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
@frank
@ChrisO
...and who is also interviewed on The Bike Show!
http://thebikeshow.net/the-moulton-story-part-one/
http://thebikeshow.net/the-moulton-story-part-two/
How about this one of Big Mig, with a 650c front/700c rear wheel rig, somehow managing to defeat its own purpose with lots of stem rise. Uncharacteristic from the man could invoke panache merely by placing a cycling cap on his head.
`
@Nate
It's hard to see from the photo "” is that the one where the downtube is replaced by some wire rope and a turnbuckle? Fucking nutter.
Yep, thats a length of wire rope with a tensioning nut back of head tube!
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.
Here's a collection of inovation;
[dmalbum: path="/velominati.com/wp-content/uploads/readers/sthilzy/2012.05.08.06.22.21/"/]
@sthilzy
I wonder what they were thinking with the kinked cranks ("Swastikas")? I mean, geometrically, you're not gaining anything over a straight crank connecting the spindle to the current pedal socket... Stiffness?
@Bianchi Denti
Always look out for Moultons ridden by bald men with huge beards and no helmets - they can really shift
@tessar
Here's an article on the PMP crank.
With scientifically designed bi-centric Polchlopek chainrings.
@ChrisO
Just doesn't look right.....
@Nate
Fuck Yeah!!!!
Mig in that helmet, or 'aero-cap' reminds me of one of Fat Albert's posse, Donald;