The Bikes
The Bike. It is the central tool in pursuit of our craft. A Velominatus meticulously maintains their bicycles and adorns them with the essential, yet minimal, accoutrement. The Rules specify the principles of good taste in configuration and setup of our machines, but within those principles lies almost infinite room for personal taste.
It seems in some ways like a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, the way we honor our machines. We love them to a point that lies well beyond obsession. Upon these machines upon we endure endless suffering, but also find an unending pleasure. The rhythm, the harmony between rider and machine, the outdoors, the wind in our faces and air in our lungs.
The Bikes is devoted entirely to our machines. Ours, The Keepers, and yours, the Community. It features articles devoted to our bikes, and proves a forum for uploading photos of your own machines for discussion. We will be harsh, but fair; this is a place to enforce and enhance our observation of The Rules.
If you’d like to submit an article about your own beloved bike, please feel free to send it to us and we’ll do our best to work with you to include it.
- Rule #12 and the Cascade Effect
That is a very reasonable opening salvo for the Rule about bike ownership. Three is good and certainly a minimum, and we are talking road bikes here, if there was any doubt. They naturally become ordered: the #1 is ichi-ban, top dog, go-to bike for every and all rides. #2 was the old #1, ... - Guest Article: Black Is Not The New Black@kogalover is singing my song here. Bikes are beautiful. ’nuff said. VLVV, Gianni With all those posts on riding in winter and being visible, either by putting Eyes of Sauron or other car melting devices on one’s steed, or by even considering a YJA instead of donning plain black kit, it was about time to finally get ...
- Dialing in the StableThis was going to be an article about Rule #45. It is amazing how much time is wasted and matches burned when professionals stop for that second bike change to get back on their #1. With all the jigs available to team mechanics it would seem they could set up five bikes exactly the same. And ...
- Matching the drapes to the rugAs a longtime titanium bike owner, I’ve always been jealous of a beautiful painted frame but Ti and carbon frames don’t need paint like a steel frame needs paint. But I want some painted beauty. It’s like buying a white car; I can’t do white, need some color. So between a Ti frame and a ...
- Festum Prophetae: Waiting for the HourEveryone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. – Mike Tyson The one thing everyone should always plan for is that however well-conceived a program might be, things will never go to plan. The high level plan for my Festum Prophetae Hour Ride was as follows: Have a custom Hour Bike built by Don Walker. Because reasons. Reasons like custom ...
@ErikdR
I wouldn’t know anyone who’d take their new track bike out for a ride without tightening the sprocket properly and crash into a fence as a direct result. But hypothetically…yeah, just make sure that fucker is tight.
On a completely unconnected note, I ordered myself a 1/8th chain whip this week and a lockring.
Move on, nothing to see here…
@RobSandy
You do not need a chain whip, since you seem to be able to unlock your sprocket by braking?!
Jokes aside: I am not planning to use it for road-rides, only track. I haven’t tried riding fixie but as @ErikdR says, seems to be good for building stroke. One of my -if my very- last rides on a fixie was when I was 4 years old and I came down a hill in Limburg where I grew up, could not brake, crashed my front teeth through my lip. This time I will wear a helmet and take a course.
What rims do you have carb/alu? What frame carb/alu? Do you ride tubs or clinchers? What gears do you ride or do you have a selection? Any idea whether pedal length should be same or different to normal road-bike-length? Framesize different to road bike (I am not planning to do Keirin or so, just for June 17th hourly celebrations and the like) or shorter?
@KogaLover
A good one for building stroke is one legged intervals on the Turbo. If I can only fit in 30-45 mins when the weather is crap or I am busy a session would be:
10 Mins high cadence low resistance
2 mins Right Leg Only
1 Min Both
2 Mins Left Leg
2 mins Both
1 Min Right max effort
1 Min Left Max effort
1 min easy Spin
10 Min High Cadence
15 min rowing machine.
The key target on the one legged is a smooth stroke with no “lump” over the top. It’s surprisingly difficult if you have not tried it but does improve with practice.
It also leaves me with nothing but awe and respect for a few one legged folk I have seen out on the roads.
@Teocalli
Thanks! Bit too early in the season to set up the Turbo, but I also thought about putting the track frame onto the Turbo rollers first, so as to see what it is like to ride fixed gear.
@KogaLover
It also hurts like f&^%……..
