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 ...
@DeKerr
cant wait to see pictures!
@DeKerr
Well, that’s pretty fucking cool.
@DeKerr
Yes, pics please!
@oligali
I keep looking at this frame – $1000 seems like pretty good value, no?
I just did a charity gran Fondo with an entry price steep enough that there were some good door prizes. I took home a Shimano Ultegra 6800 mechanical group set. I’ve been thinking about using it to build up a steel steed but don’t have a lot of money to spend.
What at does the collective know of this Richey?
Any othe steel frames in this price point worth considering?
Singletrack Saturday:
I found this in my garage today. Apparently I used to ride it all the time, until my brain got damaged and I bought a road bike. The tires seem a hell of a lot wider than I remember.
It occurred to me that it’s the only bike I haven’t posted a pic of.
2003 Santa Cruz Blur XTR
@piwakawaka
Looks like you Zipped up the hills. Ha.
@Rom
Put a good 4 hours and 127km on it today, defiantly different feel to Aluminium, guess I need the Zipp bar now as well! They do make nice stuff…
@ChrissyOne
Looks dang near like new! That’s more than a little effort maintaining a mtn bike in that condition. I can respect that. And that’s some real deal hardware from back in ’03. Ya musta been taking the mtb’ing pretty serious. You’ve seen Danny MacAskill’s new Ridge video ? He’s on a Santa Cruz making like a mtn goat with much of the video shot from an overhead drone. A person can get vertigo just watching it. Extraordinary. Santa Cruz’s new bikes, w/C frame and XTR set up could easily be 8+ lbs less even with 29″ wheels. They make some cool bikes. We’re approaching that time of year here in AL we’ll be spending a lot more time in the woods. Including today! My current n+1 project is my daughter’s Christmas bike: a 27.5″ hardtail for next year’s XC season. And I’m putting a rigid fork on my old hard tail to run some CX races next couple mo’s. I love mtn bikes. Cheers.
This has been a very good bike to me. The fork and shock are air sprung so there aren’t many parts to replace and they’re fairly easy to maintain. Hydro discs are the way to go-these are the best brakes I’ve ever had on a bicycle. It is due for a major overhaul, but it rides as well as it did eleven years ago. I still take mt biking very seriously, I just haven’t done much of it for the last two years. ;)
And I TRIED to watch Danny’s video the other day, but it wouldn’t play “in your region”(US). Is there a link that works outside the UK? The comments on his Facebook were going all apeshit about how amazing it was. It’s killing me!!!
AH!! Found one that works. Good lord. That was amazing!!!
@ChrissyOne How big is that garage? “I found this in my garage today. Apparently I used to ride it all the time,……”. Picturing a treasure hunt in some dark recess, look what I’ve found…..
The SR71 on its inaugural trip this morning. Oh hell ya.
@oligali
First, thanks for posting. Nice bike for sure. But seriously, if you need to ride with the saddle and bars in those positions, I think your winter project (hopefully you have some kind of trainer) is to work on your position. Something’s not right if that’s where your saddle is comfortable. I’m thinking too high for starters.You bars might go lower too and try some with less reach – maybe something more compact (and yes, I’m well aware that’s a dirty word around here.)
Good luck and keep experimenting. I recently just remeasured 5 bikes and even though I thought they were all the same (within millimeters), they we’re just a bit off. And I used a trick/tip I read on this site that helped a lot.
@DeKerr V f*ckin’ nice, after you’ve had her a while let us know your thoughts.
@DeKerr
That sure is a steed to be proud of, love the skinwalls. Chapeau on the purchase!
@DeKerr oh, yes. That will do nicely!
@Beers
Pure Sex!
@DeKerr Worth every penny. Nice one. I’ll bet that brings a smile to your face.
@DeKerr
I love the R5, badass!
@DeKerr
Oh, my, yes. You should call it The Blackbird.
@DeKerr
Smashing!! Agree on the sidewalls, looks dapper.
@DeKerr
Very, very nice. Agree on the tan sidewalls — they’re the way to go, and the element that adds “classic” back in to mix with the “modern badass” majority.
Got this frame used about a year ago, finally getting around to put it together.
Cervelo R3 58cm, DuraAce 7800, FSA bars, stem, seatpin and cranks, Turbomatic saddle, Time pedals, H Plus Son TB14s w/ Vittoria Open Pave. Generic Chinese carbon fork for increased clearance.
