May the Juice be with you- the final review

I have been riding my Soma Juice for over two years and I think it's time to say goodbye to this lovely brownstone steed. It's a beautifully designed frame- the hourglass headtube, curve stays, elegant use of sliding dropouts, versatility, durability, and smooth ride have all served me well. I rode this bike primarily off-road, tackling Austin chunk every week, and one gravel race, which turned out to be my favorite gravel race yet.

newborn Juice, January 2015

The above copy sounds like an advertisement because I have been reading bicycle reviews for so long. The brutal truth is that I was working at a bike shop at the time that I purchased this frame and it was literally my only option. I was riding a too-small Surly Karate Monkey, which is also and excellent bicycle frame, and I wanted to ride something longer in terms of reach. After two decades of getting my kicks on a 20" BMX bike, "small" mountain bikes seemed like a good idea to me, so I was riding a frame on which I felt comfortable at first, but time and miles on the trail showed me how squirrely handling can be and how unforgiving on the spine it is.

I wanted a steel 29er that would easily convert to single-speed use and not break the bank. Working in a bicycle shop means you don't make a lot of money and, with other financial priorities in my life besides purchasing bicycle parts, I could not afford to buy much of anything that was not subject to a hefty industry discount. The company for which I was working has recently lost its relationship with Surly, so a new Karate Monkey was out. Due to various levels of corporate nonsense, I was also forbidden to buy anything else from any other bike company with which my employer did not already have a business relationship, so that left me with the option to pay full-price for something from another retailer, or buy a Juice direct from the distributor. I chose the latter.

preparing for Full Moon Fever, a nighttime gravel race, which was canceled due to a steady downpour that turned the dirt roads to rivers.

I was not terribly excited about the Juice at first, feeling compelled by forces beyond my control to ride it over any other choices, but it turned out to be a great choice. I won't pretend that I can tell the subtle qualities of the metal tubes, the artistry of the welds, the "lateral/compliant" magical qualities of a "lively" bicycle that elevated me to mystical planes of existence. No, it's a piece of metal that connects two wheels and various components that translate human movement into locomotion. It does this much better than many other similar pieces of metal and it led to me having a lot of fun and burning a lot of calories in the process to make room for additional cookies that I would not have otherwise eaten.

it's peanut butter jelly time!

In short, the Juice was fun to ride, not very expensive and didn't keep me from doing anything I would not have otherwise done on a different bicycle frame.

At least that's what I tell myself.

a brief experiment with gears instead of single-speed

One thing that never felt entirely comfortable with on the Juice is the "weight" of the front end, which, for me has a lot to do with the chainstay length. Chainstay length on a mountain bike is a touchy subject, but I tend to land in the short camp. All other things equal, having the rear wheel tucked closer to you center of gravity makes it easier to shift your weight far enough behind the rear axle to huck the front wheel up onto or over whatever is in your way. Or just do a wheelie, which is an essential part of having fun on a bicycle.

The Juice is designed such that the sliding dropouts make the effective chainstay length about 445mm or just under 17.5". If you have gears on it, you can slam the sliders to this position and leave them there and this position is sufficient for many people, especially gearies. If you ride single-speed, you have to use the sliding position of the dropouts to tension the chain. With the range of effective chainstay lengths ranging from under 420mm (16.5") to ... much longer, the Juice limit of 445 leaves it on the long end of the spectrum.

Since I ride this bike with a single speed drivetrain most of the time, I have to make compromises, as all singlespeeders do. When the trail is flat and you want to go fast, there's a limit to how fast you can realistically go once you legs top out in RPMs. When the trail gets steep, the terrain loose, or you reach a series of rocky ledges, as often happens where I ride, most riders would shift to an easier gear, stay seated, and spin the cranks with relative leisure. It's still no picnic to spin your way up a hill in a low gear -- it's taxing on your heart and lungs. But with a single speed, you have to stand and "mash" the pedals in order to maintain momentum.

lightweight tires and a hard gear ratio made urban exploration rides fun on rainy days.

When a momentum-killing rock, ledge, patch of loose material, or change in topography presents itself, you have to react quickly, shifting your center of gravity on the bike to lift the front tire, unweight the back tire, or dig into the backside of and obstacle you have just cleared for that extra ounce of momentum. This is where bicycle designers have a conundrum that I don't envy: design a bike that is a compromise between stability and maneuverability. I think the Juice erred on the side of stability.

