Machinists Turn Wheels of Progress

Brian Spitz works with a block of aluminum

Brian Spitz is a machinist, an increasingly rare job skill in the U.S., and certainly in Silicon Valley. It’s rewarding work, but global economics comes into play here.

As with many machinists, Brian has a close connection to cycling. A bike is a relatively simple machine. With the exception of the chain, the aspiring machinist could fashion an entire bicycle. Today there’s a modest industry of U.S. built bike components.

I’ve known Brian since his days as an eager teen working at Palo Alto Bicycles. As a mechanic, he quickly took an interest in frame building. It wasn’t long before he found out about Peter Johnson, a well known machinist and frame builder in Redwood City. “I would hang around Peter’s shop and watch him work,” says Brian. “He never tried to hide what he was doing. He’s why I’m a machinist today.”

Peter Johnson -- racer, frame builder, machinist

The machinist is crucial for building the things that make the world go round. Every part starts with the machinist, who fabricates from raw materials the prototype, which will be duplicated hundreds, thousands, or millions of times over. He works with expensive, computerized machinery that control the machine to drill or cut with incredible precision.

I visited Brian in a San Jose industrial area, a mishmash of warehouses filled with machinery and raw materials. Brian and co-worker Harold Wheeler, also a cyclist, were working on blocks of black acrylic. Jets of water cooled the drill bit as it cut the hard resin. A lot of the work machinists do in Silicon Valley is done for companies in biomedical, solar, computer, and other technology industries.

When he built frames, he lived at home and worked out of the garage. Frame building has never been a way to get rich, but machining is in strong demand in the markets he serves. He loves his work and the freedom it brings, something cyclists know only too well.

Brian still rides his bike to and from work, an easy two-mile commute. He fondly recalls the days when he could ride up Old La Honda Road with the best of them. In one memorable ride, he raced Dave Faust, an accomplished Category 1 racer, and won handily in 16:20. “I thought Dave was saving himself so I rode as hard as I could the whole way,” Brian recalls.

That was then. Today, Brian’s Spitz Design & Machine is building the parts that will make the world a better place to live. We wish him well.

He Made a Business Out of Bikes

Bernie Hoffacker talks with Jim Sullivan. Craig Maynard, center, hired me in 1979.

I consider the 1980s the Golden Age of modern cycling. While it’s true I was at the peak of my game, consider this: Greg LeMond became the first American to win the Tour de France. Campagnolo reached its zenith as the manufacturer of the best bike parts in the world. Shimano was coming on strong. Mavic introduced the MA2 clincher rim, the best ever. The mountain bike became a household name.

And, Palo Alto Bicycles thrived. I had the privilege of working there. I can’t tell you I got rich: nobody does in the bike business. I had fun and adventures to last a lifetime. That’s the payoff.

Palo Alto Bicycles isn’t any bike shop. It has been around since 1930 (moving to University Avenue in 1973). That’s a long time for a business much less a bike shop. It’s family-run, which has its good and bad points. Do your job well and they treat you like family. It’s an intangible job benefit that can’t be measured in dollars and cents.

Bernie Hoffacker – The Owner
The driving force behind the shop was Bernie Hoffacker. He was well into his 60s when I started working there in 1979 as a fumbling “mechanic.”

Bernie had a way about him that left an impression. Nothing escaped his attention. A child of the Great Depression, he never let you forget every penny counts and no job is too insignificant or unworthy of being done just right.

One of my jobs was taking out the trash. Every night Bernie made the rounds and he always asked me if I had emptied all the cans. “Make sure you press it down real good,” he’d say. We had only one dumpster and sometimes it was a chore cramming in all the discarded bike boxes.

Bernie didn’t ride a bike, but he was athletic. I’d watch in amazement as he headed up the stairs, taking two steps at a time. In his youth he played baseball for the San Francisco Seals. One day we had a company picnic and Bernie showed up to play shortstop. When a hard-hit ball came his way he scooped it up like a pro. He had the moves!

Bike shops draw all kinds of people to work there and shop owners can tell you it’s a challenge keeping everyone in line, maintaining a professional manner, handling the dark side of owning a retail business. Bernie had that down in spades. His commitment and drive made Palo Alto Bicycles what it was and is to this day — a thriving business. Now Bernie is gone, age 92. He lived not just a good life, but a great life. I’ll miss him.