@Teocalli
I keep meaning to do some one-legged drills but then find other things I’d rather do. Watching paint dry, watching grass grow, f’instance…
@KogaLover
I have what came with the bike in terms of kit, so what a 15-20 year old handbuilt steel track bike would have! No idea on the crank length but I would guess shorter than what I use on the road (175mms).
Gearing is still a bit of a puzzle to me – my instinct would be to get a medium sized chainring (which seems to be in the 48-50t range) and vary the rear sprocket size. But trackies seem to mess around with both. And I used maths and science and that – looked at what I thought a ‘typical’ speed would be for me on the track (I guessed 35-40kph while getting into it), looked at what a comfortable cadence would be for me at that speed (95-100rpms) and picked a gear which suited that (which also happened to come with the bike), so a 50×16.
I have just bought a 14t in case I race as I think the speed would be a fair bit higher.
@RobSandy
That’s where yers a goin wrong
@RobSandy
I can’t remember where I read it, but I do recall a quote from an eminent cyclist/coach along the lines of “the only thing that one legged intervals are good for is to get better at pedaling with one leg“. Whether that is true or not, I have no idea but I don know that riding rollers really sorts your stroke out. A wayward stroke will have you off in no time at all.
@chris
That may be true but I expect that if your stroke is crap then trying to do one-legged drills will make this abundantly clear. I think mine is best described as ‘improving’ – I’m hoping the fact that I can now ride comfortably at a much higher cadence is a good sign.
@chris
Didn’t that just answer itself?
@KogaLover
A full-face helmet? A standard one won’t stop you from putting your teeth through your lip. :p
@Teocalli
I think Chris meant “.I do know that riding rollers really sorts your stroke out”
Also –
“A wayward stroke will have you off in no time at all.” said the actress to the bishop.
@RobSandy
Lack of proof reading! Rob is correct, “I do know that riding rollers really sorts your stroke out”
As for that last sentence, it was deliberate, I do know how much @teocalli enjoys a bit of innuendo.
@RobSandy
Rollers are also good for working on your cadence, I used to be a bit of a masher but have gradually increased my average to the point that 100 rpm works well for a TT. It’ll be a bit lower on longer rides but is probably higher than average.
Something to look forward to your new life as a trackie…
@chris
Crap. I must be working too hard today as I missed that between conf calls……….
@chris
Half life.
I’m only planning to use the track through the winter for some extra kms. We’ll see if the door to racing opens. Cycling is an outdoor sport, innit?
@Oli
Point taken, but not planning to go down any hills this time around. Do expect some initial crashes though. Time to open the scars from previous falls. Zurich velodrome is concrete and outside so no splinters…
Note I was 4 years or so old then. With the benefit of hindsight, my parents never should have given me that bike since our house was built up against a hill and I would ride around the block continuously. Or should have given me proper instructions (“take yer feet of the pedals and let the pavement scrape the rubber off the soles”)
@RobSandy
Problem over here is that Zurich velodrome just closed for winter and reopens only in May so I still have some time to ponder about components and build up.
Just a thought on how a DiscWorld Cycle Computer might pan out…….
Bibbity bink – take the next left………
@Teocalli @RobSandy @ErikdR
OK, so after reading the various comments on fixed/track riding, I did become a little bit nervous about what I am about to embark upon! I think the continuous spinning should be good workout and fun to ride in a velodrome or on the Turbo. Am not planning to go out on the road.
So I found this website https://humancyclist.wordpress.com/2014/08/16/riding-fixed-gear-bike/
and while the upperlegs in those pictures that cannot be unseen, were not particularly appealing, it did get me thinking how on earth am I ever going to clip in with rotating pedals (am thinking about regular SPDs for pedals, not true track pedals with toeclips and straps)? Stepping down similar question but am more confident that will work. Guess that worries me now more than the colour of the bartape.
Oh, and before I forget, the picture I found there resembles the one from a prior post above, so I start to think that riding a bike which such gears actually works.
@KogaLover
Bit of practice and you’ll be able to clip in on the move. Like this guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvmibwafGXc
The legs belong to Greipel (left) and Robert Forstman (right). We know Greipel’s guns are huge so that puts Forstman’s into perspective.
@RobSandy
Struck me that there has to be a motor in that bike or his free hub needs a service.
How I clip in with fixed (in the track environment) is to set off slowly just using one leg and once moving (slowly is emphasised) and in balance clip in the other. Seem a load of folk come a cropper trying to set off and clip in at the same time. The safest way is to hang on to the rail and clip in though……..
