We gather here today to pay our respects to one of the most exciting developments the Cycling world has ever witnessed: the funny bike.
For seventy years, the evolution of the bicycle was marked by incremental change; improvements to brakes, more gears, and better shifting followed one another as the sport grudgingly continued its slow journey towards progress and modernization.
Then, in an instant, disruption. Change. In the years prior to 1984, time trial machines were little more than finely-tuned road machines. But suddenly, spurred on by Francesco Moser’s success in breaking the Hour Record aboard a radical machine with double disc wheels and cow-horn handlebars, we entered a decade of innovation.
In the blink of an eye, we had broken from the shackles of traditional thinking and were suddenly free to think about a bicycle without constraint. Riders appeared in the start house with fairings attached to their saddles and bars mounted below the top tube. Riders toed up to the start line with broom sticks mounted across the drops of their handlebars. Aero bars appeared and with them, the triangular frame design that had graced our machines for three-quarters of a century disappeared. In the span of ten short years, time trial positions went from the standard tuck to the Super Man.
Then, in a crafty maneuver which demonstrates that the UCI’s incompetence is not a recent development, new regulations were introduced which effectively killed innovation in bike design. The UCI regulated the position of the bars, the saddle, the size of the wheels, the design of the frame; even the shape of the tubes are currently highly scrutinized. The UCI even offers an exorbitantly expensive frame certification process.
Join me now, as we examine some examples of the most innovative machines our sport will ever see.
A-Merckx.
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Well, shit on a donkey, this might be the best page on the internet. Seriously, check it out.
And the crazy thing is, these aren't even the best shots from that page, just the most relevant.
Nice headgear, John.
The British TT scene in the late eighties was the fucking bomb.
He might not be effective in the TT, but I bet he's handy to keep on the team anyway.
Rule violation aside, this guy might be a genius.
@frank
Is he using the fork travel to pressurise the keg? That is genius!
@Bianchi Denti
Ah, correction. No he's not. But he could, as the keg is a sprung mass. I hope he's reading this...
Why can't you buy these things at the LBS?
@DerHoggz
This, und This!!
@sthilzy
I loved, and still love the Kronotech. Still one of the most beautiful bikes from that era in my opinion.
I think that the seatpost fairing is a rubber boot similar to the ones that Modolo used on thier Kronos brakes.
Thanks for that @sthilzy!
@Bianchi Denti
Best part is; the trailer is way classier than the bike.
@tomb
You totally can, they're called "toe straps".
@frank
Awesome site. My sensei, Ian Cammish:
@Oli
He may also be using some of these to prevent the wheels swinging into the front wheel. They turn up on ebay every now and then.