Category Archives: Bicycle commuting

Product Review: North St. Grocery Panniers

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While searching for locally made COVID masks, I came across a Portland cycling bag company I wasn’t previously aware of.  North St. Bags is located in SE Portland, and was founded by Curtis Williams back in 2009, a bold move considering not only the difficulties of small manufacturing on U.S. soil but also that the Great Recession was fully underway.  The company makes not just cycling related bags, but backpacks and travels duffels as well as PPE gear for virus protection.

The bags pictured above are the “Gladstone Grocery Panniers”, and are available in a number of colors.  However, you can’t go wrong with basic black, no matter what bicycle you ride, and the bags look quite handsome as mounted on my 1975 Centurion Semi Pro.

I’ve used many bags and panniers over the course of my cycling adventures spanning the last 50 years (and hopefully continuing for many more!).  Those many decades of experiences have made me very picky about my cycling bags.  I want a bag that is so well constructed that it will last for a long time if not forever, and to have all the right features that actually work, rather than just looking good.

Most important is how well the bag connects to the rear rack and whether that connection is versatile enough to work on various rack heights and styles, as well as providing for adjustment when used on bikes with shorter chain stays which need to  position the bag more toward the rear of the rack to eliminate heel strikes while pedaling.  These bags fill the bill, with 3 positions for the hook and a very sturdy connection to my vintage Blackburn touring rack.  It was a little difficult stretching the elastic loop enough to get the hooks over the rack tubing, but once on they are completely secure, with no danger of them popping off on rough roads.  However, it might be difficult to mount them on a really tall rack.  This hook system also only works on racks that have a place for the hook to connect to at the bottom of the rack.  Most, but not all racks have this, and that’s why some manufacturers use the “Ortlieb style” connection which can absolutely fit any rack.

The stitching is straight and there are no loose threads or sloppy corners.  The bags close with a buckle and tightening strap, feature two long handles, as well as D-rings for attaching a shoulder strap, which can be purchased as a separate accessory.

I also purchased this organizing pocket which can be attached with Velcro to the bag’s interior.  This model doesn’t come the the strip already sown in, but it’s easy enough to DIY it myself.  Most of their other panniers do feature the strip sown in, and it would be nice if that feature were consistent across the company’s product line.

Here’s where I will position the pocket once I have the Velco strip, as well as a view of the bag’s interior.  It looks reasonably cavernous, but we’ll see about that shortly.

Now for the true test:  how do these grocery panniers compare with the the best grocery panniers out there – Jandd’s.  I’ve been using their grocery panniers, pictured above on the left for at least twenty years, and the bags still look new and have shown no wear.  They have an interior frame which keeps the bags from sagging when loaded down.  The frame collapses and the bags can be folded up when not in use.  Of course, the North St. bags are not constructed with a frame so they do sag a bit when weighted down with a grocery bag filled with a few canned goods and some veggies.  Anything much heavier and they might sag significantly.

Another concern is how the top hooks are positioned:  they place the bags significantly higher than the rack.  Strapping stuff to the top of the rack, as is often needed for oddly shaped items, is more difficult due to the high placement of the bags.

One advantage of these North St. bags over the Jandd bags is the cover, which could help to keep groceries dry during a typical Portland autumn downpour.  I use a rain cover with the Jandd bag, stolen off one of my old motorcycle panniers, but these bags have a long flap.  Unfortunately, it is not long enough to actually cover a grocery bag.  As to being waterproof in general, the bags are not advertised as such but are constructed with Cordura, a tough fabric which is very water resistant and should keep water out for a while if the flap can be fully cinched down.

Panniers can swing from side to side, especially when heavily loaded.  One way to minimize this is to position the mounting hook very low on the bag.  The North St. bag can be easily pushed away from the rack, and has a lot of “swing potential”, due to the high placement of the hook on the bag.  For comparison, the Jandd bag, shown on the right, has the hook placed much lower.  I’ve never felt the Jandd bag swing back and forth while climbing with groceries, and I don’t know yet how the North St. bags will perform as I haven’t tested them out long enough, so on that count, the jury is still out.

I’ll be using these bags over the coming fall and winter, and will plan to update this post with my conclusions.  But, so far I can say that these bags are well-constructed and practical.  They easily hold a full bag of groceries. They are very competitively priced at $60 each, a price so low that I wonder if there is any profit margin at all.  As many readers know, I am highly critical of our American-style consumerism which focuses only on price and not on quality.  These bags seem to offer both, and that’s one reason to consider them for your next pannier purchase.

Upright Handlebars for Smaller Cyclists

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With many new cyclists dusting off the bikes hanging in their garages, and trying to get them road-worthy I thought it might be a good time to discuss handlebar options.

Handlebar and stem choices are two of the most important elements contributing to rider comfort.  The above chart from Fred DeLong’s Guide to Bicycles and Bicycling, published back in the 1970’s, provides a nice visual for the effect of hand position on the cyclist’s head and eyes.  Commuting requires attention to all one’s surroundings, so a more upright position is the absolute ideal for a commuter bike.

Velo-Orange Tourist Bars

Don’t be fooled by “flat bars”, often marketed as suitable for commuting.  Flat bars have no rise, the distance which the bar rises above the stem clamp, and no “sweep”, the degree to which the bars angle back toward the rider.  The Velo-Orange Tourist bars, pictured above, have 60 degrees of sweep, and 70 mm of rise.  Depending on your stem selection, that might be just about perfect for commuting.

