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 ...
@PeakInTwoYears
Yes: that the 6600 series is reputedly superior to the subsequent 6700.
@frank
Sigh: do I switch out the headset for an FSA equivalent?
@Dr C
I just got in here. Been busy as a catfish in a slough.
I build with 28 spokes on my rims, front and rear all the time – always 28 up front for CX, 20 for road. The lower spoke counts on any wheels aggravate me as a wheel builder and as a fat bastard. Yes carbon and deeper rims get stiffer, so you may need less. So companies shed the spokes to come up with “lightweight” wheels that only lightweights can really or should really ride. Don’t get me wrong, I will build with less spokes, if I know the guy and he has trouble walking in the wind.
Frank’s original Haleakala wheel set was built with 24 spokes in the rear, but that was with a specific purpose in mind. In the end, I liked them so much, I now add the additional 4 spokes so they can withstand more weight and being ridden more often. PS-I got some in stock…clinchers too.
@starclimber
Thanks for the post and shout out! I build to order most, if not all of my wheels and you were pretty patient. Much appreciated and you are most welcome!
And yes, alloy too.
Thinking about adding a new bike to the stable. Looking for input on this one:
@Dan_R
in the end I decided that 24 was probably okay with the 38mm rims – if they prove too wobbly, I’ll flog the rear one and order it with 32 next time – they aren’r very expensive, and won’t be shooting down any hills too hard, as they’ll be my mud tyres, and the tubs will be soft – interesting to see how they turn out
@G’rilla
HED Belgium and CK hubs would be my preferred option, but also would blow the budget a bit, but do post them when you make them and let me bemoan not going with that selection
Apropos to nothing, I’m doing this Dromara Hilly 125 k Sportive tomorrow – this is a clip from a short steep section early on – feel free to laugh your arms off at it, it is quite ridiculous, and I would like to distance myself from the fellow countrymen, and can only assume they are in fact Bulgarian – especially the guys dismounting pathetically at 6.20mins – appalling
Oops, here is the video kink!!
http://youtu.be/4VSayKZOAu4
@Dr C should the wheel feel too floppy, you could also swap the spokes for thicker spokes to increase the wheel stiffness.
Ps. Yes, new here. I still feel too fat and still havent spent enough money on my bike to consider myself a real cyclist though.
@Dr C
So which one was you?
Wind the tension screw on your pedals up to maximum so you know you’ve no choice but to ride all the way to the top.
Then dismount and walk back down to that point and proceed to punch anyone in the face who:
@Chris
it is truly appalling isn’t it!
I have not done it for 3 years, and don’t even remember this stretch of road, but this bunch of wingnuts look like they have only taken their stabilizers off for the first time on the previous bend – or at least have never ridden anything over a 2% incline – extraordinary
@Dr C
Christ on a recumbent. I feel older and weaker for having watched 20 seconds of that.
I’d rather watch vid of @scaler911’s new yellow upside-down Skuut.
@PeakInTwoYears
check it out again to see the crappest crash of all time at 6m20s
Set aside the Rule violations here: Canadian Velominati might appreciate the bike submitted below. Going secondhand from Café Domestique for an absolute song (custom-made steel from True North, Veloce gruppo). In my wife’s size. “Borrowed” for the day to see if she’ll bite. Any advice on how to push for purchase without overselling it (ignoring the fact that we could post it tomorrow for twice the asking price)?
@Dr C
Thank you, that was edifying.
@scaler911
The only thing that is going to revolutionize is how people get hit by cars.
@Dr C
As someone who is half English half Bulgarian and half American I can assure you that had any of these chaps any fine Bulgarian blood in them whatsoever they would have neatly cycled up that little hill whistling Gradil Lllia Kilia.
@paolo
I knew someone with Bulgarian ancestry would run to the rescue! No offence intended, random bit of racism based on no substance!!
@Dr C
none taken old chap
@Dr C
I did laugh my arms off (great expression), though it cuts a little close to the bone, as I’m no climbist. I do wonder what those who don’t clip out as the come to a dead stop were hoping would happen.
Looking forward to seeing a Strava report.
@Dr C
There would seem to be a correlation between bright yellow rain jackets and the falling ass over tea kettle on that hill! I quite enjoyed that bit of shadenfreude. Thanks!
@Steampunk
That is a damn fine looking steed. Not knowing your wife I’d suggest the usual A) more “us” time, B) if you don’t like it Meredith can use it when she gets bigger, C) if you say yes we can have another kid, D) you can put your toned guns and ass to good use, and if those fail – E) like fuck you won’t.
My freehub has exploded – is this because of my mighty guns or is there something about DT Swiss 240 hubs that I should know?
@Dr C
And by a bizarre coincidence this is exactly what I was doing when my freehub exploded – my nads made firm contact with the top tube.
