South Salem Cycleworks museum bikes: Ira Ryan bike

Hi, Nate Taylor here. Please reach out to me at nate@sscycleworks.com for inquiries on parts availabilities and shipping estimates.

South Salem Cycleworks Museum:
Ira Ryan 62cm Disc Road Bike

The Frame:

Columbus Zona lugged tubeset, powder-coated
Custom pump peg
62cm
610mm top tube
195mm head tube
430mm chainstay
1,071mm wheelbase
80mm BB drop
1” threadless steel steerer 285mm
Bike weight 24.5lbs
Built in 2013.

Equipment on the bike:

Avocet 02 Air40 R Ti saddle
Centaur 27.2 seatpost
Centaur Century Grey ergoshifters
Centaur Century Grey triple front B/O derailleur
Centaur Century Grey 175/30/40/50 crankset
Phil Wood SS 111mm bottom bracket
Bebop pedals
Connex 10s 10sx stainless steel chain
Shimano XTR M971 GS rear derailleur
JTEK converter
XT 11-34 10s cassette
Avid BB7-Road SL disc calipers
Avid G2CS 160 rotor front
Avid G2CS 140 rotor rear
White Industries MI6 28h front hub
Mavic Open Pro 28h front rim
DT Revolution 15/17/15 spokes w/DT alloy nipples, 2x
White Industries MI6CX 32h rear hub
Mavic Open Pro 32h rear rim
DT Revolution 14/17/14 driveside, 15/17/15 non-driveside, alloy nipples, 3x
DT RWS Ti quick releases
Rox rim strips
Michelin Airstop threadless tubes
Victtoria Rubino Pro 700x 25 tires for mild pavement
Schwalbe Winter 700 x 35 tires for below, or potentially below, freezing conditions
Vittoria Terreno Dry Gravel Endurance 700 x 45 tires for gravel
Stronglight O’Light roller bearing headset
3T Mutant 13cm stem
Cinelli Contact bar 42cm
Lizardskin handlebar wrap
Avocet 50 Altimeter
Crane bell
Tacx Tao cages
Zefal HPX 4 – extended w/additional spring
Zefal DooDad to secure pump from rattling
Cateye Reflex Auto tail light –comes on when light or motion is detected.
Yokozuma no-compression cable housings
SKS P45 fenders w/custom mudflaps
Bushwhacker Hondo seatbag

The bike's story:

I visited Co-Motion to order a tandem frameset, and Dwan Shepherd had a surprise for me. They’d uncovered a tubeset and stamped-steel lugs I’d delivered to them decades ago. They’d lost them in all of the moves they’d made over those years. I’d paid another framebuilder to hand cut/file the lugs with double diamonds, my logo with the M for Michael atop the W for Wolfe, with the intention of building a replacement touring frame for the Early I’d had built in 1980.

Co-Motion didn’t build frames with lugs anymore, and I really like the look of lugs, and if you follow Grant Peterson, the owner of Rivendell, he’d say they add strength to the frame as well. And this was to be a touring frame, with not only hours, but days in the saddle to admire.

It was busy in the shop, and my J & B outside rep, Eric Lien, offered to take them to a framebuilder in Portland, where it languished for some three months, before Eric took the pieces to Ira Ryan. I received a phone call afterwards, and was advised to abandon the tubeset and lugs, as modern over-sized tubesets would be a better choice, and that’s how it came to be Columbus Zona. I asked Ira to give the tubeset and lugs to someone learning the trade. Disc brakes were just starting to be seen on road bikes, and I was reluctant, but felt I needed to be familiar with them by having a bike equipped as such. Designed to be a bad weather bike, I elected to have it powdercoated, instead of a shinier, wet paint applied.

I’d had Mondonico build me a “rain bike” with fender eyelets after I’d sourced some old Campagnolo long dropouts with eyelets to send to Italy. The old Nishiki Prestige was a heavy bike comparatively, and certainly didn’t ride like the Mondonicos. Half my riding time was spent on wet pavement, and at times, I encountered black ice as well. Saturday mornings were a shop ride, and I never knew who might show up, so I had to be there. If the weather was inclement, and I alone, showed up, I still went out for a ride, as otherwise the following Saturday might also be as deterring and I’d lose more fitness.

