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 ...
@Jeff in PetroMetro
Sadly, no truer words…
@Dr C
Like this?
From a store down Red Ranger’s way. But only in a compact?
Sorry, wrong frigging link.
@Dr C
Mate – never feel guilty or embarrassed about riding a bike that surpasses your ability. If we all did that, there would be a lot more Huffys and Schwinns on the road.
Get the bestest and “most pro” bike you can afford. If you ever feel like a tosser because you think you are “Too Slow to Ride a Good Bike”, just console yourself with the fact that you have had to work hard, eat badly and train poorly to have enough money to buy such a fine bike. In other words, your shit riding is the price you have paid for your good bike! You deserve to ride it.
@xyxax
Wow, really? I had no idea. I thought I could come down with the wife and kiddos and they could have a blast on the beach or something while I rode all day. Thanks for the heads-up. Guess I’ll be shopping for a different city!
@Buck Rogers
Galveston is like the girlfriends of my youth: flat, humid, and even more unattractive on the weekends.
To be honest, I spent 4 years there getting me some education in the late ’80s but JiPM makes it sound like not much has changed.
South Padre for the beach vacation. Hill Country for the cycling vacation, when it’s not burning with the flames of almighty damnation.
There’s no place like home…
@Buck Rogers
Galveston definitely isn’t a beach to get excited about. Between the silt from the Mississippi and the tar from oil wells it can be brown and ugly. There is a great bike event coming up however. Bike Around The Bay. A two day lap of Galveston Bay.
No hills obviously, but the second day you go over the Galveston Causeway and Fred Hartman bridge. This is the only time bikes are allowed on the Causeway.
@Dr C
Di2 stands for digitally integrated intelligence. Ui2 is a mistake on Speccy’s website.
@itburns
You in my neck of the woods? ‘Bout time I had another Velominatus with whom I can share the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune whilst stuck in the PetroMetro.
@xyxax
You should come back and enjoy our season of hellfire and brimstone. Smells like a campfire, and the sunsets are spectacular.
@Jeff in PetroMetro
One of us is not praying hard enough for rain.
And since we’ve had about 20 inches here in DebtRowMetro over the last 5 weeks, I’m all prayed out.
@Xyxax
Brother, I wish you could send a little rain this way.
@minion
I believe it stands for Ultra Intelligent Intergration-digitalisium – in otherwise fucking cool and I want it, now
@Marcus
under normal circumstances Marcus, I would assume you are trying to lead me astray, but like all normal blokes, I will take any advice, particularly if it is the advice I am wanting to hear, as definitive – you may have just forced me into a purchase……if I could only get one here
That said, I still think riding an S-Works is just asking for others to overtake you on a hill, slow enough to allow you to take their wheel, then dish the pain and piss off up the hill leaving you questioning your manhood – pretty standard days riding then for me!
@Xyxax
that’s the one, you tease!
@Buck Rogers
Prophet brother! How did I miss that?
@Xyxax
thanks for the link, saved me googling for a pic – so I just noodled down to the LBS, who was shocked to find his chosen franchaise range were not keeping his impulsive customer Doc happy – “shit, that’s £4K of lost business, he shared with me” – fair point
So he got on the blower to the Muppets that Be, and enquired why they had been so dumass as to not order any for the UK batch (limited order apparently, once you request your quota, zip after that until 2013 production starts) – anyway, he’s off to the Trade Show in Ingerland next week, and they have promised they will get one over from the US of A for him (so that’s me fucked, no turning back)
Just got Garmin 500 too (Bryton fell apart, piece of crap), as one of my Iron Man mates who is doing this suicidal Trans Pyrenee thingy next June says I need a HRM to do the trip – I though one used the guns and some freshly shaved legs to push the bike (I wonder if I will be able to wire the battery into the pedals for a bit of extra mullah?) – need to do some quick money laundering…..
@Jeff in PetroMetro
Yeah, I’m off Memorial inside the loop. I think I saw you ride by on a rare day when I was running in Memorial Park instead of riding. At least, it was someone with HTFU on the back of their jersey.
@Dr C
I have the 2011 Roubaix with Ultegra gruppo (the SL3 Expert Compact). Great bike.
@Dr C
Ah, my secret hopes that you slip your dealer a happy pill and finagle a two-for-one deal so that I can replace (no, supplement) my skill-appropriate Huffy are DASHED.
@Dr C
The Garmin won’t get you up the hill but when you’ve fried the guns and your mind in the hills and you’re left muttering and dribbling in the corner, your grandchildren will believe it when they’re told that granddad wasn’t always like that…
(after your nonsense last night @frank i should probably have refrained from that)
@Chris
yes, shouldn’t really show a picture of a priest wearing a shower cap – gives over all the wrong impresssions of what we are like here on the Emerald Isle
@xyxax
early doors yet, might be pricing the postage from Red Rangerland yet….
@Jeff in PetroMetro
JiPM, going all Bard on us!
@itburns
Definitely a FNG here on the site, actually admits openly running. We’ll do our best to cure you of that! :)
By the way, welcome to the V!!!
@itburns
Not me. Don’t have an HTFU jerey. But I ride the fruit loop at least twice a week. I’m in the Heights, so it’s easy to get over there. During the week, it’s either the fruit loop or up and down Heights Blvd. I’ve got training routes on the weekend mornings that pass through town (sort of a backwards version of the Planetary Cycles Wednesday night ride). I’ll get my Witte kit shortly. Until then, you’ll have to spot me by my most awesome LOOK 595 and my yellow princesses. Good to know you’re out there. I should be at the fruit loop tomorrow (Friday) around 7:30am. Oh, and welcome to our adolescent global cycling club.
