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 Where is this stuff made? Different products are made in different places. Merino wool comes from New Zealand and is cut and sewn in Fiji. Socks are completely made in New Zealand, Blasphemy jerseys are made in San Diego, Cottonwood jackets are made in San Francisco. And the list goes on...if you want more info, send us an email and we'll talk further. What about the famous Swobo jackets with the polka dot lining? I'm over it. You should be also. Time marches on. Try eBay. Why Merino wool? Believe it or not, we still get this question. Merino is one of the most technical fabrics out on the market. It's ability to transport moisture (sweat), retain heat, and remove heat, is simply unmatched in the world of petroleum based products. Merino wool gives you a broader range of temperature regulation than any other single piece of clothing. If you're new to buying Merino wool, you won't be disappointed. In fact, you'll wonder why you hadn't tried Merino wool sooner. Why are your Organic Cotton t-shirts expensive? If you look at what a conventional cotton T "costs" us as a society, we would never buy another one of those pieces of crap again. Like the .99 cent hamburger from Mickey D's, or our (once) cheap gasoline prices, conventional cotton has been a reckless case study in greed and disregard for our future. Conventional cotton is the largest user of herbacides and pesticides in the world... most of which is used right here in our backyard. So to answer your question... $30 to buy a 100% USDA Organic, with using water based inks, is actually cheap. Put it this way...it won't cost you later in higher health insurance (think fat kids with diabetes) or a vanishing ozone (think subsidized oil). Thanks for listening... Will different liners fit in different shorts? Meaning, can I mix and match? Yes. Do you remember that time when we were at the tradeshow, and ... No. Back to Top  Where are your bikes made? Our bikes are made in an A-level factory in Taiwan, that we have worked with for almost 20 years. We are working with the same people for all those years, so they have become close friends and true partners. They are extremely proud to make our bikes and some of the workers have bought them and ride them to work and on the weekends. We truly support USA manufacturing where we can, but there is no bicycle production in the USA except for extremely high-end frames. We support small frame builders in the USA, as many of them are good friends of ours, but if they made our frames for us the frames alone would be more than $1000. each, without any components. Affordability is key to the Swobo design philosophy. The gears, brakes, tires, handlebar grips and saddles, etc. are all manufactured in Taiwan, Japan and Germany. There is no production of these items in the USA, so even if you make a frame in the USA, you still need to import all the components. When we can source components in the USA, we do, like our Kentucky-made Wald baskets and our MInnesota-made Park Tools. I'm a Gear head. Can you tell me what the Otis gears are, in inches? Sure thing, Gear head. In inches, the 3 Otis gears work out to, 38", 52" and 70.7". I've never bought a bike on-line. How much assembly is required? Our bikes come 95% assembled, considering the restraints of the box. The bikes are packed with the rear wheel attached and the shifter, brake lever and the grips attached to the handlebars. Crank and chain are installed. The saddle is attached to the seat post. You will need to put in the front wheel, turn the stem so that it faces forward and aligns with the front wheel, attach the handlebars to the stem, thread in the pedals, and insert the seat post into the seat tube. Tire pressure should be checked. All bolts should be double-checked. Sometimes the front brake on the Otis will need fine-tuning, which is a simple adjustment. Very few tools are needed. If you have a multi-tool like the Park/Swobo tools sold on our web-site you are set. If you don't have a pedal wrench a 15mm open-end wrench will work. It is good to use white lithium grease when you are installing anything that is threaded, and the seat post before you insert it in the seat tube. Some mechanical skill is required and it helps if you are familiar with tools and feel comfortable working on bikes. Why internal hubs? Look at any road or mountain bike. You can see a gear shifting component, called a derailleur, hanging off the right rear dropout. It is vulnerable and exposed and in the way. You can also see a set of 9 or 10 cogs, upon which the rear derailleur moves the chain up or down, to change the gears