mounts.

I have this prototype Gamoh Japan mini rack. It's similar to the Nitto M-18 and the Soma Champs Elysees, but it's made from sturdier CrMo tubing. I'm putting it through it's paces, but I doubt there's much that it can't handle, especially mounted directly to the mini rack eyelets.

Looking forward to more new racks from Gamoh this year.

I've been using this Ostrich rando bag for a couple years. I've tested a few other front bags, but this is the only one I bought outright. It's a modest, cotton bag with front closure. It has small rear pockets and a map case on top. This style of bag works great for commuting and photo shoots, because it comes off easily and can be carried with the shoulder strap.

These new Sun XCD crankarms are one of the newer parts I'm trying out. They're similar to the classic Stronglight and TA style cranks, which utilize a direct mount large ring and a 3 bolt inner chainring. We've sold these crank arms for a while now, but the introduction of these new chainrings makes them far more compelling in my opinion. I'm currently using a 44t large ring and a 30t inner ring, but I may swap the inner ring for a lower climbing gear at some point.

I have use a lot of derailleurs over the years, including road and mountain options from Sram and Shimano, but this Sunrace M40 is the cheapest derailleur I've ever used. It retails for about 20 bucks, and is equal parts aluminum and plastic. But you know what? It works great. Seriously. Paired with ENE Ciclo friction shifters it can push a 34t cassette with capacity to spare.

After riding the Cazaderos and then the Gravel Kings for the last few months I decided to try out a set of the super light Soma Supple Vs.

So far I've only had one flat in about 400 miles or so. These tires are noticeably faster than anything else I've ever ridden (340 g in 700x42c), but they're definitely a road oriented tire. Not that you can't use lightweight tires on dirt, but you need to be a little more conservative when you choose your line. I'm going to get my money's worth from these, but I'll probably try some of the upcoming skinwall Gravel King SKs when they show up.

So that's my bike. Not a particularly fancy build, but it's a great ride for the money and the most reliable steed in my stable.

Rando Gnar

I've always been a fan of Nitto Japan. Back when track bikes were still cool I always had a couple pairs of Nitto bars in rotation. There's just somthing about the feel of a steel bar that just doesn't compare to anything else. They feel solid, yet compliant. They don't transmit vibrations like aluminum, and won't snap and skewer you in a million places like carbon.

Earlier this year when we were meeting with Akira-san (the boss at Nitto) in Taipei, I asked if they could make a mountain bike version of their famous Grand Randonneur touring drops. You may recall we like these bars so much we named our 650b touring frame after them.

They have a classic French-style bend, with flared drops and slightly raised ramps. They work great for brevets and loaded touring, due to their multiple hand positions and conservative drop. I've ridden the alloy bars for years, but sometimes I get a little bit too rowdy and I wanted somthing that would hold up to "Manny Ride" scenarios.

So the wizards at Nitto did their thing, and came back with a couple samples made from the same tubing as their unflappable track bars. I'm in love. They feel amazing. The hood position is perfect, the drops are comfy, and they look a treat.

We're going to get a batch of these made up, but they're going to take a while to arrive. So if you're interested in a pair shoot us a line and we put your name on the list. That way if we know we're going to sell out we can get more in the queue so people don't have to wait 6 months if they miss the first run.

Dirt Drops (What, Why & How)

What!? People want to put drops on offroad bikes? It's true! People have been putting "road bars" on not-road bikes. It's kind of a thing.

http://www.majortaylorassociation.org/JimCrow.htm

So what makes a dirt drop different from other kinds of bars, dropish or otherwise? We'll there's no one answer. Traditionally drop bars were used to get the rider into a more tucked position. It's assumed that this was done for aerodynamic reason, but I tend to disagree. Anybody who's done much offroad fixed gear riding knows that you have to get your weight super far forward to get enough weight on the pedals to climb up steep hills. If you have a swept back city bar, nope, not going to work. So by moving the center of gravity forward over the front wheel riders were able to get more power and still have a comfortable grip position.

http://3peakscyclocross.org.uk/three-peaks-cyclo-cross-history/

Fast forward to the advent of geared cyclocross bikes. Roads got better, purpose built racing bikes got more purposeful, and traditions that made sense on fixed gears stuck around and became more orthodox. So you have a bunch of racer bros riding around on hacked together cyclocross bikes using mostly road racing parts and feeling pretty good about themselves.

http://www.thebicyclestory.com/2012/01/jacquie-phelan-the-godmother-of-womens-mountain-biking/

Meanwhile, some dirty hippies out on the west coast are riding around on beach cruisers running into the same problems that the OG fixiefoos were having, and Papa Charlie gets the idea that the dirtbike levers kinda suck (I assume, because they did). So he starts building bikes using state of the art drop bar levers which allowed lots of modulation and developing space age roller cam brakes to replace the Mafac cantis people were messing around with.

http://www.mountainbikes.net/carbon/c26.htm

So long story short, Jacquie beats the pants off pretty much everybody, the bike industry at large embraces awful non ergonomic flatbar cockpits, stems get longer, geometry gets steeper and John Tomac gets the credit for inventing dirt drops. End of story.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/bridgestone/1993/pages/30.htm

Then along comes some young wipper snapper from Berkeley selling sorta Major Taylor looking mountain bike bars and everybody goes nuts. Suddenly there are no rules anymore. Nobody cares what their bikes look like. Utter chaos.

http://www.bicycling.com/culture/people/ultra-romance-man-left-normal-life-behind-find-adventure

One day Benedict Cumberbatch decides to quit acting, grow a wizard beard and become a Zensunni Wanderer. Some journo tracks him down and takes a picture of him ripping a fat skid and everybody needs vintage Modolo levers again.