@RobSandy
I thought you were somewhere near Cardiff (unless your not the block I thought you were on Strava?!). Maindy is an outdoor track is it not?
@Teocalli
Clip in on the down stroke immediately after lifting your foot from the floor. Road bike, Track bike, whatever, is not the way of the Velominatus?
@chris
It’s just somehow a tad more difficult without a freewheel – but otherwise yes it is just so……..
@RobSandy
Just watched that “paceline” training or whatever the fuck it was video, half of those in that line need a good gutter stomping. Most of all the fool motorpacing them, she has a line of fixed geared bikes in her wake and she takes BOTH hands off the controls to take a picture of the original idiot supermaning past the paceline. She could have caused a pileup of epic proportions by those with no brakes and fixed geared bikes trying to slow down with her as she took her hand off the throttle.
To be sure you wont find them pulling any of that stupid shit at a velodrome.
@chris
No, you’re following the right person on Strava!
When I say ‘track’ in terms of using my ‘track bike’ I mean Newport.
I ride at Maindy weekly but on the road bike. The banks aren’t steep enough to need a track bike although when racing there I often wish some of the other riders didn’t have brakes.
@RobSandy
Sheldon Brown says: “Track hubs have a stepped thread, with a standard 1.37″ x 24 tpi thread for the sprocket, and a smaller, left-hand thread for a locknut. The idea is that if the sprocket should start to unscrew, it will turn the lockring with it, tightening the left-hand thread, preventing the sprocket from unscrewing. ” So what happened to you, you forgot the lockring?
@KogaLover
Yep.
More than a little stoked to have acquired this 1986 Panasonic Merckx…Herman Van Der Slagmolen rode as lead out man for RDV. Not sure this was ever his bike but it’s a professional serial code…I’m going to need some advice on how to build it up. Feel free to contribute ideas.
@Harminator
Nice.
Campag Delta?
@Harminator
Sweet!
@Harminator
That’s a keeper — nice save. Campagnolo. It will be beautiful.
Just built up, ready for first ride
@Oski Bear
Stunning. Abso-fuckinglutely-stunning. I mean really, for steel, does it get any better?
@wiscot
Just WOW – mainly to post the Photo again…….
@Harminator
Very nice. Got to be l’Eroica compliant C-Record.
@Oski Bear
Simply beautiful.
@Harminator
Great find in an excellent colour scheme. I had a little to do with importing these frames in the early-mid 1990s. The decals on yours were coded EM80, and were replaced in 1986 by those seen on Panasonic team bikes (as above, 1986 Tour of Lombardy), not surprisingly coded EM86. The earlier ones remained an option for some years afterwards, but probably date your frame to the end of the exposed brake cables age. I haven’t seen photos of Panasonic on Merckx frames with the earlier decals, in 1985 they were still on Raleighs. I’d never heard of Herman Van Der Slagmolen either, but I suspect he was involved in a bike shop, and that your frame came through it. The decals, especially the one on the seat tube, look like shop decals of the era. Anyway, good to be reminded of simpler times…
Photo from Vol. 5, Winners and Champions, The Fabulous World of Cycling, Winning Publications.
Holy fack, that Bianchi is amazing.
Not quite in the same league…but I’m a handful of parts away from being ready to build up my new commuter. Very excited. It’ll give me a slightly different set-up than my other commuters, so I totally needed to build it.
Right. Third attempt. Whether what I can see will appear once posted remains to be seen..
@osbk67
Dang it.
I always liked this angular lettering better than the Merckx “bubble letter” decals.
An option to consider, next time you’re getting your titanium frame re-brushed and bead-blasted…
@blackpooltower
*tries to insert photo, again*
@blackpooltower
I’m not seeing @Haminator’s photos or yours. @*$&! internet tubes!
Damn it I need reports!
-from Das Boot
@Gianni
Yeah, it’s weird – I used to be able to see the frame @Harminator is talking about but now I can’t. Also, @osbk67 is having problems. I suspect some coding glitch.
@Gianni
Best. Film. Ever.
@DVMR
I watched it with subtitles when I was learning German. There were a few points where the subtitle came up and Mrs T and I were “That’s not what he said at all”. I love subtitles when the guy/gal speaks for two minutes and the subtitle comes up “No”……..