Ridin’ in the Rain

Bianchi Castro Valley commuter bike

I’ll be riding in the rain come Monday and probably for the next several days. I’m not much of a rain rider, but when it comes to commuting, I’ll do it unless the rain is accompanied by strong winds.

My rain gear is, in a word, PVC, or polyvinyl chloride. I have been reluctant to spring for a $100 jacket with “Gore-tex®” properties. I may do that soon and, if I do, I’ll write a report. I’ve read many accounts of how well they work, so I’m not so much doubtful as I am cheap. It doesn’t rain all that often in Northern California.

What I do recommend is fenders. You can live with a lousy rain jacket, but riding without fenders is dirty business. My rain bike is the Bianchi Castro Valley, so named because Bianchi has a U.S. office near that Bay Area community.

The bike was a decent value at $750 when I bought it in 2005. It has a dynohub so I don’t need to worry about light batteries, but the bulb can burn out. A flickering LED serves as backup.
I’ve ridden this bike into the Santa Cruz Mountains, in addition to commuting. It has plenty of gears for hills. I can’t say I’ll ever enjoy riding in the rain, but it’s all part of being a bike commuter.

Mtn Bikes in La Honda Creek Preserve

Entrance to La Honda Creek Preserve off Hwy 84

If mountain bikers haven’t figured it out by now, the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD) was created to preserve land as open space, followed by some accommodations for recreational use.

It has been five years since a master plan for the La Honda Creek preserve began, and the third public hearing on the preserve and public access was held on Nov. 12. I didn’t attend, so I don’t know the outcome, but the options for mtn bikes came down to one old ranch road (part of the Bay Area Ridge Trail) or maybe a few other trails.

The preserve will have plenty of trails for hikers and equestrians, but mtn bikes will be limited. Preserve hikers want trails free of mtn bikes. When it comes to narrow, single-track, trails I agree some trails should be for hiking only.

On wider trails such as Purisima Creek Redwoods, mixed use is appropriate. I can see allowing mtn bikes on single-track, as we have at El Corte de Madera Creek, but hikers mostly stay on the hiking only trails.

La Honda Creek preserve is located north of Highway 84, extending toward the coast from Skyline all the way to Highway 84 south of La Honda. The preserve entrance I’m most familiar with is at the junction of Highway 84 and Old La Honda Road, near the easy-to-see Red Barn. (see preserve map in the above link)

Red barn off Hwy 84 near Old La Honda Rd.

One of the arguments I often hear is that allowing mtn biking reduces bike traffic on busy highways, such as 84. Most mtn bikers drive to preserves, so I don’t buy it. Bike traffic on Highway 84 is almost exclusively road bikes.

A road that should be available for bikes and next to the La Honda Creek Preserve is Bear Gulch Road. This road was abandoned by San Mateo County eons ago. It’s a huge loss, along with Star Hill Road. These roads would have done a lot to reduce bike traffic on Highway 84.

When these roads were abandoned, you can be sure no thought was given to bicycles.

MROSD does a decent job balancing the desire for recreation access versus its primary purpose of preserving open space. Mtn bikers may not be entirely satisfied with the way things are, but we have plenty of places to ride in the era of public access. The days when I and others could ride where we pleased ended around 1982. It was great while it lasted.

This petition for mtn bike access to La Honda Creek preserve has nearly 1,800 signatures.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Palo Alto police helped nab a bike thief

Two events in the past week illustrate all that is right and wrong with law enforcement when it comes to bicycling.

Here’s the bad cop routine: Officers of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department set up a checkpoint and handed out warnings to cyclists who ran the stop sign at Portola Road and Alpine Road in the rural town of Portola Valley. A series of dragnets involving 17 officers caught 91 stop-sign violators, fining them up to $120 each, according to an article in The New York Times.

Why this national paper would bother covering such a minor event is equally disturbing. They – cops and newspaper reporters — have nothing better to do? Cops should conduct dragnets for drunk drivers and when they’re looking for desperate criminals on the run.

Nabbing cyclists en masse running stop signs in the countryside is a waste of resources, paid for by us.

