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Dirt Rag Articles
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Tester: Eric McKeegan
Age: 34
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 150lbs.
Inseam: 33"
Vital Stats
Country of Origin: Taiwan
Price: $1550 CDN (disc) $1450 (canti)
Weight: 27.5lbs.
Sizes Available: small, medium, large (tested), XL
Contact: www.steelwoolbicycles.ca
Thom Johnson and Will Ficner, the principals behind Steelwool Cycles, envisioned the Tweed as a bike they wanted to ride; an all-rounder versatile enough for loaded touring and practical for around town use. There was nothing quite to their liking on the market so they designed their own, with lugged steel for classic looks and durability, but some new-school touches to go with the old-school fabrication.
The Bits and Pieces
The frame uses Tange Prestige steel and a very traditional-looking lugset including a box crown on the fork. A slightly sloping top tube adds standover clearance, while meeting up with a longer head tube to add bar height. Both cantilever and disc tabs are provided along with a set-screw type eccentric bottom bracket and hooded dropouts front and rear. The frame and fork provide plenty of room for tires up to 38mm wide and fenders. Lots of build options for those who choose to purchase just the frame and fork. The frame is finished with hunter green paint, a contrasting white headtube and decals that mimic a panel paint job. No complaints from me, or anyone else who commented, on the looks of the bike.
The parts pick is an interesting blend of brands. The wheels are 36-hole Alex rims laced to adjustable cartridge bearing hubs with straight-gauge DT spokes. After some initial out-of-box truing and tensioning, the wheels have been trouble-free. The drivetrain is mostly Campy Mirage (shift/brake levers, derailleurs, chain and cassette) with a Sugino crank. The 26-36-48t crank mated with the 13-29t ten-speed cassette yields a great range for loaded touring with no big jumps between gears. Unloaded you can get a bit spun out, but I never found it to bother me much. I used both Tekro cantis and Avid Road discs over the course of the test. I'd pick the discs if pushed to choose, not for more power, as they didn't stop any better, but for quiet and all-weather braking ability.
I wasn't a huge fan of the Steelwool handlebar's bend; tilting the bars to get my preferred flat ramp behind the hoods left the lower parts of the bar too steeply angled to be comfortable. This led to some tingly hands on longer rides that sometimes took a few days to clear up. You might like them though.
Maybe I'm just a bit obsessive about braze-ons, but another set of eyelets on the fork and a third bottle mount under the down tube would be fine by me. It's not at all a deal-breaker and not hard to work around. The other braze-on issue I had was with the lack of cable adjusters. There were none on the frame and no inline adjusters were provided, leading to some frustration with setting up the front shifting and brakes. I'd really like to see down tube shifter bosses with cable adjusters installed, since they are easy to reach while riding and offer the option of running a down tube shifter if the fancy brake/shift lever becomes non-functional. I also used a ziptie on the head tube to hold my frame pump in place, as there was no pump peg. None of these braze-on issues bothered me enough to not ride the bike everyday, and wouldn't stop me from buying it either.
On the Road
I've been on this bike for over three months and it has been a solid companion on every ride. Within two weeks of assembly I was out on an annual 400-mile unsupported ride from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, only changing the saddle to an old favorite and adding pedals and fenders. The bike just felt right to me very quickly and my position was spot on for long distance riding. Although the ride itself was beset with severe weather and mechanicals befell other riders, the Tweed just kept rolling along with nary a problem save the front derailleur wonkyness. The Vittoria Randonneur tires need to be highlighted here: not a single flat during this ride and the other few thousand miles I've put on this bike, and they probably have a few thousand more before they are worn out. Impressive.
Loaded or unloaded the Tweed handled in a predictable fashion. When fully loaded there was some minor flex from the front end, but I found it easy to adapt to and barely worth mentioning. Honestly I was expecting a more noodle-y ride when loaded, considering the comfortable nature of the ride unloaded. When searching for words to describe the ride, refined is the word that fits best, absorbing just the right amount of road noise while transmitting enough feedback from the contact patches to give me a great idea of the traction levels.
The long chainstays kept the panniers away from my heels and stretched the wheelbase long enough to be stable while loaded. I didn't find the long wheelbase and stable handling to be a detriment anywhere. The only time I felt a bit held back was during a long road ride with people on lighter, faster bikes. This may have more to do with the heavy-duty wheelset than anything else, or perhaps the slow and steady nature of my riding style.
