Each of us remembers how they became a Velominatus. For me, it was at Grimpeur Wielersport, in Zevenaar, The Netherlands. Its the perfect place: a small shop, on a small street, in a small town, in a small country, run by a Giant of the Sport, Herman van Meegen. I haven’t been back in years, not since my mentor and original owner was forced to retire due to a nagging back injury.
Despite it’s diminutive appearance, inside this small shop existed a world vast beyond my wildest imagination. The owner spoke with the soft ‘G’ – typical of the Dutch dialect in the region. Former head mechanic at Helvetia – La Suisse, and later for Team 7-Eleven, he had previously wielded a wrench at the world’s major events including Le Tour before opening this shop. He knew everyone. Pros strolled into his shop on a regular basis. Imagine the awe of a thirteen-year-old Velominatus Novus as Erik Breukink wandered into the shop and dallied about for a bit.
But it was the tales and experience from many years on the Pro circuit that made those visits to special to me. He explained in detail the way Steve Bauer preferred to ride a smaller frame than his contemporaries or how Pascal Richard liked the tension of the spokes “just so” as he laced a set of wheels for my dad. He showed me how he filed out the holes in the hub flange to cradle the spokes better and reduce the chance of breaking one. He built wheels on a truing stand he built himself and to which he affixed a micrometer. He told me that a perfectly true wheel will never go out of true, not even on the cobbles. “Maar het moet werkelijk perfect zijn.” But it has to be absolutely perfect. Sounds like something you need a custom truing stand and micrometer for. (That bike is now something like 20 years old, and has never seen a spoke wrench; the wheels are still perfectly true.)
He was personal friends with Eddy Merckx and picked up a frame my dad had ordered after dinner with The Man at the factory in Belgium. A prototype Campagnolo saddle with titanium rails and air bladder that never made it to production somehow found its way atop my dad’s seat post. I can’t imagine how his insides churned as my dad insisted on having a set of Scott Drop-Ins installed on that bike. He never uttered a word about it, opting instead to teach me how to seamlessly splice two rolls of bar tape together to accommodate the long bars – a skill he picked up wrapping the bars of riders who wanted double-wrapped bars on the tops but not the drops at Paris-Roubaix. He taught me to cut my cables short and solder them before cutting for the perfect, sleek finishing touch. He taught me how to “feel” a bolt to get it just the right amount of tight – where it holds but the soft aluminum doesn’t strip. He taught me to trim soda cans and tuck them in between the bars and stem of a handlebar that persistently slips. But most importantly, he showed me the intricate beauty of our machines.
He also stocked a backpack called the “Body Bag” which I always felt could have used a more sensible name and whose marketers perhaps missed a nuance in the language.
Apart from his poor choice in backpacks, this was a man who understood the finer things about bicycles, and I’m grateful he took the time to teach me even a tiny little bit of what he knew.
So, I leave you today with this question: if you could ask a pro bike mechanic – perhaps even one on the ProTour circuit – one, single question, what would it be?
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View Comments
@Frank
I watched that video of the Fizik bar wrapping. The mechanic was wrapping towards the rear of the bike on the top of the bar. I was always taught (I work part time at a shop) to wrap so that the tap is wrapping towards the front of the bike on the top of the bar to keep the tape from unraveling. How do you do it?
That logic is wrong - if you're talking about from the perspective of sitting on the bike, it would be more likely to unwrap if wrapped to the front, as your wrists are going to flex down rather than up (if you can visualise what I mean...).
@Oli
I see it differently. Most of the pressure is directed forward as the force from your upper body being supported by your arms is pushing towards the front of the bike. Unless of course you are chewing on the handlebars.
I agree with Oli as I flex my wrists back like trying to pull the accelerator back on my motorcycle, this makes you go faster of course. I however wrap my bars the other way as to get them going backwards one has to do the loop around the brake lever and that takes up precious tape length and precious grams of extra tape on the bars. I should learn to use punctuation better.
@MrBigCog
That's cool, I don't mind if you see it wrong. I trust the Fizik guys over one dissenting bike shop, and it's not as if it's my idea alone - this is what I've been told by people far more experienced than I, plus if you study enough pictures you'll see it's how the pros do it most of the time. It's not the resting on your bars that's the main issue, it's when you're going hard and throttling on, as Michael says.
@michael
I do it that way but I don't need to loop around the brake levers, I just use a small length to cover over the brake lever band.
Well of course after posting that I realize that you just have to start wrapping one way or the other to end one way or the other.
The generally accepted pro method is to start at the bottom winding from the outside in, then the tops end up naturally winding towards the rider.
The real trick is to wind it super fast but absolutely perfectly while drinking a cold coffee as the rider is trying to distract you by telling you the stage is about to roll out...
For mine, the tape will unwrap if I tape the bar.
Which is why someone else will always do it.
On the tape note, I have been riding my bike here in Singapore for only three weeks. My white bar take is already yellowing near the hoods. I think it's the sheer volume of sweat put out here. It's not that I'm going hard, mind you; you can get a good sweat up just tying your shoe laces here.
This cannot continue, so...
- Should I see a doctor as my sweat is obviously some vile shit not yet studied by man?
- Is this going to be problem as long as I live in the tropics and I should just switch to black or red tape (keep in mind, my bike has a white seat, bar and stem).
- Or... hmmn... I can't think of a third option.
Taping a set of drops for the first time the other night, somehow I messed up the "figure-8" wrap around the brake hoods on one side and ended up with the tape-tail going over the top towards the front. Oddly, the hood wrap on that side was a lot cleaner than on the side done the right way.
@MrBigCog
I wrap the bars tightly with fizik tape and have never had the tape unwind. I think that really the problem is friction and if you don't tape tightly enough, it will come loose - your hand twists more or less perpendicularly on the bars and the tape is diagonal; if you twist the tape, part will get stretched, part will get pulled and it's this process that loosens it. It just might come loose sooner if you wrap one way verses the other.
With Fizik, you can pull it tight enough so it's smooth and flat, and that - and this is the important bit - the sticky bit is always in touch with the bars - not the previous loop of tape. If you do this with cork or other padded tapes, you'll end up with a lumpy tape job; if you wrap it nice and smoothly, it won't be tight enough and will be partially taped on the previous loop of tape and I think that's the problem.
Disclaimer: I've never tried doing it drinking cold coffee (beer, yes) and never just prior to the start of a stage.
@Blah
What tape are you using? I use fizik's microtex white tape and it stays white for its lifetime. Amazing stuff.
@Josh
For me the bars need to be wrapped identically on both sides. I obsess over small differences endlessly while riding. Very distracting.