ANALOG CYCLESINTERVIEW

－Congrats on your new store location.It looks like you have moved from the off-the-grid area of Poultney to downtown Poultney. It also looks like the store has gotten much bigger. What can we expect from Analog Cycles 2.0?

James : Analog started in a maple sugar shack that is 29 square meters.The new retail space is about 3 times larger, so we can feature more builds, frames and fun products.We now have a camping section, with goods from Snow Peak, Topo Designs, UCO, Kulpika and other rad brands. We also stock more odds and ends like soap, stationary, pencils and pens, just because we like them! I (James) have been a record collector since I was a kid, so we brought my record collection in and set up my old stereo. There’s 500 or so records to throw on, something for every mood.I think people like to see the record player, and know that the music isn’t coming from a phone. Many folks under 25 have no idea what the record player is, and kids don’t understand it at all, which is both fascinating and a bit scary.

But the biggest changes at the shop lie within the basement. The basement of our building used to be a newspaper printing shop. We still have old drawers of type for the presses. The space is huge, and we have a photography studio for parts and bikes, lots of storage, a shipping area, 2 wheel building stations, and 2 work benches. We can work on up to 20 custom bikes at a time.The large storage area means we can explore and stock cool parts that we would not otherwise have room for, like lots of nice rims, cranks, and drivetrain parts. That means custom builds go faster, because we don’t have to order a ton of stuff in, we just have it in stock.In general, Analog 2.0 means more variety, more colors, more fun stuff to explore when you walk through the door.There’s also heat, and decent lighting, and a bathroom, all of which we did not have in the woods.

－Any changes in the visitors?

Being downtown, we have more walk-in visitors, and a lot more service which is nice.They are excited to see a new shop in town. We’re the first new retail business to open in town in about 10 years. Poultney only has 3000 residents, and most of those live in the country around the town, not right in town. So change happens slowly here.

－ Are there anything you miss living in the outskirts?

We really liked the sugar house. It was small and intimate. You had to know there was a bike shop in the woods to stop in, which meant that every customer was there for a reason. We miss the quiet, and having a fire ring right outside for hanging out after rides. But the sugar house is still there, and we still have fires, so it’s not all bad. Wren, a short term employee, lives in the sugar house for now, so we’re happy it’s being utilized.

－ You mentioned that you like listening to “Boris” the Japanese rock band at the shop, is the vinyl still on repeat, or have you gotten any new Japanese vinyls lately?

Oh, I can’t afford too much new vinyl, but Candice recently did buy me "NO", which is a pretty recent Boris record that’s really heavy. It’s probably a bit much for most customers, but I can usually guess what sort of music someone will be ok with, so I occasionally get to put it on the turntable! I’m also really into Japanese Koto music, but I’ve never seen any of it on vinyl over in the states. Kimio Eto is amazing, and the music is as dramatic as any metal, with just one acoustic instrument. Very moving and powerful.

－ When do you think is the best time to visit Vermont?

June through October is probably the best time to visit if you don’t want snow. The highs are around 27 degrees C, and the lows around 5-10 C. Good weather for riding and swimming and sleeping outside. The best fat biking weather is when it’s really cold, in February.  Highs will be -12 C, and lows at night are around -28 C. That makes for good groomed trails, and hard packed snow mobile trails as well. Probably not the best camping, but we’ve ridden our fat bikes out onto the frozen lake on -17 C nights and camped on the ice.
It’s doable, if you have a warm sleeping bag!

－ Any good beer spots near the shop?

There are two good spots to grab a beer. Right across the street is our favorite tavern, called “Taps”. They keep many good Vermont beers on tap, and have great locally sourced food. The owner of Taps rides an Analog build bike!We also like to go to the “East Poultney General Store”, where they stock lots of hard to find Vermont beers.  We’ll grab a four pack and pedal to the river and go for a swim. Our favorite thing is to throw beer into the cold river, then jump off the big rock after it. It is a great way to spend a summer evening.

－ You guys have been in the bike industry for quite some time and we’re pretty sure that you have seen and owned dozens of bikes. Which of the bike you own stand out the most? Are there any bikes you really loved but had to let go? Is there a specific bike from a certain era that sparked up your passion to bicycles? We’d love to hear your riding history.

