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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View Comments
@Teocalli
The picture of the whole bike didn't draw my eye for long but I did dribble a little bit after seeing the close up.
@TommyTubolare
Were you riding Columbus Cromor or Gara ?? or Reynolds ??
@Teocalli
and how a cheap piece of plastic (the QR) can ruin a thing of beauty.
@Oli
I have ridden my fair share of bikes and wheels. My experience is just different to yours.
How much heavier were oversized tubes? Can you mold and layer up different kinds of steel like you can do different kinds of carbon? Are you trying to convince me that properties of steel as a material are the same as carbon? Clever carbon lay up and using the right kind of carbon in certain areas on the frame, like bb for stiffness or seat stays for comfort as an example, allows to build a comfortable and stiff frames without adding too much weight or sacrificing handling and durability. You can cut a steel tube to length and that's pretty much it.
You can keep your steel and I will take a carbon and we're both happy. More steel bikes for you.
As far as wheels go it's the same for me. I'd take carbon wheel over alu wheel any day. That includes riding on cobbles.
@unversio
I didn't and to be honest I don't intend to. I usually move forward with my frame material choices. You can stay where you are or keep going backward if that's what pleases you. Keep your toe clips and I will continue using my speedplays.
@brett
Understood. Sorry to hear that. Well at least it didn't get lost in the transit and good they sent it back without waiting for you to pay. Sometimes they keep the goods forever.
@tessar
With the vast range of stock frames available these days, almost any “custom” build can be matched with an effectively identical stock frames,
Agreed. Not to mention the amount of stems, handlebars and seatposts.
@TommyTubolare
I'll bet you consider yourself an elitist.
I have a custom carbon frame because I am of the 0.01% of people over six and half feet tall. Pictures when I get my Cafe Roubaix Carrefours wheelset.
Steel is the reference point for all other frame materials. Period. Every one of the other materials has used steel as a barometer to extol their virtues. Steel has it all wrapped up in one nice package. It is the "frame" of reference.