Schwinnrider

https://www.eatmorehummus.blogspot.co...-commuter.html

Neat. An upright porteur with either a 3- or 8-speed internal gear hub. Basket is supposed to be optional. It would be more a grocery bike than a commuter for me, but I like it. Suggested retail for the 3-speed is rumored to be $400, with the 8-speed at $800. Not bad for the 3 speed.

NormanF

A decent price for an American Peugeot PX50. Are the wheels 700C or 650B? I think Gary should go with the latter for the "period" look. Its not a Rene Herse or Alex Singer but it looks like a good all around commuter bike. I'm surprised Fisher Bikes even agreed to do the project but better late than never.

hubcap

Looks a lot like Kogswell's P/R. Which means it looks awesome.

ShinyBiker

With the basket welded to the front fork, would this do away with the twitchiness you get when you load it up too much?

BillyBob

I think I NEED one.

I wonder if my local Trek dealer will have enough of a clue to get one in.

everichon

*drools*

hubcap

I don't understand why the 8-speed would be twice the cost of the 3-speed.

The basket on the Fisher would be convenient at times, but I like the rack on the Kogswell better since it is more versatile.

JustBrowsing

Well, 8 is nearly three times as big as 3, so when you consider it's only twice as much, you're getting an absolute bargain! It'll be interesting to see the full specs for both of them. It wouldn't surprise me if things like fenders aren't included on the 3-speed model...That said, it's a purty bike.

Schwinnrider

Another website suggested the bike will come in varying levels of trim, and that the basket will be an option. I think the basketed version may be a bit much for most dealers to stock---but you can always have them order it.

Schwinnrider

I think the Kogswell and Fisher are aimed at different riders. The Kogswell is aimed at people who will use it as a porteur(and those racks aren't Kogswell products, I think) and load up a bunch of stuff on the front end. I think the Fisher will be used like a bike with a basket has traditionally been used. That is, people will use it as a grocery and errand bike--and the basket(with a net) will be a nice way to get home a bag of Chinese takeout.

Kogswell

Racks (and a chain case) are part of the plan for the P/R model. The development of the racks has been slow because as we moved ahead, we learnd more and that influenced the design. We didn't want to put anything into steel until we felt that we'd come to a good working understanding of what was needed.

The P/R has been an exercise in deliberate, collaborative design.

It evolves with the help of many people who are expert in their portion of the domain.

Keep watching. It just gets better and better.

SSP

Why would you want to load up all that weight on your front wheel? Seems like a bad idea with respect to handling and maneuverability.

M_S

I used to think that too. Then I did a loaded tour with most of the weight up front. Way better handling than in back.

Kogswell

It was a bad idea up until a couple of years ago.

In 2004 Jan Heine published an article in (Vintage) Bicycle Quarterly that contained a very intriguing idea: in it he showed that older bikes that used more fork offset were capable of carrying a load on the front without compromising handling.

This was a radical notion. For as long as any of us could remember, the standard road front geometry had been a 73º head angle and 45mm of fork offset (the amount of bend in the fork). And the conventional load carrying geometry was a 72º head angle. That geometry was stable/maneuverable if the load was carried on the rear. And since the front/rear load bias on a bike is already shifted to the rear due to the weight of the rider, adding a load strengthen that bias and lead to the need to reinforce the rear wheel. Hence the use of 40 and 48 spoke rear wheels on loaded touring bikes.

What Mr. Heine showed was that a class of load carrying bikes like the Parisian newspaper delivery bikes of the 1930s/40s/50s had been designed to carry heavy (40+ pound) loads safely and quickly. And that the only difference in the geometry was more fork offset as shown in this drawing from the Nervex catalog:



Carrying a load up front was not a new idea, we'd tried to do it a couple of decades ago. In the late 1970s Blackburn introduced the low-rider front rack that allowed one to mount standard panniers near the front axle. This appealed to engineering types who saw that the lightly loaded front wheel was a natural place to carry a load and that extra weight on the front of the bike would also improve handling during the quick deceleration of emergency stops.

On paper, it looked like a good solution. And it did indeed work to a degree. The only drawback was the handling. 45mm of fork offset did not provide enough stability.

The other observation that Heine made was that some of the most sophisticated loaded touring bikes from the 1950s and 1960s had been fitted with low-rider front racks. And he also showed that those bikes did not suffer any handling issues and he suspected that the reason for that was that they too had enough fork offset built in.

Being natural 'front loaders', the Kogswell team picked up on what Mr. Heine was saying and we approached him with this question: would you like to help us design a fork that could be used to carry weight on the front of a bike? He not only agreed to help, he suggested that we not try to design one but instead take bikes that were known to work and try to copy them. So we did just that. The result was a set of forks of varying offset that were tested simultaneously to see how they behaved while carrying a load.

