IRD Switchback

They alway come in pairs...

As i wrote before i'm a bit of a nut when it comes to the component designs of a company called IRD or Interloc Racing Design. Especially the brakes are very well thought out and are very powerful to use. Already owning the Rotary and the Widget brakes the third one, the Switchback, was still missing. So you can understand how happy and amazed i was when not one but two of them popped up on eBay. One was a later version which, like the Widget, was drilled and shiny and the other an early version in black without the holes but including an IRD brakebooster. I straight away bid on both and won the early black version. 

The idea of the Switchback is to apply the brake power via a wire that is wrapped around two small wheels which are fixed to the brake arms. When pulling the brake-cable up, applying the brake, the wire around the two small wheels will make them rotate so that they will push the brake arms towards the rim. The wire will also slip around the small wheels pushing the arms together.    

IRD Widget

Back in 1994 the pages in Mountain Bike Action were filled with a multitude of fancy and colorful cnc machined parts. All of them claiming to be the strongest and/or the lightest! The best adverts to drool about them where CBO or Cambria Bicycle Outfitters and the legendary BikePro.com. Lots of hours where spend assembling the dream bike of the moment.

But then i read the review of the fascinating full suspension bike of IRD. While the suspension was not that good the rear brake was just incredible. It was the IRD Widget brake and to me right than other brake designs where not interesting anymore. And even worse i had to have a set of them as soon as possible.

So I altavista'ed their website (the commercial use of internet was just beginning) and mailed them. A day or so later i got a response from Rod Moses, the founder of IRD, who ofcourse was more than interested to sell me a couple of Widget brakes. But besides that he was also interested in trying to break into the Dutch market and so sort of asked me to interest shops in the products of IRD. A few weeks later after transfering money to him the package arrived. In it where two sets of the amazing IRD Widget brakes, a Rocketboy.inc t-shirt and a stack of catalogues and stickers for me to give to interested shops.

Sad to say my commercial skills where more than lacking and the market was filled with other US made products. So i did not even manage to loose even one catalogue!

The brakes however where magic. Although more than troublesome to adjust neatly the power and quality was just incredible! And flashing forward 17 years they are still stopping me every day on my S-Works bike. Although nowadays discbrakes have better performance they are still without a doubt the strongest cantilevers ever made!

The Moon

The Moon was the fist ever space object i photographed through my telescope.
At the time i did not yet have a telescope mount that compensates for the Earths rotation making the Moon the ideal target. Because the Moon is very bright and close by the time needed to make a picture will be about the same as taking a picture during daytime. The lens (telescope) used has a much bigger aperture than a standard lens on a camera and so captures much more light reducing the time needed. The short time also reduces motion blur created by the rotation of the Earth and Moon.

IRD Rotary brake

The history of mountainbiking is filled with small companies that tried to make their mark by refining existing component designs, there are only a few companies that had the engineering know-how to design and fabricate their own unique parts. One of these companies was IRD or Interloc Racing Design.

IRD was founded by Rod Moses who partnered with Ray Baldwin to produce some of the most well engineered components to be found! Although they are probably most famous for the invention of the two-bolt seatpost, which until today is copied by a lot of companies, their brake designs is what i'm most interested in.

In the eighties and the beginning of the nineties the u-brake was used as an alternative over standard cantilever designs. The problem with cantilevers is that they pivot at the bottom end of the brake-arms and that they are mounted on the seatstays. Because the seatstays are longer and often thinner than the chainstays they will flex outwards resulting in lost perfomance. U-brakes are best mounted under the chainstays and that combined with a pivoting point in the middle of the brake-arms gives a lot less flex.

IRD came up with an ever better design. Although the pivot point and the brake pads are held in the same position as a standard u-brake, the way the power is delivered is just brilliant and powerful!

The photo above shows the mechanics of this brake. The cable that sticks out at the top of the brake wraps around the big wheel which is mounted to the right arm at top center. The other end of the cable is fixed on the big wheel on the other side of it's mounting point. The mounting point allows the big wheel to rotate. What happens is that when you pull the cable the big wheel will swing out to the left, pushing the top of both arms outwards and both brake pads together crushing the rim!

Specialized S-Works

When i think of mountainbikes i think back to the first half of the nineties, the booming years of colorful cnc-machined parts and experimental bike designs. The years when mountainbiking still meant to be self supporting and Tomac thundered down the mountain with his Tioga Diskdrive.
I also rembered an issue of the magazine Mountainbike Action which had a test of the most gorgeous mountainbike ever, the Specialized S-Works Steel! To me this was the bike to dream about, expensive, rare and precision made by the Japanese. Being only 17 it was unobtainable for me so i settled for a Koga Miyata Trailrunner carbolite. But trough all those years this was the frame for me to have!

Than the incredible thing happened, my dream frame appeared on a retrobike forum. It was still in a very good condition and for some reason didn't sell. So i got in and bought it for little money including the gorgeous Nitto S-Works seatpost.

This also gave me the opportunity to choose and buy the components that i could never afford and really make it my dreambike! Finding the components actually took quite a long time but for some reason the right components just appeared on auction sites like they where meant for me to buy them at a very reasonable price.

The bike than was powder coated in a very understated grey finish and was carefully build up by me resulting in a very light and beautifully riding bike, the best i have ever had!

After it's maiden ride during a retrobike meeting it was refitted with road slicks. This because my riding is mostly on the road.

Specs:
Frame: Specialized S-Works Steel
Fork: Tange
Headset: Specialized Steel
Stem: Nitto Dirt-drop
Handlebar: On-One Midge (finish stripped)
Levers: Shimano
Tape: Cinelli cork
Seatpost: Nitto S-Works
Seat: SDG Bell-Air titanium
Seatbolt: Odyssey titanium
Brakes: IRD Widget
Bracket: Specialized titanium
Cranks: Shimano Deore XT 170mm
Chainwheel: Surly 40 teeth
Pedals: Cranks Bros Egg-Beater SL
Chain: Shimano
Cassette: Shimano 8 speed
Hubset: White Industries
Quick releases: Salsa titanium
Spokes: Stainless
Rims: Araya RM-14
Rear derailleur: Shimano Deore XT
Tires: Schwalbe Marathon Racer 26"x1,5"