Good cops recover bike
We have good cops though, who can make a difference helping cyclists recover stolen bikes, as happened in Palo Alto, California, according to a story in Palo Alto Online News. A bicycle owner found his stolen bike for sale on Craigslist. He immediately called the Palo Alto police, who set up a sting.

When the thief showed up to sell the bike, the cops moved in and arrested him. Thanks to a surveillance camera on the premises that caught him in the act, the cops could ID the bike thief and press charges.

My stolen bike story
I had a similar experience many years ago when my Motobecane was stolen off the front porch of Jobst Brandt’s house on Middlefield Road near downtown Palo Alto. I foolishly left the bike on his front porch as the sun was going down. When I went to retrieve my bike, it was dark out and the bike was gone.

I worked at Palo Alto Bicycles at the time and told the shop’s head mechanic, Dave Prion, to be on the lookout for my bike. Weeks later a youth showed up with my wheels. Both sew-ups were flat. Dave recognized my wheels by a unique alloy freewheel. We called the cops.

They went in search of my bike, but this was not an entirely happy ending. The bike was not found. At least I got back my expensive Campagnolo wheels.

To this day I have nightmares of stolen bikes. Losing something you love can do that to a person.

A Spoke Too Soon Forgotten

This spoke break location is atypical. It usually breaks at the bend.

If you ride enough miles, you will break a spoke. Now if your wheel has 32 or 36 spokes, it’s no big deal. If you have one of those wheels with just 16 radial spokes, there is a greater chance of major wheel misalignment or sudden failure.

Recently I broke a rear spoke on the freewheel side, the location where spokes are more likely to break. They are under more tension to account for extra dish to accommodate a freewheel.

I didn’t realize it, but a freewheel puller for a standard freewheel works just fine, assuming you have the proper puller. There are many different pullers. This spoke broke on a modern freewheel , which is built into the hub. My freewheel puller was made for old hubs with detachable freewheels. It happens to have the same notch pattern as the new freewheel lock ring. The other tool you need is a chain whip.

Shimano Tiagra 32-spoke hubs have a lock ring that keeps the 10 sprockets in place.  Be sure to keep these sprockets in exactly the same alignment when removing them. Preferably, remove all the sprockets at once to keep their alignment.

Lock rings have a right-hand thread. The bad news: that’s the direction of freewheel movement, so you need a chain whip to counteract movement. Use a wrench to engage the freewheel puller. Once the lock ring is unthreaded, remove the sprockets. Shimano shows how it’s done.

Next, remove the broken spoke. If you are replacing a similar gauge spoke you can unthread the spoke from the nipple without having to let air out of the tire. If you use a different gauge of spoke, you have to replace the nipple as well, otherwise the spoke will not thread onto the nipple. Replace the sprockets and then thread the lock ring and tighten.

I have a ton of spokes, so it was easy to find one that fit. A bike shop will have spares and can size the spoke so you get the right length. Insert the new spoke and follow the same cross pattern. Make sure the spoke end is flush with the hub. Rethread the spoke into the nipple and tighten with a spoke wrench. True the wheel.

Shimano drawing showing freewheel removal procedure

GM Architect of Light Rail’s Dismantling

Light rail tracks on The Alameda in 1984 near Santa Clara University

As GM gets its multi-billion-dollar government bailout using taxpayer dollars, let’s take a look back in time and see what this goliath did to assure its climb to power at the cost of public transportation.

GM began by funding a company called National City Lines (NCL), which by 1946 controlled streetcar operations in 80 American cities, including San Francisco.

“Despite public opinion polls that showed 88 percent of the public favoring expansion of the rail lines after World War II, NCL systematically closed its streetcars down until, by 1955, only a few remained,” writes author Jim Motavalli in his 2001 book, Forward Drive.

They went on to back a powerful lobby for an interstate highway system. The money we poured into building freeways could have gone toward bullet trains crisscrossing the country.

The freeway-building madness finally ground to a halt in the late 1960s when the cost became too high and the environmental movement got underway. Let’s not forget:

Freeways were slated for Highway 84 from Woodside to San Gregorio, Highway 17, San Francisco (several), Highway 1, Highway 29 Napa Valley, Highway 121 Sonoma Valley, Highway 35 Skyline Boulevard, San Tomas Expressway, Lawrence Expressway, Capitol Expressway, and that’s not all.

