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 ...
@Puffy
Period Campagnolo bits, of course!
Quite a nice little clip…….
@Teocalli
Really enjoyed that. Thanks for posting it. (and DAMN, I want a Belgian hairnet!!!)
@Buck Rogers
I could do with a bigger one as this is pretty small……
@Teocalli
FUCK!!!! Is that yours??? That is EXACTLY what I want. Where did you buy it? Seems like only ebay has them and they cost $100 bucks or something ridiculous.
@Buck Rogers yup off ebay and it did cost a ridiculous amount!
@Teocalli
Okay, in case I decide to just bite the bullet and treat myself to one for my birthday, what size did you get? I have a large head and always have to wear large to XL helmets and do not want to pay a ton for one that is too small. Thanks!
not a very good photo, but this represents the death of the love of my life. This bike got me back on the road after 18 years. We’ve bled, cried and laughed together. We have met lovely fellow cyclists, we have descended at stupid speeds on A roads in Kent, and then crawled back up them watching snails pass us. We have also met shits on bikes who have looked and laughed at an old man on a steel frame, and then sniggered later on as we passed them sat on the side of the road with a piece of snapped carbon.
But then the end came. Stupid tart in a snotty old car, worth less than an open pro rim, drove straight out of a side road, didn’t look. Garmin tells me I was only doing 28 or so and tried to brake. Cunt hit the frame, not my leg (for which I should be grateful as it would be in bits). Onto the bonnet, smashed the windscreen and onto the road. Bike flew 10 metres down the road, broken, dead, took one for me.
She got out, told me she hadn’t seen me, as I lay on the road. Lovely passers by came to my aid, but mentioned “police” and “insurance”. She got in car and drove off.
So I have a pretty collection of purple/blue/green/red bruises.
Yet, as they said in $6 M man, we can rebuild him. And so we will. With the help of a LBS, new frame & forks from Condor, rebuilt wheels from the same man who built the originals, we’ll be back.
@markb Christ, it hurts just to look at that. Sorry about your loss, but glad to hear you walked (limped?) away from it more or less OK.
I crashed my first ‘real’ road bike – a 13 kg bright orange steel Peugeot UO8 – into a piece of agricultural machinery in the eighties, after more than 30,000 km of faithful service. The impact bent the front fork so far back that I couldn’t turn the front wheel anymore, and the frame ended up with a ‘bulge’ on the underside of the down tube, just aft of the headset. End of the line – and dammit if I don’t find myself still missing that bike, occasionally.
But I’m looking forward to images of the new Condor – a.k.a. ‘The Phoenix’? – on this site. Good luck.
@markb FUCK Mate! Soooo sorry to hear that! I had a woman in a huge Black SUV run over my rear wheel in Texas two years ago and take off. She came back about 10 minutes later and I was still crumpled by the side of the road with my broken bike. She said that she had heard a loud “THUMP”, looked in the rear view, saw me lying by the side of the intersection and got scared and took off but, after about 5 minutes, realized that she could not “live with herself” and came back. Ya, thanks a fucking lot you stupid fuck!
Soo glad to hear that you yourself were not hit by the car but I bet you are sore as hell tomorrow. I also was not hit but it fucked up my knee for a few months with the twisting motion of being thrown off the bike.
Heal up and now it’s time to hit ebay to find an old Merckx frame to replace with, no???
@markb Sorry to hear this. Hard to lose a loved one — I know. But I discovered that a reborn bike brings along altogether new challenges and all is good. I lost my beloved Pinarello (Blue Ox) in 2010.
@unversio Yikes! I hope we’re not seeing the start of some sort of bicycle equivalent of a horror show here? Holy crap, man – good thing you walked away more or less unharmed from that. (By the way: That was a real beauty of a bike in her days, from the looks of it…)
@unversio
Ouch, that hurts just to look at it! I had a side hit, so the bike took most of the hurt. That looks like you’d be lucky to walk away with any teeth left.
@markb
I am thinking your damage looks really worse — your frames was trampled. By now this chrome fork bent backwards seems beautiful in a way. Columbus designed their steel to bend uniformly upon a hard impact. This is a perfect example. Thankful that I was riding steel at the moment of impact. I was catapulted rather than being crushed through a fractured carbon frame. In the end I suffered chipped vertebrate and another broken collar bone (karate chop style). I went headlong into this poor women’s windshield. I was at fault in this episode.
@markb Your post really brought much to the surface today. Amazing how there is always good coming out of cycling and hardship. And usually in cycling, the harder the better.
@markb Hit and run? FFS, what is wrong with people…rhetorical, I know what’s wrong with people.
@unversio Ouch. I feel your pain…
@Dan_R Technically no, she did stop, to see if I was alive. Doubt very much if she was insured, so there’s no xmas in the markb household this year, it’s all going on a new frame and build.
@markb
Crap! Good that you are OK though. Lesson 1 I guess is crawl to the car and take a photo with the remains of your phone……….
