As I stood composing this shot, a woman passing by with grocery bags stopped beside me. Looking at the bicycle, she tilted her head to the side and smiled. "That bike!" she said, "It looks like... happiness." It was a funny outburst, no doubt inspired more by the sunny day and the quaint tree-lined street, than by the bicycle itself. But I knew what she meant. Because this particular bike fit into the idyllic backdrop perfectly. Simple, friendly and inviting, it looked like no more and no less than what it was - a yellow bicycle on a beautiful summer morning. Maybe Paul is onto something here, I thought.
Even though Paul Carson makes bikes and teaches others how to, I do not really think of him as a framebuilder. He is more of an engineer, an experimenter, a problem-solver. Paul doesn't see what he does as a craft, but as production that he loves to simplify and optimise. You might not find him polishing frame joints for hours on end. But you will find him making ridable prototypes with speed and ingenuity ...as well as the tools, fixtures and parts to facilitate doing so. In a sense, Paul is like a magic genie who can turn wishful thinking into reality, and fast. On one occasion, I watched him make a rear rack in under 20 minutes, so that he could try out a pannier on his roadbike. Another time, I wondered how difficult it would be to make a double-plated fork crown from scratch. He asked me to elaborate. I explained and showed pictures. He thought about it, then ducked into a corner. Hack-hack-hack. File-file-file. Flames! Flames! "Like this?"
And there it was - double-plated fork crown for oval blades, spaced for a wide tire, just as I described. "Glad you like it," he shrugged. "I'll get a batch of these machined." That's Paul Carson, in a nutshell.
Unlike most other local builders, Paul is not part of the racing scene. He isn't even really part of the local bike scene so much; he is just his own entity.Perhaps that is why he gravitates toward making city bikes. City bikes have an immediate and obvious utility. And it is fun to see them cruising around the neighbourhood, ridden by ordinary people, carrying milk and potted plants. Over the past months, we've been discussing some ideas for step-through designs. We both like the feel of old English 3-speeds and we also like low trail. Wouldn't it be great to combine these? While our ideas diverge when it comes to wheel size and exact geometry specs, overall Paul's idea of a great step-through is not dissimilar to mine. When he asked me to tryhis prototype, I was eager to give it a go.
Made of touring grade cro-moly tubing, the Paul Carson Step-Through is designed around 700C wheels with up to 35mm tires and fenders. Ithas a gently curved top tube, and is proportioned so that the handlebars can sit at or just above saddle height. 72° head tube angle and 73° seat tube angle. Trail in the mid-40s.
These framesets will be made to order in a range of sizes and with a menu of options, with prices starting at $650 for a TIG-welded frameset with standard (lugged) fork crown, made for caliper brakes. The price includes powdercoat in a range of standard colours and a headset. Extras include the option of fillet-brazed construction, handmade double-plated fork crown, handmade stem, and cantilever/ v-brake bosses. Turn around is 4 weeks.
Paul designed this frame with versatility of build in mind. Semi-horizontal dropouts make it possible to use either derailleur or hub gearing. The bottom bracket height (300mm with 28mm tires) is sufficient to set up the bike as a fixed gear. Braze-ons include eyelets for racks and fenders.440mm chainstays are long enough to carry panniers without heel strike. And the front-end geometry will handle a front load.
The demo bike I tried was built in size 55cm and with all the extra options. Fillet-brazed joints, smoothly finished, but not fussed over.
Canti-lever bosses and cable hanger.Twin plate fork crown.
And fillet-brazed stem (threadless).
Paul set this bike up with 28mm tires and fenders, a single speed drivetrain,
swept-back handlebars with cork grips,
and a Brooks Flyer saddle.
Leaving my own bike at the Asylum, I rode the Step-Through around town in the course of the morning, simulating some of my regular routes. When I struggle for something to say about a bike's handling, that generally strikes me as a good thing - as it means nothing is "wrong" with it. Paul's bike felt familiar, natural, normal. It also felt casual and accessible, more like a cool, repainted vintage bike than a new handmade bike. And it really did look oddly at home in our neighbourhood.
The fit worked well for me, with a more aggressive posture than a fully upright bike. There was no toe overlap with the size 55cm frame and 28mm tires with fenders, though it was close. The steering felt responsive and intuitive. My own city bikes are low trail (under 30mm) and this bike handled like a more neutral version of them.
