"It's so small," she said,

but I was okay with that because, well, it is small.



bicycles is now a Felt dealer and our first few bikes have arrived. This one, an FW35, is the first one I pulled out of the box to build up. It's an interesting bike, and it is really stinking small, but Felt actually makes two bikes smaller than this one for women, the smallest of which is a 650c wheeled bike.



It's always bothered me that companies will take a frame, paint it pink, but a big squishy saddle and a short stem on it, and call it a "woman's bike." It appears that Felt has taken the idea of making a bike for women a little more seriously. There are five different bikes in the line up specifically for women and with all of them their smallest size uses 650c wheels. While some might groan at the idea of a bike with 650c wheels one needs to understand the finer nuances of bike geometry and realize that once a bike gets down to a certain size the top tube can no longer get effectively any shorter (by this I mean making the seat tube angle steeper to shorten the measurement of the top tube length isn't the same as actually reducing the effective top tube length, come see me and I'll draw you a picture to show you what I mean, or maybe in a day or two I'll edit this entry with an inserted crudely drawn rendering of what I'm talking about) and the head tube can only get so short meaning once you hit a certain point the front end of the bike can't get any lower. The result of extra small frames with 700c wheels is very slack head tube angles which make the bike handle quite poorly due to an excessively long trail number, and a front end that is too high for shorter people.

Another thing Felt manages to do is put 105 10spd components on a sub $1400 bike which is nice enough, and they also don't assume that women are weak (which they aren't) and they spec an affordable woman's bike with a double chainring with the understanding that women are often very serious cyclists and don't need to be pandered to with equipment that betrays their ability.

It's a nice "little" bike.

Quality parts for a reasonable price

The Globe and Mail has a section that they title "Darts and Laurels" where they give praise to some things whilst criticizing harshly others. It's in that spirit that I review two products today. The first, would it be soft enough for it to accept one, would have a dart hucked furiously at its being. It's a Syntace F99 stem. For certain it's not a cheap item retailing for $129.00 and it's advertised as coming with "stainless steel bolts" but as you can clearly see from the example that I own that someone at Syntace is a Neil Young fan because rust isn't even having a nap before attacking my stem bolts. In fairness, my stem is one of the older ones that were recalled because they were likely to implode or somehow disrupt the time/space continuum and they may have since really switched to stainless steel bolts but regardless of what they do now I find it quite incredible that any company would suggest such a high retail price without automatically including a readily available metal for their bolts that is commonly used for bicycles due to their exposure to the elements.




And now for the good. A "laurel" if you will. Tektro, oh how I love to hate you and hate to love you and with the installation of these brakes I am full of hate because they are wonderful. For years I have sworn an allegiance to Paul Components because of their Neo-Retro brakes which have previously been the best thing on the planet for a cross bike. And then Tektro shows up with these little darlings. I'm sure they won't last as long as the Paul equivalents (which are spectacular in construction), and the hardware will probably rust, but they cost $28 an end vs. the over $100 for the Paul cantis. You'll get a lot of leeway from me for saving me so much money and not just because my fridge will be full of beer paid for with the money I save. These Tektro cantilver brakes are pretty much the best thing going for a cross bike. I've sworn at my Shimano cantis but they didn't hear my cry of disapproval over the brake squeal they emit every time you engage the rim with them. And Paul, oh how I've loved thee, and you will always have a home on my custom swanky cross bike until you wear out and I know that will never happen because you are so indestructible, but Tektro, you've caught my eye and I'm looking forward to seeing where this relationship goes.