@Buck Rogers
I guess mine is a S as it is on the tight side of a skull tourniquet. Will have to try warming it and rigging up some form or Rack to see if it will stretch. Pretty much all of the ones I’ve seen on ebay since getting this last summer have been S.
@Buck Rogers
Just to get a little positivity back after so much death, I gotta say that “I LOVE YOU DADDY/DADDY YOU ARE THE CHAMPION AT RIDING” is so goddamn adorable my heart grew three sizes.
@markb Ouch – glad you’re OK. Nobody got any details?
It does make one think about the advantages of riding around with a camera attached.
@ChrisO
on the bars or helmet?
@ChrisO
Garmin 16Mega pixel may still be 60 percent off at probikekit.
@markb On the road bike, I’ve run the Shimano cam below my saddle recording the view looking back.
@Teocalli
Thanks, Mate! Yes, most seem to be “small” sized. I will wait and see if I can find a large one before pulling trigger.
Thanks again,Buck
@unversio If I was commuting I would definitely use a camera but for my sort of riding it isn’t a high priority.
The most likely cause of injury for me is another cyclist in a group ride or race.
The drivers here are crazy but not deliberate cunts like in the UK. If anything vehicular happens it will be someone driving up the hard shoulder or changing lanes without looking at 100km/h. Getting details will not be necessary.
As my wife says, just make sure they back up and finish the job – I’m well insured in the event of death, less so for permanent disability.
Merry Christmas to all ye noble Velominati.
@markb
Probably a stupid question, but did you get her number plate?
Anyone can make a mistake like pulling out and missing something, but driving off from the scene of an accident is, I believe, a criminal offence…
@RobSandy
no I didn’t. Still, got a nice collection of bruises now:
@RobSandy
I hope you have reported it to the police, not least you may be able to make a claim off that central accident fund for such instances. Not quite sure how it works but may well be worth checking out.
Dura Ace 7900 brakes and crankset 53/39 and DA press fit BB86.
Ultegra 6800 11spd shifters, der.’s, cassette (11-23) and chain
Mavic Ksyrium SR wheels (clincher) carbon spoke rear.
Continental GP4000s tires 700×23
Michelin Airstop tubes 40mm non threaded valve stem.
Fizik Arionne CX saddle with carbon rails
PRO Vibe 7s seatpost, bar and stem.
PRO bar tape.
Look Keo Ti Blade 2 pedals
Serfas carbon cages.
Weight is right around 15lbs.
@PCK nice, though Rule #26 could do with some revision.
Going to try this again, here is the finished build. Frame was stripped, repainted, and decalled. Campy Chorus 10 parts. I’ll work on fitting it when I’m able to use my left arm again.
here is the #1 (also my number 1, as in “my first”)
after a year and a half with it, starting to warm up to the idea of upgrading the groupset.
@mpalazzi92 Chapeau! And fucking awesome! It all looks sea level.
@seemunkee
Sweet, have we seen the one to the right too?
@Teocalli I’ve posted it before, but here it is. ’83 Specilaissima, this was my #1 for many year. I think my next project is going to be a rebuild/restoration of it. I think the hardest part wil be finding some NOS ergo brake hoods.
@seemunkee
Still nice though! I found somewhere that did new old pattern hoods. I’ll see if I still have the details or can find them again.
@Teocalli That would be fantastic. The ones currently on there currently were NOS when I bought them but time and sweat have caught up and there are rotting away.
@seemunkee There are quite a few sources on ebay.
@mpalazzi92 very nice, what’s on there at the moment?
@Mikael Liddy
looks like Sora
Not sure where to post this but the new layout of the site is confusing the fuck out of me. I have cleaned my temporary files out which means I have logged out of the site. I cannot find a log in page, I cannot find the search box and I cannot find the Super Prestige page to crow about my almost respectable score of 10 in todays quiz….well to be honest it has been a very poor year so far!
Anyone have a clue as to where the keepers have stashed all the useful stuff during the re-org?
@Deakus
On the top left, should be the Sign In button. After signing in, on the tour right should be the Velominatus: Name button and drops down for all your editing functions.
Hope this helps!
@Kevin
Brilliant thanks!
@Mikael Liddy
2300 plus some fsa…
@mpalazzi92 fair enough. While I’m loathe to direct someone to break Rule #58, there are some cracking specials to be had at the moment…
My project for the long weekend was to swap out the flat bar on my wife’s old (3rd, 4th+ hand) bike for drops. In doing, it became clear that I lacked the necessary shifters to accommodate a slightly more robust handlebar. So the old ones got slapped on stem.
To add another layer of oddity, I managed to break the would-be replacement for the rear brake, so now the front is a standard caliper with the pull on the right-hand side and the rear is an old-school center-pull.
New Year project underway – progressively retrograding an old favourite. Cobalto calipers, levers, exposed cables and 64-44s…
I went +1 on the weekend. First ride was tonight after work. Just accessed a whole new world …