Most of you by now have probably heard tale of Specialized Bicycle’s play against a small, independent bike shop in Canada. While I’ve yet to hear anything from Specialized themselves on the matter, I like many found this story disgusting. The conflict arises over the use of the word ‘Roubaix’ – which of course adorns a line of Specialized bikes as well and is a registered trademark of Specialized.

Me being me I was all ready to rip Specialized (verbally) apart here.  But, given that the last time I went after someone here on JustAotherCyclist it went a little wrong (read the comments to this) I’ve actually decided on a different path.

I found a very reasonable, educated and balanced Open Letter to Mike Sinyard (Founder of Specialized Bikes) posted on the blog Riding Against the Grain. Here the author says, among other things:

If you choose to analyze things from a purely business perspective, look at what’s happening.  Even if there was some impact on your business (there isn’t), and even if you could quantify it (you can’t), it would be miniscule.  Compare that minuscule economic impact to the incredibly damaging effect that this news is having upon your company.  The core of people who are really dedicated bikers are seeing this news nonstop.  All of their friends are using social media to talk about it.  It’s everywhere–in the worst possible way.  The cost analysis on this particular intellectual property squabble weighs heavily against pursuing it.

— An Open Letter to Mike Sinyard

Seriously – go read the blog post. There would be no value in me adding my particular brand of snark to this conversation.

If you decide you want to get involved and help Cafe Roubaix Bicycle Studio you can check out their company website, purchase products from their online store, or continue to let @iamspecialized know your thoughts on the matter. There is an indiegogo campaign that has been started purportedly to support the shop’s legal defense, but that campaign appears to be run by a person or group out of Australia and not the shops native Canada – so do your homework when donating.

You can find the craziest bits of information in the strangest places.  There is no question that the late Sheldon Brown’s website is the go-to site for bicycle technical information on the internet.  However, clearly there are other repositories of cycling wisdom out there too.  What I didn’t expect was to find an extremely articulate article on wheel truing posted to – get this – the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories website.  No kidding…  If the internet is great for only one thing, it is trails of breadcrumbs just like this.

The guy that wrote it – William S Yerazunis – is clearly a very intelligent guy.  His list of publications runs from information security, to computer science, to electro-mechanical and beyond:

Yerazunis, W.S.; Kato, M.; Kori, M.; Shibata, H.; Hackenberg, K., “Keeping the Good Stuff In: Confidential Information Firewalling with the CRM114 Spam Filter & Text Classifier”, Black Hat Technical Security Conference, July 2010 (Black Hat USA 2010, TR2010-064)

Shibata, H.; Kato, M.; Kori, M.; Yerazunis, W., “An Automatic Training Data Collection Method for Confidential E-mail Detection”, The Forum on Data Engineering and Information Management (DEIM), February 2010 (DEIM 2010, TR2010-065)

Slater, C.; Cleary, J.; McGraw, C.M.; Yerazunis, W.S.; Lau, K.T.; Diamond, D., “Autonomous Field-deployable Device for the Measurement of Phosphate in Natural Water”, SPIE Advanced Environmental, Chemical and Biological Sensing Technologies, Vol. 6755, September 2007 (SPIE Publications, TR2007-105)

McGuire, M.; Matusik, W.; Yerazunis, W., “Practical, Real-time Studio Matting using Dual Imagers”, Eurographics Symposium on Rendering (EGSR), June 2006 (EGSR 2006, TR2006-062)

Plus many many more…

This technical background comes through in his writings on wheel truing.  Instead of a traditional truing stand, for example, he instead recommends much more precise instruments:

2) Invest $40 or so in the machinist’s tool called a “Test Indicator”.
This is a nifty little jeweled instrument that measures position/motion
between two very nearby objects with great accuracy. Mine is a Fowler,
cost $37, has two jewels, and can repeatedly measure motion of .0005 inch
(yes, one half of one thousandth of an inch, or .0127 mm for our metric
friends). The hitch is that it has a max range of only .060 (+- .030 inch)

To use the test indicator- clamp the indicator’s mounting bar to a
convenient place on the bicycle (the brake post is a good place) and
flex it around till the tip bears against the rim and the needle
indicates approximately center-scale. You will have to move the
indicator between the radial and lateral truing steps (see below).

2A) There’s another kind of indicator called a “dial indicator” that
measures to within a few thousandths, over a distance of about one inch.
Dial indicators are a little more expensive, but you may want to
get one of those instead.

(Incidentally, my dad has been a machinist for his whole life, and recommended the same type of devices when I talked to him about helping me build my own truing stand)

If you are the mechanically minded type – which I’m guessing you would be if you are interested in truing your own wheels – I really do recommend reading his write up on the subject.  If nothing else it will give a perspective on the mechanics of the wheel and help you to understand what is happening when you turn those spoke nipples.