However, most commuter style bars are too wide for comfort.  V-O’s Tourist bars are 57 mm wide, significantly wider that the drop bars on most road bikes.  For smaller cyclists, I find that it’s best to cut down the bars to the desired width, which will also help prevent the bars from contacting your knees while turning at slow speeds.  The above photos show this process for a Nitto City Bar, which has a slightly higher rise than its V-O counterpart.  These bars are about 52 cm in width, with a long grip area.  After determining my ideal width for these bars, I removed 3 cm of material off of each bar end. I score the bars to the desired length with my caliper gauge, then take a hack-saw to the bars, being careful to cut a straight section off of each end.  I finish that off with a file and then de-burr the inside of the bar.  The result should look clean and even, so that the grips will settle properly on each bar end.  Many commuters do not have access to a vise and the other tools needed to accomplish this.  However, any LBS will accommodate your request to cut down a set of bars to your specs.

The next question is stem choice.  Generally, a shorter stem with longer reach will be needed if you are switching from drop bars to commuter bars.  This Nitto Young stem, pictured above, is an ideal length (height of the stem) for this type of bar conversion.  These stems come in a variety of reach lengths (distance from center of stem to clamp).  Bars come in different clamp sizes, so they need to match the clamp size of the stem.  The two most common clamp sizes are 25.4 and 26.0.

Bars also come in two different diameters – 22.2 and 23.8 are the most common sizes for city and road style handlebars.  Switching from road bars to city bars means new brake levers, shifters, housing, cables, and grips.  Velo-Orange products, shown above, are generally designed for 23.8 diameter bars, but come with shims so that you can also install them on 22.2 mm bars, which is the diameter of the bars shown above.

The number of handlebar options currently available is overwhelming.  From my own experience, I’ve narrowed down my favorite suitable bars for commuting to three options:  V-O’s Tourist Bars, Nitto’s City bars (B483), and Nitto’s Northroad bars (302AA). Other considerations include the length of your top tube.  If you are riding on a too long top tube (something many smaller cyclists must endure), porteur bars are an option when used with a taller stem.

For this conversion, from drop bars, I used V-O’s Grand Cru levers and Shimano bar end shifters mounted to the bars using V-O’s thumb shifter mounts.

You’ll notice that I like to set up the shifters some distance away from the brake levers.  This is so that I can create an extra hand position, shown above, in addition to the position on the grips.  The cockpit area now looks very inviting!

And…here is the end result for the conversion of my 1990’s Georgena Terry road bike to upright handlebars.

Bike Different

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When routines are disrupted, surprising changes take place.  With the COVID-19 pandemic creating so much fear, sorrow, and loss, it’s sometimes difficult to focus on what still remains.  My own cycling patterns have changed.  I’ve had to “bike different” (sorry…Apple) now that human behavior has been altered by the crisis.

Some of the changes are good.  I’ve noticed that I now want to ride a bike that can handle a lot of “different” situations, and can give me a relaxed riding position as I go about altering my usual routes.  With pedestrians “taking the lane” I needed to find other routes for my usual commute.  And, I stopped doing many of my leisure ride jaunts due to crowding on narrow paths.  A not so good change is how many aggressive drivers are out on the road, as compared to the previous amount of way too many.  All of these shifts have meant that I’ve been riding my Rivendell Appaloosa much more frequently.

I had originally built up the frame with a full complement of vintage SunTour components, including a Cyclone rear derailleur and a Sprint double crank, with a Superbe front derailleur.  That system worked perfectly, except for not offering low enough gears for the bike to become a regular grocery hauler and errand bike.  I had reserved it only for pleasure rides, it being fairly pleasurable!

So it was time for a triple crank.  I wanted to continue using vintage SunTour but couldn’t find a SunTour crankset with the right BCD to allow for smaller rings.  Fortunately, this Sugino AT triple fills the bill with its interesting spider and self-extracting crank bolts.  After all, Sugino is the actual manufacturer of SunTour cranksets, so its kind of still SunTour anyway. I set it up with 45/38/28 rings, but still had to add 3 spacers to the 127mm bottom bracket spindle to provide enough clearance with the Appaloosa’s wide chain stays.  The bike is definitely meant to be used with very small rings, kind of mountain bike style.

I could no longer use the superb Superbe front derailleur, so needed something to handle the triple crank.  I decided to “think different” and try out a SunTour BlueLine front derailleur, designed for a double and for larger rings.  It works perfectly with this triple crankset.  Many times I’ve found that components work as not originally marketed.  This BL derailleur is just one example of a vintage component that works outside of its targeted range.

I also replaced the pretty constructeur rear rack I had originally installed with this heftier model taken off a 1980’s touring bike.  Because of the Appaloosa’s long chain stays, I added some extra brackets to get the rack stays attached to the frame.

I’ve been using this Brooks Cambium C-19 saddle, which is quite lovely, and the shape is reasonably comfortable.  However, the rough pattern in the non-leather cover causes chafing.  I’ve been hoping for the saddle to wear smooth over time, but so far that hasn’t happened.

And, part of biking different means alerting walkers and runners to my presence in a more pleasant manner than “on yer left”.  So the Riv has a new brass bell, courtesy of Velo-Orange.  I’m not sure if its reverberating ring is any less alarming to pedestrians than my vocal warning, but it looks nice.

It’s definitely more challenging to cycle right now.  It’s more challenging to do all of the things we normally do.  But, by biking different, I think we’ll come out on the other side of this pandemic with a new found respect for non-vehicular modes of transportation.