@Jeff in PetroMetro
Just ordered the Witte Kit V-bibs about ten minutes ago and will be, hopefully, getting the jersey for Christmas. AWESOME stuff!!!
@Dr C
yeah sorry about that but I couldn’t find a doctor in a shower cap.
Didn’t you say you’d recently picked up a cross bike? Pictures?
@Buck Rogers
Good on ya. I got the jersey and bibs, cards, and bumper stickers coming. The decals came early and are on the LOOK. They are, in a word, resplendent.
@Jeff in PetroMetro
NICE!!! I have the black ss jersey and ls jersey and white paneled shorts, but with the heat, I do really need to get the white jersey as well.
The bibs have been nothing less than brilliant! You’ll LOVE them!
@Jeff in PetroMetro
That’s my routine more or less – fruit loop or a Heights/TC Jester/Garden Oaks route during the week and a 50 mile Heights/TC Jester/Viaduct/Braeswood/Bellaire/Memorial loop if I don’t get out to Conroe/Montgomery.
Definitely new – still some violations:
1 bike – just sad
unshorn guns – luckily I don’t have chia pet legs
EPMS – tried everything in jersey but 116F/47C heat index while doing the Montgomery/Anderson ride just didn’t cut it.
valve nut/cap – I’ve had the dreaded “tapping” stem on the rim before (I’m a slave to Rule #65) and broken a stem cap.
The journey begins…
@Buck Rogers
I’m as giddy as a school girl! Can’t wait!
@itburns
Haven’t you heard? Montgomery County is on fire. You’ll smell like a BBQ cook-off if you ride there this weekend. As for the violations, I can provide counsel. Think of me as your sensei.
@Chris
Spesh CruX Elite – should be with me in a few weeks – just discovered my RS400 racing Autumn series is on sunday avos up to Christmas, as are the CX races – arse!
Now the final test of my allegiance!
@Dr C
Tricky one, cold wet and muddy or just cold and wet?
If you need crew for the RS400, my rates are quite reasonable! Seriously though, never been in one but they look fun. Proper yots are more my style, although trapezing across Sydney Harbour on a 505 was always quite a giggle.
18 ft Skiff sailing
Sydney Harbour can be a crazy place – always worth a quick blast of the great Nokia Top Gun Jet Fighter scene (well, sailors find cycling vids boring too!)
RS400 crewing = serious pain and suffering
The new bike is coming home with me right now!
@RedRanger
Whoooooooop!
@RedRanger
VERY NICE!!!
Its not fully Rule compliant but I just purchased it a couple of hours ago. The only think I have done to it is change out the tubes and tired from my old bike as wheel as the bottle cages. The bike came with tubes that had threaded valve stems and tires that had white on them. The owner of the shop traded out the Shimano wheels for the Mavic wheels from the Ultegra model.
Cant wait to ride this thing Saturday morning.
Ill take a better picture when Im out on a ride.
@RedRanger
Excellent! Well done!
@Jeff in PetroMetro
Gonna celebrate with some Rule #33 clean up.
@RedRanger
Round these parts, we call that “yard work.”
Nice job on the bike. That looks like the 54?
@Jeff in PetroMetro
Yeah. I have been staring at the Look 586 RSP frame. A shop sponsoring the cycling club here at Michigan is a Look dealer. I should be able to get some sort of discount. Scraping up $3k is going to be tricky nonetheless.
@Steampunk
Actually it is a 56. I sat on the 54 and it felt tinny under me. I am thinking about putting my Fizik saddle on her.
Nice one, RR! Hot looking bike.
@RedRanger
Looks sweet. Nice and understated. Like lots. Grats.
@Dr C
Nice video,they aren’t really in control alot of the time though! Brings back memories of Sydney Harbour. I spent most of my time there racing out of a yacht club to the north on a very shallow draft 30 footer with a dagger board and a fractional rig off a 40 footer that could also take a masthead kite. Bit like a big skiff really. Ridiculously fast boat but with a pitiful handicap. Highlights included crossing the finish line of a race at full tilt with no rudder. Find it harder to get excited about sailing over here when you’ve got to get layered up in so much gear and it’s not family friendly when it’s cold.
@RedRanger
Nice Six, look forward to seeing it when it complies!
@RedRanger
niiiiice one
@Chris
I think that’s why they do it – where is the fun in going down a steep hill in a 4×4 – was trying to find the clip of the skiff that got run over by the Harbour Ferry, if I get it I’ll post it – agreed the cold is a bit off putting here, but then sailing an RS400 in 25knots is pretty Rule #9, so Rule #5 is compulsory old fruit – even my crew shouts Rule #5 at himself when it hurts too much, and he’s not a cyclist!
@Dr C
I’ve no problem with sailing in the cold, myself, but time is also an issue, the best I could really manage would be Grafham Water, the sea is too far away. One of my boys has decided he wants a boat. I’ve told him we’ll build one. Know of any good kid friendly kits?
@Chris
RS Tera off Apollo Duck – http://sailingdinghies.apolloduck.co.uk/listings.phtml?cid=113&sti=1
Don’t build a boat – my dad did this in our garage and nearly put me off sailing for good – best is to join Kids Club at Grafham – you’ll get your money back out of a Tera if he doesn’t like it, theye bomb proof
No more yotting chat or we’ll get suspended from the forum…