…and on a side note – after having waited some considerable time for the broom wagon I can now reveal the the Rules are a big deal with Halfords mechanics…
@Steampunk
Having met your wife, I have to ask: are those 100c wheels?
@Steampunk
I came up with a list similar to Marko’s, though if you haven’t got that “another baby” possibility definitively off the list, I would urge you to do so post-haste.
Another inducement: joining my wife, also on 100cc wheels, in dropping our sorry asses on a group ride.
@Dr C
sweet jeebus, is the official event jersey a YJA?
@frank
600c, but not ridiculously large with her on the bike than the 700c on her current bike (which looks like the wheels should be overlapping at some point in their rotations).
@Marko
Re. C): Remind me to tell you the story of the vasectomy I canceled thirteen months before Meredith was born and Mrs. Steampunk’s online search for the home vasectomy kit.
@Steampunk
Got a link for that kit? I’ll be needing one of those come December.
@Marko
Recommend against the rusty shears option…
@Steampunk
@Marko
Pro tip from recent experience: off-season and ice.
@xyxax
Ice, shit. Oxycodone and red wine. Vasectomy is the perfect excuse to get really seriously fucked up. Do not waste it.
I procrastinated on the vasectomy for just a moment and BOOM MOTHERFUCKER guess what? It took another five years off my life, but now I have a son who fucking rocks (like my two daughters). Worth it? In this case, yes. Your mileage may vary.
@frank
in my opinion, if you ride a caad you don’t have to meet each rule because you are hard as hell
already, nice bike. it would look better with the stem slammed.
@Steampunk
i enjoy this bike. looks like it would be fast and smooth through gravel tracks.
@xyxax
@PeakInTwoYears
Now you’ve flooded me with ideas. Off season: yes, RED wine: duh, and I’ve got a first aid kit full of percosets we didn’t use on the trip this summer. SNIP SNIP here I come. I can’t wait to start shooting blanks now.
@thebaron
Am I the only one counting four bricks to the top of the wheel?
(Sorry, Steamy, I just can’t resist my pygmy jokes. The VMH has a stool she uses to reach the top shelf of the cupboards – where I keep the booze – and I call it her “Pygmy Prop”. Its not sizist if you do it to your own partner, too.)
@Marko
Some more ‘pro-tips’: make sure the surgeon doing it is a)a dude b) has had one (they’re more sympathetic IMHO). Get the Valium for the morning of. And for fuck’s sake, even if you feel like $1B (and you will, that’s what the Valium is for) don’t think about doing anything except lying on the couch, playing X-Box and chasing your first aid kit supplies with wine (or IPA). From personal experience, you don’t want grapefruits down there because you’re feeling macho the next day.
One vitally important thing, which I thought should have gone unsaid: any new medical procedure qualifies you for a new Rx of goodness. If you have your nads worked on and afterward dip into the *last* procedure’s oxycodone/percoset/any other good analgesic, you are being a stooge.
Don’t leave money on the table.
@Steampunk
Well here’s a thing – went to the LBS with the bike and its not the freehub its the chain skipping over the chainring under load. So forget all I ever said about DT Swiss freehubs and confirm that I am indeed a mechanical muppet. New chainset and all will be well.
My point is though that you can save time and effort on a vasectomy by arranging for your chain to slip whilst ascending a 20% grade.
@the Engine
That is the strongest endorsement of @prowrench’s article to date.
I had the snip a few years back…still makes me cringe. The procedure and initial recovery was as expected although I don’t think I could do anything athletics for about 6 weeks. the part that makes me cringe is the 2 years of intermittent pain that I experienced. Not sharp pain but more of a vague and uncertain – did someone kick me in the nuts yesterday when I wasn’t looking? – sort of pain.
Fair warning!
@the Engine
It may be that your stretched chain fucked your cassette too. You’ll know when you get the new chain on.
@kixsand
I had it done on a Thurs and was back in my shop tossing plywood on the tablesaw on Mon. HTFU.
@Barracuda
Sweet looking machine! What’s the diameter of that seatpost? That is one beefy looking bugger!
@Marko
Chain was in gauge – it seems that it’s the inner chainring that has decided to expire
@scaler911 That the Daily Mail is quoted in this piece says it all really: shite “bike” and shite paper. A marriage made in heaven. Notice how they don’t show the test monkey going round any serious corners. That thing is as unstable as Sarah Palin after a few glasses of wine.
@Dr C I think that video fills the Velominati quota of YJAs for the rest of the year – and possibly next year too, I used to live in the UK and am well familiar with those nasty little gradients. They can be nasty but that’s why you have gears and learn how to ride your bike properly.
@wiscot
Ain’t the Velominati cufflinks sweet? I have some on #1 and they are the wee dugs baws in tricking out the bike.
@the Engine
You wore out your little chainring but nothing else?
Try riding in the big ring occasionally, mate.