Staff Bikes: Al Schorsch

If any of our staff have really fancy, expensive bikes, as bike shop employees are presumed to do, I don't know about it. What I generally see them riding to work are utilitarian frames, often diverted from the waste stream, upgraded with functional components and home-made adaptations for urban travel.

Like Al's bike:

Al rides an old Fuji Candenza, a very early mountain bike model, dating from the days before the distinct mountain bike geometry evolved. It's almost as if they took a road bike frame, and stuck 26" wheels on it. That adaptation may have been factory-made. The rest was done by the current owner.

The most eye-catching feature, no doubt, it the steering configuration, enhanced by the copper-hued stem that really matches nothing else on the bike.

Those stylish handlebars are nothing more than ordinary 3-speed bars turned upside down. You can see them in their intended orientation on my bike:

But the really interesting thing is that Al took his old XT thumb shifters (just like the ones I use too), and mounted them on the underside of his handlebar.

This actually makes a lot of sense, because this arrangement allows him to push the gears with the natural downward motion of his thumb (rather than reaching the thumb up and over the top of the hand as I have to do on my bike). But there is one problem. To be mounted this way, the left and right shifters had to be switched. I was curious: did that mean he shifted his rear derailleur with his left hand and the front with the right? That would be very confusing, especially when switching from one bike to another, with the traditional shifting arrangement.

But Al was a step ahead of me. These thumb shifters allow him to turn off the indexing (click-shifting) and shift using the friction mode. Indexing automates, to some extent, the placement of the chain on each cog as you shift. In friction shifting, the rider manipulates the shifter until he has aligned the chain with the desired gear to his satisfaction. In the friction mode, the left and right shifter become interchangeable. Pretty cool, I thought.

Al says he uses this bike to haul stuff around the city. He is ready for sloppy weather, with fenders and custom mudflaps fashioned out of a Tide detergent bottle.

And he can certainly haul stuff atop a premium quality wire closet drawer, found in the alley, mounted on top of a stocky rear rack. Milk crate, large capacity messenger bag, and Bob-Nutz for attaching a trailer to the rear axle, attest to the fact that this is a hard-working cargo bike.

Putting to use a worn-out chainring and some discarded pedal reflectors, Al has put together and ornament that is both decorative, and visibility-enhancing.

If you're crious about the bikes of other current and former Rapid Transit employees, here are the links:
Ronnie's bike
Alex's bike
Justyna's bike
Our family bike

Comments

[scott]

Thanks for the inspiration, Al and Justyna! I've been fixing up a 1973 Schwinn Suburban, and I just shamelessly stole Al's wicked cool idea for inverting the cruiser-style handlebars. It makes the bike look so funky. I love it! Just wanted to drop by and give credit where it's due. Cheers, and Merry Christmas.

(PS: I just saw that you added a link to my blog on your sidebar. Thank you so much! What a cool bunch of folks you all are. I really appreciate that.)