Welcome to “Perfectly Fit,” our newsletter which is designed to help you get the most out of an active, cycling lifestyle. I have a team of pros from all over the world that will help me provide you with great info and a place for you to find out what you want to know. Your feedback is so important and we will make a place for you to be heard.

Our every other weekend trips to Dallas are getting back on schedule. If you want me to come to your city and do fittings for you and your colleagues, contact me and we can arrange it.

Fitting Trip, March 1st & 2nd. Fittings will be held in Houston. Contact Kevin to set up an appointment.

Dallas Fitting Trip, March 13th – 16th. Fittings will be held in the Cooper Fitness Center in the spin classroom.

Dallas Fitting Trip, March 27th – 30th. Fittings will be held in the Cooper Fitness Center in the spin classroom.

This week marks a milestone in KGS Bikes’ progress; a testing and fitting trip to San Antonio for our new sponsored elite triathlete, Tatiana Vertiz. I wrote a couple of weeks ago describing this remarkable young woman and her goal of reaching her personal potential in Ironman Traithlon. At the tender age of 21, Tatiana has already been a gifted tennis player. After she decided to commit to triathlon she has made remarkable progress. During her first year in the sport Tati qualified for and raced in the Hawaii Ironman in Kona, placing 4th in her age group. She was her age group champion at Ironman Arizona in her second year. Her current short term goal is to win the Ironman World Championship in her age group this October.

In the last newsletter, we talked a lot about how cycling increases both your capacity for work and your mental acuity. We are able to work for longer periods of time with sustained focus on the task at hand better than nearly any of our cohorts, putting us ahead of the game. But what good is it to have this advantage when we are consumed by fear? Yes, fear.

Dear Kevin,

I had rattling in the front of my bike and when I took it to my local bike shop they said the headset was loose. I didn’t do anything to it! I asked what they did and they said it was too complicated for me to do at home and I had to bring it back to them. Is this true?

Jennifer

Dear Jennifer,

In a word, no! No bicycle repair or maintenance is “too complicated to do at home.” That said, you need to learn how to do a process and you may need special tools. Those bike mechanics didn’t know how to adjust a headset from birth and if they can learn, so can you.

I will wager that many people don’t really understand headsets and their interrelationship with the fork and stem. In the olden days, headsets were adjustable by themselves with threads on the fork steerer. Modern headsets use the stem clamped on the fork steerer with a headset cap that provides pre-load to the bearings. Clear as mud? Thought so.

The headset is really two separate bearings that allow the fork to turn inside the headtube so you can steer. All bearings are precision devices and as such need to be adjusted to a known tolerance. This is called pre-loading the bearings so they can smoothly operate without and looseness or “play.” Too loose, and the fork will rattle, and too tight and the bearings will seize up.

The fork crown has a plate on it that mates to the lower headset bearing and there is a top ring that slips snugly over the top of the fork steerer tube that mates against the top headset bearing. The trick is to squeeze these two plates together with just enough force to pre-load the headset bearings and then hold them in place.

You have headset spacers which are plainly visible under the stem, then you have the stem itself which has a couple of clamp bolts on it. These are what hold everything in place. But wait! There’s more! The headset cap is on top of everything and there may even be spacers above the stem and I will get to that in a minute.

Inside the fork, there is something that holds the threaded nut in place that the headset cap screw can use to apply pre-load. Yes, the pre-load is applied at the very top, compressing everything underneath, so when the stem clamps are tightened, everything stays in place. We could go on about the types of compression plugs or star fangled nuts that reside inside the fork but they all do the same thing.

When you bought your bike, the handlebar height was determined and the fork steerer tube was cut to length. People disagree over the proper length and this may have something to do with whether you want to be able to raise the bars later if you sell the bike.

I like to cut the fork steerer so it barely sticks out of the stem when everything is in place. I can use a 2.5 mm spacer and the stem cap and things are perfect.

Here is how you adjust the headset. First make sure the stem clamp bolts are loosened. Then you can take a hex wrench and slowly tighten the headset cap screw until you feel it start to engage. It is a very subtle feeling, from no resistance to just a bit. You should then be able to tighten the wrench about 1/6 of a turn to apply the pre-load. This is a delicate procedure but if you are aware, you can feel the difference between loose, preloading and tight.

You need to then straighten the stem and bars, (which is sometimes the hardest part to get perfect!) and then tighten the stem clamp bolts. I always use a torque wrench and the stem usually has markings which give the torque specs. This is a special tool that you should have if you work on your bike. Sears has them for under $100 and they are worth their weight in gold. Lightweight bolts are notoriously easy to strip!

