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 ...
@sthilzy hang on! Where do the bisons go?!
@sthilzy
are you sure it’s only been one bottle of merlot?
@Mikael Liddy
Bidons! Friggin ipad spell checker!
@sthilzy
The best part of the listing is “Yah I pretty much just golf now. My original passion.” Hope he’s drilling holes in his drivers to lighten them.
Stopped for a “nature” stop.
Mourenx69
@unversio While you had the nature stop , was your bike re sprayed by alien forces and are you now forced to ride in the twilight zone , should I have not played that video , Will the forces get me now ?
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My new cross bike…
Ridley X-Fire with SRAM Rival
Absolutely loving having this bike as a second option for riding – so much fun!
@kixsand
Beautful bike.
Does this count on any scale of casually deliberate? From the parade day at L’eroica Britannia.
@Teocalli So rad! Would love to attend the Italian event..
Maybe someone could help this chap. Ghanaian entering the Comm games in track, and needs some wheels.. @iamjeddie . Dan R?? If I had twit I would tweet all the brands I could think of, alas..
@Triathlete
Things must be getting slack around here. How is it that no one pulled you up on the Rule #54 violation?
Yeah…N+1 happened again! All hail Rule #12!
@Puffy Think his profile name may explain Rule #54
@Haldy fucking hell, got stem? Can’t say I’m sold on the blue tape, there’s a whole lot going on already before adding another colour in.
@Mikael Liddy
Yes! Got Stem! I have a very low and long position on the bike. As for the blue tape…that’s from the previous steed. My custom Don Walker is getting an upgrade to Red22 and a new Fizik cockpit, so I just swapped the bars right and other parts across to this baby. I will probably change the tape soon.
@Haldy red tape, will go with the frame, I do like those Scott’s, be interested in your thoughts after a thorough thrashing.
@Mikael Liddy, @piwakawaka
There..red tape applied…better?
@Haldy much.
@Haldy luvverly
@Haldy Nice set up! Rule #26, remove bidon, chain on big dog, valves at 6 o’clock, DS crank at ~2 o’clock = Masterpiece! Seriously nice!
This looks potentially interesting particularly for Tubs though a bit concerned about the size of the initial guide in making any hole pretty large.
@Teocalli Further research required I think… Does take a lot of the admin involved in puncture repair away though.
@Teocalli This new Tire Kazoo takes about the same amount of space as my current package (realize that this opens me up to many abusing comments) — tube, one lever, co2, valve.
@VeloJello Agreed though it is an intriguing prospect.
@Universo Agreed re space but the time saving is potentially significant and the ability to repair a Tub would be huge. Though with your comment perhaps it’s just as well it’s manual and not electric.
The key of course is whether it works and whether you trust this entirely as there will still be some punctures that it cannot fix so you can’t rely on it alone. For me the significance would be for Tubs.
@Puffy
Tricky one for me Rule #54 all my races are time trials and part of my training involves perfecting the tt position , I have found out to my cost in the past ,over 112 miles it pays to practice before you race!!
@Triathlete
Seems to me then, that if all of your races are TTs, then you need to get yourself a TT bike, no?
@Teocalli
why is his polo buttoned all the way to the top?
@RedRanger That’s called “style”
@Mike_P
like when people tuck in their tshirts into their jeans?
Why is he riding on the sidewalk?
@RedRanger
Maybe he should ride on the road instead of the sidewalk? All kinds of crap on the sidewalk to cause punctures. But maybe, that’s where hipsters like to ride – with the mountain bikes and strollers – and others with hairy legs FFS. And what’s with all the carbon footprint crap? I carry spares. I replace on the road and fix punctured tube when I get home with patch kit. And what happens if said gizmo doesn’t work?
What if you can’t see the cause of the flat from the outside of the tire, and you’re too big to crawl through the stem and conduct an inspection from inside the tube? Do you then have to suffer the trauma of actually removing the tire and tube? Or does the turd-sized thingy shoot a pod of leak-seeking nanobots into the tire?
@PeakInTwoYears
Big campaign happening to establish the name of Tire Kazoo.
@PeakInTwoYears
Why is he roping CHROME (messenger bag) into this spot?
@RedRanger
First glance, I thought it was Wiggins (the beard and then that shirt are his style) and his was riffing on the LeMond/Armstrong tire changing clips.
@RedRanger
Absolutely, when did people become so uncouth as to let standards slip so low?
These hipsters can use all kinds of gizmos, are probably able to create a webpage during a coffee break, are fully engaged with every social media platform out there, but opening a QR lever, removing a tire and tube from a rim with very elementary tools, inserting a new tube (and fuck knows there’s plenty of room for a few in his hipster shoulder bag) and pumping it up is obviously beyond his comprehension or skill set. Why does everything have to get so bloody complicated? Maybe when he gets his google glasses he can watch an online tutorial on how to change a fucking inner tube. Until then, it’s the turd-sized thingy to the rescue!
@wiscot
Hear! Hear!
@Teocalli Is that real? I thought it was an excercise in piss-taking. But maybe I am hallucinating.
@Nate
You ask me? I found it on the internet, so it has to be true.
A handful of pics from the British National TT Championships held just down the road from me near Newport yesterday. Nice weather for the ladies, Rule #9 for the men. It was a hilly, twisty, technical course, and 53-56 for 40.8km in shit weather just does not compute. Chapeau Wiggo.
Not sure where to put this sort of stuff as there seems to be no ‘off topic’ / ‘random stuff apropos nothing’ thread, any guidance welcome…
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@Geraint Great stuff and congratulations on the 2nd place.
Not sure that it really matters where you put this sort of stuff as long as you put it somewhere.
@KW
TT bike was seriously considered , my main race focus is IM and over that distance the TT position cannot be held for the entire 112 miles- by me anyway – some of the ride has to be in a road position , bearing in mind also it’s always good to be able to move after the bike to crack on with the run!! I have aero wheels and helmet for race day.
@Geraint Cool ! And the photo of Sir Brad is best w/the Jag and the headlights. Nice snapshot. See he raced on round DA rings and not the funky ones he’s had in past. Damn I’d love to see him race TDF next year.
@Chris
Thanks Chris, wish I was that quick, I’d have been at least ten minutes down – by the end of the first lap! We share first names and nationalities, but not surnames or (luckily for him) levels of V.
Off to Abergavenny to watch the RR tomorrow, wouldn’t bet against him to go one better. Be great to see him in the jersey at the TdF next weekend.
@wilburrox Thanks fella.
Here are a few pics from the British National Road Race Championships held in Abergavenny today.
Interesting racing. The ladies always is, of course, but the men’s race started fast and they just kept attacking each other until it’s just a couple of guys slugging it out to the line. Sky vs everyone became Sky v OGE became Sky v Sky, with no designated team leader, no sprint train, just V.
Chapeau and congratulations to Laura Trott & Pete Kennaugh, just a shame we won’t see the jersey at the tour this year.
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@Geraint Thanx for this — very cool — good to dissect.
@Geraint Dang I really dig the Sky team look. Just look flat out bad. And not bad meaning bad. Black works well. Great snapshots again.