The orange beast (lovely) is sold

A sad day as the beast is off to a new home – 70 watchers on eBay then someone hit the plug and bought it …. now just to ship the monster …

goodbye orange friend

A sad day – toys being sold pt2 – MINT steel Pinarello Arriba £750

My lovely mint 1996 Pinarello Arriba bought last year New Old Stock direct form Italy.

56cm frame

Campag Equiped

Mint condition – the orig tyres even have little rubber bits on still. Ridden 112 miles – I then changed stem (orig also include) but frame one side too big for me. Been keeping in case i grew some more

Frame & Fork Frame Construction TIG-welded steel Frame Tubing Material Oria Fork Brand & Model Pinarello Fork Material Oria Rear Shock Not applicable Components Component Group Campagnolo Mirage Brakeset Campagnolo Mirage brakes, Campagnolo Mirage levers Shift Levers Campagnolo Mirage Ergo Front Derailleur Campagnolo Veloce, bottom-pull/braze-on Rear Derailleur Campagnolo Mirage Crankset Campagnolo Mirage, 32/42/52 teeth Pedals Campagnolo Mirage (clipless) Bottom Bracket Campagnolo Mirage, 111 mm spindle BB Shell Width 70mm Italian Rear Cogs 8-speed, 12 – 25 teeth Chain Campagnolo Athena, 1/2 x 3/32″ Seatpost 27.2 mm diameter Saddle Vetta SL Handlebar ITM Super Europa 2 Handlebar Extensions Not applicable Handlebar Stem ITM Headset 1″ Campagnolo Mirage Wheels Hubs Rims Campagnolo Roma 60, 32-hole Tires 700 x 23c Vittoria Techno Twin Spoke Brand Stainless steel Spoke Nipples Brass nipples

Why you should be riding Steel (or Ti) and not carbon

Courting controversy this one but some interesting thoughts ….

SOURCE: http://reviews.roadbikereview.com/why-you-should-be-riding-steel-and-not-carbon

So you’re about to mosey on over to your local bike shop and drop more coin for your first genuine racing bike than most people pay for an entire motorcycle. You’re either new to the sport of cycling or you’ve been riding for a few years, learning the ropes on an old aluminum frame that’s one season away from the dumpster.

independent fabrication’s Light Weight

You’ve been watching all the Spring classics, the Giro, the Vuelta, and the Tour taking notes on who’s riding what. You’ve drooled over your own teammates’ high-dollar race rig that has more carbon fiber on it than the International Space Station.

You’ve done all your research, have test-ridden all of the latest, high dollar, carbon fiber machines, and you’ve picked your winner. The checkbook is in hand cocked and ready to besmirch every last dollar in your savings account, and all that’s left to do is negotiate with the shop so you at least have a little bit of cash left to buy some inner tubes.

But before your visions of grandeur run rampant and your checkbook becomes more hollow than Landis’ Maillot Jaune, are you sure carbon is the right frame material for your needs?

Don’t take it wrong, carbon indeed has its merits, but the recent carbon craze seems to be heavily tied to bandwagon mentality; whatever the pros are doing is what the masses want to do too. It was true in the ‘70s with drilled-out components, in the ‘80s with copious amounts of hair gel and Briko shades, in the ‘90s with those horrific lycra shorts designed to look like blue jeans, and today with carbon racing bikes.

And why shouldn’t carbon be popular? A frame and fork weighs less than a six-pack of brew, they’ve got terrific road damping capabilities, are stiffer than an I-beam – at least initially – and most importantly, carbon fiber has an indisputable cool factor. As a testament to the popularity of carbon, custom bike builders who made their name in steel are now crossing over to carbon. Names like Steelman, Serotta and Independent Fabrications all offer bank account-busting custom carbon frames.

To many bike racers, the mere suggestion of racing on a steel frame, let alone training on one, would be considered a joke. For some unwarranted reason, steel has gained a reputation in certain circles as being slow, heavy and technologically retarded – similar to the now unfounded reputation diesel-powered cars earned in the United States.

But the reality is that steel has never been stronger, lighter and more durable than it is today. And more than that, no other material can offer the versatility to custom build a bike which fits its rider perfectly.

Mass-produced Taiwanese carbon frames, which often cost more than a custom-built steel frame, cannot even come close to providing the right fit, feel and ride quality that steel can provide, let alone its durability, which will last its owner a lifetime if cared for properly.

Dekerf ti – although they also are very well known for steel

So before you write that check, consider these reasons why steel is indeed real:

Custom Fit – Today’s production carbon bikes, in addition to being astronomically expensive, are not custom fit for you, the rider. And although one of the big advantages of carbon is its exceptional shock absorption and ride, every frame is designed for the heaviest common denominator, in other words, about 220 pounds. So what you have is a 150 pound rider on a bike designed for a 220 pound pilot. How do you think the ride is? Stiff. Rigor mortis stiff. So stiff that it can lead to unpredictable handling characteristics, which inevitably results in an intermediate rider crashing his brains out.

Alternatively, a custom-made steel bike is designed and built exactly to the rider’s height, weight, inseam and torso specifications, which will not only deliver a far better fit, but significantly better handling, compliance and ride quality.

Robin Mather – great for steel – good enough for Rapha

Timeless Style – Yes, carbon fiber looks cool, but its look has not stood the test of time like a custom-built steel frame. Hand-carved stainless steel lugs, fillet brazed tubing, and subtle accents provide far more personalization than a mass-produced carbon frame can ever wish to offer. It’s like comparing a nice suit you buy at Brooks Brothers to a suit that was made with raw fabric, by hand, in painstaking detail and care, by a master tailor.

