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 ...
@sthilzy
I ride 60mm rim depth on my race wheels in all conditions. Because I’m a strong MF and I don’t care about cross winds.
A month or so ago I replaced the FD and brakes on my hack commuter bike. I’m still beaming from the joy of effective braking and smooth front ring shifting each time I ride.
@sthilzy
Let me try and help my friend from down under to explain what I think he means.
He rode 303s in crosswind, struggled to stay on the road. Also when making a nice picture of his steed (compliant with Rule #26), next to the sea, his steed fell over from the wind. (Presume swearing and crying about the scratches ensued)
He’s happy to just use aluminium 24’s when riding close to the see and enjoy seeing riders with deep 808 rims getting blown to the other side of the road.
@RobSandy
@RobSandy
I fixed your post…….
Ah Bollocks. Courtesy a drain cover set at the bottom of a darned great hole where they did not raise the cover when they resurfaced. Integrated bars, carbon tube is crushed so they are trash.
Damage to self limited to skin lost from fingers, knuckles, forearm, elbow, shoulder, hip/thigh, knee, ankle and a black eye. Helmet trashed too – did a good job for sure. New jersey trashed. Shoe scuffed. Pedal trashed. Oh and a rib that hurts like $%£*.
Finished the ride though!
@Teocalli
Lord above, the price tag of that photo, not to mention the greater value of your health. Do you have crash insurance?
@mulebeatsdrums
Yes I do have insurance but I’m going to try to claim against the council for a dodgy road repair first.
@Teocalli
Good move. Which council would it be for you? Best of luck with it
So my LBS fitted a new BB to my Nr#2. Now it goes creak, creak, creak when I pedal.
Should I take it straight back?
@RobSandy
Of course, no question about it.
@Teocalli
Chazbot; you also lost at least 1 V-cufflink and they are hard to come by nowadays.
Been trying to visualise “Courtesy [of] a drain cover set at the bottom of a darned great hole where they did not raise the cover when they resurfaced” but cannot make sense of what happened. Did you end up in a hole where there was no drain cover? Or did you get stuck into a drain cover like a tram-rail?
@RobSandy
What kind of BB? My #1 had a BB30. Worst. Design. Ever. Took it to a good shop who did the right research and fitted an external bearing BB. Problem solved – after I’d bought a new crankset too of course. But what price a silent ride?
@wiscot
I replaced my Press Fit with a Praxis BB Converter. I would not buy a bike with press fit again. Particularly as I ride Gruppo with outboard bearings. Just a whole design that is bound to wear badly.
@KogaLover
I didn’t have V-Cufflinks they were Pinarello ones but I did save it but they come with the Pina bar tape anyway,
I hit the below. Something about the angle, speed (?) and maybe I was too relaxed but I think the impact bounced my hands off the hoods and I went straight through the front door. It kinda looks innocent but its bite was definitely worse than its bark! (PS those are not my painted toes!).
@mulebeatsdrums
It was in Hampshire just over the county border from home. They have 90 days to consider my claim, so will see what they come back with.
By the by – the red on the tape was mine running from an assortment of holes around my elbow. Everything has pretty much healed now.
@wiscot
Tbh I don’t know. I previously had a Dura Ace one and it looks the same
The whole drive train was pretty screwed so I agreed with the LBS that I’d replace it all with new and bring it back then if it still creaked.
Made a very satisfactory start last night out in the garden under a blue sky. Replaced cassette, jockey wheels and chain rings, cleaning everything as I went. New chain will go on then I’m going to replace all cables and housings too.
Whole new bike for autumn…
@Teocalli
Thanks, now I get the circumstances and what you meant by resurfaces (I had visions of people resurfacing out of manholes; not putting a new layer of tarmac on the road). In line with Rule #24, if you had taken the picture with a cm ruler rather than inches, your chances of getting a claim accepted would increase since the number goes from 3 to around 9.
But jokes aside, I once missed a bump in the road due to bad light, and my hands were also bounced off the bars, ending up me crashing into the side of a bridge. Fortunately my old vintage Koga only suffered minor injuries/scratches, but yours truly still carries some visible scars from that encounter. I had to take the train back home, since the crash also caused the chain to get doublelooped and back then I did not know how to fix that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iuLauaK0Ao
Wait until this cheese grater eats up your guns when you crash…
https://www.ceramicspeed.com/en/driven/
@KogaLover
I’ve seen that a few times and I can’t make up my mind as to how it will react to wear and crud from riding in the wet. My instinct says badly to both.
@Teocalli
Well since they haven’t actually made one that works yet I think those considerations are quite some way down the line.
Those shots of people riding it are not real.
@ChrisO
My conjecture was theoretical. I’ll also add wear. A chain has considerably more contact points, so I also suspect wear would be greater with that rig. Having said that cassette wear is mostly down to chain “stretch” in that if you replace your chain regularly a cassette will last quite a long time.
I also can’t quite work out how it works in syncing to change gear. Logic seems to say it can’t be perfectly aligned at every point around the cassette as the number of sprockets increases. So I can’t get my brain around the slot pattern on the cassette.
@Teocalli
Easy answer to that one – it doesn’t.
If you read the blurb they admit they have no idea how to make it change gear, they are hoping someone else can engineer that.
@KogaLover
Hi there KL; long time no see (and hello to all you other fine ladies(?) and gents who are keeping the V-torch lit). I couldn’t resist posting a piccie of my latest purchase – a bike I almost literally ‘stumbled over’ the last time I was in the Netherlands. A 1982 specimen (the same vintage as your Road Speed, I think) and in remarkably good nick (read: mint condition). For the record: the image below is from the 1982 catalogue: the actual bike is still in NL – will be picking it up around September 1st.
On a general note: does anyone know whether it is still possible to post (new) articles on Velominati? And if so, to whom and/or how should such an article be submitted? (When I first laid eyes on the real-life version of the bike shown above, I felt inspired to do a “Reverence”-style article on the subject of the Shimano AX product line. Almost regardless of how well that stuff sold at the time – and even, perhaps, of how well/badly it actually worked – I consider it almost mind-blowing that the Shimano engineers were working on aerodynamics for bicycles (now on everyone’s mind, it would seem) in the early nineteen-frigging-eighties…
@ChrisO
We just did a big Trek show at the museum I work at. We had 38 bikes from 1976 onwards. A few of the newer bikes had belt drives. I asked they guys at Trek if they thought that one day the chain would be replaced by something better. They said no, it was 93% efficient (which apparently in engineering/efficiency land is pretty damn good) and would be the transmission of choice. Now as for disc brakes, they’re all about them for sure. Start stockpiling your calipers now!
Sweet! Very nice find.
As for new articles, I doubt it. All the Keepers are gone (Gianni was my contact for submitting mine) and Frank has been here once in the last year. I have a few ready to go, but won’t be writing more as there’s no point. It’s just a few diehards keeping the flame lit.
Good to see you back though!
@wiscot
There is a slim possibility that I have some kind of access to the website/wordpress. Frank gave me some sort of permissions years ago to help out with approving posts.
Ill have to take a look. In addition my brother is a web designer/wordpress, ill get him to take a look at it and see what can be done in terms of posting articles or gaining some semblance of control over the sight.
Sorry just popped in to see what was going on, been a bit absent. Emigration to Oz happening on 11th November and hopefully I can get back on my N1 (its been stranded over there for over a year)!
@RobSandy
Phew – I can stop loosing sleep!
@ErikdR
Anxious to see a photo or six of yours when you get it. September 1st must seem like a long time from now!
As far as articles, I still think you and wiscot could publish them right here as a post. Sure, you won’t get the fame and fortune of a featured author, but the rest of us would enjoy them. It could stimulate some good discussion around here, too.
@ErikdR
Welcome back @ErikdR and that’s a noooiiiice bike. I was back in NLs couple of weeks ago, and managed only one nice ride around the Gooi and Vechtstreek. But the good news is that I also brought my VMW’s Koga and now my oldest son has started to join me on (short but increasingly longer) rides. Guess what shirt he’s wearing… He wears it with orange soccer shorts, so the colour matches, yet I have been trying to get him bibs but to no avail yet. He knows how to wear sunglasses properly though! The rest will come in time.
