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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@tessar
not really laughable, at what cost are those possibilities with composite? I have to disagree. Anyone here have a custom composite bike who would care to share?
This is sounding more and more like a cycling news dot com forum thread rather than just pure appreciation of what is a massively impressive piece of equipment.
Carry on
@brett, more photos please
@TommyTubolare
joking about what oh great one who seems to know everything? That I feel steel is great material for custom frames over composite? Composite is a great material but not really to cost effective, do you have a custom composite frame? do you have first hand experience with a custom builder engineering and custom tuning a composite frame?
@wilburrox
Don't put anything on the inside of the frame. With some normal maintenance a high quality steel frame will last forever.
That stuff is really nice to look at/admire/insert whatever here. While I can honestly say that I love my carbon Trek, it's definitely a high performance "appliance". No soul or element of special. It just simply "does". Maybe someday when I'm over playing with cars on racetracks I'll have that money and time freed up to allow me one of these steel masterpieces. Best of both worlds, right? The carbon fitness tool...and the steel "appreciation for cycling" piece.
@Roger
First of all, the cost of custom carbon is, proportionally, the same as the cost of custom steel over stock. IE, for the price of a high-end stock frame you can also get custom. Argonaut, Parlee, Guru etc charge about what you'd pay for a top stock frame - just like most custom steel builders charge about what you'd pay for a top steel bike.
But that's beside the point. On virtually every carbon frame sold stock, somebody did more manipulations in terms of material engineering than any steel frame, stock or not, could ever hope to match. You can have more stiffness where you want it, and more compliance where you want it, both at the same time from the same tube. Steel, by design, can't do that since it's not anywhere near as anisotropic as carbon fibre. The fact that on a custom steel frame you get to choose between A and B doesn't mean it's better than a carbon frame where the engineer had choices between A and Z - it just means you have to choose which frame to get.
P.S: I'm still riding aluminium, I don't have any post-purchase justification bias going on here. Stick a good tyre and latex tube on a ho-hum alu frame and it'll fly.
So we're all agreed that great frames can be made out of any material, depending on the builder and what is required from said frame? Good.
@Oli
Aye, and I've found myself with some serious Alu-bone for a Bowman Palace.
Agreed, its all personal preference on frame materials
Agreed, that different sets of wheels, tubes and tires can transform the ride characteristics of any bike dramatically custom or not. Its almost to a point where a custom frame of any material should also be designed with consideration as to what set of wheels the rider is going to use because the ride characteristics from one wheel set to another can be very different, but that is a discussion for another time, lol
@tessar
Comfort is a complex subject. Positioning is without one of the most important aspects. It may be even more so for your performance. A custom geometrie may or may not be needed for you depending on your body measurements, body limitation (flexibility and other body issues), planned use, etc... It will guarantee you a good handling (balance on the bike) for you position. Other specs can of course be included at the same time (tire spec, stiffness, limit spacers,...).
Tire width, type and pressure also influence comfort a lot and so will your contactpoints : seat (limit local pressure points), bar shape and bartape, pedals and shoes.
I try not to include wheels as other qualities as far more important with these depending on your ride ; aero / side-side stiffness / weight / durability / wind sensitivity /... This being said, I will not use my 50mm high carbon wheels at Roubaix ;-)