A custom built steel frame from names like Baylis, Eisentraut and White also reflect the owner’s appreciation for keeping alive the tradition of handcrafted bicycle artisanship, which goes back over a century. A typical carbon frame can be manufactured in a matter of a couple hours or less, anonymously cranked out on an assembly line with a thousand other frames just like it. Brian Baylis claims that every single one of his frames has a minimum of 100 hours of his own masterful labor invested, and no two frames in his nearly 40 years of building are alike. With steel, you’re not just buying a bike, you’re buying a timelessly stylish piece of art.

Minimal Weight Difference – Perhaps the biggest complaint about steel is how much heavier it is than carbon. But like this author’s penchant for hyperbole, the difference is greatly exaggerated. The advancement of technology has been a driving force behind carbon’s arrival into the mainstream of the bike industry. Carbon frames are pushing the limits of shedding weight, with some frames dipping below the two-pound mark. But technology has also benefited steel, primarily in the form of thinner-wall tubing that provides not only more tensile strength, but also lighter weight.

The lightest steel frame you’ll probably find comes in at three pounds, but spec the bike the same, and you’re only talking a one pound difference over a carbon frame. Is that one pound weight penalty really a deal breaker? Are you that much of a weight weenie? Is weight really that much more important than ride quality? Ask a 180 pound rider who’s piloted a 15 pound bike down a windy mountain pass at 50 miles an hour if he’d be willing to sacrifice a little weight for a more predictable ride.

o rourke loveliness

Durability – Frame builders have been working with steel for over a century for many reasons, but one of the most popular reasons is because of the material’s durability. Evidenced by bikes built 50 to 100 years ago still roaming the streets today, steel has proven its worth as a “lifetime” material. Carbon? Not so much. Have you ever ridden an old, monocoque carbon frame with tens of thousands of miles on it? Wet noodle is the first descriptor which comes to mind.

I distinctly remember the joyous look on my buddy’s face when he got his brand new Team CSC Cervelo Soloist frame, it was the happiest day of his life as a budding Cat 2 racer. But that look of joy was nothing compared to the look of utter dejection he had upon returning from a crit in which he crashed and cracked the brand new frame clear through the seat tube. $2,500 down the drain purely because the tube landed on someone else’s handlebars at a bad angle. A steel frame would have scoffed at the mere thought.

And if you’re the type of person who has more muscle than common sense, absolutely steer clear of carbon. Steel frames can handle the over-tightening of bolts with no qualms, but over-tighten the front derailleur clamp on a carbon frame, and the resulting crack you hear will make you want to stick your head in a vice and over-tighten.

Also, be extra careful when loading that carbon bike in the back of your car. One misplaced blunt-shaped object will render your brand new $5,000 carbon racing machine more lame than a racehorse with tendonitis.

Value – Given the same amount of money spent, would you rather have a custom frame, designed to your exact size and weight specifications, that was built with the loving care and meticulous detail of a metal artisan, or a mass-produced frame banged out on a Taiwanese assembly line designed with the most common denominator in mind?

With proper care, a steel frame will most likely outlive you, while a carbon frame will hardly outlive the credit card debt you’ll be mired in regardless of what frame material you end up buying.

In Conclusion

Of all these aforementioned reasons, what I think the carbon versus steel argument really boils down to is durability. You’re shelling out a significant chunk of change for a bike. This is a bike you will be riding every single day (optimistically) and racing a few weekends per month (even more optimistically). If you have a finite amount of money like most normal people in this world, you want a bike that can deliver durability and reliability to last as long as possible, so at a minimum, when you’re done with it, you can sell it to someone else with a clean conscience knowing it will provide the next owner years of enjoyment.

Owning a carbon bike makes sense in some situations, like if you get insane “bro deals” from sponsorships or you’re on the payroll of a UCI-sanctioned race team, and are fed free bikes on a monthly basis. In these situations, durability isn’t as much of an issue, because you’re either selling it after one season or you’re constantly riding a brand new frame free of charge.

But if your goal is to buy a bike which will last at least 5 to 10 years, you owe it to yourself to check out some of your local custom steel bike builders. Or head to events like the annual North American Handmade Bicycle Show or San Diego Custom Bicycle Show, which will really open your eyes to the beauty and legitimacy of steel as a bona-fide racing material.

But whatever your decision, have fun, be safe and keep the hammer down!

In other disciplines such as cyclocross, having the absolute lightest bike is arguably more important than even with a road bike, because you have to constantly lift it and lug it on your shoulder. So carbon naturally has an initial advantage over steel. However, carbon frames have very tight clearances, and when the course resembles a mud wrestling pit, that featherweight carbon bike will turn into a mud-clogged anchor, making a steel bike with greater clearances pounds lighter. That is, unless of course, you’re fast enough to warrant having a backup bike with someone at the ready to exchange with you (I’m assuming this isn’t the case).

Dream bike: a classic steel FW Evans

One of the biggest names in the British cycle industry is developing a small range of high-end, steel frames to be handmade in the UK from Reynolds tubing, RoadCyclingUK can exclusively reveal.

James Olsen, who designed the Genesis range of bikes for Madison, is at the centre of Evans’ project to update three classic models from the FW Evans range: the Steelite, the Super Continental and the Ultra.Evans, best-known to thousands who have taken up cycling in recent years as a mass retailer of predominantly entry-level machines, is reviving the brand begun by its founder, Frederick W Evans, more than 90 years ago.

All take their names from classic FW Evans marques, but Olsen insists the new models will be evolutions of their predecessors, not reproductions.

“We’re definitely not making a ‘retro’ project,” Olsen told RCUK. “It’s what would have happened if the brand had never died away. If you look at the tube profiles, the patented drop outs, you realise FW Evans was quite an innovative guy and we wanted to keep that.

“FW Evans had some great bikes in the past. Most were custom to some extent. We have gone right back to the 1930s looking at the model, the style, and thinking about what we would see in the range now if the FW Evans brand had continued. The Ultra was the lightweight, fast, steel bike of the day. We have taken that name and updated it.”

