The Bikes
The Bike. It is the central tool in pursuit of our craft. A Velominatus meticulously maintains their bicycles and adorns them with the essential, yet minimal, accoutrement. The Rules specify the principles of good taste in configuration and setup of our machines, but within those principles lies almost infinite room for personal taste.
It seems in some ways like a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, the way we honor our machines. We love them to a point that lies well beyond obsession. Upon these machines upon we endure endless suffering, but also find an unending pleasure. The rhythm, the harmony between rider and machine, the outdoors, the wind in our faces and air in our lungs.
The Bikes is devoted entirely to our machines. Ours, The Keepers, and yours, the Community. It features articles devoted to our bikes, and proves a forum for uploading photos of your own machines for discussion. We will be harsh, but fair; this is a place to enforce and enhance our observation of The Rules.
If you’d like to submit an article about your own beloved bike, please feel free to send it to us and we’ll do our best to work with you to include it.
- Rule #12 and the Cascade Effect
That is a very reasonable opening salvo for the Rule about bike ownership. Three is good and certainly a minimum, and we are talking road bikes here, if there was any doubt. They naturally become ordered: the #1 is ichi-ban, top dog, go-to bike for every and all rides. #2 was the old #1, ... - Guest Article: Black Is Not The New Black@kogalover is singing my song here. Bikes are beautiful. ’nuff said. VLVV, Gianni With all those posts on riding in winter and being visible, either by putting Eyes of Sauron or other car melting devices on one’s steed, or by even considering a YJA instead of donning plain black kit, it was about time to finally get ...
- Dialing in the StableThis was going to be an article about Rule #45. It is amazing how much time is wasted and matches burned when professionals stop for that second bike change to get back on their #1. With all the jigs available to team mechanics it would seem they could set up five bikes exactly the same. And ...
- Matching the drapes to the rugAs a longtime titanium bike owner, I’ve always been jealous of a beautiful painted frame but Ti and carbon frames don’t need paint like a steel frame needs paint. But I want some painted beauty. It’s like buying a white car; I can’t do white, need some color. So between a Ti frame and a ...
- Festum Prophetae: Waiting for the HourEveryone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. – Mike Tyson The one thing everyone should always plan for is that however well-conceived a program might be, things will never go to plan. The high level plan for my Festum Prophetae Hour Ride was as follows: Have a custom Hour Bike built by Don Walker. Because reasons. Reasons like custom ...
@RobSandy
Cable tension adjustment is on the derailleur itself. There is no need for a barrel adjuster.
@RobSandy
It looks like your Fulcrums are very similar to my Shimano RS81-C35s. Mine are my everyday (and only) wheels. Alloy brake track. Carbon fairing. 35mm deep. Great all-around wheels that could be raced (except I don’t race anymore).
Thought I’d post a few pictures of bikes currently or historically owned by me for entertainment of the masses. No idea how to post a picture though. I searched the site for prior discussions on this, but haven’t come up with any info.
I don’t know how I work on a computer everyday all day for years and still can’t accomplish this simple task. Anyone care to share?
@Logan Sholar
Must be logged in which I wasn’t apparently.
Current road bike – 2017 Giant TCR Advanced. I’ve had it for a year and keep trying to break it, but it won’t give in so I’m pretty happy with it. Stock except a switch to 28mm tires from 25mm.
@Logan Sholar
Did you try clicking the camera icon? Its just above the text box.
@logan.sholar
Old mountain bike that I recently sold. 2009 Niner S.I.R. 9. That is the actual seat post height. So many awesome rides on this bike.
@Hapsmo
Thanks for the response, dude. I realized you need to be logged in so I did and then saw the camera icon you speak of. All good now.
@frank
Never mind the shoulder, every time I see @frank seat to slammed stem, looks more painful! @frank Heal well and post an Article!
@chuckp
Totally, except the Fulcrums are all alloy. They seem very tough, stiff and fast considering the price tag. Bearings aren’t the smoothest though.
Until now they have been my race wheels – I’ve done well in crits and done a 22:16 10m TT on them.
But I think that bike deserves something a bit more flash!
@Teocalli
Tidy. R8000 derailleur on the way.
Anyone want to buy an Ultegra 6800 11 speed FD?
@sthilzy
It wouldn’t so ridiculous if the TT was horizontal. Seat post extension looks minimal on my new bike but it’s because the TT is much closer to horizontal.
The Code :) Black, black, black…
@Branimir
Saddle pointing down. Oh, and, The Rules.
Otherwise, nice ride, thanks for sharing!
@Branimir
And also – bike on the sofa? I assume you don’t have a wife.
@RobSandy
Thank you.
I have a wife, but she has very high tolerance regarding my bikes.. :)
@Branimir
Can’t complain about mine, she’s just given the green light to me buying my race wheels out of the joint bank account (and paying it back over the next few months).
@Teocalli
I’ve now got the R8000 FD in my hand and it looks like a) it will work a lot better with my frame and b) is generally much more straightforwards to install and get set up correctly (including getting all the trim functions to work).
We’ll see how it goes.
@RobSandy
Nice!
@Branimir
Nice Stable!
Going to get kicked out of this site for this!…..
but, still Rule #12 applies!
@sthilzy
Oh hell, you’ll have to do way worse than that to get kicked off here. And besides, this site needs all the posters it can get at the moment.
Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans who come around here and to all the others beyond, take a moment and count your own blessings in this crazy world.
@wiscot
Right, quoting a rule is pretty much what people do here. Who’s going to kick you out, anyway? The Keepers? Ha! I don’t think so. The inmates are running the asylum now.
