Looking for a Road Bike

Act 1

I could not go one more pedal stroke further. I pulled off the road and put down my shaking right foot while the ride leader came back to see how I was doing. I was miserable. Humiliated, unable to keep up with people on a C-/D ride I was sweaty and exhausted. The ride leader was nice and suggested that my racked and fendored touring bike was most of the reason I could not stay up with the group.



They were riding lightweight bikes and skinny tires. But I knew my huffing and puffing came from hours sitting at a desk and weighing 330 pounds. I needed to aquire a road bike and I needed to gain fitness and I needed to loose weight (I know the last two seem like the same thing - but for me they come at separate times and in different ways.)

We are in the time of Covid and it turns out along with making sourdough bread the people of America went to the bicycle shops and bought all the moderately priced bicycles leaving nothing but the $6000 and up carbon fiber models with electrical shifters and disk brakes and RADAR...RADAR...seriously on a bicycle???

One more thing, while it is hard to find it documented anywhere, most retail bicycle manufactures do not guarantee a bike if the rider is more than 270 pounds. Specialized bicycles, for example, places a weight limit of 250 pounds for its carbon fiber bikes. Source

What to do???

I went to my garage looking for inspiration and found my little gem. My 1989 Dave Scott Triathlon Tange steel bike. When it was shipped from the factory it weighed 22.5 pounds. It has been modified into a single-speed/fixie that I use to ride laps around my neighborhood. It has been upgraded to a 48 spoke rear hub and double walled wheels. It is a tall bike at 64 cm from crank center to top of the seat tube.



It is amazing to ride, responsive and quick, even with me on it jumps forward with each spin of the pedal. But I did some testing on hills and at this point I can not get the bike up an even moderately steep hill. I am not going to take this one-speed out on a club ride and dismount and run up every hill. I am just not going to do that. I need gears. But I am not ready to modify my little gem, it is a practical work of art from a local artisan named Frank P. and I just can not undo this little piece of bicycling perfection. But what I can do is find another Dave Scott Centurion and make it match the bike Frank built as close as possible while keeping the gears. Trying to get the same synergies he built into my track bike without really understanding what I am doing.

The next part of the story is too aggravating to tell in detail. I found, on Ebay, in Nebraska, a 1988 Centurion Dave Scott Master all original except for the pedals.

I mean all original - wheels, saddle, seat post, Shimano 600 group set and 2X6 freewheel. I bought it - $516 for bike and shipping and it was on its way until FedEx damaged it here in the Lehigh Valley. The bike was here for a week - within 10 miles of me and I never even got to see it before it was shipped back to Nebraska and an insurance adjustment was made. It went back on sale on Ebay.

The seller told me one of the chain stays had got dented and in the photos I could see where he had replaced the saddle - if the chain stay got dented... well that is a serious lot of work to fix, and probably better to just get another bike. Which is what I did...

Act 2

Reply

The Acceptance

End of Act 2

After making sure Gary wouldn't take any money for his bicycle I accepted the fine gift. I drove out to his house and we caught up outside, maskless, about 10 feet of social distancing between us we and talked bikes and technology. He had two beautiful bicycles a Bianchi Road bike and a Trek gravel bike. Bicycles I could look at but bicycles I could never ride because of my weight. He brought out the Shogun, a longtime hanger queen, and weirdly identical to the Dave Scott I had tried to acquire.

How the Shogun 1000 Matches the Dave Scott

1. Shimano 600 Groupset 2X6.
2. Downtube shifters
1. Chainring shifter is friction.
2. Freewheel shifter is indexed.
3. Headset.
4. Nitto Stem.
5. Tange Steel frame.
6. Selle Italia Turbo saddle.The Shogun did not come with the Selle Italia Turbo Saddle.
7. Sugino SP-KCL graduated scale 27.0 Seat posts.

How the Shogun 1000 is Different From the Dave Scott

The Shogun has a Kashimax Intima saddle. It is almost identical to the Selle Italia Turbo - which is how I got it wrong. It is a little bit harder then the Turbo but it rides well. I took it off for awhile but it is back on the bike.

The Shogun has an unusual triple-triangle frame configuration which will make the bike stiffer.

And

The Shogun has a half inch shorter wheelbase measured center axle to center axle. This will make the bike very responsive to steering input. Otherwise known as "twitchy". It may effect the fit. It will make the bike less forgiving to bumpy roads.

And

The Shogun has ridiculously skinny wheels and tires which I will need to replace with something wider to get some more tread on the ground. Not too much to slow me down - but enough to protect the spokes and wheels from buckling if I were to hit a pothole.

The handle bars are close in shape and size - but I am thinking the Shogun's drops are shorter. I will have to measure them when I get the bike back from the shop.

An Explanation for "Weirdly Identical"

No big mystery here. "The Japanese trading company Marui Ltd owned both the Centurion (Dave Scott) and Shogun brands."
"Marui also handled Centurion (http://www.centurion-bikes.jp/), Topeak (http://www.topeak.jp/), Tioga, Ergon, Schwinn and Finish Line."

And they were manufatured by the same group of companies.

"Shogun bicycles were contract manufactured by various sources including Merida, Miki, Tano, Yamaguchi and several unidentified sources." Source

Act 3 - The Design

Giving Up on the Original Idea

My first thought was to make the new bike exactly like the single speed Dave Scott - except with the original 2x6 freewheel. Because for what it is, it hits all the right sweet spots. And I want the experience when I train my legs for power - riding the single speed on hills and wind sprints - to feed the experience on the road bike - so that they are analogs for each other.