He described the new Steelite, made from Reynolds 631 tubing, as a “lightweight, steel all-rounder”, the Ultra as “racy as a modern steel bike can be” with an oversized 631 head tube to accommodate the tapered steerer of a contemporary carbon fork, and the latest Super Continental as a “lightweight, long distance, audax or touring bike” whose prototype has been made with 853 tubing. Test results will dictate if the additional strength offered by 853 is required, he added.

Olsen has drawn on a close working relationship with Reynolds to develop an idea pioneered by FW Evans: ovalised tubing used by the Evans founder more than 80 years ago. “I was looking at FW Evans’ back catalogue and he had an ovalised tube profile to give what is now cherished as vertical compliance. Everyone else was using curly tube profiles for nominal improvements, where he used something quite different, which I think is impressive engineering,” said Olsen.

“We wanted to get the right level of stiffness in some places and compliance in others. This guy was doing the same in 1928.”

Testing has not been completed and Olsen stressed that the development phase is far from finished. The frames are being developed to an “open-ended” timescale and production will not follow the “model year” schedule typical of mass production frames. “I’m so used to Taiwanese time scales, but this is a very different project,” said Olsen, adding that he would be pleased if production began this summer.

“The aim is to get something with the comfort of a traditional steel tubed 531 frame but by having the tubes flat ovalised, something with a lot of side to side stiffness, without shimmy or flex. We didn’t want the trade off to be a lack of comfort,” he said. “We have done some comparative modeling. On paper, it looks like we have twice the vertical deflection than some of the bikes I know that we have used as a benchmark for comfort.”

Olsen was a visitor to Bespoked Bristol, the UK’s handmade bike show, and highlighted the TIG welded, 953 Brian Rourke frames and the creations of Ted James among the frames that had most impressed him. “It was great to see the revival in handmade British frames, but also to see the kind of things we are up against,” he said. “The quality of handmade bikes in the UK is fantastic. You could do a lot of that in Taiwan, but not in the same customised way. We’re trying to do something half-way between the two with small batch rather than mass production.”

Reviving a “connoisseur’s brand” was a dream project, Olsen admitted, but insisted that designing “second or third” bikes for newcomers to cycling for Evans’ Pinnacle range, was as satisfying as “preaching to the converted”.

“It’s a great project. Not only do we get to build some really lovely bikes in the UK, but we get to surprise a lot of people about what we can do,” he said.

“People won’t expect us to put time and resource into this. They are not going to be cheap bikes. On paper, this isn’t a commercial project, but at the same time, there are so many passionate cyclists in the company, there’s a thought that, ‘wouldn’t this be fun to do?’

616 Bicycle fabrication

following on from the reblog below look at these 650b beauties …. they also do a 29er for taller bods …. here is their site in full glory

We are all 29er junkies over here, but let’s face it not all size riders belong on a 29″ wheel. Over the years, we have observed many shorter riders grinding through trails on a 29″ wheel. What really caught our eye were the angles of a frame that seemed so whack to have to accommodate for the shorter top tube length but yet still allow for sufficient tow clearance. We decided there had to be a better option, so we turned our sites on the 650b.

Our intentions from the beginning were to create the best riding custom steel 650 to feed this niche. What we discovered is that the 650 is not only the optimal bike for a shorter rider but it is also one of the most fun rides for a rider of any size.

A smaller wheel equals better leverage to the rear tire, plain and simple. In our prototype process, we noticed immediately the quick off the line response especially riding a technical trail with many switchbacks. The front tire seemed to roll over everything and cut through sand just like a 29er. Overall we knew we were on to something. Matched with our custom steel formula we created the fastest xc riding machine on the planet. Frame weight: 3.5 lbs (medium).

• Hand selected tubing per customer ride preference
• 4mm custom poured headbadge
• Laser cut stainless bridge plate with logo
• Custom laser etched ID plate with customer name, serial #, tubing used,  and year it was built
• Decorative lug head tube piece (per customer request)
• Custom paint with painted logo (no decals!)
• Custom geometry per customer request (additional charge may apply)

Surly long haul trucker

Owners might be the best salespeople when it comes to bikes … Certainly breadbike.org speak about the virtues of the Surly LHT and our friend Tom Morton who is crossing Scotland on one later in the year (we are filming a small doccie on this) is a fan.

Other people like the one below give an eloquent appraisal of the good (and very occasionally weaker) points of the bike. This one is so well written I thought I would repost it here.

http://bicycletouringpro.com/blog/surly-long-haul-trucker-touring-bicycle-review/

Deciding which touring bike to purchase is no small undertaking. When you’re going to be spending so much time and money on a bike, it’s important to get it right.

Over the past two years, my partner and I have used our trusty Long Haul Truckers to carry us up and over the hills of Wales, along the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia, across the Peaks and the Pennines of England, and – in our most extensive trip yet – around New Zealand’s beautiful South Island.

But before we did all that, we spent hours poring through internet forums, blogs and reviews in our quest for the ultimate touring machine. We also talked to friends who have been cycling touring and were a wealth of knowledge. A few of them had the Surly Crosscheck or the Long Haul Trucker and rated them highly.

We looked at the Dawes, the Thorns and the Koga-Miyatas among the many touring bikes on offer. But it was the Long Haul Trucker that kept popping up as the touring bicycle to have: a steel frame with all the braze-ons that you would ever need for v-brakes, racks, bottle cages and even spare spokes.

We already had a Surly in our stable, the Steamroller, which had done a good service as a fixed city commuter. The Surly 4130 CroMoly steel gives a comfortable and reliable ride, the paint job was smart, and we knew that we couldn’t go wrong with a Surly.

At Brixton Cycles in London we had a chance to see the Long Haul Trucker in the flesh. Beautiful, aren’t they? We had a great chat with the staff there, who are real Surly enthusiasts. After some discussion, we found the right sizes for the two of us: quite comically I settled for the towering 58cm 2009 model in green, and my partner went for the diminutive burgundy 46cm, of which, happily for our wallet, Brixton had one left over from 2008 at a reduced price. We came away from the shop buzzing with ideas about how we’d build the bikes ourselves, to our exact specifications and needs. New additions to the stable were soon to be born!

