Reader Forty in the Mail

April 5, 2008

Some of you will have it in three days, some in a week, and all by April 21 (if you're a current member). It has a different format this time, and two words in the headline are intentionally misspelled, something I'm mentioning here only because in the final draft of the editorial, I mistakenly removed the reference and the reason.  The reference was a short sentence long and the reason was tiny, but its absence is not so tiny, and that's that.

The part number for RR40, in case you are not a member and want us to mail it out first class immediately, is 24-213, and it'll run you $3. There is at least $1.50 worth of information $0.50 worth of general enlightenment and another $0.50 worth of entertainment, and the missing fifty cents covers part of the postage.

We got some frames in. The first batch of A. Homer Hilsens to include the old Saluki sizes 47 50 52 54 56 for 650B wheels (in the same Saluki geometries, which are functionally identical to the AHH frames in all ways that matter), and just this one time, half a dozen 55cm frames for 700c wheels.  

Most of the 57cm and bigger frames in this batch are going to dealers--we still have about nine dealers--but the smaller 650b-ers are available. Since our delivery has been slow-late-bad, we're having Wford build more AHH's for us, starting this month. They're already experienced with Hilsens (having built more than 50 already), and with the combo of weak dollar and slow delivery, it makes sense for them to make more. In a perfect world we could flow these in to our lineup seamlesslly and silently, but 'tis far from a perfect world, so that won't happen.

For the record and as a compliment to both Toyo and Wford, we here personally, candidly, honestly, and as the folks most in a position to take a credible stance on such matters, rate the two frames equally. But the Wfords cost us more (e'en with a strong ¥ and weak $), so if you buy a Wford-built AHH frame  only, it will cost you $100 more. If you buy a whole bike, we'll absorb it and take the hit, over and out on that one.

Something of minor interest to a tiny percentage of you: The 72cm frame is now going to be a 71cm frame. We have steer tubes long enough for a 71, but not quite long enough for a 72. Are not going to get a custom steer tube just for the 72, so 71 it is, and if you need a bike in the low 70s, well, it's still something to be happy about.

Our new cheap but excellent 650B wheelsets (read more about them in RR40) are now available with 135mm spacing, but will soon--like by April 25--be available with 130mm rear hubs. This makes road-bike conversions even easier, and if that's something you've been thinking about, this is something you should know. We'll have them up on the site when they're here, and they'll be the same $180/pair, and built with 105 hubs.

It feels a little creepy and strange to continue business as usual in a Sheldon-less world, as though now we're over his passing. I'm still in the pretending stage, but I have pictures of Sheldon around here and there to remind me, and  for the sake of lots of things and many people the show really does have to go on, but every now and then another acknowledgement of him will pop up, like now. In Sheldon's case, we all really did know what we had before he was gone, and he didn't strut around as though he knew that, but he was smart enough to know it.

Grant