Now back to biz: my Koga Roadspeed also has some original Shimano 600 AX stuff: the gundecks were Dynamic Drive (I replaced them for SPD SL’s and for that purpose I had to go an find an adapter to fit the smaller thread), and the axles/hubs are also 600 AX. Rest is 600 EX/Arabesque. The hubs had light blue plastic rings at the end to protect the ballbearings from dust/sand etc. But back in the days, grease was dark coloured so now these rings have lost their heavenly colours as well. Tell me whether yours are still clean. Besides that, the only thing I also would like to replace are the hoods; they crumbled and I now have non-authentic replacements.
While writing this post, I googled for the 600 AX hubs and all pics on the web I saw, have the colour disfiguration caused by the grease, pity.
By the way, did you know these pedals actually have specific cleats? Only found out after I changed the decks.
And: I also threw away the original bidon. Hope your still has the aero bidon to go with it!
@Deakus
“There is a slim possibility that I have some kind of access to the website/wordpress. Frank gave me some sort of permissions years ago to help out with approving posts.”
And now you’re telling us… This has now highest priority for you.
@KogaLover
I do too, but I don’t think it gives me any ability to post articles. I can write them and upload them til the cows come home but I think only Frank has the ability to push the button and put it online.
@ErikdR
Can I suggest that if you have something to write, you cut and paste it into a comments box – as far as I can tell there is no word limit in the boxes.
It wouldn’t be an ‘article’ per se, but it’d be on the website and at least all us remainers would get to read it.
@wiscot
Hi @Wiscot. Thanks, and thanks. And yes: Gianni was also my ‘go-to person’ at the time. So far, I haven’t really been writing anything down re the Shimano AX group-san(s) – but once I do, I may take the advice posted by @MangoDave and @RobSandy and simply publish what’s on my mind as a regular comment.
I was interested to read that you have a few articles of your own already lined up. Care to lift the veil – just a tiny fraction – as to the subject(s)?
@MangoDave
Cheers. By the time I bring it home in all its 63 cm high glory, I’ll try to take 5-6 good pictures of it and will make sure to post them.
The silvery-blue hoods on the aero brake levers are missing, but to my surprise I managed to find a couple of levers – including hoods – on Ebay earlier today, at a fairly reasonable price. The aerodynamic bidon (and the special cage that it fits into) are missing as well – but I have a feeling that there’s one of those floating around somewhere. Will keep you all posted.
@KogaLover
I just checked: I still have an old Road Speed SL frame in the shed with an AX bidon cage – but no bidon, so I’ll be searching the interwebs for one of those soon. There are also AX brake calipers on that particular frame, which is nice to know, in case I need some spare parts for the brakes on the ‘new’ Aerolux bike.
I’ve been reading some horror stories about the dyna-drive pedals (particularly on how the bearings may start wearing out quickly) but we’ll have to see how it goes. I certainly intend to ride the new steed – but not necessarily over large distances (and if I ever decide to enter an event like Eroica for vintage bikes, I’ll probably us my 1982 Road Speed).
Great pictures of those AX parts, by the way!
@KogaLover
Sexiest. Brake. Levers. Ever.
@wiscot
I’ll raise you some Gruppo Drillium…….
@Teocalli
Shimano wins because they have more holes. More = better!
@wiscot
Always worth remembering when you are hauling on the levers to slow down in a hurry……………….
@wiscot
are you bonkers?! Campag wins because theirs are champhered [spelling?]. More care = better!
@davidlhill
+1
From today’s ride. Wearing my Kodak Ektar team jersey from the early 90s (yes, I’m that old!) … it still fits!
@chuckp
Nice! The early 90’s wasn’t that long ago, though. Oh, wait…
Socks are a little conservative for you today.
@davidlhill
I might be forced to agree with you seeing as the levers are attached to a Gios Torino bike!
@MangoDave
Yeahhhh, hate to break it to you but my VMH and I were born in the early ’90s and we are expecting a Future Pedalwan (read “baby”) in the next 2 weeks. I’m afraid it was that long ago…
If it helps, here’s a photo of yours truly on his first bike, circa 1996 (ish?):
@mulebeatsdrums
Early 90s? I think I have about 30 years on you! (The year I was born Jacques Anquetil won his fourth Tour . . . )
Best wishes for the upcoming family addition.
@MangoDave