New Bikkel Bike - Teething Problems

Well, I finally went ahead and bought the Bikkel Neerhem 7 Dutch city
bike (www.bikkelbikes.com) that I enquired about in this forum a
fortnight ago. I spent so long obsessing over the choice that finally I
had to settle the matter. As Borges writes, "Anything at all, a map of
Hungary, can drive you mad, if you can think of nothing else".

I'm still not sure I did the right thing. The new bike is actually much
_less_ comfortable than my old supermarket model. I'm hoping this is a
matter of adjustment that will sort itself out in time. Since most
things can be tweaked and shifted on the Bikkel, it may take a while to
get all the proportions down to the millimeter. For the moment, I'm back
to the wrist and tooshie agonies of yore.

On the plus side, the Nexus shifting system is a dream and lives up to
expectations. I no longer have to memorize elaborate shifting scripts to
feel confident of taking off after a traffic halt. The roller brakes are
also strong, supple and rainproof. They don't do werewolf howls like my
old brakes. The bike feels much slower than my old one at the same speed
because the stopping distances are so much shorter, and thus allows me
to try higher speeds. And the covered chain, skirt guards and mud guards
all make it possible to wear any of my skirts without hem rips and smut
marks.

On the downside, this creature is heavier than I ever imagined. When I
initially tried to lift it in the shop it didn't seem so bad, but after
the various extras were added - hub dynamo, front basket, a second
anti-theft - it turned into a behemoth. I should have listened to myself
after my Cambridge experience taught me to mistrust dynamos. I thought
it was just a question of quality. In fact, whatever the quality, I'm
now sure dynamo lighting is an absurdity - it blacks out on you at
precisely the moments of starting or braking or walking when you need it
most, and you can't use it.to see around your parking stall.in the
garage.

A more pressing problem is that I find this bike extremely hard to
steer. She squirrels all over the place. It's as though the slightest
bump in the road will send her carreening into the next lane. I'm
finding traffic intersections scarier than ever, since I cannot manage
the turns and the cars around me have trouble figuring out which way I'm
trying to go. Moreover, I am farther than ever from being able to remove
my hand from the bars long enough to signal.

What could be causing that? Forrester in EFFECTIVE CYCLING goes on about
fork rake and head angle, but he's so arrogant and incomprehensible I
feel like giving up. The bike has an adjustable head angle,and I do find
that the farther forward I set this, the stabler the bike feels. On the
other hand, setting it forward increases the distance between the bars
and the seat and I find myself falling, once again, into the abyss. I
also surmise that after their long residence in the shop the wheels may
need pumping, but unfortunately the valves are different from those of
my old bike and my pump won't work on them until I can get a new valve
on it. A collegue has suggested that the wheels may not be true. The
vendor did add the hub dynamo to the front wheel and perhaps did not
take time to true it afterwards. I'm only alarmed at the possibility
that the bike is meant to be that way and will stay that way - my
balance problems may not be able to keep up with it.

I cast the Bikkel's natal horoscope for the date-time stamp on my
payment slip. To my utter horror, she is the astrological twin of Harry
Potter's Professor Snape, Scorpio with Capricorn rising! Even if I find
Snape rather sexy, sadistic discipliarian is the last temperament I
would have associated with a bicycle. Perhaps I must name her Severine.

Heyho.

Elisa Francesca Roselli
Ile de France

First off--- Relax!!!! It's going to be OK. It's a sweet bike and you
will get plenty of use out of it over time. Any time you plunk down a
big sum of money for anything, (but bikes most of all) buyers remorse is
bound to set in.


Just ride and be happy I'm sure you can adjust the bike and remember
that your body will adjust as well. In 500 miles, I'm sure you and your
new bike will be best friends.



--
--------------------------
Posted via cyclingforums.com
http://www.cyclingforums.com

tacomee wrote:

Just ride and be happy I'm sure you can adjust the bike and remember
that your body will adjust as well. In 500 miles, I'm sure you and your
new bike will be best friends.

Hope so. I am overly chaste in my cycling experience - I have biblical
knowledge of only two cheap bikes, and no idea what to expect of bikes in
general. Forrester sneers at "wobbly riders" who prefer bikes that are, in
his own strange jargon, "unstable", insofar as they don't go carreeening off
to the side every time an eyelash drops off one of your lids. He implies
that squirrel bikes like my new Bikkel are of a much higher class. My new
bike is nearly seven times more costly than my previous, and from what I
read in this forum the step from supermarket to "real" bike is supposed to
make a huge difference to one's comfort and road range. Some things are
definitely better in the new relationship but perhaps I was expecting some
sort of instant epiphany that didn't happen.

EFR

Elisa Francesca Roselli
wrote:

Well, I finally went ahead and bought the Bikkel Neerhem 7 Dutch city
bike (www.bikkelbikes.com) that I enquired about in this forum a
fortnight ago.

Congratulations.

On the downside, this creature is heavier than I ever imagined.

Well, Holland _is_ a flat country! But it is plain that a very light
bike would still be heavy after all your necessities were added.