Just waiting for cables to be run.
@RManneck
Looks great – the blue saddle is a bit iffy, but the rest is dandy. What # in your stable is this one?
@wiscot not certain the saddle is actually blue in as much as the light coming through the window behind it is making it look that way…
The saddle is black.
cell phone picture combined with bad lighting
@RManneck assumed as much. Nice rig, cool to see a few fellow Cervelo owners amongst the v-crowd.
@Mikael Liddy
All the cool kids seem to be running Cervelo’s.
Assume its because they are light, fast and look good.
Makes my SST look like a mutant. Very nice rigs.
@RManneck I was going to say that I’d never seen a blue turbomatic, but then again … I’ve never seen a turbomatic with a cut-out before, either.
Is there a likelihood that 3TTT, Cinelli, ITM, or the like, ever cast an 19 degree traditional stem ??
@RManneck
Nice. I was hoping your aesthetics weren’t that clueless. Subsequent evidence proves you own one damn fine looking rig there sir.
My bikes are pretty nice, too bad my photography skills are awful. One day I’ll capture a decent photo of my bikes.
Wow, the red Merckx…YIKES! Winter can’t come fast enough for that frameset. I’ve got a red Tommasini, everyone deserves a red bike.
@unversio
Doubtful. 17° was pretty standard for road stems, to be more or less level with a 72-74 head tube angle. Quill track stems would generally be 25°, with some even steeper.
@pistard
That’s what I assumed too. This polished baby checks out at 19 though. Not sure where I even found this ??
Click on it to animate.
@unversio
Hey, I’ve still got a silver Cinelli stem (120mm I think) standard bend, sitting in my cupboard doing nothing. Let me know . . .
@wiscot Afraid that I’m spoiled with the 3TTT stem that you sent — 140mm. Thanx anyway.
@DeKerr
Now I get the SR71 reference from the Strava update on your ride on the weekend! Couldn’t quite figure it out at first…though it was some obscure US highway for a bit.
Looks fast and nasty. Happy Thanksgiving gift! Must be so nice to have such a generous VMH.
Nice commuter….Graeme O’bree.
http://cyclephotos.co.uk/2014/09/30/bike-profile-graeme-obree/
@Logan
Everyone should inspect this bike in detail; what a cool contraption! I love the dt shifter for the fd and the mind-fuck 90-degree STI lever for the rear.
@frank
And – trust me on this – none of us could keep up with him
@DeKerr
Too bad it’s so ugly in person.
/twitch/
@the Engine
I’d like to see him on it, to get a sense of the position and how he uses it.
I mean presumably he’s riding on those hoods where the brakes are located – fairly necessary in a commuter bike. But then there are the bar ends – it’s not exactly a simple switch between them.
@ChrissyOne
Very nice. The Blur was my dream MTB in the noughties. The nearest I got to that was the exact same Easton seatpost, stem and handlebar combo. EA70’s?
@the Engine
Trust you, trust me. I used to race again Graeme all the time in the 80s. Fast as hell as as nice as nice could be. I know he’s had his demons over the years, but some company needs to employ him as soime kind of chief of development & innovation. Merckx knows he thinks outside the box and comes up with unconventional shit, but when it works, it works!
@wiscot yeah, no kidding. look at the rear brake: it’s reverse-mounted inside the rear triangle.
@actor1
Harry Havnoonian, an independent builder out of the Philadelphia area, used to do that back in the late-eighties.
The thought was that the flex in the brake bolt and arms would cause the arms to flex “upwards” (away from the hub). If you’re using a rim with a triangular shape, that causes the arms to move towards a wider portion of the rim, theoretically braking harder.
@frank
Note also, although this might look like a 50×34 set of chainrings in front, that’s actually a 39×55.
a 55.
I had asked earlier about other options in steel around the $1000 price mark. I’ve since been looking at one of these…
I think these are hand made in Canada rather than mass produced in China. I believe the Ritchey Logic that I commented on earlier is made in China. And, you can get these in all sorts of colour combinations as well as made to measure. The made to measure frame comes in at around $1500 with the headset and carbon fork and colours of your choosing. Any comments?
Sorry, should have noted that the bike above is a Marinoni Piuma. Looks a little spiffier than the Ritchey. The tubing is Columbus SL from Italy – I believe the Ritchey has their own blend of steel for their tubing. Very few reports out there about how it rides though. They also make a lighter, stiffer version that costs about $200 more.