The Build & The Ride

All the Surly bikes we’ve come across (the Steamroller, Crosscheck and now the Long Haul Trucker) are certainly not on the light side. But they are built to last – sturdy and rock solid. The relaxed angles and the longer wheelbase make the Long Haul Trucker a simply brilliant ride.

Over the years, we’ve each tried many other kinds of bicycle, from custom-made titanium racing bikes to aluminum hard-tail mountain bikes. Admittedly, we’ve never tried a different model of touring bike, but the Long Haul Trucker has made such an impression that we feel we’ll never need to. Simply put, they are probably the most comfortable bicycles we have ever ridden.

The Surly Long Haul Trucker is not built for speed, but for carrying you and the kitchen sink. It really does handle and feel most at ease when you have loaded it up. This is, I’m sure, a common principle of all good touring bicycles.

We’re ashamed to admit that our other bicycles have more or less been put out to grass since we got the Long Haul Truckers. We have a couple of fixed and road bikes along with a MTB commuter. But, over the last two years, they have just been gathering dust, since the Long Haul Truckers are so comfortable and a joy to ride. While the titanium road
bike is a flighty thoroughbred, the Long Haul Trucker is a sturdy and reliable cart horse.

We’ve even used our Long Haul Truckers as commuting bikes in London. They are slow and heavy but always get you there in comfort and with a smile on your face. It is no racer, but let’s face it, you’re not going to do a sprint finish when touring. Need to take lots of luggage, extra water and a stock pile of food when away from civilization? The Surly doesn’t complain. It just takes the load and keeps on going. You can almost hear it say “More luggage? Bring it on!”

Even at low speeds and fully loaded it handles very well. Nor is going up steep hills a problem. In the fastnesses of Wales and the Pennines we managed a few serious lumps – even a 25% incline – fully loaded, with the front wheel firmly planted on the ground.

I’m told I sound like a broken record when telling people about this bike, but it’s honestly the best way to describe it: It’s like riding a four-wheeled sofa. Heavy, but comfy as anything.

The Build & The Cost

We got hold of our two Surly frames at our local bike shop in London, Brixton Cycles. The 46cm was £50 cheaper than the 56cm, which set us back £350 since it was an older model (2008 rather than 2009). There are no substantial differences between the two frames aside from different lugs on the dropouts, and the colour: the 2008 frame was
only available in a rather fetching burgundy. Otherwise, they’re exactly the same. The 2010 model seems to differ from the 2009 frame in colour alone, and if there are further differences, they must be subtle as they’re not immediately noticeable. And, from discussions with other Long Haul Trucker riders, the ride quality doesn’t differ from model to model.

When it came to selecting the correct size, there were a few different schools of thought to consider. We took the advice of the bike shop to go for a smaller size than usual in a touring frame. The 60cm, and maybe even 62cm frame would certainly have fit me, but our man Barney at the local bike shop advised me to go for the 58cm in order to have
greater control over my steed when fully loaded, especially when getting on and off. I do have a rather long seat post and a raised stem. I didn’t even need to cut the fork down. What matters is that I feel comfortable on the bike, and so I’m absolutely sure I made the right sizing and set-up choices. Even my partner took the size down from her normal size, 46cm, and she just loves riding her Surly Long Haul Trucker.

If you prefer an off-the-peg bike, you can get the Surly Long Haul Trucker built up from Surly for just over £890. We decided that we wanted to build our tourers from scratch, as we had particular ideas about our preferred components. For example, I don’t get on with drop handlebars or downtube shifters, and my partner prefers shallow drops and women-specific saddles. I also looked forward to the process of sourcing the parts and building up our new steeds. And then there was the practical benefit of helping me understand the bikes inside and out, and be prepared for any potential mechanical breakdowns while out on tour.

I built up our Long Haul Truckers with XT groupsets, 44, 32, 22 chainrings and a 11-34 cassette which gives us plenty of low gears for going up the steepest of hills. I chose the Hollowtech II bottom bracket, which I admit I was a little worried about at start (new-fangled technology!), but they are running just fine.

My bike has butterfly/traveller handlebars, which I’m still playing around with to find exactly the right set up. I’m almost there. The wheels, 700c, I bought second hand from a friend who’d built them up himself with a HOPE XC rear hub and SON dynohub on Mavic A319 36 hole rims.

The smaller Surly was set up with women-specific shallow drop Bontrager handlebars and Ultegra STI shifters which work great with v-brakes when you use travel agents. The wheels, 26”, were built with HOPE front and rear hubs on Mavic A319 36 hole rims, by our very good friend and wheel builder.

Both bikes run Marathon Plus 35mm tyres which are pretty much bombproof, which is much needed for touring and commuting in London. Admittedly the tyres are slightly on the slow side (see a theme emerging here?), but it’s not speed we care too much about. Rather, it’s durability and longevity that are important. The Marathon Plus ticks these boxes. As for the racks, we chose Turbus Cargo and Ergo racks because we’d heard good things about them and I was lucky enough to get them on discount through my work.

It’s a bit hard to state the total cost of the bikes. To be honest, we got rather carried away when building our new toys and didn’t keep a close eye on the budget. Plus, we did have some of the parts stored up already along with several great offers we managed to pick up online and through my work. The bike building project began in January 2009
and the first bike was fully built by June of the same year. If you have time to spare, gradually picking up bits and pieces through online offers can save you quite a bit of money. For example, we picked up my partner’s Ultegra shifters for half price, and got the Hollowtech II crankset for over £100 less than the street price.

But I’m pretty sure if you go into a shop and order what we have, you are going over the £2000 mark for each of these bicycles. That said, I’m sure that the off-the-peg Surly would be a great ride still and a great starter tourer to build up when you can afford to upgrade.