A more pressing problem is that I find this bike extremely hard to
steer. She squirrels all over the place. It's as though the slightest
bump in the road will send her carreening into the next lane.

That's not a characteristic of the breed.

First, you should eliminate the simple possibilities. The head
bearings may be loose, or more likely too tight. Check for looseness
by holding the front brake on and gently rocking the bike forward and
backward. If there is knocking or sloppiness, the headset is loose
and should be tightened.

To check for excessive tightness in the headset, first take off the
basket and anything heavy that's attached to the front end. Lift up
the front end of the bike by the top tube, just behind the handlebar
stem. The handlebars, fork, and front wheel should swivel freely in
their preferred direction, without signs of sticking at any
orientation. If the headset is tight, have the shop adjust it
immediately, as it can be damaged by riding it that way.

Make sure the handlebars point in the same direction as the front
wheel, and that the stem is tight enough not to slip when the front
wheel is held between your knees and the handlebars firmly rotated.

While the basket is off, ride the bike and see if the steering seems
normal to you. There could be a problem related to adding weight to
the front end, though this sort of bike is intended for such use.

Position the bike with the front wheel pointing forward, such that you
can sight along between the rear wheel and the front. Take note if
the wheels do not appear to lie in the same plane, or if they seem to
lean in different directions.

If none of these things have betrayed the problem, you will want to
adjust your riding position into a known acceptable one for a bike of
this kind. Adjust the angle of the handlebar stem until it's
approximately 45degrees from horizontal. Set the handlebars with the
grips tilting slightly downwards towards the back, but pretty close to
level. Check the extension from seat to bars-- put your elbow on the
tip of the saddle nose and extend your fingers out towards the stem.
your fingertips should fall roughly on a line in between the
handgrips. If they are forwards or very much behind the grips, see if
there is sufficient adjustment in the saddle rails to slide the seat
into the range I describe. You may readjust the stem to point more
forwards, but do not change it to more upright than 45 degrees at this
time.

Make sure the handgrips are noticeably above the level of the seat--
about 50-75mm works well for me and is typical of Dutch bikes.

If your bike can't be put into the configuration I describe, or if
this fails to give you handling qualities you can live with, it's time
to go back to the dealer and have the people there help you. That is
one of the benefits of buying from a dealer. Have someone test-ride
your bike, and see if he or she can ride it no-handed.

If someone at the dealership test-rides your bike and says there is
nothing wrong with it, go to another bike shop and get a second
opinion. If that person looks comfortable and competent while riding
your bike, and says there is nothing wrong, the problem might be
related to something you are doing. Make your bike as comfortable as
you can, and in time you should accomodate to it.

If the bike shop people (any of them) can't ride your bike comfortably
and competently, then there is something wrong with your bike, and the
dealer from whom you bought it should investigate and address to
problem until you are satisfied. It may be as simple a problem as
having put you on the wrong size frame, or it may be a vexing puzzle.
It is the dealer's job to solve the problem in any case.

The difficulties you are having are not likely to result from the
wheels being out of true.

I
also surmise that after their long residence in the shop the wheels may
need pumping, but unfortunately the valves are different from those of
my old bike and my pump won't work on them until I can get a new valve
on it.

Dutch bikes come with Woods valves on the tubes. These can usually be
pumped with the same pump that is used on French Presta valves, found
on racing and sport bikes. The tubes can be replaced with the
Schrader valve type, such as is used on motorcycles and cars as well
as most utility bikes.

Good luck,

Chalo Colina

Tue, 25 Nov 2003 15:17:02 +0100,
, Elisa Francesca Roselli
wrote:

I should have listened to myself
after my Cambridge experience taught me to mistrust dynamos. I thought
it was just a question of quality. In fact, whatever the quality, I'm
now sure dynamo lighting is an absurdity - it blacks out on you at
precisely the moments of starting or braking or walking when you need it
most, and you can't use it.to see around your parking stall.in the
garage.

It doesn't become gradually dimmer until it blacks out completely as
the batteries go dead. You can't forget to recharge it in advance of
needing it.

Something like the Planet Bike Beamer or Spot 3 makes a good stand
light for when you're stopped or as a flashlight for roadside repairs.
The dyanamo light is no good for seeing to fix a flat.
--
zk

In article ,
(Chalo) writes:
Elisa Francesca Roselli
wrote:

A more pressing problem is that I find this bike extremely hard to
steer. She squirrels all over the place. It's as though the slightest
bump in the road will send her carreening into the next lane.

That's not a characteristic of the breed.

First, you should eliminate the simple possibilities.

/snip/ many good hints, suggestions and considerations.

I probably intuit too much. But this sounds so very much
to me like a bent fork. It so much reminds me of my own
experiences with bent forks.

My apologies in advance if I'm giving a bum steer. But
maybe it's something to investigate, and at least get
out of the way.


cheers,
Tom


--
-- Powered by FreeBSD
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

Thank you so much for this wonderfully complete step-by-step diagnosis, which
I have printed out and will investigate closely over the weekend. For the
moment, I am still missing the keys necessary to fiddle the seat position and
the handlbar height, and Saturday is the soonest I will be able to get to a
hardware shop.

