The Torch Song
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.
The blue light of the torch
A beautifully armed steel battleship posted by Campagnolo Srl — Facebook
@brett
What we have here is my stainless steel( KVA MS3 Tubeset) sitting in Don Walker’s jig getting ready for him to braze together after mitring up the tubes. I have a long, long standing love of custom frames( I have 5..above will be 6..) and Don has been the provider of 4 of them( once I get the above frame from him next week). I met Don at the 2008 North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Portland, ordered a track frame from him,and a great friendship has blossomed as a result. I’ve gone to several shows since then and helped him run his booth as he is too busy running the whole show to spend alot of time in his booth.
@unversio
The SLX frame of power..sorry..you search is in vain..I already have it. :-)
It’s the DeRosa on the left in this photo.
@Haldy
[ Gandalf voice ] “O, there is just the one… and it does not share power! DeRosa…”
@Haldy
Also works as [ Seinfeld voice ] “O, there is just the one… and (let me tell ya) it does not share power! DeRosa…”
@Gianni
My riding buddy just pulled down his Alexi Grewel paint-scheme/edition Pinarello. It’s red, white, blue and yellow. Hadn’t given it much thought as it hung up in his bike garage, as it was dusty and the tires were old and worn. He decided to pull it down, give it a solid polishing, and get her up and running.
The paint is absolutely beautiful. He paid a fair amount of it back in the 80s, a price that still sounded high. But wow, what an beautiful bike. He didn’t like the narrowness of the original Campa hoods so added some new ones (maybe Tektros?) that have brown/natural hoods and drilled levers. He’s my Sensei, what an eye for detail on a bike. And, he just took delivery of a C-60 in matte black with the Italian tricolore on the ST, yikes, what a machine!
On live music. One of the best periods in my life was during graduate school when I lived in Washington, DC. I used to attend 2-3 shows a week, bands I’d kinda heard of, bands I knew nothing about, bands friends suggested. I’d go to small and mid-sized clubs and pay $5 or $12 to see some great bands, quite a few of them having gone on to be legitimate Rock Stars.
It was an awesome time, as I was just getting into road cycling. I had a perfect routine, one beer, one whiskey as I got the bike prepped, then a b-line one side streets to the venue, around a 15 minute ride. As I was locking up my bike the mellow buzz of the drinks would set in, I’d enter right on time to see the show blast off, having calibrated the publicized start time vs. band-time. Best shows were at a small club with a barely rising stage, so you were almost on the same level in a low-ceilinged room.
I’ll never forget walking in to have my ears blown off by Death From Above. I was there to see another band, but those two dudes were spectacular.
I really like the bit of data about the relative speed of Steel / Mid-range-carbon / High-end-carbon. I can corroborate somewhat using my own samples of 42-year-old-Steel / Moots titanium / Modern-oversize-Coloumbus-life-tubing-Steel. I wish he also had a modern steel bike to include in the mix. My modern steel has a comparable speed difference over the antique steel as the HEC over the down-tube-shifters steel. 35mm vs 28.6mm in the down tube (and other comparable bits) makes a profound difference.
@Haldy
You are the man. So is Don Walker by the look of his work. Supporting the frame builders, like you and Brett are doing is important. I always spend too much time drooling over Cyclingnews’s yearly photo-fest of the NAHBS bikes. There a lot of talented people making beautiful who might not be making much money but love the work.
I used to work for a boat builder who would swear, at every launching, when he realized how little money he made or how much he lost, this was the last one, ever. And of course he is still at it, thirty years later.
@Haldy
Don is awesome. I ‘met’ him at Cincy3 a couple years ago when I was racing and came to the top of the stair run up where he had his tent. My chain came off and as I was trying to fix it he just stood there holding out a cup of beer. Finally he said ‘oh, come on!’ I laughed and took the beer. I was so far behind at that point that each lap Don had another beer for me. It was one of the most enjoyable cross races I’ve done.
@wiscot
I don’t remember a toe cover debate but someone did roll out on the morning after the Roubaix ride at KT13 sporting a pair. They’ll remain nameless only as a result of my failing memory rather than any sense of decorum. Have no doubt though, there wasn’t a debate about the subject.