From a reliability and functionality standpoint the parts were trouble-free save the front derailleur. I was able to get it to shift well to either the big ring or the small ring, but not both at once. Conversations with Steelwool revealed a weak return spring to be the culprit. Replacing the front derailleur has been the fix instituted by Steelwool. I also was unhappy to find that the front shifter did not have the micro-ratchet style shifting of higher end Campy offerings. The micro-ratchet is less sensitive to cable tension and contamination, something appreciated when I'm miles from the closest repair stand. This won't be an issue in the future: in 2009 Steelwool will be selling the Tweed as a frame only and Campy has dropped the entry-level Mirage and Xenon groups.
The 2009 frame will be updated with custom lugs to keep the long head tube but allow a level top tube, the rear disc mount on the chainstay to facilitate rack mounting, a redesigned EBB with more throw to eliminate the need for half links, removable canti bosses and new paint. Whew! Price is still being worked out, but it should be in the $650-700 CDN range. The 10-year warranty will remain the same.
Most of the miles on the bike were acquired commuting and there is nothing I would change for that. The eccentric BB leaves the option open to easily run singlespeed, fixed or internally geared hubs, all good choices for those with nasty winters that chew through geared drivetrains quickly. No creaking or groaning from the eccentric occurred, even after plenty of wet rides.
Over the years my touring has morphed into light and fast trips, covering a lot of miles in short periods of time. Riding the Tweed has reminded me that slowing down and looking around is something I should be doing more often. Even fully loaded I never felt overburdened, but was reminded gently to slow down when I tried to wick it up too much. Fun doesn't always need to be fast.
Steelwool has created a great option for those looking for a very utilitarian bike, ready to carry you to the coffee shop or coast to coast. The traditional good looks are backed up with solid geometry and tubing selection, creating a comfortable and stable ride with whatever load you burden it with. The Tweed has all the makings of a modern classic.
| Exclusive Dirt Rag Web-Only Extras For Steelwool Tweed | Make: Steelwool
Model: Tweed
Model year: 2008
Type: touring/utility
Country of origin: Taiwan
Wheel size: 700c
Frame material: steel-Tange Prestige
Fork: Steelwool-box crown
Handlebar: Steelwool 31.8 Ergo bend
Stem: aluminum 4 bolt bar clamp
Headset: Cane Creek tall stack
Bottom bracket: UN-54 with EBB
Crank: Sugino XD 600 48/36/26
Pedals: not included
Chain: Campagnolo Veloce 10 speed
Saddle: Velo
Seatpost : Aluminum
Front hub: Aluminum 36 hole
Rear hub: Aluminum 36 hole
Front derailleur: Campagnolo Mirage
Rear derailleur: Campagnolo Mirage
Shifters: Campagnolo Mirage Ergopower
Cassette: Campagnolo
Brakes: Tekro Oryx canto/avid BB7 Road disc
Rims: Alex Ace19
Tires: Vittoria Randonneur 700x32
Sizes: small, medium, large, extra large
Colors: green
Weight: 27.5
MSRP: $1450 canti-$1500 disc CDN
Company website: www.steelwoolbicycles.ca
More bike reviews here. |
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| Comment from Eric at DR on 2008-10-13 |
Lazy-
The 13-29 works well for me on the road becasue it has such small jumps between gears, letting me fine tune my cadence. Wide ratio cassette have much larger jumps between gears, some times leading to situation where I've spent long period of times in a gear that is just a little to hard or too easy. Not so with the 13-29. By far my favorite touring gearing ever.
Christo-
Never tried anything other than the 32mm's that came stock, but the Planet Bike fenders are probably about 45mm wide. I would bet on 38 fitting with fenders, 42mm probably not, without fenders, no problem.
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| Comment from Christo on 2008-10-12 |
| Any idea how large tire this frame will take? 38c? 42c? The photos on the Steelwool site are helpful, but no upper size limit is listed anywhere.
I think the 2009 frame would make a great Monstercross platform if tire clearance was adequate, plus it would be nice to buy a production frame from a CDN company. |
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| Comment from Lazy Bike Commut on 2008-10-05 |
| I'm trying to figure out why in the world a 13-29 cassette even exists--there's no real high end OR low end. My Long Haul Trucker with the same crankset and an 11-34 cassette has the right gearing for pretty much anything I'd want to do with it (I suppose racing down a mountain a bigger gear would be nice, but we're short of mountains in OH). |
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