Once you have the stem tightened, you should be able to bounce the front tire on the ground and the front of the bike will feel “tight,” while the handlebars will turn freely. Another trick is to hold the front brake lever tight to engage the front brake and then try to move the bike fore and aft. A loose headset will be easy to detect.

Just take your time and go easy. Like Rosie the Riveter said, “You Can Do It!”

Kevin

Dear Kevin,

I was looking at your bike photos on Flickr and noticed that your right lever works the front brake. I thought all bikes were supposed to have the left lever operate the front brake.

James

Dear James,

First, thanks for looking at the KGS Bikes photo collection on Flickr. Every bike I build gets photographed and posted there as well as the kgsbikes.com website. Many people have asked why I use the right brake lever to operate the front brake and the first answer is, that is my preference. This is based on three reasons. First, I had motorcycles which have the front brake operated by the right lever as the left lever worked the clutch. Second I like the way the cables run without crossing. Aesthetically it looks nicer to me and the cables don’t rub at their crossing point. The third reason is a little more involved.

Back in the old days when bicycles had downtube shifters, I learned to do double shifts with my right hand, when changing from the large chainring to small while simultaneously upshifting two or three cogs so the new gear ratio amounted to a smaller downshift. As a side note, I still prefer Campagnolo levers as this is very easy to do by pressing the thumb levers at the same time. Try it! Now back to the old ways. When I had my right hand operating two shift levers, I wanted the rear brake available for speed modulation when riding in a pack. The rear brake is the preferred one to use when riding in a pack for the following reasons. First, it is the weaker brake. Over 70% of your stopping power comes from the front brake! In close quarters you need to make very small speed adjustments and you can (and should) keep pedaling so you avoid crossing the wheel in front while being courteous to the rider behind. The second reason is, any rider on your wheel can see the rear caliper and when you use it, can anticipate a slowdown. The front brake is there for the big slowdowns but the rear is a very important one to stay smooth in the pack.

Internationally, the tradition has arisen to use the right lever for the front brake when driving on the left, and the left lever for the front when driving on the right. This makes no logical sense but many things in bicycling are dogmatic! The most important thing to remember is, the front brake is the power brake. Many novice cyclists avoid the front brake thinking it is dangerous and when facing a panic stop, lock up the rear wheel and forget to use the front brake at all. I only have one brake on my fixed gear bikes and it is the front, operated by the right lever.

At the end of the day it truly is personal preference and if you wish to use the right lever for the front brake, by all means do it!

Kevin

Kevin Recommends

Cooper Complete – We have arranged for 10% off anything you buy from Cooper Complete if you put “KGS” in the coupon link and then “recalculate”.

Cooper Clinic - The world renowned Cooper Clinic is starting to create medical exams and services aimed at professional adults who ride bicycles.

Cooper Fitness Center – The Cooper Fitness Center has a special strength training introductory program for cyclists.

These links are to our frame builders and other providers that make KGS Bikes the premiere fitting studio and cycling boutique in the world:

Co-Motion Cycles – We’ve long enjoyed a reputation for building tandems that simply handle better.

Guru Bikes – Our approach is based on combining the best of both worlds: cutting edge technology delivered by hand and with an old school attention-to-detail.

Lew Racing – Lew Racing has achieved a following among racing cyclists because of the wheel’s tremendously high strength, low weight and the meticulous attention to engineered performance inherent in its design.

Parlee Cycles – Simply put, PARLEE frames are the best built and best riding carbon fiber frames available today, at any price. They are functional works of art.

Rocket 7 – Since 1999, Rocket7 has been handcrafting cycling shoes in the USA with the finest materials available.

Sem Custom Paint – Dave Sem is the best extreme detail painter in the world.

Serotta – Only Serottas have the extensive engineering of our proprietary Colorado Concept tubing design. It’s the foundation behind the unique ride of each and every Serotta.

Source Endurance – They are teaming with us to provide physiological testing, data analysis, training consultation and long-term coaching. They have two state-of-the art labs, one in Austin and one in San Marcus. We are proud to recommend them and invite you to check them out.

Storck Bicycles – Numerous innovations in frame and component design that are standard in the industry today were developed, patented, and introduced by Storck Bicycle.

Tacx – Home of the Fortius Virtual Reality trainer. This is the trainer component of our “Ultimate Spin Bike”. Tacx also makes many other fine products. KGS Bikes is an Authorized Tacx Testing Center.

Topolino Technology – Our wheels embody this ethic: A fundamental redesign of wheel construction to take advantage of extraordinary materials with amazing properties, yielding a wheelset that performs like no other.

Zinn Cycles – For more than a quarter of a century, Zinn Cycles have been working to make cycling more enjoyable for customers, and that commitment remains at the heart of everything they do.

About KGS Bikes and Kevin

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