My LBS man (not the dealer who sold me this bike) has already moved the seat
as far forward as it will go; with my elbow on the nose of the seat, my
middle fingertip just rests on the top tube, on the little rubber stopper
that covers the adjustment screw. You say my finger should come "roughly on
a line in between the handgrips" but I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
The handlebars curve back a lot (swan style?) and my fingers fall on line
about 60mm front of the very ends of the grips, more or less at the inner end
where the grips fit over the bars. The current height of the handgrips is
easily about 130mm above the seat, by your recommendation about twice as high
as they should be, and the angle of the handlbar stem is at 30 degrees
according to the little marks that have so thoughtfully been inscribed on the
rotation axis. However, I found on my previous bike that a lower position for
handlbars increased my wrist pains and had me riding the whole time on my
hands. If I lower the stem and at the same time increase its angle it may
compromise out better, though.

As for the tire pressure, my old bike does indeed have Schrader type-valves,
so the tube end on the pump will need modification.

I will need to fiddle the adjustments as much as I can before returning to
the dealer, since that is a project that requires a whole day off (16th
arrondissement from my house = 1 hour of train + 1 hour of cycling across
Paris, and the train can only be taken within very limited time frames). One
of the reason for the urgency of this purchase was that I had taken a 2-week
holiday to get it sorted out and finally bought it on the last Friday. The
shop is open on Saturday but I was afraid the congestion in the streets for
getting it home would be even worse.

Thanks again,

EFR

Tom Keats wrote:

I probably intuit too much. But this sounds so very much
to me like a bent fork. It so much reminds me of my own
experiences with bent forks.

How can one tell if a fork is bent?

EFR

"Elisa Francesca Roselli" wrote ...
My LBS man (not the dealer who sold me this bike) has already moved the
seat
as far forward as it will go; with my elbow on the nose of the seat, my
middle fingertip just rests on the top tube, on the little rubber stopper
that covers the adjustment screw. You say my finger should come "roughly
on
a line in between the handgrips" but I'm not sure I understand what you
mean.
The handlebars curve back a lot (swan style?) and my fingers fall on line
about 60mm front of the very ends of the grips, more or less at the inner
end
where the grips fit over the bars. The current height of the handgrips is
easily about 130mm above the seat, by your recommendation about twice as
high
as they should be, and the angle of the handlbar stem is at 30 degrees
according to the little marks that have so thoughtfully been inscribed on
the
rotation axis. However, I found on my previous bike that a lower position
for
handlbars increased my wrist pains and had me riding the whole time on my
hands. If I lower the stem and at the same time increase its angle it may
compromise out better, though.

Your top tube measurement seems long to me, or perhaps I misunderstood your
description. Is it possible that the frame is too big? I'd like to hear what
others on this NG have to say.

It might be worth your while to post your questions/comments on
rec.bicycles.tech in addition to here. There are a number of regulars on
that group who have worked in the bicycle industry for years, and they might
be able to give you some insight.
Good Luck,
--
mark

Elisa Francesca Roselli
:

with my elbow on the nose of the seat, my
middle fingertip just rests on the top tube, on the little rubber stopper
that covers the adjustment screw. You say my finger should come "roughly on
a line in between the handgrips" but I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
The handlebars curve back a lot (swan style?) and my fingers fall on line
about 60mm front of the very ends of the grips, more or less at the inner end
where the grips fit over the bars.

That's OK for troubleshooting purposes. The subtler personal
adjustments will come later; for now you just need to arrange it in a
known normal configuration, and that's what you have.

The current height of the handgrips is
easily about 130mm above the seat, by your recommendation about twice as high
as they should be,

That's OK too; it should not cause a problem. Having the bars too low
on this kind of bike could contribute to the kind of hand discomfort
you describe. Yours are not too low. You should be able to get a
confortable fit with the bars a bit lower than you now have them,
after all the little fit adjustments are made and you are more
accustomed to riding the bike. You will know when this feels like a
good idea because you will find yourself leaning forward and bending
at the elbows to pedal.

and the angle of the handlbar stem is at 30 degrees
according to the little marks that have so thoughtfully been inscribed on the
rotation axis.

Is that 30 degrees from horizontal, 30 degrees from vertical, 30
degrees from parallel to the stem quill, or 30 degrees from
perpendicular to the stem quill?

However, I found on my previous bike that a lower position for
handlbars increased my wrist pains and had me riding the whole time on my
hands.

The most important thing to prevent this discomfort is to keep from
leaning your torso too far forward, which will cause you to carry
weight on your hands whether they reach to a high or low handlebar.
Be aware of the angle of your back while you ride; straight upright is
no good, but too much tilt forward, too soon, will cause you trouble
too. Start about 30 degrees from the vertical, and make changes in
small increments until you are comfortable.

Chalo Colina