The Small Things

The paint job is good quality. I have used my Surly heavily over the last two years and of course there are a few scratches, but the paint job is still sound. I had read that the paint job on the burgundy coloured Surly wasn’t the best. But, we have not had any problems with ours. There was a rather big scratch inflicted by the journey to New Zealand but no paint job would have survived that.

The smaller 46cm frame is rather compact so you can only have one 750ml bottle in the three cages. The one on the seat tube can just about hold a 750ml bottle, and it’s a bit of a faff to get the bottle out and in. The one on the underside of the down tube can only take a small bottle as there is no room for it because of the front wheel.

Since the Long Haul Truckers are on the heavy side, you will be a bit pushed keeping your packed up bicycle within your luggage allowance when flying. We try to add a little bit extra into the box, such as your sleeping bags and tent. But with the Long Haul Truckers you don’t have many extra kgs to play with.

The standard sized bike box you can pick up from your local bicycle shop, is a tight fit for the 58cm frame. Even with front rack and mudguards off your Surly will be bigger than the box. I had to take the forks off as well in order to get it all into the box. The 46cm frame, however, fit nice and snug into a standard cardboard bike box.

My very first ride on the Surly Long Haul Trucker was quite an epic one: a ride called the Dunwich Dynamo, a 110’ish mile long ride over night from London to a beach north east of London. Around one thousand people take part every year in the summer. It was pretty much thrown together in the morning before the ride, a quick spin in the carpark
to see if it worked, loaded it up and off we went.

After around 40-50 miles my shoulders started to hurt. I then raised the stem one spacer and the pain started to go away. And that was it for the rest of the ride. It was just so comfortable. When I got back onto the bike after a quick swim and breakfast it was not painful.

When people see the Surly they are really interested and only tell you good things about it, either from their own experience or from what they have read or heard. I recall that at 4am on the Dunwich Dynamo, I was passing two ladies on a hill, and we all were rather tired at this point. One of them asked me, “Is that the Long Haul Trucker, with the
long wheel base?” This made me smile, gave me a boost and made me rather proud that I had picked such a well thought of and famous bicycle.

The only thing that has broken on the Surly is the rear wheel which was second hand. After nearly 10,000 miles in total, the rim cracked. I think it handled it responsibilities very well since I’m not the smallest of people and do carry a lot in my panniers, including a heavy tool kit, while commuting in London. And we did ride on some rather rough gravel roads in New Zealand. Otherwise they just roll along taking in whatever you throw at them.

The Surly Long Haul Trucker: In Summary

You’re not going to win any races riding a Long Haul Trucker. But it does exactly what it says on the tin. It carries you long distances, with all your worldly possessions (well, almost) in comfort and style. It just gets better the more you load it up.

I’m now coming up to 8,500 miles on mine and when it’s clean it still looks like a new bicycle. In the meanwhile, our other bikes look out jealously from under the washing draped over them; they’re just glorified laundry hangers these days. We were warned that once we’d joined the Long Haul Trucker club we’d have trouble weaning ourselves off… and it’s true!

I know for sure that these lovely, dependable Surly Long Haul Truckers will be in our stable for many years to come. It’s testament to the comfort and quality of the bikes that we really can’t think of anything that we want to change about them. We might just top up the paint job when it’s needed. In the meantime, there’s a lot of world left to explore, so we’ll just keep on Long Haul Trucking.

Spin Doctors convene to roll out their works of art

FROM WIRED

SACRAMENTO, California — A factory worker can turn a handful of tubes into a bicycle. An excellent bicycle, even. But only a craftsman can turn those same tubes into a work of art.

This craftsmanship elevates a bicycle from a commodity to something … more. Something made just for you, by someone who gave you exactly what you want. Something born of a passion for riding and an abiding respect for framebuilding. This much was obvious at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, where more than six dozen framebuilders gathered earlier this month to celebrate their craft and show off their latest creations.

Here are 12 of WIRED’s favorites from the show.

Black Cat Bicycles

Todd Ingermanson built his first bicycle 10 years ago, for one simple reason.

“I couldn’t afford a hand-built bicycle,” he said. “So I thought I’d build my own.”

Here’s the thing, though: Building your own bike isn’t much cheaper than paying someone else to build it, once you pay for tools. And jigs. And painting. And … By the time Ingermanson was done, he’d invested so much time and money in the project that he figured he’d build another bike. Black Cat Bicycles was born.

It hasn’t grown much in the decade since. It’s still just Ingermanson working in a 400-square-foot shop in Santa Cruz, California, doing everything from welding the frames to printing the T-shirts to sweeping the floors. He likes it that way.

Ingermanson builds “35ish” frames a year. Each takes 35 to 40 hours. He works almost exclusively with steel, though you’ll see him use carbon from time to time. He’ll build just about anything, but says his 29er single speed (shown) is his most popular bike. The frame will set you back around $2,500, which seems like a bargain when you consider the quality of his workmanship. The only thing more beautiful than the lugs are the paint jobs covering them. Ingermanson paints everything himself.

“I get to geek out with masking tape and paint,” he said with a laugh. “It’s like doing an art project every few weeks.”

Vibe Cycles

Dave Kelley spent much of his career as a cabinetmaker, which might explain the material he used to build Sleigh Ride, his fat-tired snow bike: Bamboo.

Bamboo was for a time the hot new material. Kelley got wise to it three years ago after Craig Calfee rolled into Interbike with a bamboo 29er that got a lot of attention. “Well,” Kelley thought, “I can do that.”

He can, and did. Kelley and his wife, Christi, spent most of the past three years developing, refining and testing their 29er on the roads and trails around Boise, Idaho. The bike, with bamboo tubes, carbon lugs and big cushy tires, has been bulletproof.

“We’ve been trying without success for three years to break it,” Christi Kelley said. “We didn’t want to sell it if we could break it.”