Candice : Is it bad to say the Moonshiner stands out the most? I owned a bunch of bikes before the Moonshiner, but they all had drawbacks that the Moonshiner addresses: toe overlap, big tires, relaxed headtube angle, 1x specific gearing, thru axels. The other bikes leading up to the Moonshiner were stepping stones, I think. The Moonshiner is all the good of the previous bikes, rolled into one.

I’ve never had to let a bike go that I cared about. I’ve built a bunch of bikes, but naming no names, haven’t been too sad to see them go. For older bikes, I’m super into Fat Chance, Vicious Cycles (I have a 26’ Monolith in a PeptoBismol Pink), their crazy paint schemes, and the intentionality of making an East Coast specific mountain bike. All of that stuff makes those bikes special and relevant for me. I came into riding later than most folks in the bike industry. I started mountain biking in college, renting it from the school. I also commuted on an old Fuji which was a few sizes too big. A few years later, my first real bikes were an XO-1 and MB-1 gifted to me by James when he owned a shop in Maryland called Gravel and Grind. That’s where I got into bike packing, bike camping, ATB riding. The rest is history!

James :I built my first custom bike when I was 18. I still have it, an old Surly 1x1 covered in scratches and dents. I loved that bike. It was built up like a 26” cruiser, with a Kinesis Maxlight fork and S&M C4 bars. In retrospect, it handled horribly, because the short fork steepened the head tube angle. That was the bike that really made me come to love steel bikes. I used to do everything on that bike, from commuting through downtown Baltimore, to riding ‘street’, doing stair jumps and riding off concrete ledges, to racing 24 hour races.

I also have an old Witcomb USA which I’ve converted to a road fixed gear. It was made in the 70’s, when Richard Sachs, Chris Chance and Peter Weigle worked at Witcomb. It’s beautifully made, even if the paint job is terrible, and it rides fantastically. That bike was the first bike I’d ridden that made me love road bikes. I’ve only sold a few bikes, but I wish I had not sold my first mountain bike. It was a Specialized Hardrock, steel frame and fork, with a grey paint job and grey tires with black sidewalls. I thought it looked amazing, and I rode it everywhere. I was probably 14 when I got that bike.

My favorite bikes to look at are 90’s and 80’s mountain bikes. In terms of technical innovations, though, the time period between 1900 and 1925 is my favorite. Lots of really cool stuff happened then, and many of the ideas are being repeated today. People think they’re riding something new, but really, it’s an idea that’s 100 years old or older! Leaf spring suspension forks are a good example, as are oval chainrings, 1x drivetrains, dirt drops, all road bikes… the list goes on.

－ When we look at Tanglefoot bikes, we noticed that all of the bikes have a long front-center and the BB height is quite high. The bikes look super comfy to ride though rough trails due to the shorter stems. We feel like all the bikes you guys make, look very unique compared to the bikes in the mass market. What can you say about that?

James :I wanted to design bikes not by looking at other bikes currently on the market, but by looking at terrain, bike fit, and bikes that were designed to ride on rough roads over the last 100 years. Before I designed bikes, I was a bike fitter for years. I was lucky enough to work in a shop where bike fitting was a big focus. I could watch, time after time, what seat tube angle was the most efficient, what bar position was the best blend of comfort and efficiency. People think these bikes are just weird for the sake of being weird, but everything is done with intention.

For a century, every bike that has won a major long distance race has had a 73 degree or 74 degree seat tube angle, with a set back seatpost. Earlier bikes had slacker seat tube angles, but this was countered by a forward offset seatpost. The effective seat tube angle was 73 with a 25mm setback seatpost. If you are not using a set back post, the seat tube angle has to be 71 degrees to get to the same saddle position. Almost all dropper posts and many rigid posts have no set back. Hence the 71 degree seat tube angle. It’s won more races than any other saddle position.

Every size of every Tanglefoot within each model has the same fit, geometry and handling. That’s because they all have the same seat tube and head tube angles, fork offset, bottom bracket drop. Most drop bar bikes have weird geometries on the smaller sizes. Bike makers design the medium, and everyone else gets a bad fitting bike. I wanted to give riders under 1.7 meters the same fit and experience as a taller rider. The super short stem helps with that. So does the head tube angle. There’s no toe overlap on any size Tanglefoot.

