As in, this Sunday October 23, from 2-6 pm. Hard to believe, but it’s been ten years (and a month) since Circle A first opened it’s doors in Carpenter Mills. One move and nearly 250 bikes later, we’re still hobbling along.

Hope to see you there!

What? A Providence bike show? Yes indeedy, it’s really happening, coming right up, and Circle A will be there!

So as you probably know, the Providence Cyclocross Festival is coming soon, October 7-9 at Roger Williams Park.

But in addition to that, the first ever New England Builders Ball is happening Friday night (Oct 7) from 8-10 at the Biltmore. If it was good enough for Buddy, it sure as hell is good enough for us. We’ll be there with lots of our New England bike-building friends, so come check out our latest work.

Hopefully we’ll see you there, and then 2 weeks later for our Tenth Anniversary open house, Sunday October 23 from 2-6. More details later!

Come see us and tons of other builders at the Philly Bike Expo, October 30-31! Philly is a great cycling city and there are tons of events to witness & enjoy. We’ll be at booth 1046, look us up!

The Boston Area Handbuilt Bicycle Exhibition happened on September 23rd and was a chaotic frenzy of people. Maybe it was the free beer or maybe it was the amazing bikes that were on display but it was a great success in my eyes. Organizers Bryan from Royal H and Josh from Open Bicycle let the radius go out to everyone who could access Boston from the commuter rail so Circle A was invited too. I didn’t get many pictures but a very responsible Tony Maietta did. Check out his shots on his Flickr page.

We still have one more show to go this year so if you’re in the Philadelphia area on the 30th or 31st of October, come over and say hi to us at the Philadelphia Bike Exposition.

We apologize for the cruelly short notice, but that’s how we roll these days! Seat of the pants, and on two wheels! Celebrate May Day at your favorite worker-owned bike builder! Meet the actual workers (don’t worry, they will be shackled!), see the machines, have a drink, and a bite to eat. Later, roll down to the rally at the Statehouse or just help us finish off the beer.

Date: Saturday, May 1, 2010
Time: 1:00pm – 4:00pm
Location: Circle A Cycles, 523 Charles Street, Providence, RI
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Rhode Island had its very first Maker Faire this past weekend right in downtown Providence. A Maker Faire is a “gathering of inventors, tinkerers, and creative types that is intended to celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself mindset” (as said by Make magazine). It was well organized by Kipp Bradford and Brian Jepson who synchronized it with Providence’s Waterfire festival which draws a large crowd downtown. We were there showing off a couple of new frames and some bikes. Mostly just proving that all bikes are not made overseas and that manufacturing in the states still exists. There were a bunch of cyclist types in the crowd who were surprised to see that steel bikes were still being made and were excited that it was in their own city. We’ll definitely take part again if it becomes an annual event.

Circle A was in NYC this past weekend displaying our latest bikes at a Makers Market. A Makers Market is a place where people gather and show off their hand crafted goods. After a couple of torrential downpours and a beautiful sunset shining on the resulting mammatus clouds, it turned out to be a beautiful weekend. Long Island City was at the park in full effect checking out the wares of many local artisans but also some from out of town like us. One of those artisans was Walt Siegl of New Hampshire who impressed us with his handmade motorcycles. Check out the pics to see what we mean. Thanks to everyone who came up and said hi and talked about bikes, brazing, painting, polishing, and everything else. And thanks to all the staff at Socrates Sculpture Park, we had a great time!

 
 
 
 

Chris writes:

For the last few weeks, I’ve been teaching a bicycle trailer building class at the Steel Yard, in conjunction with Recycle-A-Bike.. This reunites me with Adam, who helped me do a couple of Monster Bike classes with high school students. The photos have de-linked (it’s on the to do list!) but you can read about that here.

Meanwhile, for the trailer class we have five projects, each a specific trailer for the builders’s particular needs. Warren is making a tool carrying trailer with integrated bike stand for Recycle-A-Bike; Hoshaiah and Lindsay are making a different style tool-tote for RISD Biketown; and Phil, David and Jonathan are each making trailers to help them spend less time in cars and more on bikes. Meanwhile Adam and I are putting together a chair car to help us test the pros and cons of different methods of attaching the trailers to our bikes.