Sleigh Ride was one of a handful of bamboo bikes at the Handmade Bicycle Show. Kelley says the material has a lot to offer. It soaks up vibrations, she says, and it doesn’t break. Still, bamboo is a niche material, which might explain why Vibe Cycles is developing aluminum and titanium frames.

A Sleigh Ride with straight tubes will set you back $2,295. Go for the more elaborate curved tubes and you’re looking at $3,495. The red and black color scheme looks great, and we especially like the flask holder. It’s a must for riding in snow.

Groovy Cycleworks

This bright pink beauty was among the show’s head-turners. It sums up Rody Walter’s entire approach to framebuilding: design the bike the rider wants, involve the rider in its construction and ensure it makes people smile.

Mission accomplished. Seriously, now — how can you look at a bright pink cheetah-print bike and notsmile? So what’s the story with that?

“The customer wanted it for his 40th birthday, but as a condition, he told himself he’d let his 8-year-old daughter choose the color,” Walter said of the $7,500 bicycle. “She chose a pink cheetah-print pattern. He said OK.”

Walter launched Groovy Cycleworks in 1994. It’s a one-man operation, which Walter says “allows me to have a more holistic approach to building.” In addition to road, cyclocross and mountain bikes, Walter also makes gorgeous handlebars and cranks, too. He’ll build a bike out of anything but carbon, because carbon isn’t recyclable.

“Ethically, I can’t be a part of that,” he said.

It takes Walter about 40 hours to build a bike. Want one? It’ll be awhile. He’s got a 56 month backlog. But on the upside, he only requires a $20 deposit.

“I used to be like other builders and require 50 percent,” he said. “But I realized I was holding their money for almost five years. I’d rather they put that in a CD or something and use the interest to buy better components.”

English Cycles

Rob English is so skilled that he can build half a bicycle.

Project Right is a single-sided, single-speed belt-driven road bike commissioned by Fairwheel bikes in Tuscon, Arizona. It’s an intriguing ride, full of amazing details that showcase the Eugene, Oregon, builder’s engineering skills.

Take, for example, the rear hub. English designed and machined it himself. A one-piece shell rides on bearings pressed onto an axle tube welded to the chainstay. An an eccentric bottom bracket allows tensioning the drive belt. And the cog is mounted outside the frame, making belt installation a breeze. It’s brilliant. Largely pointless, but brilliant.

“There’s no engineering reason for it,” English said of the single-sided system. “I just did it because I could. There is one advantage to it, however. If you get a flat, you don’t have to remove the wheel.”

The front fork is a riff on the Cannondale Lefty, and the frame is a mix of Columbus and True Temper tubing. It’s all flawlessly fillet brazed and covered in a paint job designed by artist Geoff McFetridge.

Project Right as a Herculean effort, with a Herculean price of about $10,000 ready to ride. A more conventional frame built to your specs starts at $1,950.

Bruce Gordon Cycles

Bruce Gordon has been building bicycles since 1974 and is therefore entitled to the occasional extravagant project. Like, say, a carbon-tubed, titanium-lugged bike that perfectly combines old-school aesthetics with modern materials.

No, extravagant is not too strong a term for a bike worth more than your car. And quite possibly the two parked next to it.

The bike is one of two Gordon made with Mike Lopez of Serotta Composites for the 2010 San Diego Bicycle Show. The project started, as these things often do, with a few drinks and the question, “What if…?” and the answer, “Just because.” The bike has been making the rounds ever since, and never fails to draw a crowd. With good reason — it’s stunning.

The carbon was hand-laid, including the fenders, and shines like a mirror. The titanium lugs, fork crown and other components were milled from 15 pounds of solid stock. Time, and money, was of no concern.

“I spent two months, working six days a week for six hours a day, just making the lugs,” Gordon said.

He isn’t boasting, just stating a fact. The lug joining the top tube, seat tube and seat stays was assembled from nine pieces. It’s absurd but inspiring, as it speaks to the level of craftsmanship that permeates this bicycle. This isn’t a show queen, though. Gordon actually puts miles on it.

“It’s the nicest road bike I’ve ever ridden,” he said.

Victoria Cycles

If Bruce Gordon is an elder statesman of framebuilding, David Hill is the new breed. He launched Victoria Cycles just five years ago. Before that, he was a mailman.

Yes. A mailman. But that was what he did. It wasn’t who he is. What he is, and always was, is a bicycle fanatic. So after 20 years in the same job, he decided to follow his heart.

“I’ve always had a passion for cycling,” Hill said. “My first job was working in a bike shop. I loved it.”

That love is reflected in his bicycles, like this 29er commuter bike. Like all the bikes he builds one by one in his workshop in Salida, Colorado, it’s steel. And, as is his preference, it features attractive lugs. He’ll do fillet brazing, but prefers lugs for his frames because they’re stronger and, frankly, prettier.

“I love lugs,” he said. “It’s what I grew up riding.”

Hill will build anything, from road to mountain to track. Don’t let his preference for pretty suggest his frames, which start at $1,550, aren’t meant to take some abuse.

“I’m an artisan, not an artist,” he said. “I want my bikes to be pretty, but ridden. I don’t want to build bikes that are hung on a wall and just looked at.”

Broakland Bikes

Jason Montano builds one kind of bike, and only one kind of bike, for one reason.

“I only build track bikes,” he said. “I’ve been riding track bikes since I was a kid. Build what you know.”

This is their latest model, the S3. As the name suggests, it features a True Temper S3 tubeset and flawless welding by Jason Grove. It isn’t cheap — $3,500 with a Wound Up fork — but it is gorgeous.

The frame weighs less than three pounds. Build it up with vintage parts and you’re just a hair over 15. Use modern parts and you’ll come in at a hair less. As for the paint, well, that’s a story unto itself.

“I was surfing the Internet and came across a photo of a crazy mid-80s French ski-jumping suit,” Montano said. “I sent it to my painter and said, ‘Match that.’”

