No Graveur needed here.
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.
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@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.