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sit on yer bahookie
language is quite a fabulous subject of study even for its own sake, divorced from the necessity to offer up any seemingly logical meaning. phonetics and semantics allow for a wide range of explorations without necessarily being constrained by a need to make logical sense. some of you may have noticed certain leanings in that direction midst these pixels over the years. sometimes these linguistic digressions have been deliberate ploys, allowing me to demonstrate just how little i comprehend that which i do. others are simply happy accidents that either slip on by unnoticed, or which are subsequently pointed out by others far better qualified than i. but no matter which, the journey is a happy one.
i refer, of course, solely to the english language, mostly based on my inability to speak, write or understand any other. well, that's not entirely true, for there is a form of slang that derives from a variation on that which we speak and write every day. often referred to as auld scots (which is admittedly somewhat more fully constituted than that to which i refer), it has the ability to add a smidgeon of colour, even if mostly incomprehensible by those who live not in the northlands.
phrases such as 'haud yer wheesht', would constitute an instruction to remain quiet, while 'gie it laldy' is an encouragement to participate with gusto. if i might turn the conversation to the more topical, prior to the wind rising to interesting proportions late on tuesday, the day would have been described as dreich, a short adjective that i would think needs little by way of explanation.
of course, those merely scrape the surface of the alternatives the scottish nation has at its fingertips (quite literally in this case). for even daring to broach this particular line of thought in a blog that more often than not concerns itself with the world of the velocipede, several would be likely to describe me as a dunderheid, eejit, galoot or numptie, while others may find the whole enterprise somewhat 'gallus'. despite the protestations of the former, there is serious bicycle interest behind my apparently aimless meanderings, interest that has been fomented by the inestimable steven shand and russell stout, the pair behind scotland's premier bicycle brand, lovingly hand-crafted on the outskirts of edinburgh.
where the majors are inclined to adorm their carbon, aluminium or steel with apparently fictitious monikers such as emonda, more believable expressions by way of roubaix and impressive numerical apellations such as c60, there's little in the way of identity to be garnered from any of the above. and most certainly not that which would give rise to a specific nationality. which is precisely why scotland's shand cycles feature a range more aptly named on the top tube: stoater, skinnymalinky and stooshie. in my opinion, any one of the above hand-built steel bicycles would be worth owning on the strength of their names alone. the fact that all three are superb examples of the framebuilders' art make it simple to justify either way.
but having stuck mostly to the land of the bendy bars, shand have now diversified into that of the hardtail mountain bike, and with characteristic scottish aplomb, the name on the sloping top tube is bahookie, scottish slang for your bum, backside (or ass, for my american friends). designed around the now almost ubiquitous 29" wheel, this steel frame is fashioned from columbus nobium tubing, with a headtube built to accept the latest in tapered suspension fork steerers. in common with its more road-oriented stoater stablemate, the bahookie can be ordered as frame only or a fully assembled bicycle with double or triple chainset, a 1x10 groupset, singlespeed or even the rohloff 14 speed hub gear.
there are three distinct sizes in small, medium and large, equating to 48.5, 49.5 and 52 cm frames and in 23 standard colours. given that mountain bikes are ultimately dervied from the 26" wheel, why did steven opt for 29"?
"Two reasons. I've been a fan of the bigger wheels and how they roll for a while. I've been building 29" wheel mountain bikes for a very long time. I think they come into their own when riding long miles off-road. Though I'm aware that there's an argument that smaller wheels are somehow better in very tight technical situations."
having ridden the shand stoater equipped with rohloff's sophisticated but hardly light weight hub gear and belt drive, it was hardly a surprise to see this as a build option on the bahookie, particularly with steven offering an eccentric bottom bracket fitting and the polydrop dropouts making it a simple operation to fit the carbon belt through the frame. does steven figure there's a niche market waiting to be discovered for a hardtail 29er with a rohloff?
"Well we already do some of those. I'm not sure it'll ever be a huge market. For someone who wants to tour offroad and where reliability is key, it's a natural choice. Some of the in fashion multi day/week endurance events - the Tour Divide for example - are ideal for that kind of thing."
though shand cycles originated as bespoke builders of handcrafted frames, the recent developments of the past few years have been geared towards offering a specific range; still handbuilt, but without the endless options inherent in a custom build. the bahookie is the culmination of a few previous experiments in offroad mass production (for want of a better phrase). it's the whole that has arrived via the sum of its parts. is this first foray into the mountain bike market the result of demand, or a cunning strategy on his part?
"It's a tricky one. I started by building mountain bikes and although we've never had one in our production range, we've always been building them. The competition for steel hardtail mountain bikes in the UK is fierce and we're competing with much cheaper bikes, but we're constantly being told we should include one in the range. So here it is!"
the only satisfactory ending to this particular foray into language manipulation is to order one and sit on your bahookie.
wednesday 10 december 2014
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