The result of that testing is the Kogswell P/R frame and fork, a bike that handles well even when carrying huge loads:



Front loading with neutral handling has been conquered. So if you like your load in front. If you want to use a handlebar bag. If you like be able to see your stuff. If you want to have a loaded tourer that doesn't break spokes. Or if you want to carry bales of hay, the solution is simple:

Copy the P/R...

I wonder what the geometry of that Fisher bike is?

carlton

More than likely it want be as well thought out and designed as the Kogswell P/R.

BillyBob

Are reasonably priced wheels available for the kogswell P/R? One attraction of the fisher is the price because I intend to use the bike as a daily commuter that will be left in the weather. I an not too keen to leave a $1,000 bike out in the open.

Schwinnrider

Gary Fisher is a pretty sharp guy(understatement, I know). I doubt he'd design a bike with a big front basket without the proper geometry. But I could be wrong. I don't know how they'll bring the bike in at the pricepoint they mentioned---but I'm pretty sure the fenders/basket/rack will be optional. Price could get expensive at that rate.

Kogswell

The 59cm size now comes in three wheel sizes: 559 (26"), 584 (650B) and 622 (700C). So if you have spare wheels laying about...

BillyBob

oh, very interesting news. Thanks!

tcs

I'm not a fan of the Minnesota "purity of essence" color scheme, but there's a blue one

https://bp0.blogger.com/_VMBXGqBOWsE/...le_city2sm.jpg

with white fenders that I think is lovely.

TCS

carlton

I agree Gary Fisher is a sharp guy. But i would be suprised if the geometry is favored to a large/heavy front load. My guess is the bike is aimed at a light load crowd.

Sluggo

My experience carrying a load on the front is not so good, even with a very laid-back trouring frame. Stability is not the issue -- I just do not like the feeling of swinging weight around whenever I make a steering correction to avoid an obstacle or correct for balance. Low-rider racks with panniers minimize this by mounting the weight close to the rotation axis, but there is still some angular momentum to overcome every time you steer or correct.

There are good reasons for carrying a load on the front, but the only way I can see to avoid swinging weight around is to connect the rack to the frame, not the fork; and the only way this can work (as far as I can see) is to use a small front wheel like this (I thought I saw a less extreme-duty bike on the web recently, but I can't find it now.)

Kogswell

Right.

The laid back touring geometry is the opposite of what's needed to carry a load on the front.

That's why low-riders didn't work on touring bikes.

In order to carry a load at the front, you need to reduce wheel flop.

Wheel flop is the tendency of the bike to lower when the handlebars are turned. More fork offset (less trail) reduces wheel flop.

Laid back -touring- geometries have, since the late 60s, been characterized by shallow head angles (72º) and shallow head angles generate more wheel flop.

So while the touring geometries work well for rear loading, they do not work well for front loading.

This is why Kogswell offers forks with various offsets: so that you can chose the front-end geometry that fits your loading preference.

In practice, virtually ALL customers have chosen forks that allow for medium or heavy front loads. Which is a good thing because front loads have lots of advantages: better front/rear load balance, no need for reinforced rear wheels, and in emergency braking situations, having the bulk of your load at the front reduces the tendency of the load to swing around to the front which reduces spin potential.

We've just started to wake up to how front loading works. It's going to take a while for folks to try it and for the sense of it to become part of the conventional wisdom.

Sluggo

Good point about wheel flop, but the angular momentum issue is still pertinent, I think.

Guess I will have to try it.

mconlonx

Thread from the dead...

Just saw a GF Simple City IRL at the LBS, the 8sp Nexus version. Woah, beautiful bike! My wife's not a real bike geek and was very much attracted to it. Forgot to check the price, but I can't imagine it's cheap. Perfect for the town I saw it in--affluent, a bit hilly, but not overly so, anywhere you might reasonably want to go within town no more than 5 mi away. I don't think I'd use it stock for my 17mi (1/w) commute, and it still wouldn't work for big grocery shopping without the addition of a rear rack and bags/baskets, but that front rack looks like it would be plenty useful for light to moderate loads, especially fragile stuff you might want to keep an eye on, or just a couple day's food shopping. Or just get a trailer for the big stuff and you'd have a wonderfully competent utility bike combo. And OMG, an appetizer dog would look so right at home up front there in some stylish carrier!

Kogswells look wonderful and I respect the heck out of the philosophy and work behind them, but kudos to Gary Fisher for mass marketing these suckers.