@Chris
I’m sure if you could remember what kind of bike he rode and his nationality that would narrow it down considerably! If I ever had the cash to go on a KT, I’d spend months of preparation in making sure I was rule compliant. I’d even eliminate my beloved EPMS.
@Chris
I beg to differ I do remember it coming up on one thread. Damned if I’m bored enough to try to find it though.
@Gianni
I seriously find this simply awesome. Hand crafted awesomeness. I have no idea where these guys are, but I’m going to find out and investigate getting myself one of these. I might just put off every other n+1 project until I have one of these to ride
@VeloSix
Well..Don Walker is out of Lousiville, Kentucky which is where the Handmade Bicycle Show will be taking place next week. Watch all of the cycling news sites..Bikeradar, BikeRumor, Cyclingews..etc for all kinds of photos of hand crafted goodness.
@brett is having a frame made up by Jaegher who is a custom outfit out of Belgium. There may be one those in my future…
@Haldy
Louisville KY?? That’s just a tad over 4 hours from me…. This is getting more intriguing by the minute
@VeloSix
The show is the 6-8th of March, if you come down…stop by Don Walker’s booth…I’ll be there running it for him
@wiscot
He may well have been Canadian and might have been riding a brand of bike that features a nasty spelling mistake in its name. As I said, my memory is hazy.
@Teocalli
I think you might be right. There was no debate on the road in Belgium though.
@Haldy
If I can pull that off, I certainly will. I have a race in Nashville that weekend, maybe I go home the (really) long way….
@brett, this will be (for sure) a ‘bel mezzo’.
@unversio
Been there, done that…
http://www.velominati.com/etiquette/rule-28-dissenting-opinion/
@unversio
Surely this is exactly what N+1 is for.
I want them all, lugged steel, aluminium, mid carbon, HEC and then a Ti. 3 out of 5 so far
@Barracuda
Well, I must choose a sharpest weapon since I’m limited right now to one frameset at a time. I secured an MX Leader in 2012 and sold the Extra Corsa from 2010 (family compromise) which replaced the Montello (RIP) from 1992. My bike build equation is N+none for some time. Although I am currently collecting components for an 8-speed and when the right frame finds me, then I’ll have an N and N2.
Oddly there are 5 wheel sets for the one frameset. 2 clincher (Open Pros) — 3 tubular (Victory Strada, GP4, GL 330)
@Barracuda
Don’t forget the bamboo! From the local guys at HERObike (really is a cool story to this: http://www.herobike.org/pages/about-us)
@Brett
Great analogy mate….it will be a sweet day when that thing of beauty is between your thighs!
Brett,
Many thanks for posting such a great gallery of your frame’s time under the torch! Wish I had been on hand when mine were being built. Have never owned anything but steel, so I have no perspective. Would be interested in your thoughts after riding the new bike a while.
Best, Dave
@tessar
Sorry, didn’t explain myself – I meant its the geometry that will decide if a bike is comfortable or not, not necessarily the material.
Can only speak for myself, but a bike built to fit me, for the way I ride and where I ride works better than an off the shelf frame, no matter how long is spent on a bike-fit. I’d liken it to a bespoke suit versus something bought of the rack. You maybe lucky and find something generic that just happens to fit you, most often though it doesn’t quite fit or hang correctly.
I’m being lazy – I can walk to two places that will build me a custom steel frame, don’t recognise any of these being in Peckham?
@markb
If we’re going by the “what’s local”, then sorry, can’t find custom steel in my city, or within 100km from me, either.
Difference between a bespoke suit and a made-to-measure bike is that a bike, if you strip away the romanticism, is three contact points between you and a set of rubber strips. Imagine if a suit only contacted you at the shoulders, waist and ankle. There’s practically an infinite number of ways to place those three points in the same exact place, and while a certain combination might look more asthetic, actual differences in performance will be inexistent. With the vast range of stock frames available these days, almost any “custom” build can be matched with an effectively identical stock frame.