People mistakenly think high bottom brackets make bikes less stable. I remember reading in a Rivendell Reader that Grant borrowed a friends’ high bottom bracket ‘cross bike for a week or two. He rode it, said it felt funny at first, and then got used to it. When he got back on his Rivendell after the test period, he thought it felt unstable and wrong. He said something like ‘I know the Rivendell rides better’ but the high bottom bracket experience made him question that. I don’t question it. More stability is what you want in an off road bike, and more ground clearance. If you can get both at once, the bike is better for it!

－ The Moonshiner and the Hardtack framesets are now here at Blue Lug. We realized that both of the frames have head badges of some kind of a bird. Are there any back stories for this design?

James :The bird on the headbadge is a Hermit Thrush. It’s the state bird of Vermont. The Hermit Thrush is a small bird with a speckled belly and a beautiful song. We want to acknowledge where these bikes are designed. Many bikes seem to not have a place of origin. Our bikes were built for riding in Vermont. You can ride them anywhere, but they’re designed for our steep hills, big rocks, tight switchbacks and mud. On the back of the Hardtack’s seat tube, we put the Vermont state motto: Freedom and Unity. It’s another nod to the state where we live and ride.

－ We love how the Maple Tree Tap Fork Leg Sockets, the custom lug for the fork crown on the Moonshiner looks. We felt like that it was one of the big features that makes the Moonshiner look so special. Could you tell us how that lug was designed?

James :The Moonshiner fork crown came about because we could not figure out how to make a really stiff fork without reenforcing sockets. I asked Ian at Swift Design Works (he makes and designs the Ignite cranks) to do a fork crown that would be a combination of a Type II Steve Potts fork and a Fat Chance 5 piece fork. Hence the name “II Fat” on the fork. He loves Vermont, and suggested the maple tap. The fork crown is heavy, but makes the bike track very very well even in rough terrain with a load.

－ When we scroll though your IG page, we can instantly tell that you guys are a fan of colored components. We sometimes can see Paul components in a color we’ve never seen before. Are you guys doing that by yourselves? We’re curious because we once heard from the head of Nitto, that it is extremely difficult to color bike components in a color you aimed for with the anodizing process.

James : I wish we did our own anodizing but we send it all out. We just ask the anodizers if the color we are after is doable. We usually send a picture of an old part we like, and ask them to get close to that. Browns, greens, pinks, oranges are harder than the other colors, as they change color with different types of aluminum.

One day we’d like to have our own anodizing facility. In November, we’ll have a really talented cerakoter working for us, who can do things like fades and stencil work. I’m excited about that. Since we started cerakoting things about 5 years ago, other companies have ‘caught on’ and started to do the same thing. We always want to be ahead of the curve, so I think this new cerakote person will help!

－ The pictures of your IG posts are always creative, artistic and fun to look at. Could you tell us who shoots the pictures?

James : Almost all of the pictures are shot by Candice. Sometimes Wren, the gal living in the sugar house, helps, and occasionally I (James) sneak one in. But Candice is a natural photographer. She’s never had any training, but is natrually talented.

－ Our heart melts whenever we see your kittie cats on IG. How many cats are there in Analog Cycles? What are their names and what are their favorite foods?

James : We only have one cat right now, Mochi.  She’s named Mochi because she looks like a little fuzzy Mochi ball when she’s crouched down.  Her favorite foods are some hippy kibble we feed her, and the mice she catches.  Mainly she likes to hang out outside, but she comes in at night and talks to us about her day.   It’s a bit sad, but the other cats (Big Man, Little Man, and Buzzo) have passed away.  We miss them and have drawings and bits of art around the shop and yurt to keep them in our hearts.  

－ Anything you would like say to the people reading this?

James : Ride your bike, don’t take yourself too seriously, have fun, come to Vermont and eat a maple creemee!
We consider ourselves very lucky to be working with Blue Lug. 8 years ago Blue Lug was an inspiration for me to start my first bike shop, Gravel & Grind– a high end bike shop/espresso bar in Frederick, Maryland. Analog and Blue Lug have a lot in common, even though we are separated by 10,000 km. We’re looking forward to seeing some Tanglefoot Blue Lug builds!

Thank you for reading!
With love,
James＆Candice