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/”/]
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Ironically, I saw someone riding a Cheetah on Saturday. (Picture for illustration purposes only.)
Good looking machine as far as Funny Bikes go--kinda like the Lotus for the "mass market".
@frank
I'd imagine if set up right (maybe with the saddle a tad further forward than normal) having that saddleback to push/brace against could yield big power advantages. Of course, I'm not an engineer, so I might be talking pish. As far as I know, Systeme U and Castorama were the only ones who used it so maybe it wasn't that much of an advantage.
@wiscot
You're onto it. The saddle Marie and others used was much more about leverage than aerodynamics.
@Tobin
Geez! That went on the road? I thought this was 'funny' for the veledrome;
@frank
"I loved me the eighties"
Definitely a time to be missed. However, I think some of those are much more aesthetically pleasing than today's TT/aero bikes...
That Cannondale monstrosity that @tobin posted a picture of is just plain fugly though.
@sthilzy
Ha. i was just about to post that.
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's a friend built a 20" 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.
@sthilzy
Hey where can I get a set of those lights??
Cinelli Laser: