We gather here today to pay our respects to one of the most exciting developments the Cycling world has ever witnessed: the funny bike.
For seventy years, the evolution of the bicycle was marked by incremental change; improvements to brakes, more gears, and better shifting followed one another as the sport grudgingly continued its slow journey towards progress and modernization.
Then, in an instant, disruption. Change. In the years prior to 1984, time trial machines were little more than finely-tuned road machines. But suddenly, spurred on by Francesco Moser’s success in breaking the Hour Record aboard a radical machine with double disc wheels and cow-horn handlebars, we entered a decade of innovation.
In the blink of an eye, we had broken from the shackles of traditional thinking and were suddenly free to think about a bicycle without constraint. Riders appeared in the start house with fairings attached to their saddles and bars mounted below the top tube. Riders toed up to the start line with broom sticks mounted across the drops of their handlebars. Aero bars appeared and with them, the triangular frame design that had graced our machines for three-quarters of a century disappeared. In the span of ten short years, time trial positions went from the standard tuck to the Super Man.
Then, in a crafty maneuver which demonstrates that the UCI’s incompetence is not a recent development, new regulations were introduced which effectively killed innovation in bike design. The UCI regulated the position of the bars, the saddle, the size of the wheels, the design of the frame; even the shape of the tubes are currently highly scrutinized. The UCI even offers an exorbitantly expensive frame certification process.
Join me now, as we examine some examples of the most innovative machines our sport will ever see.
A-Merckx.
[dmalbum path=”/velominati.com/content/Photo Galleries/frank@velominati.com/Funny Bike/”/]
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@scaler911
My dad, upon walking/crawling the mile from the house he was building, and fell from causing a clean break of the hip, to get to the car because it was winter and the driveway too steep and frozen to drive (Wisconsin):
When pressed, he also admitted that it hurt a bit. Rule 5 for sure.
My favorite pic of me and my dad.
@frank
That vest is fucking PIMP! Even the the king of pimp agrees:
"Now that we have conjured the V, you must keep your hand over the vessel until you can decant into a bidon."
@minion
@frank
Funnily enough, Australia has the second highest sheep population in the world - only behind China. New Zealand comes in fifth.
So I guess if you are looking for the country with the largest number of sheep who can understand Kiwi pillowtalk, then why wouldn't Minion move here?
And Frank, I can argue semantics all day. The Oxford dictionary states that innovation is to make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.
Basically any change is an adaptation you dumb fucker.
Once again, go write some code.
@scaler911
My dad got me onto road bikes as he refused to buy me a BMX that all my friends were riding around. I was about 11 years old. He took me to the local veledrome with his Raleigh Europa, strapped himself in the toe clips and churned out the fastest laps I've ever seen! I tried for one lap and took all afternoon!
As with most dad's, looking through eyes of being a kid, they dressed daggy, told crap jokes, but they were the original hipsters!
Check this out; Dads are the Original Hipsters
Back to the Funny Bikes, anyone recall the Slingshot?!
@Marcus
You're embarrassing yourself, you tit. Innovation is the introduction of something new, which is different from (incremental) change and adaptation, which is taking something which exists and modifying it.
But you can sit and water the language down if you like - you're in the wrong place. An appreciation for the subtle difference in what a word implies is precisely what we do here. Decals or stickers? Are you a cyclist, or do you bike? Do you fuck sheep or make sweet, gentle love to them?
@sthilzy
This one makes me laugh just as hard, every time I read it.
@Rob
Very cool. Allez le douze!
@scaler911
Since that's not your funny bike, you'll be needing to post a photo.
@sthilzy
It's hard to see from the photo -- is that the one where the downtube is replaced by some wire rope and a turnbuckle? Fucking nutter.
This discussion is incomplete without a reference to Alex Moulton, one of the few people to try to rethink the bicycle frame and thereby fall foul of the UCI.
Check out this page for some of the performance and speed records they've achieved, including a cool shot (couldn't copy and paste it) of Tom Simpson riding a Moulton around Herne Hill velodrome.
http://www.moultonbicycles.co.uk/heritage.html#recordsracing