@tessar
I can take two bikes that I’m pretty confident have the same contact points with my body in space, one has a track frame. the other an audax frame. I can ride the latter with comfort for many hours over the lumps and bumps of country lanes and I know from experience that I could not do the same on the track frame. Both are made of steel, yet their geometry is sufficiently different to give completely different rides and responses.
@John Klinkenberg
Look I told you mate, we’re just friends ok?
@Dave Wright
You’re welcome! Steven at Jaegher took the excellent photos. The painting process will be up next.
Had a bit of a bummer as far as the progress of the bike goes this week… Belgium customs decided to hold my groupset (which I’d bought here and sent to Jaegher to fit) for a couple of weeks then send it back to me. Yeah, seems the Belgians don’t appreciate bicycle folk! So now with only a month til I leave for KT, the risk of re-sending is too much and it looks like I’ll be helping to build my bike when I arrive. Which ain’t so bad…
@brett
I find that putting my own bikes together is very rewarding in so many ways.
@markb
Track and Audax are both at the opposing end of the spectrum. One is steeper than usual and the other lax, which does confer a difference. Obviously. I can also feel a difference between my TT bike and my road bike.
However, is your made-to-measure Audax frame really not available stock? None of the Surly, Genesis and dozens of other companies doesn’t produce a frame with a similar stack, reach and fork geometry? And if so, are the differences really noticeable in a blind test?
Track frames are everywhere, and range from “road geometry with horizontal dropouts” to the super-steep sprinter orientated frames. Surely one of them has a very similar geometry…
@wilburrox
No, I draw the line at wood/bamboo. Down with this sort of thing.
Two frames (apply any material) in the same geometry but built with different tubes will ride utterly differently. Geometry is only one part of the comfort equation.
Whatever they’re made of, and whatever the numbers are, good frames ride good and bad frames don’t.
@Roger
Ditto!
@tessar
You raise an interesting point, is there a central database of manufacturer’s geometry that is kept up to date that we could refer to?
@unversio
What rims are these? As I’m in the market for a new set of rims…
H+Son Hard Ano? Ambrosio Nemesis? Other… (I’m not one book of face, can’t check there.)
@brett
Belgium or not people at customs and excise appreciate only one thing – your money. The more, the better. They should have sent you a letter that they are holding your package until you pay the required fee.
Customs are fuckers, no questions about that but it’s your own fault too. Why sending groupset from New Zealand here? Why not buying it here in one of the Campagnolo dealers and have it shipped to Jaegher directly? Pay using your card and change delivery address?
Did you at least try to mark the package as a gift, promo items, sample material etc?
@David
Fixed your post.
@markb
Slowtwitch used to do one for TT bikes, but it hasn’t been updated lately. With more and more integration, it also made less and less sense since “stack” and “reach” to the headset mean nothing if it’s a proprietary system.
I don’t know one for road bikes.
@Ron
They don’t mention specs beyond the Athena mechanical group the photos are promoting, but the rims are definitely Golden Tickets.
@David
Comfort? What is comfort to one is a discomfort to other. Soft ride of steel is something I don’t appreciate too much. The road soaking properties can be achieved with the right wheels, tires and the pressure. Plenty of comfort while the frame remains stiff in the right areas.
@frank
“Do you know Kung Fu?” “Were your parents a big fan?” “Aren’t you buried in Seattle?” Nope, nope, and hell, no, not yet!
When I think I’ve heard it all, Frank, you come though with a winner. I like it!
Your newly renamed fan,
Bruised Lee
@Ron
I will look closer at the other details shots posted on Facebook. These look like low-profile tubulars (Campa, Mavic, Nisi, etc) to me. You may find what you want as a clincher, but they would most likely be polished. These hard ano rims are keen on being tubular. These discreet rim labels (pictured) could be Nisi.
@TommyTubolare
Yep, did all that. I bought it here because it was less than wholesale, and couldn’t get close to that deal if I’d bought overseas…
@brett
Can we expect regular updates here? Or is there another place to follow progress? Sorry to be intrusive, it’s just custom bike builds are a beautiful thing.
@DCR
Yes, there are two previous posts on the process so far… and there will be more to come.
http://www.velominati.com/defining-moments/where-have-you-been-all-my-life/
http://www.velominati.com/defining-moments/how-soon-is-now/