As far as nit-picks, the step-over height could be a bit lower for my taste. And in my view, a practical city bike (especially for a pothole-ridden neighbourhood like ours) would ideally be specced with 35mm wide tires minimum, not maximum. This is where a smaller wheel size might be worth considering, especially if toe clearance is a priority. Personally, I also prefer lower bottom brackets. But I know that some riders like to feel as if they are "sitting high in traffic" on their bike, which the higher bottom bracket accomplishes.Otherwise, not much else to criticise;I liked the bike.
Paul Carson is an exciting person to know. He has ideas about streamlining the framebuilding process to make handmade bikes more accessible, andI will be following his work with interest. Made in this vein, the Carson Step-Through is not meant to be an artisanal show-stopper. It is a cute, friendly, ridable bike, with a friendly price, handmade in Somerville MA.
As many other cities with cycling infrastructure, Vienna is full of one way streets with bike lanes going against traffic. This is done to make travel more convenient for cyclist. The drawback is that it places cyclists and motor vehicles in situations where they can potentially collide with each other. One way this could happen is when the road is so narrow that a car cannot keep out of the bike lane entirely. Another potentially hazardous scenario is when vehicles emerge from around the corner, as shown here.
When I first saw the wrong way bike lanes, I was scared to ride on them. Surely it was only a matter of time before some car or motorcycle hit me head on? However, cyclists in Vienna use these lanes all the time, and as far as I know collisions are very rare. Eventually I got used to the design and began to trust it.
Drivers appear to be vigilant and in control of their vehicles; they can stop on a dime, and have for me. And no doubt the 30km/h (18.6mph) speed limit helps. The funny thing is that whenever I leave Vienna and remember the wrong-way bike lanes, their safety seems implausible. Only when I am here do I again believe that it's okay. What are your thoughts about this design?
Daryl and Diana arrived last night, and we have enjoyed spending time with them today. We played a bit of pickleball, some of us went out on the boat and Nathan and Austin tried to make some money for us.
Karen and Tom hosted some poker fun. Tracy and Jim joined in the fun too. Tom had a great streak of luck from what I hear. Nathan came in second and Austin came in third. I think Jim might have been there for the food.
I would have went for the food! Well, really I would have went for the company. I didn't go though because Diana and I were walking around the campground in order to take some pictures.
It was a good day!
And so we have weathered the storm. Here in Boston, the general attitude toward Hurricane/ Tropical Storm Irene has mostly been one of sarcasm. Sure, there was some anxiety - stocking up on water and that sort of thing. But for the most part it's been a collective rolling of the eyes, a general feeling that the whole thing was unnecessarily hyped up by the media. One local establishment posted a handwritten sign stating "Closed tomawrah due to wicked bad hurricane!" Other businesses ranted against the public transit system for shutting down - drafting "Closed for the Day Thanks to MBTA" signs explaining that their employees have no way of getting to work - but that otherwise they would have happily remained open.
My own feeling was that the hurricane/ storm was not so much intentionally overhyped, as unpredictable - and there was a conscious decision to err on the side of caution. I also felt that it was insensitive of some to make light of a potentially destructive phenomenon just because it did not cause havoc in their neighbourhood. We live on the border of Somerville and Cambridge, MA, where the storm felt mild - but it did damage even here. Around mid-day Saturday, a large tree toppled over onto a major road around the corner from us, knocking out power lines and blocking part of the street until the city cleared it away. Had anyone been walking, cycling or driving on that side of the street at that exact moment, they could very well have been killed.
Today we carefully cycled around the neighbourhood and discovered more trees uprooted and large branches strewn across side streets.The strange thing is that the wind did not feel all that strong even during the worst of it, so we were surprised to see some fairly large trees knocked over. Does this mean they had shallow root systems?
Powerlines were downed in quite a few places, too. One local coffee shop that decided to stay open lost power on Sunday afternoon, yet remained operational for as long as some pre-brewed coffee remained. Customers would come in and sit with their drinks and pastries in the dark - quite happily, since this was one of the very few places open.
Surveying the damage in our neighbourhood, I think that the calls for caution were justified, even if the storm did not reach hurricane level. Overwhelmingly, motorists chose to stay off the roads here and the streets have been mostly empty - which I am certain accounts for the lack of injuries and casualties, considering the fallen trees and dangling powerlines. Cap'n Transit wrote a post a couple of days ago about the connection between driving and hurricane deaths that is worth reading. 