I’d gone down on the Nishiki, my worst of weather ride, a few times on black ice, and still remember climbing Val View behind the Turner, Oregon post office one morning, where I had to remain seated to keep traction on the rear wheel, while feeling it slip a few times. And the morning where I thought heading dead west up and over Orchard Hts. in West Salem was the more prudent route as the sun would have the best exposure to melt the ice. Felt a few slips getting to the summit, but as I began the descent, thought the center line had more gravel, and guided the Nishiki onto it resulting in an immediate fall. The de-icer they’d sprayed was only in the travel lanes!

I’d done a couple rides in conditions like this on the Stumpjumper, with balloon-like 26 x 2.1 IRC Blizzard studs. While reassuring to hear the hum of the studs as the wheels spun, the bike is a tank, and on longer pavement rides with those studs, it required more patience and effort than I liked. But it was fun to ride shorter rides in icy conditions like touring Minto-Brown park here in town.

Given these experiences, I had Ira Ryan build the bike to accommodate bigger tires, and disc-specific. Alloy rims and rubber brake pads get harder as the temperature drops, and while staying upright was the primary concern, stopping was also part of the solution.

Disc brakes were a compromise, as the rotors were near the dropouts and only on one side. The fork and rear triangle of the frame have to be stiffened up to resist the leverage of the placement of the brakes. The Ryan doesn’t ride as fluidly as my rim-brake Mondonico’s, and I expected that. It does ride better than my old Nishiki Prestige made of Tange #2, however.

The Tour de France had allowed the use of disc brakes in the race – much to my surprise with the regulations changing the shape of quick-releases on hubs and brake calipers from flat blades to curved levers. The crashes do occur in the Tour, and a disc rotor seemed a fearsome thing to encounter in a crash. While riding the Ryan with Tom Stuck, a long-time riding companion, one frigid morning, he forgot that the bike lane ended at a street intersection and in avoiding the ditch, he attempted to ride up the dropoff of the pavement, throwing himself and his bike directly in front of me. My front wheel rolled over him, but I managed to stay upright, and he avoided my front rotor!

I used Bar Mitts for the first time on the Ryan. Equipped with studs, I was not afraid to ride routes in the winter when below freezing conditions existed, but keeping my hands warm was a challenge until I started using the Bar Mitts. I even had to pull my long-finger gloves off and put on short-finger gloves on extended rides as I warmed up using them.

I normally used Time TBT pedals and shoes, but for these rides, I wanted something I could walk easily with, and the Bebops worked well. Like Speedplay lollipops, the cleat engagement is attached to the shoe, and one has to be careful to avoid grit getting into them, as you may find you cannot disengage from the pedal!

It'd been years since I did any overnight, self-supported rides, and since I saw retirement somewhere in the next decade, I’d ordered a custom touring frame, and while waiting for it, decided to use the Ryan for an excursion to Newport and back. While the Ryan has braze-ons for a luggage rack on the rear, it did not have them for a front rack, and so it was loaded as I did my early tours in the late ‘70’s. I did appreciate the lower gears over those provided on my old Motobecane of 40/28! Follow this link for that story:

https://sscycleworks.com/rides/2016-rides/2016-labor-day-escape-ride.html

The Ryan was also my first road bike for winter rides with a triple crankset, providing lower gears that allowed me to stay in the saddle on steep, slippery climbs. It was also the bike I used to ride the Buena Vista loop from the shop and back following my recovery from chemo treatment. Again, those lower gears allowed me weaky climb what I’d ridden vigorously on my closer ratio road bikes. After chemo, and riding short Ankeny Wildlife rides, I put a bucket list of the 10 most difficult climbs in Salem, in ascending order. The last was the backside of Skyline, coming up from Riverside. It’s the last pitch from Lombardy Lane to Concomly Road, that is the most challenging. I’d ridden this climb numerous times on road bikes with double cranksets and close ratio cassettes. Once, and never again, I’d ridden it on my fixed gear using a 42/20t. I’d never walked it. I’d chosen the Ryan with its lower gearing for this final climb. It was the last opportunity of the year, the last week of December, to complete the bucket list. Halfway up the pitch, my right foot refused to complete another revolution of the crankset, and I slowly toppled over. I must have pulled the top tube into my right knee, as I could not stand up afterwards. I managed to use the bike as a crutch, and then as a walker, to climb the rest of the pitch to find a spot where a car could safely get off the road and give me a lift.

The orthopedic doctor said I’d cracked my tibia plateau, and it would be at least 5 months before I would be able to ride a bike once more. It took longer, but that’s a story in itself.