in the back. In the front you have another derailleur that moves the chain from chainring to chainring, on the crank. The shift levers, that move the derailleurs via the shifter cables, have to be moved a certain way and there are positions the chain cannot be in, on both the front chainrings and the rear cogs. Confused? Internal hubs negate the need for the front and rear derailleurs, one of the shift levers and all the rear cogs. Jump on the Otis, which is a 3-speed bike, and immediately you know how to shift it into the easier or harder gear. No instructions needed. It is that obvious and that easy. For most cities, a 3-speed is all you need. You have a low gear for hill climbing, a middle gear for flat riding and a high gear for downhills. For city use, having the gear shifting mechanism INSIDE the rear hub, instead of outside the hub, means you can drop the bike on the right side, never have to worry about rain or snow or sand and there is virtually no maintenance, as it is a sealed system. The best of all possible worlds. What do the names mean? What do you want the names to mean? Use that answer... What's with the coaster brakes? For city use, coaster brakes make a lot of sense. Your hands don't have to be near the brake levers to stop. When your rims are wet you have full stopping power. There's no maintenance or adjustment necessary, and no replacement of brake pads. And you lay down some nice skids. Can I remove the Swobo badges? The head badge is riveted to the frame. The top tube badge is not riveted and can be removed, although not easily. Both badges are 1.5mm alloy with a 3M adhesive backing. What is the brake reach on the Sanchez? The Sanchez frame accepts standard or short reach brakes, which Shimano refers to as 39-49mm. Measure from center of brake mounting bolt to center of the brake shoe mounting bolt, with the brake shoe in the middle of the brake arm. What is the rear spacing on the Sanchez and what is the largest size tire that fits? The Sanchez is designed to accept track hubs and adhere to a track chainline, so it is standard track dimensions. The rear hub over-locknut dimension (OLD) is 120mm and the chainline is 42.5mm. Considering these parameters, the chainstays are narrower than a road bike. Tires sizes vary by manufacturer and one brand's 700 x 25C will measure the same as another company's 700 x 28C and vice versa, so it's possible some will fit and some will be tight. But if the rear wheel is far enough back in the dropouts, you can probably fit a 700 x 28C. If you want a 700C bike that accepts a 700 x 32C tire, you should consider a Novak, which is a new 3-speed model that will be out in fall 2007. It will have a steel frame, SRAM 3-speed What about the gear inches on the Dixon? There aren't any gear inches for an i-Motion 9, it's only in metric! Just kidding. Our super-star internal hub master at SRAM, Ed Nasjleti explains the higher math of internal hubs, below. An internal gear hub is only available in ratios. (Gear inches depend on the number of teeth on the chainring, the number of teeth on the rear cog, and the size of the tire). The beauty of an internal hub is, once you've calculated for the 1:1 gear, usually the middle gear in the range, then all you have to do is plug in the ratios, multiplying the chainring by each one, and that's the gear inches for the entire range. So, on a Dixon, you have a 38T front ring, a 19T rear cog, and a 26" wheel. So, the inches equals 49.7". See Sheldon Brown's website for the equation. Now, how do you figure out all the other gears? Take each of the ratios, and multiply the chainring size by each ratio, and plug it into Sheldon's site, and you'll get the inches. 1st gear = .542 2nd gear = .621 3rd gear = .727 4th gear = .853 5th gear = It's the 1:1 gear, so it always equals 1 6th gear = 1.172 7th gear = 1.375 8th gear = 1.611 9th gear = 1.844 That means that you've got 8 other chainring sizes to chose from. 1st gear = .542 * 38T= a 20.6 chainring size, so the inches equal 27" 9th gear = 1.844 * 38T = a 70.1 chainring size, so the inches equal 91.8". This also shows you why SRAM says the hub has a 340% difference. When you multiply the 27" by 3.4, you get 91.8". That's what the 340% difference is. If you were using a different size chainring, or a different size cog, or a different size wheel, the final inches would be different, but the ratio is always the same. Sheldon's calculator makes life really easy. http://sheldonbrown.com/gears/ The ratios are from SRAM technical pages, http://www.sram.com/en/service/sram/pdf/2008/TM_GHS_MY08_E_RevA.pdf Back to Top |
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