He did. Perfectly.

Six-Eleven Bicycle Co.

This cross bike has all the parts to make us drool: Dura Ace components, Wound Up fork, White Industries cranks, the works. But what caught our attention was the paint job. It literally stopped us in our tracks.

The base color is khaki, so flawlessly applied that it looks wet. Laid over that are dots. Hundreds of dots, each painted with the head of a spoke in four shades of brown that resemble flecks of mud.

“It took about three weeks,” builder Aaron Dykstra said of the ornate design.

The bike is, like all of Six-Eleven’s frames, steel. Dykstra loves the stuff because “it’s such a dynamic metal. It can do anything.” He’ll build anything, from track bikes to townies. Six-Eleven frames start at $2,075.

And that name? The Great 611 was a J-Class train built in 1950 by Norfolk & Western’s shop Roanoke, Virgina, where Dykstra’s shop is located.

“It’s always been an icon of my hometown,” he said.

Dykstra took home an award for best cyclocross bike, following up on the best track bike award he won in 2011 and the rookie of the year award he snagged in 2010.

Don Walker Cycles

Don Walker is the reason all these guys get together each year. In 2005, he and four other guys organized the first North American Handmade Bicycle Show. It’s a family reunion of sorts, a bunch of passionate bike nuts getting together to show off their skills, welcome new builders and educate the public about their craft.

Walker was holding forth this year from his booth at the center of the hall, a broken ankle elevated on a stool and a bottle of scotch not far from reach. He was in his element, surrounded by friends and by bicycles, including this single-speed cyclocross rig built for his friend J.C. Breslin.

It’s gorgeous, with a mix of Columbus and Reynolds tubes, Surly dropouts, a Ritchey fork and flawless fillet brazing. But what we really like is the head tube badge. Breslin wanted a totally custom bike, so Walker designed a one-off badge. It features Walker with a stogie in his mouth, a glass of scotch his hand and a mischievous look in his eye.

“It was the only thing I could think of that was completely silly,” Walker said.

Alchemy Bicycle Co.

Dave Ryther has one thing to say about his company: “We make the best damn bikes in the world.” You may disagree, but one thing is sure — Alchemy Bicycle Co. made the best damn carbon fiber bike at the show.

The Aero Road is a wisp of a machine, more of a blade than a bike. It was custom built using Enve tubes made on the company’s own molds, and it sports top-shelf parts from SRAM and Enve Smart wheels. It’s striking. Ready to ride, this bike costs a bit more than $11,000 and weighs a bit more than 14 pounds, a figure Ryther lamented is “a bit heavy.”

Alchemy got started in Austin just four years ago. Ryther is one of seven employees, and they hope to build 200 bikes this year. Everything they do is custom, and they build with carbon, titanium and stainless steel.

“Stainless is the new thing,” Ryther said. “It’s the poor man’s titanium. It has the electric feel of steel without the weight penalty.”

Bicycle Fabrications

This was the one we wanted to take home.

It’s designed for dual slalom, downhill and trail riding, but all we could think about was all the trouble we could get into. What else are you going to do with a bike called Pocket Rocket?

Bicycle Fabrications has built just about everything over the years, but it specializes in full suspension mountain bikes that can take heaps of abuse. Pocket Rocket is the San Francisco company’s latest creation. It sports 4130 chrome-moly tubes, a Fox shock and attitude to spare. The frame will set you back $1,600.

Shamrock Cycles

This is the city bike Tim O’Donnell would build if he were the customer. It is stylish, it is functional and it is, in a word, gorgeous.

“It is designed to be somewhat over the top,” he said. “I operate in a world of want, not need. To do that, I have to offer form and function.”

Ginny is a brilliant meeting of the two, a showpiece to highlight O’Donnell’s vision and skills. It’s chock-full of beautiful details. Brake lines and wiring for the rear light run through the Columbus tubes for a tidy look. Integrated racks and fenders with flowing stays. Carbon belt drive with an internally geared hub. And the racks. Oh, those racks. They feature a mix of birdseye maple, spalted maple, quilted maple, chestnut and walnut. Is it any wonder O’Donnell walked away with an award for best city bike?

If Ginny’s got a downside, it’s her weight. At 36 pounds, she’s a brick and a half. But no one rides a bike like this to haul ass.

“It is designed to get you there in style, in comfort and in silence,” O’Donnell said. “And it does so in spades.”

Look lively – it’s luscious lug time ….

jonny cycles

 

lynskey lug

canary silver tastic

llewellyn bikes

clean and simple

less clean more fancy

 

Felt fixie 2011 now reduced at wiggle

just seen this on wiggle – very nice from £700 down to £420

I would be tempted if I didnt already have 5 bikes.

Who says a modern, high-performance track bike can’t have a little style?

• Weight: 20.50lbs/9.32kg
• Frame: Felt TK track specific custom butted 4130 tig welded Cr-Mo tubes, oversize DT, butted tapered seatstays with horizontal forged steel dropouts and chain tension adjusters
• Fork: Felt track specific Lugged Cr-Mo with 1.125″ steerer & oversized Cr-Mo fork blades, 38mm offset
• Headset: FSA 1.125″ Threadless
• Stem: Felt 6061 aluminium 3D forged threadless quill, Ø26.0mm with -17° rise, 51cm = 10cm, 54cm-56cm = 11cm, 58cm-61cm = 12cm
• Handlebar: Felt TK 6061 aluminium with track drop, Ø26.0mm, 51cm-61cm=400mm
• Bar Tape: Devox TKessostar cotton handlebar tape
• Chainset: Felt TK Pista chainring, 24T x 1″ x 1/8″; 51cm-56cm=165mm, 58cm-61cm=170mm
• Bottom Bracket: FSA
• Pedals: Felt TK Pista with chrome plated toe clips and leather toe straps
• Chain: KMC Z510HX track 1/8″ width
• Sprocket: Track 15T x 1/2″ pitch x 1/8″ width fixed sprocket with lock ring
• Saddle: Felt Leather Classic road saddle with steel rails
• Seatpost: Felt TK 6061 aluminium, Ø27.2mm x 300mm
• Wheelset: Felt TK 22mm FB track, 32H 3 x front and rear with wood finish
• Tyres: Vittoria Zaffiro Pro Slick 700c x 25c

• Fork Material:Steel
• Frame Material:Steel
• Model Year:2011
• Road
• Wheel Size:700c (622)

The TK4130 pays homage to classic track bikes with a gorgeous frame made with, you guessed it, 4130 cromoly tubing. With its faux wooden rims, double crown fork, fluted cranks with a skip-tooth chainring, and classic leather saddle with chrome rivets, the TK4130 is the rare bike that can be ridden on the streets, raced on the velodrome – or both.