We’re about to begin week 5, and the trailers are taking shape. Here are some shots of the plans folks are working off, from high-tech to low. Thanks to Jackson for all the photos!

  

  

And here are various action shots of the players at work:

  

  

  

  

  

And here are the finished trailers in action:

      

David K wins the prize for his Dave Sharp-rated trailer!

On Friday the 13th, Providence’s Recycle-A-Bike program held a fundraiser in the form of roller races. There was an amazing turnout to test out the new setup that was created especially for this occasion. The rollers were setup on a small stage and had fork mounts bolted down to it. There was a wireless setup attached to the rollers that sent a signal to the laptop which projected the race progress graph onto the wall behind the riders. The software and wireless hookup for the rollers was created by Providence’s one and only Kipp Bradford. The whole Recycle-A-Bike staff came together to make this a fun night. Special thanks to Maggie for keeping everyone focused. And a very special thanks to all of the sponsors. Can’t wait to do it again!

 
 
 
 
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My retro-direct obsession started in 2001 when I came across an auction for a Hirondelle bicycle on eBay. I had never seen a two-speed bike that pedaled backwards before and was intrigued. I didn’t win the auction but I was inspired to make one of my own. How hard could it be, right? With modern derailleur chains that can work with almost any chain line it really wasn’t a problem. The problem was that I needed to braze on a pulley to take the chain around a second independent spinning freewheel. At the time I wasn’t building bikes and I had little to no torch experience so I needed an alternate solution. The solution was a clamp-on Tektro chain tensioner for downhill bikes; My retro-direct dream came to fruition.

  

At the time, all I had was my old Harry Quinn so I converted that. The two speeds were virtually the same: 46-18 forward pedaling and 46-16 backward pedaling. I rode it for a while but the gearing made it more of a novelty than anything else. Fast forward 8 years and I’m still contemplating building another one. I start by making a 3/32″ compatible freewheel with 24 teeth. Then I needed a test machine, so I found an old Biemmezeta on Craig’s List. It was a horrific neon yellow so there was no hesitation in stripping the paint right off. I dimpled the drive-side chainstay for chain clearance (wasn’t necessary on the HQ because the gears weren’t that different), then I cut a small slot, and I brazed in part of an old steel derailleur (third location was a charm). I contemplated putting a couple water bottle bosses on the inside of the stay to have a removable pulley but realized that since the stay was already looking like a pea-pod from the dimpling, I should just keep it as a dedicated two-speeder. I cut off the derailleur hanger, removed any unnecessary braze-ons, recreated the decals in Illustrator, and painted them on using a vinyl mask. The final product is a sharp-looking, obscure, Italian frame with an even more obscure drivetrain.

I should point out that the retro-direct concept is nothing new. The book The Dancing Chain by Frank Berto has extensive documentation on early versions and variations of two-speed, three-speed, forward, and reverse drive bikes. The idea of the “double-speed velocipede” was patented way back in 1869. It really didn’t become “popular” until 1899 when several companies began manufacturing them. Most notable were the efforts of Magnat & Debon, Hirondelle, and Terrot. With the dawning of the derailleur and internally geared hubs, the retro-direct and its two-speed simplicty had fallen to the wayside. It seems like nowadays only eccentric Sheldon Brown-esque types would be seen pedaling backwards on one of these archaic bikes. I guess I kind of fit that bill.

Here are some shots and specs of my project bike. It’s a 52-18 going forward and 52-24 in reverse. The freewheel is mounted to a 5-speed hub that was respaced and redished to 130mm with a solid axle. The rear hub has a 1mm spacer, 24 tooth freewheel, non-driveside cartridge bottom bracket cup threaded into the first freewheel, and then the second freewheel threaded onto that. Thanks to Jay Cloutier for inspiration, Frank Berto for the history, Chris Bull for the sweet sealed bearing pulley, and Nathan Trombly for the wheels. And for the record, yes, it does feel weird to pedal backwards.

  
  
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