On Rule #12: The Luxury of Passion
Rule #12 is a luxury of passion; the #1 for good weather and epic rides or races, the Nine Bike for bad weather, the Graveur (which is neither a cross bike nor a road bike), a ‘Cross bike, a mountain bike, a townie, a track bike, a time trial bike. Add in steel, carbon, titanium – a bike for each material and a material for each bike. The only logical conclusion is that we all need – need – a bare minimum of somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 bikes. Columbo couldn’t poke a hole in that case.
On the other hand, there is something to be said for just riding your bike wherever you happen to point it, in whatever weather you happen to be riding in, on whatever kind of road you happen to have at your disposal.
We should collect as many bikes as we can love, but we should also remember that bikes were meant to be ridden, not pampered. Vive la Vie Velominatus.
@Oli
@Lynn Pauly
Shouldn’t everyone own at least one campagnolo’d up celeste Bianchi? I think so. They are just so good looking.
@Oli
Well you know, that didn’t faze me at all..simply thought of it as part of the grand presentation of these beautiful bikes. You down under? I’m in Minnesota… literally a stone’s throw away from where Greg LeMan lives. Lots of my buds know him. We don’t do drive bys of his house we do RIDE bys…
@Gianni
Yes, of course! And Im just such a princess myself about it… my friends call me the queen with my duchess!
@Lynn Pauly
It should be no other way!
@Lynn Pauly
Love the chromed stays and fork. Matching stem would be perfection.
@The Grande Fondue
At least it’s a quill stem. And period correct: black stem (and bars) was the thing in the late 80s, early 90s. Almost a dead ringer for Fignon’s Gatorade-era Bianchis. But that Rule #41 issue needs addressing.
@the Engine
Yeah we’ve all made that promise before…
@Oli
Man, I love your Bianchis. And Wellington.
@Ccos
There’s a shop near work that sells recumbents, that it also sells bikes with huge wicker baskets attached to the bars with frames made out of scaffolding poles tells you all you need to know about the customer base, most of whom have ginger beards.
@frank
Did I mention I’m bringing two bikes? The Ridley may get a 52 or 53 up front this year so that I can blow my knees up properly.
@Chris
The V-CX bike is as fast on the road as my road bike and the 49 on the front gives me exactly the same ratios that I use on the road – just misses a few steps. CX is only for P-R obviously. It is an astonishing piece of kit.
@pistard
Yes… an Italian fellow in Indianapolis put this together. He is a vintage Italian specialist. I can look for that fork. Fun isn’t it?
@Chris
That’s about where I’m at. My N = 3 for the most part, and I manage to cover most niches okay.
#1 is the plastic fantastic Bianchi Vertigo, the pure go-fast bike
#3 is a rather nice aluminum hardtail for going well off the path
and in between we have this:
which given my absurdly large stock of old parts can be whatever I want it to be from week to week. Given some 42c knobblies and it’ll run cross pretty well, 25c tubulars and it’ll run road just fine, 38mm and fenders and a rack and it’ll get me to work or across the state. It’ll even take downtube shifters if I feel like doing that.
@the Engine
That says more about how fast you ride your road bike than it does about versatility or gear ratios.
@brett
Oh my goodness.. yes this is a 92.. I must look up #41. A little far down on the list … #5 and #9 are very much my concern… as my friends are wont to point out as well. Very often. And shut up legs. I will check out 41!
@frank
We should collect as many bikes as we can love, but we should also remember that bikes were meant to be ridden, not pampered. Vive la Vie Velominatus.
that place where the VMH just shakes her head. Steel, frank forgot aluminum, carbon, and ti. Bases covered. Road, CX, MTB, SS. Bases covered. Actively looking for N+1.
@frank
Road bikes only at Keepers Tour! I thought that was an established rule.
The latest folly. Steel. Chain (Izumi super toughness) matching text on the downtube (both are gold, an homage to Fausto Coppi’s hour record machine). In addition to satiating Rule #12 interests, I’ve also noticed that track riders tend to be a little bigger than the road rider. Which means I’ve okayed a certain laxness in my diet. For power, you know…
@RedRanger
An unspoken one, that might need to be spoken…
@Lynn Pauly
I think you are addressing @pistard there, but that bike is a beauty!