Nasty Reservoir Bypass Now a Memory

After an endless closure, the Lexington Reservoir paved trail is open again.

After two years of being denied the use of the paved Los Gatos Creek Trail up the face of Lexington Reservoir (14 percent), it is now open! I can’t tell you what a pain it was having to ride up (and down) the trail alongside the Lenihan Dam spillway. The gravel road has a steady grade of at least 20 percent. That test of lungs and legs is no fun, even for the young and strong.

The Santa Clara Valley Water District, whose website is seemingly always down, explains why the trail had to be closed for construction of a water diversion tunnel. Let’s hope we’ve seen the end of Los Gatos Creek trail closures.

While I enjoy riding on the trail, there’s one nasty steep spot remaining. Clearly, the South Pacific Coast route followed a gentler grade as it climbed through the canyon.  It crossed the creek on a trestle about where the steep spot is located.

Where was Rails to Trails when we needed them? If we had that route to Santa Cruz today, it would be one of the most spectacular trails in all of California. I mapped the route and have photos of the tunnel entrances, blasted shut by the U.S. Army in 1942.

Happy Trails.

Frozen Freewheel Fun

Freewheel ready for disassembly; Interior showing pawls; bad bearing

One day while riding home from work I started experiencing “chain suck” of the worst kind. When I coasted my chain wrapped around the freewheel and I had no choice but to keep pedaling. I knew what was wrong. The freewheel no longer turned.

It was worse than riding in a fixed gear because not only could I not coast, I had to keep turning the pedals or the chain would jam up on the chainwheel as well.  I made it home without stopping.

I decided to disassemble the freewheel and see what caused the failure. It had been knocking ever since I installed it, so I figured it would fail eventually.

Disassembling a freewheel is not recommended. It’s not worth the hassle. In my case, I wasn’t trying to make a repair. I was just curious. This was an old 6-speed  freewheel that nobody uses anymore. The main benefit of newer freewheels is that the axle has more hub support, so is less likely to fail. That has never been much of a problem for me so I’ll keep using the old-fashioned 6-speed until it’s no longer available. That might be in my lifetime.

The key to disassembly is having the right tools and knowing that the lock ring with the two recessed holes (that might take some kind of tool) is a left-hand thread. The late Sheldon Brown wrote about freewheel disassembly.

Using a punch and hammer, I tapped off the lock ring and looked inside. I saw about 100 1/8-inch bearings, minus cages. Sure enough, a ball bearing on the upper race disintegrated and over time the pieces migrated, causing a jam-up.

So much for my $25 freewheel. Cogs wear out on freewheels, which is the main reason they get tossed. What’s especially frustrating is when you have a new chain and a old freewheel or an old chain and a new freewheel. The chain skips on the freewheel and makes life miserable. You know it’s time for new cogs, a new chain, or both.

Sometimes you can get away with changing only a cog or two. Typically, the smaller cogs wear out first, although if you ride around in the same cog all the time, that’s the one that will wear out.

Bikes and Dogs Don’t Mix

City of Chico gets it. They flag 10 dangerous riding situations.

I get really uncomfortable when I see someone riding a bike, dog in tow on a leash. Beverly Head felt that way too as she took her morning walk. She worried about dogs on Los Alamitos Creek Trail in south San Jose.

What happened next may be a fluke, but avoidable. On a fairly long leash, two Siberian Huskies strayed away from the cyclist on a mountain bike. Beverly got entangled in the leash and fell backwards onto her head. She died two days later.

I read this article in the San Jose Mercury News. It went on about how a law might be needed. A law is not needed. What people need is common sense. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough to go around, apparently.

I take a dim view of people who ride a bike with a dog loping along on a leash, people who talk on cell phones while cycling, people who listen to music with ear plugs in both ears while riding. I could go on.

A recent study by Stanford University researchers demonstrated that multi-tasking isn’t something people do well, although to hear it from people who do multi-task, they think they’re doing great.

Next time you see someone riding a bike with dog in tow, give him a wide berth and watch your back.