But that is not going to happen. Because I am working with a different mechanic, I want his take on what the bike will be. I want him to understand what I want, and I want him to make choices based on his experience to get me there. I want him to be invested. We may not be able to recreate the feel that Frank P. created. We may create a whole new set of sweet spots and a new way of riding for me, it is worth the risk and everything is temporary.

After hours of research looking at frame geometries, and shifter position and saddles and group sets and wheel materials and sizes and tires I discovered that at some point bicycle creation stops being a science and it becomes an art. I can use the science to inform the art- but as the number of variables grows, I just can't build an algorithm that will maximize the right sweet spots. My bum will know when I get it right and the people riding around me will know when I am riding with them, as one of them.

Weight Limitations

I weigh 330 pounds and the bike will weigh between 25 and 30 pounds when we are through. Most bicycle components max out at a rider weight of 270 pounds. That means the bike has to be built up to handle 365 pounds (if you are doing the math, I added 5 pounds for clothes). In years of riding I have had good results upgrading the wheels and spokes. For my touring bike I upgraded to a 48-hole Phil Wood's tandem hub. It has been rock-solid.

To Steel or not to Steel

If you want to really get into the pros and cons of using steel as bicycle frame material, you cannot go wrong by checking out what Grant Peterson of Rivendell bikes has to say on the subject: https://www.rivbike.com/pages/frame-materials

I have 3 bikes right now, two are aluminum and one is steel. My bum likes the steel one best. That really is the best argument that I have. I just love the way it feels and how it jumps to attention when I decide to step hard on the pedals. One of the aluminum bikes gave me trouble for awhile, broken spokes and bent wheels. I even spun the rear hub in the drop outs at a traffic light. I upgraded the wheels, added a steel spacer in the dropout and the problem has not reoccurred.

If your argument is that steel is too heavy - dude I am too heavy. The difference between a 17-pound bike and 23-pound bike is not going to be noticeable for a 330-pound man. Do the physics it just does not matter that much. The following link gives real world results of weight difference over long distance:
https://ridefar.info/bike/cycling-speed/weight/#:~:text=For%20the%20average%2Dstrength%20rider,be%20about%206.5%20hours%20earlier)

Steel works to get me to the sweet spot between:

1. Handle my weight
2. Increase fitness (a little extra weight is good for the legs)
3. Keeping up with the club riders. (11 miles an hour average today, 15 miles an hour average before the end of 2021).
4. Spend less than $1500

Steel frame, more spokes, stronger wheels and stronger hubs are how I will design around my weight.

What We Decided to Build

Additional Stuff

Pedals

I have not mentioned the pedals. I will be matching the pedals I have on the Dave Scott Centurion. Exustar PM86. These unusual pedals can be used as clip-on when I feel retro, flat when I don't have time to put on my cycling shoes and clipless if I want to spin.

I Got a Little Carried Away

Buying brand new Phil Wood hubs is a luxury. I know it is and I feel a little bit bad about not chasing those parts down on Ebay. In the future when I start building bikes myself, I will do that. But not this time. Something else is a luxury that is not on this list. I bought a new Sella Italia Turbo Bullitt leather saddle to replace the black Sella Italia Turbo that came with the bike. This saddle is the way I make the bike my retro-mod version of the 1986 Shogun 1000 racing bike. I ride a B-17 Brooks saddle on my touring bike and this one piece ties the two bikes together. It makes it mine - while respecting the history that comes with a 1986 Japanese steel bicycle. I hope my bum likes the way it feels.

Total Cost

I do not have that number right now. The spreadsheet shows that I am painfully close to my budget-we will see. When all is said and done and South Mountain Cycle has been paid I will update the information here.

Now I Wait

South Mountain Cycle has the bike. Jorge has ordered the parts and somewhere around December 15th, 2020 the bike will be ready for me to put a bow on it and stick it under the Christmas tree for myself.
OK. So expecting to get the bicycle by Christmas may have been possible in a pre-Covid life time - but not in this one.

So Jorge was wrong about Christmas:

So this time I called Jorge. He did not particularly want to talk to me. But he did, he is a professional and really this is not his fault. If you cannot get the parts you cannot get the parts. And I am the one wanting a 40-hole rim. So, the new date is February 1, 2021 before the rims can ship. One 40-hole rim for the back, one 36-hole rim for the front.
We talked over tires. I had bought tires that look like the stock ones instead of the black ones I had asked him to order. He won't order the black ones but will use the gum-wall tires I purchased. This bike will look from a near-distance like it is stock. Except for the seat and the handlebar wrap. I am pretty sure I will wrap the handle-bars with Brooks handle bar tape that will match the brown saddle covering up the brand identifying gold that has been there since the bicycle was purchased brand new.
If he gets the wheels this week I may get the bicycle next week with 24 inches of snow on the ground and temperatures below freezing for at least a week.

Future Acts

Now comes the training. Learning how to use downtube shifters again after 37 years. Getting used to a 12-speed. Learning why 12 speeds wasn't good enough so someone figured out how to add up to 15 more. Changing my body so I can keep up with the 21 speed, carbon, aero-dynamic wonders of the world. And learning how to keep a twitchy bike on the road as I extend my range from 25 miles today, to 36 miles by April and 100 miles as soon as possible.