My Spurcycle Ringer™ bell(s)

I did get my Spurcycle Ringer™ bell(s) on Saturday via the postman.  I was much excite when I came home and found them in my mail receptacle.

I immediately mounted them up.

One on The Fastest Bike in the World.

The other... well, I was going to save it for the Vertigo build, but the stoke levels were too high.  Besides, I woulda had to mount a rear brake lever to my the handlebar to figure out the positioning, and I've already done too much prebuilding of the Vertigo that might need unbuilding when the building begins.  Not wanting it to sit unused and ignored, it was mounted on my personal Enduro™ machine, complete with Enduro™ approved and highly recommended 27.2 Thomson Elite Drooper.

The brake lever was the limiting factor.  Hard to get the bell in a place where it can be readily actuated without too much effort.  It will also (maybe) fill up with rain mounted like this... who knows? The lever slightly protrudes above the bars, so it is slightly exposed to possible damage.

Tidy from the front though.

Except for that paper clip looking lever sticking out, it's hardly recognizable.

As far as performance goes...

The bell does deliver a crisp sound with a sweet sustain.  It's a wee bit heavy, but its durability is not in question.  The lever is easy enough to actuate and the hammer sits nicely away from the dome when not in use, no amount of banging the bike around caused any unwanted ringing.

I do sorta wish the lever were somehow actuated 90° from its current position.  More thumb friendly... I guess they weren't considering anal compulsive mountain bike wannabe racer bois using their bell when it was designed.

The bell on my Enduro™ machine came in handy on our "ride" at DuPont on Sunday... mostly for getting smiles out of hikers as I rolled past them.  That's still something, I guess.  I wanted it more for racing and crowded Charlotte trail riding anyways.

On the way into work yesterday, two construction workers were kindly notified of my coming.  Two strolling police officers either didn't hear me or didn't care about acknowledging this citizen's presence.  The rest of my messengerial day, if the bell was ringing, it was for my own satisfaction.

When I went to go home at the end of the day, I found my bell in a sad state.

The noise was certainly muted with all the ice buildup.  For the sake of science, I left it on there for the ride home.  As I skirted the trolley construction and rode the sidewalk out of uptown, I came up behind a gentleman wearing headphones.  He did not hear me in the least, so I did the creepy scare the shit out of him by riding too close by him thing and then said, "Excuse me."

A distracted family of three heard the clanging of my bell and kindly stepped to the side to allow my passage.

I couldn't be happier with my expensive (when compared to other bells available at your LBS) bells.  Made in America.  That's just something in and of itself.  Designed and manufactured with a certain amount of pride that is evident in the finished product... I still haven't had the heart to recycle the boxes they came in or the instructions.  When I dropped $80 on two bicycle bells back in August, I did it with a great amount of internal deliberation.  It seemed like so much money...

But now I can say that I would do it all again in a heartbeat.  I am pleased with my purchase and looking forward to the next moment when I get to announce my arrival to unwitting bystanders, looky loos, open mouth in the way people, and human traffic cones.