From what I can tell, the only Keeper left is Frank. Gianni’s gone. Brett just posted an interesting book title the other week that pretty much renounced his status, Marko’s gone and Jim Thompson has never been seen.
@RobSandy
How I roll with #12!
@sthilzy
Yep, something going on with attaching photos! (Need some Keeper love here!)
@sthilzy
There are no Keepers, there is only Zool…
And that meme, yes, that’s exactly what I did.
I should have the bike finished next week (I’ve given up and am taking it to my friendly wrench today to sort out the FD problems) and once it’s taped up I’ll post some more pics with the Mavic CXR 60s on.
@wiscot
The Fuck?
Anyone want to by an R8000 front derailleur?
I already got one, waiting to put it on new build after decorating new house for SWMBO. Hoping I don’t come a cropper now…
Someone in the office knows I am older than 5 years of age…
Whassup? I am reset to Level 1 Velominatus?
@KogaLover
I think the whole site is slowly travelling back in time.
@RobSandy
I still have my +1 badge. So that’s ok.
@wiscot
I had a ton o’ fun here when there was a ton of traffic and also learned a hell of a lot about riding and working on bicycles. What seems like the high point came at a great time for me…wasn’t married, plenty of free time, was just getting into road cycling seriously. I had a blast here and out riding.
Now. Well now I’m married, have a 19 month old son, and to be honest, he’s at such a fun age I’d rather spend time with him on the weekends than go ride for fives hours. I still commute 5 days a week on bike and I ride road or cross for 1-2 hours on Sundays. I don’t think I’ll ever stop riding, but I’m not the road warrior I used to be.
It’s starting to feel a bit like this! Frank let us lend a hand to keep it rolling?
@Teocalli
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/2ff5fe30-1680-4fe0-9554-c827b48777d4
Well after a long loving relationship with my Toupe it came to an abrupt end the week before Thanksgiving. It snapped. I was devastated. This was the last of three extras I had bought before they changed the design in 2014. I don’t get on with them at all now. They do not have level one padding anymore, and the shell no longer flexes. It seems you cannot get level 1 padding in any saddle less 2 power models. Oddly enough the shell now turns up on the edges and makes for a nice sharp edge to get your soft man bits torn apart. Looks like a bunch of their saddles are now made this way. Heres a pic of the Toupe, you can see the edges in the cutout…
I was pretty bummed at the thought of looking for a new saddle. I tried like hell to get used to the new one. I tried a Sella Italia Superflow. That was Ok but the cutout was so big, and the edges of the cutout were pretty sharp and uncomfortable. I had an old Fizik Arione laying around that came on an old Giant TCR I since sold. It had no cutout. Man was I surprised at how comfortable I was. It was great. But after 40 miles or so I started to feel a bunch of pressure on the taint. Again I was bummed. So I went to Fizik’s site to have a look. I downloaded their app that supposed to tell you what type of reptile you are. I knew they would recommend chameleon for me but want to try the app out for the hell of it. Sure enough I was a chameleon. It recommended a Antares Large. It was black friday and all their saddles were 30% off. So I said F it and bought a Antares R1 Versus EVO Large, what a mouth full. It took a few days to get here from Italy. I threw it on when it came and gave it a go…. So far it feels like it may be a better saddle then my Toupe. It came in @ 175 grams. The quality is spot on and no harsh edges… This weekend I will have a good ride on it. I hope it works out.
@chuckp
Strong sock game there Chuck!
Just had a cool experience. I work in an art museum. We’re planning on doing a show with Trek based on design principles next year. This, of course, necessitated a trip to the factory in Waterloo. We got the whole tour. Behind the scenes, the factory, the Project One lab. Saw frames getting painted, wheels trued, bikes assembled. It was awesome. I believe they do tours for the public (maybe not as extensive) but I’d really recommend it.
@wiscot
That sounds cool.
I had a thought regarding articles – what’s the word limit of these comments boxes?
Could we paste our articles into one or more boxes, and share them that way?
I don’t know about you but I’m keen to read @wiscot‘s articles, and anyone else’s for that matter.
@RobSandy
Well, Frank has three articles from me on deck, but I doubt they’ll ever get posted at this point. I might start looking for other outlets for them.
The Trek tour was cool. A certain Texan rider and his career was notably absent. A big homage to Bertie in the Atrium though.
@wiscot
I don’t know how I feel about Lance being erased from history. I’d prefer to have him there so no-one will forget what a massive cunzor he was/is.
I think if we want something to happen re: articles we’re going to have to do it ourselves. I’ve got a couple.
Post one up here, it’d be great to read something new.
I reckon the local hill and woods where I do my hill reps are populated by a tribe of tiny stone age people. It’s the only logical explanation for the perfectly formed miniature flint spear tips I pick up in my tyres.
@Teocalli
Do you live in the Discworld?
Actually, we’ve had conversations along these lines before and I think you do.
Explains a lot.
Hi guys,
I suppose I’m what you’d call a Lerker, but I come on here just about every day (for over a year), I don’t feel as though I’ve got much to offer as a recent recruit to cycling but I love going through the old posts and articles so any way you can get new stuff posted would be great.
@wiscot
I think @RobSandy is onto something. Would you be opposed to putting your articles here in the discussion forum?
@MangoDave
yes this is a great idea. +1
@wiscot
how typically disgusting. like him or not, Lance BUILT Trek bikes into what they are today. where the hell were Trek before Lance and USPS?? they made good bikes, but were decidedly uncool. Trek was the brand hairy legged Freds rode their centuries on. lol
Il Progetto Finito
@MangoDave
@Cary
I’ll try posting the last thing I wrote up tomorrow.
@RobSandy
Sweet.