Categories: In MemoriamNostalgiaTechnologyTradition

In Memoriam: The Funny Bike

Laurent Fignon's Hour Record Machine

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.

[dmalbum path=”/velominati.com/content/Photo Galleries/frank@velominati.com/Funny Bike/”/]

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

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View Comments

motor city says:

May 7 2012 at 2:23 pm

I saw one of the boardman lotus bikes at a cycle trade show last year. What struck me about was how hand made and rough round the edges it was.
sthilzy says:

May 7 2012 at 2:39 pm

Always had Modolo's Kronotech stuck in my head since seeing it the Gallery of Bicycle Guide March 1986. I'm very late for work as I searched through my 80's bike mags to find it, scan it and post it up. Carbone or what?!

This was 26 years ago!
Love the seat post fairing. Check out the built in computer on the bars. Looks like a Cateye solar. Still has downtube shifters! The ground clearance of the front wheel fairing.
Oddly enough, this bike was featured on "Beyond Two Thousand" back in the 80's and I have a VHS tape of the segment - somewhere amongst the old VHS collection. I'll endeavor to dig it up and post it up.
Ron says:

May 7 2012 at 2:57 pm

Yes! Funny bikes...and the Castorama kit! What a perfect article.

It always intrigues me that The Skinny People of the Conurbations are in hot pursuit of their own funny bike to up the ante in the Ultimate Fixie Chase. Here are bikes built for velodromes & TTs on closed courses that folks want to use to ride in heavy traffic on poorly surfaced roads with texting pedestrians jaywalking all about. A very odd place and use for such machines.
frank says:

May 7 2012 at 3:26 pm

@Rob

The Canondale that @Tobin posted is weird/unreal but what if it works? I curse the UCI for retarding the natural course of design and engineering that would have taken place with new materials and technology. We now have bikes that are cool but so expensive I do not want to buy one even if I could.

For example if they had left well enough alone instead of a $15k diamond frame (100+ year old technology) Storck we might be riding some production monocoque frame for much less with the same specs in performance and weight.

Back in the early 80"²s a friend built a 20"³ wheeled race machine that weighed 15 lbs - it was awesome and I had tested it in club races. We found tubs for it in England and when they were pumped up to 120 psi that little thing was a rocket. He lost momentum and I only rode it in one open race where the chain dropped after 5 laps of a crit and since the competition happened to include Davis Phinney I never made it back in... But all for naught as soon there after wheel size was regulated.

My point is that a 20 inch wheel is lighter, stronger, as fast and can make design sense but now we do not have the chance to find out.

Exactly what I'm talking about, as you say, we'll never find out. I'm an outspoke traditionalist, but I also love evolution and innovation; it is a tragedy that we don't get to explore this stuff.

And I just happen to have a picture of you rockin' that machine right here. I might add that you Look Fantastic in this shot. The hairnet, that Castelli skin suit, the toe clups, the RED COCA COLA BIDON. One shifter, one BIG RING. Fantastic. How big was your gear?
frank says:

May 7 2012 at 3:34 pm

@sthilzy
Here is the full size of that scan - what a beauty!!

I love the direct-drive, which I'm guessing is why the big ring is SO BIG RING. Can't work out the pedals, but that is such a beauty.

I wonder if the redish orange stuff under the saddle isn't a fairing but a suspended saddle; it would explain why its canted forward now, and then when you sit on it, it would level out.

The back wheel remarkably resembles the Zipp SUb-9 disk:
frank says:

May 7 2012 at 3:44 pm

I actually blame the UCI for killing the Hour Record, which during the 90's provided some of the best and most thrilling competition that I can recall. Obree/Boardman of course, but there was Indurain and Rominger going for it as well. That's the last time a GT hopeful went for the Hour.

Innovation and making the bike faster was the perfect forum for that event. Sure, the Athlete's Hour is great and I like the rider-to-rider comparison, but ultimately very few people want to get on a bike just like Eddy's and see if they can go faster than him. Because they probably can't.

But the Hour is about seeing how far you can go in an hour - add the machine to it and all of a sudden you've got some major geekage going on and people start to really tug at the edges of their calculators to see what they can eek out of system.

Not to mention that the Hour is currently held by a guy everyone knows was doped. That further tarnishes the event and makes people even less interested in it.

I hope Cancellara goes for it; its a good season for it since he missed the Spring already.
Nate says:

May 7 2012 at 3:49 pm

@Rob, @frank

Hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but @Rob I need to nominate this photo for a guest article. That big ring is all kinds of awesome.
Marcus says:

May 7 2012 at 4:14 pm

Those crazy triathletes still innovate pretty well - the Specialised Shiv ignores UCI rules and with cool features like being able to put your drink in the downtube, there is still some cool stuff out there...

And who could forget the good ole softrides? I actually almost bought one of these in the mid-90s (because Greg Welch rode them), but was thankfully stopped by a wise friend.
Bianchi Denti says:

May 7 2012 at 4:20 pm

@VeloVita

The Bike Show podcast from Resonance FM hosted by Jack Thurston had a two-part interview with Mike Burrows, designer of Chris Boardman's Lotus, and included an interesting discussion of bicycle innovation. It is definitely worth checking out. Mr Burrows doesn't mince his words as to his feelings on the UCI.

I second that, as I love Jack and The Bike Show.

http://thebikeshow.net/burrows-on-the-bicycle-part-one/
http://thebikeshow.net/burrows-on-the-bicycle-part-two-laid-back/

He also interviewed Graeme Obree a few months ago, who is planning an HPV world record attempt. All interesting stuff, particularly how to motivate yourself during an ITT.
http://thebikeshow.net/the-obree-way/
Xyverz says:

May 7 2012 at 4:38 pm

@Marcus

And who could forget the good ole softrides? I actually almost bought one of these in the mid-90s (because Greg Welch rode them), but was thankfully stopped by a wise friend.

It's funny you mention the Softrides. I've seen no fewer than three of them in my first two centuries of the year! I'd totally forgotten about them until passing that first one in the Tierra Bella on the climb up to the first rest stop. They look pretty wacky, and I'm sure they're comfortable, but they still don't adhere to the Principle of Silence...