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/”/]
I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…
Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…
The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…
Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…
This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…
I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…
View Comments
@Rob
Fan-fucking-tastic shot sir! Nipple lube and then some!
@scaler911
Cheers, great memories...
OH - forgot the photo credit goes to @ Gianni! I had the honor of his being my occasional DS before I knew what one was.
@Marcus
The Shiv; Meh. If you're going to go for a straight up TT rig this is a far sight better:
@Marcus
No, no, no, no, no! Innovation refers to the use of a new idea or method. Introducing something new is called invention, you Aussie twat (I know that's redundant but it feels good to use two words when insulting you).
Making a downtube bigger is an adaptation, or evolution of an existing idea; there is nothing new in its root or in its application. Which isn't the same thing as saying its not a good idea, or an improvement. It does, however, represent the same kind of incremental change as does the improvements in brakes and shifting we've seen over the course of the 100 years or so the sports been around.
All that aside, introducing logic to this discussion would have been an innovation, should you have gotten it right. But being wrong as you were, it was just business as usual.
Shouldn't you be looking for @Minion? Isn't he in your country now? That must piss you off. With no sheep around, what does he fuck now? Kangaroos? Seems messy and dangerous.
@frank
On the hour record I couldn't agree more. As long as the bike is just something you sit on - not in, why not let them get all space age and helium light?
Another reason that the hour has waned is because it is only for glory. I never understood why Pharmy never did it when it seemed obvious that he would have killed it... Yea well I guess I have answered my own question... Oh wait was that a question? Maybe Cancellara will restore some juice to a 100 year competition, it would be great.
Kind of looks like someone left it in the sun too long, but I like it.
So if you have a "funny bike" (which I do), what's the point of using stem to make it like a 'regular' bike?
@scaler911
No, but my dad owns something like four or five of them - a few mountainbikes and a few road bikes. My dad serves as an inspiration for many of the Rules. Some of them positively - as in Rule 5 and many others that he reinforced over the decades, and many of them negatively as in how bad it is to get too many computers rolling on your getup.
His Look is so close to being fully Rule Compliant, but yet so incredibly far. He spent my childhood trying to figure out how to beat my desire to look like a pro out of me. Until he realized it made me go fast, it which point we just set about kicking everyone's ass.
Took me awhile to post this: Had to take a Valium to get rid of the seizure this induced:
@frank
Where's the television and satellite dish? Ha!