Climbing a hill on a singlespeed or navigating otherwise tricky terrain means shifting your weight around a lot, more so than you would need to with gears. To increase the amount torque applied to the rear wheel needed to keep going uphill, I need to change my body position so that my legs and piston the pedals up and down with more force. For me, that means standing up and getting forward a bit. Doing so, however, puts more weight on the front wheel and less on the back, increasing the chances of stalling out from a front-end collision or losing traction on the rear wheel and spinning out, thus ending the fun of painfully grinding my way up a ridiculous pitch of earth. If I lean back a bit to get the rear to bite harder, my legs lose some of the wattage I need to put into the pedals and I stall in lieu of ripping my knees apart or the pedals from the cranks. I am not sure which would go first.

What is the answer to this? The peanut gallery is saying "why don't you put gears on your bike, ya big dummy?" No, being stubborn is more fun and gives me writing fodder and another reason to be smug about riding my bike. No, really, the reasons for riding a single speed mountain bike are the subject of another session. The real answer has to do with what I mentioned earlier- is it the bike, or the rider? I think it's some combination of the two.

If I wanted to be able to rocket up and over all the difficult terrain I just described on a singlespeed bike, I could do one of two things:

1. ride more, get a stronger core and legs and arms, increase skill and vision to chose routes across the terrain that make those feats more likely to succeed.
2. change my bike in such a way that it is more conducive to my skills and body proportions for the terrain.

I only have so much time and patience for 1) so I am trying 2). This goes back to what I was saying about frame design and balance. Each rider has a different center of gravity; the amount of effort it takes to shift one's weight to increase traction or unweight the front or rear of the bike is different. Most frame manufacturers only take into account a rider's skeletal proportions so that the contact points of the bike (pedals, saddle, handlebar) fit proportionally for efficient, comfortable pedaling. However, as riders' heights vary, so do their center of gravity. But frame designers typically only change the dimensions of the front end of the bike and not the rear to account for riders sizes.

post-nighttime ride that turned a bit muddy.

For example, a few years ago, I helped a guy build a BMX bike for himself. This bike was designed for jumping, riding ramps, doing tricks, etc. With their small 20" tires, BMX bikes are very easy to toss around, but subtle changes in geometry can make the bike more stable or more "flickable." The trend in BMX bikes are the time was shorter and shorter chainstays. An older bike might have 14.5"-15" stays, especially if it was designed for racing or dirt jumping. At the time, chainstays were dipping well below 14" and pushing 13" to make the bike easier to flip around.

The problem was that this rider was six-and-a-half feet tall. The front end of the bike was designed with an extra-extra long top tube and he put the most enormous handlebar that he could find on it to accommodate his height. But the chainstay length remained true to the trend, extra short. With his height, lifting the front end required only the tiniest shift rearward, whereas a shorter rider would require more effort to do so. The result was that the bike was very unstable, difficult to find a balance point to manual it and easy to loop out and wind up laying on his back. He left the chain long enough that the rear axle was pushed as far back in the slots as was safe, but it still left a lot to be desired in terms of stability.

All this is to say that, while the Juice is a fantastic bike, I wanted something with a shorter chainstay so I can do wheelies on it and manhandle it over difficult terrain. All of my mountain bikes have been steel and rarely have seen gears, and the pool of available steel, 29er, singlespeedable framesets with short chainstays is a fairly short list. Stay tuned as I have already purchased and am now riding a new frame and will report on the new experience.

secret location

self-filmed video of Austin trails

I spent most of the day filming a video of myself (with a little help from trail guru Carl) and this is the result of many hours filming, editing clips, and cobbling together the footage. Enjoy!

All of the above video is taken within a few miles of trails near my home. I had trouble getting perspective on the terrain. The rather bouncy downhill sections and chunky climbs I am doing here look much more mellow than reality. I thought it was funny to include ten takes on the same climb, which is littered with little ledges and fat roots, only to discover that the angle only makes me look like an idiot who can't ride a bike in a straight line. I will need to work on that so my next video project is more compelling.

Bonus little behind-the-scenes info: I filmed this on my Samsung Galaxy 5s, which I always have on me anyway. I have made some cheesy videos in the past with a smart phone learning on a rock or bungee-corded to a tree. This time around, I went all-out and spent a whopping $13 on a flexible tripod that allowed me to balance and aim the camera exactly where I want it by perching it on a rock, warping around a tree brand, or standing it on the ground.

Filming took all day and I had to stop by the house halfway through to recharge my phone and eat a ridiculous sausage, which is also profiled in the film.

Further bonus info! These will probably be the last images of my riding the Soma Juice frame. It's been a great frame but I am trying something new. A more thorough review of the Juice is coming soon.