@Steampunk
Nice!!
Is there a velodrome in Terana now?
@mouse
In Milton, just at the bottom of Rattlesnake Point. Built for the Pan-Am Games this summer. It’s a spectacular facility.
@Steampunk
Classy looking bike! Love the bits of chrome and silver with the black and white. Are those Cafe Domestique frames built by Marinoni?
@pistard
Good eye: Marinoni build. Here’s a shot pre-chain addition.
My question, though: track gearing seems to be measured in inches. How does the Velominatus handle such conversations? By following along? By translating into metric? Or by just Rule V: gears don’t matter.
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love the look of this
@Steampunk
I’ve done just a few track sessions and I could get hooked, particularly on crappy winter days like the last weekend. Started browsing for an old steel frame for the next project though I’d better finish the current one first! I’m a little over an hour from Calshot which apparently is the second tightest track in the world. The tightest is, I believe, somewhere in Canada.
The banking is at a claimed 45% and tight enough to feel the G (V?) Force pushing you down if you hold below the red line at speed.
Nice looking track machine! Wheelset looks really sharp.
@Steampunk
No, just a guess. A friend was looking into their road frame and thought it might be Marinoni. I do see quite a few Nonis, new and old, around here.
The metric system for gearing is “metres of development” which is the distance travelled for one rotation of the cranks. MoD = drive wheel circumference (in metres) x chainring teeth/cog teeth.
Sheldon Brown’s “gain ratio” is a system that hasn’t really made it into popular use, but accounts for crank length. It’s the total distance travelled divided by the distance travelled (in a circle) by the pedals during one rotation. GR = drive wheel radius/crank length x chainring teeth/cog teeth. The result is a ratio independent of measurement units.
@pistard
@Steampunk
That’s just way too much math. Feel like you’re spinning? Smaller cog or bigger ring. Feel like your knees are going to explode? Bigger cog or smaller ring or you’re just getting old.
There’s some nice looking bikes in this thread and it makes me think that my 1 Road and 1 MTB bike are not enough, but my wallet says otherwise :-) But I think I can squeeze in a Single speed purchase this year!
Somehow I have always survived with 1 bike and I even took my racing bike on a camping trip around the Coromandel peninsular here in NZ once. I was racing at the time, so riding to Whangamata from Auckland with a tent and small backpack on my road bike seemed like a good idea. Great fun and I wish I could do it again but i need something family orientated so I can take my daughter on some cycling holidays.
@Teocalli
Riding a short, steep track like that is insanely fun, once you get past the vertigo. The Canadian drome you mention is in London, Ontario. Built into a pre-existing structure, hence its size. Its original incarnation (hockey rink, naturally) saw Johnny Cash propose to June Carter — on stage in the middle of a concert.
@pistard
Since we all use 700c wheels on our road bikes (and most of us use the same tyre size as well) it’s a good-enough approximation to just use the teeth ratio. Crank length is insignificant anyway for those calculations, unless you like to measure your muscle contraction velocity.
@Steampunk
Brilliant. Sounds like it’s quite near you!
I’m quite fortunate to live about 800 metres away from where Jack Bobridge had a crack at the Hour Record last weekend.
Gear inches. Always gear inches. It’s tradition going back some hunnert years.
If you tell of racing on a 94 inch gear, people at the velodrome will know what you’re speaking of. Any other complicated re-calculations will just confuse people.
@Steampunk
@tessar
@mouse
Yes, always speak gear inches at the track. Tooth ratios mark you as a roadie or fixie kid. I only mentioned other systems because math.
51×16, 48×15 and 45×14 are pretty much the same, but it’s easier to say 94 inches.
And as @mouse says, gear inches is the oldest standard. Obvious when it was the diameter of your high-wheel; now we have to whip ’em out and download an app.
Hear, hear! @frank love the duality of art and function in bikes.