So now that you know the history of dirt drops, here's where we're coming from with this whole Gator bar idea. Our distributor in Japan makes these funky bars that fit mountain bike brake levers and I find them in their catalog and get to thinking, what if these fit Rohloff shifters? Well they don't, mostly because of the ergo bends in the drops. There are a few ways to get the shifters to fit, but ATMO they look like a chode.

So I did a drawing, and Tange made me some samples. I didn't like how they felt, so I made another drawing and they made those too. Those sucked a little less, so I made a third drawing and voila, the Gator bar. The long handle allows you to mount the shifter anywhere on the drop handle. We're super magnanimous, so they fit bar ends and other stuff, but we really want you to use Rohloff hubs. Seriously, they're cool.

So why are they so reachy? Because handlebar bags are dope as f***, but the problem with bikepacking handlebar bags is that they are so wide that they won't fit most drop bars, including almost all the traditional dirt drops. You want the weight to be as far back as possible, so that means running a shorter stem. But you won't want the hoods to be so far back, so the ramps need to be longer. Velo Orange obviously saw this idea somewhere, or maybe they though of it on their own, but either way they get why you might want to have usable hoods and drops and still be able to use the brake levers from either position.

http://g-tedproductions.blogspot.com/

So what angle should your handles be? I'm not your mother, figure it out yourself! I like my hoods level. The higher the drops the steeper the drops should probably be. A good way to figure it out is to hold the bars in two hands and slowly raise them up to the height you want. What level are the handles? Ok cool, you're done.

But really none of that matters because the same Japanese folks who gave me the idea for the Gator bars invented the negative-drop dirt drop, and then made them out of carbon fiber. So really, everything else is already obsolete. You're welcome. Now go ride bikes.

Also, Go Fund Charlie's recovery fund. We wouldn't even be having this argument without him. Such a badass!

https://www.gofundme.com/w85tn3dg

Kogswell 650b

Pictures from last weekend's campout are in the works. In the meantime, check out this classic Kogswell build submitted by Greg in Seattle. 38mm Soma New Xpress tires FTW.

For the uninitiated, the Kogswell P/R was one of the first modern low trail production frames built around 650b wheels. Based on experimentation by Bicycle Quarterly using vintage French touring bikes, it offered an affordable way for people to experiment with the then "obsolete" wheels size, and it's flexible configuration allowed it to be set up for touring, randonneuring, or commuting with an internal gear hub or as a single speed.

Like most Kogwells, Greg's wife's P/R is built up with a mix of classic MTB parts and modern throwbacks like the mammered Honjos, IRD Defiant triple crankset and the Nitto M-12 mini canti front rack. The untimely demise of Kogswell was what originally inspired us to develop our own 650b frame set, the Soma Grand Randonneur. These days the options are plentiful in 650b land, but we still appreciate what Kogswell did to kickstart the low trail market way back in '06.

New Soma Saga Framsets and Classic Curve Forks

We've been sold out of Saga framesets for a while, but I'm happy to announce that the first batch of 2015 Sagas has arrived!

Pictured with this frameset are the new Suzue aftermarket touring wheels. These are the same wheels we use with the Saga Complete bikes, and feature sealed bearing high flange hubs and polished, eyeleted rims. 700c disc, 700c road and 650b road options are also in stock as of this posting.

The only major change we've made this years was to include our V2 Classic Curve forks in matching british racing green. These are now standard with all Saga Framesets.

The other dimensions, and braze ons remain the same as previous years.

If you can't tell from the logo, these tires are the new Soma Cazadero Mixed Terrain tires. We have both 700c and 650b options in black or skinwall in stock now.

The Classic Curve forks are similar to our new Champs Elysees forks, however they feature the same amount of offset as the original Saga forks, so the handling will not be affected by this change.

For those waiting on the next run of complete bikes, we expect them to arrive in late October.

We also have some new Classic Curve Canti aftermarket forks that just arrived. These feature the mini rack eyelets we've been adding to many of our other fork models.

For the first time we're also offering the Classic Curve in a black version. This will look really good with the New Albion Privateers, as well as many other bikes that are out there.

 These will all be available via the Soma Store soon, but if you can't wait just call your local Soma Dealer and ask them to place a special order with our distributor in SF.