That's not a robot right there.
Live music is better than recorded music. It’s a given. Having that connection, where you’re sharing the same space as the artist is a unique experience that can’t be replicated on a plastic disc. To receive the gift from the giver personally is a moment of intimacy not possible if it arrives in a package in the mail. To be able to garner instantaneous gratitude, be it by applause, cheers or a smile is the reward that the artist lives for, else they wouldn’t be there. Showing appreciation for the gift returns the favour in kind. The performance feeds the audience, and vice versa.
Vinyl records hold the same sort of appeal that steel bicycles do; both materials revolutionised their respective industries and held the mantle of the best, the only choice, for decades. Then both were usurped by smaller, lighter composite materials and while the convenience and perceived performance they offered took over on a wholesale scale, a handful of purists held on to their Electric Ladyland limited edition LPs along with their Colnago Masters and Merckx Leaders. Vinyl may have been suddenly deemed cumbersome, inconvenient to use and harder to source, but it still offered a timeless sound quality that just had something about it, something that CDs and MP3s would struggle to achieve.
Same with steel bikes. There’s an indisputable and indescribable feeling that comes in the first few pedal strokes on a steel bike, and like pulling out that dog-eared copy of Hunky Dory, you know exactly what you’ll be getting, and you’re gonna like it. Picking up a hand-built bike from the person who made it is like going down to the studio to grab a signed slab of wax that Nick Cave hands to you himself. Straight to you.
Where the vinyl record remains round, grooved and black, the steel bicycle’s tubes remain round, straight and flat. You can’t improve on what’s proven. What’s perfect. Only the touch of the hand of the artist can make each one unique, where things that are really just simple things (a record, a bicycle) can be themselves set apart by the signatures laid upon them by their creators, curating originality (Jagger, Jaegher). To say it’s pretty special to see your own bicycle being made, your name on the tubes as they come together to be joined forever by the heat of the torch and the deft touch of the electrode, would be a modest assessment. To finally ride it, might be impossible to describe.
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@Ron
Definitely Ambrosio (pictured here)
Closeup Ambrosio
Hey all, I have arriving soon a Ritchey Swisscross frame set. What's the deal with "framesaver" type applications of rust inhibitor for steel frames? Everyone using this kinda thing applied to inside of frame?
@ChrisO
+1 for the @The Grande Fondue and @ChrisO from me. I had a steel Ciocc until it was squished under a truck with me aboard (the bike didn't make it). I now ride high end carbon and low end aluminium but miss the comfort and classic looks of steel. In a few months time I'll be ordering a custom steel Shand Skinnymalinky (made in Scotland but not from girders) as a retirement gift to myself after 30 years in my current job. The carbon current#1 is comfortable, way lighter and the bike of choice for epic climbing or when I want to go fast, relatively speaking of course. The Shand will be the bike I ride on all day and multi day trips before I am forced to find another job to buy more bikes. I've ridden bikes long enough to know that there are very real advantages to all the frame materials for more than 0.1% of us.
In fact my first real mtb was a 1994 Marin Bear Valley SE, triple butted steel and an epic bike for a long day on the trails. Recently the frame has been rescued from the back of the garage, stripped down and prepped to be properly restored. Then the alu mtb risks being sold off because I know it won't get used.
So, steel #1 in the future for me but when I have speed and / or epic climbing in mind it's the carbon machine as 7.4kg is easier to haul uphill that 9.4kg. In the winter? Aluminium CX, mudguards with 28mm GP 4 Seasons all the way. Train heavy, race light.
@wilburrox
It's a good idea, especially with a bike that's going to see wet conditions. I just use a rust inhibitor spray (Rust Check) from an auto supply store; does the same thing at 1/4 the price. Some shops treat every steel frame before they let it out the door, so if you've ordered through a LBS they might do it for you.
@unversio
Amazing how a simple thing like a cable stop can have so much artistry.
@Teocalli
Yes amazing. Hate to miss NAHBS this year, but will not miss next year.
@TommyTubolare
Hold on a second here, you're perpetrating the myth - I've had cause to ride a LOT of bikes in all materials over the years and one of the stiffest bikes I've ever ridden in any material is my Benson, which is made out of over-sized Pego-Richie Columbus steel tubes. We should all stop generalising for a minute and just accept that any frame material can be built soft, hard, stiff or flexy depending on the builder and the exact specifications.
@wilburrox
Need to overhaul the bike (The Sword) for this very reason -- just to see what we see. Planning to send the frame to Velocolour in 2016 for paint and their full treatment inside and out.
@Oli
Hear ye, hear ye! Specifically chose Columbus MXL so that I "would feel everything" coming off the road. And also that my wheels would feel everything coming out of my legs and arms -- power trans-fer-lation (fabricated word here).