The bike and the story: Signal Bikes

sometimes you see a bike that just seems so there …. This is just one of those bikes ….. A found a link to Signal cycles and although I read about them in Paved Magazine and seen reference to them on the hand build shows I hadn’t ever explored their site. Like all custom makers they are dedicated to the craft of making beautiful bikes for the right reason. In the days of the giant makers and carbon cyber bikes it is good to see that the artisan maker is entering a new golden age.
Even if I haven’t got the cash to get one myself – it is nice I think to give them a shout out.

Signal Cycles are handmade bikes from Portland Oregon. Each bike is built with the full attention of Nate Meschke and Matt Cardinal. We started our company in the fall of 2007 and have been building momentum and beautiful bikes ever since.

There is a lot of talk of a new golden age of handmade bikes, and the US builders are leading the way. More people are experiencing the joy of working with a custom builder and realizing the importance of being able to collaborate, discuss, design and shake hands with the builder of their bike. Signal is proud to provide this experience. We wouldn’t want it any other way.

Pete’s Racer Equipped Road Bike

Pete is a bike mechanic and has been for a long time. He wanted a fender bike for long gravel rides in the rain and for maybe even doing some weekly races on at Mount Tabor. He sold his carbon bike and decided he wanted a steel Signal with Paul Racer brakes. We used direct post mounts for the brakes to keep things tidy and functional and built a unicrown fork that really goes with the fillet brazed frame.

Pete built the bike up with Shimano Dura-Ace, Chris King, and Thomson parts. The rims are ceramic coated to add durability to the sidewalls and they work great in the rain.

Lugtastic (Vanilla Bikes)

Never work as well in carbon do they?

 

Monday bike Style: Colnago sharpie

My second Ti bride

The lure of the exotic

Here comes bike no 5 ….. That lovely pinarello which I love has got to go. I have been trying various things to make it fit but basically it is a size too large for me. Just fired up on some alternatives – steel as well as Ti and bamm ….. Lynskey Cooper is coming my way

More soon.

Masi Prestige Reynolds 753 eBay NICE

Masi Prestige in rare Reynolds 753 tubing – restored by Alberto Masi

1977 Masi Prestige. 1977 first version in rare Reynolds 753 tubing. Campagnolo Super Record.

Very nice Masi Prestige from November 1977. The bike has been recently repainted by Masi and completely checked and reassembled. The color is the original Coppi-Carpano grey (the color of the bikes from the Carpano team). The Masi decals are the original ones from the ’70s, not replicas.The code “0″ punched on the bottom bracket shell (please see picture) indicates that this bicycle has been built using Reynolds 753 tubing. Masi built very few bicycles using this material and this bike is a rare example. The tubing is lighter than regular 531. The chainstays are thicker and more rigid.

Please note the “heart-shaped” motives on the seat lugs, under the seat pin lock, and on the cable routers on top of the bottom bracket shell. These are all signs of a custom preparation.

The collar of the front derailleur has been drilled personally by Alberto Masi in the ’70s and the original retaining screw has been upgraded to a stainless steel one (also in the ’70s).

The groupset is a complete Campagnolo Super Record. The crankset is from 1978 and the crank arms are 170mm long.

The rear derailleur has been upgraded in 1981 and the freewheel is a NOS Regina Extra.

 

A set of NOS Clément Criterium Servizio Corse tubular tires have just been installed. These are extremely hard to find. They haven’t been glued to the rim.

 

The bike comes with the original Silca Impero air pump, engraved Masi. The pump has an original Campagnolo metallic valve.

 

The original Alfredo Binda pedal straps have not been replaced, because they are still perfectly fine to use. An extra set of Alfredo Binda straps will be included. These are NOS and they are the hard to find buffalo skin version.

 

Two original NOS Masi Gran Criterium water bottles will be included. A yellow and a white one.
The bicycle size is 54cm top tube center to center and 54cm seat tube center to center.
The winner of the auction will receive a printed certificate of originality from Mr.Alberto Masi

Bespoked Bristol Bike Show

Bespoked Bristol show March 23-25 

You may have noticed the preview videos we’ve recently run so far about the framebuilders Robin Mather, Paulus Quiros and Demon Frameworks. If you haven’t this would be a good time to look because there’s a renaissance going on in handcrafted bicycles and the forthcoming show at Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Temple Mills railway station in Bristol this coming March is going to be a showcase of the movement if the first edition held last year is anything to go by.

Since then, we’ve seen the extraordinary success of the Bicycle Academy where over £40,000 was raised in a public ‘crowdfunding’ campaign so that a traditional framebuilding school could be established in the Somerset town of Frome later this year. There is undoubtedly a rise in interest with a number of builders, among themDownland Cycles in Canterbury, offering traditional brazing classes with the Kent workshop also offering official government-backed courses for students that hitherto would have only learned welding as part of an automotive repair course.

There’s even a superstar coming in the form of Italy’s Dario Pegoretti who is bound to be good value especially if he can be kept in one place to engage with some of our own characters. We’re thinking Pegoretti versus our own Brian Rourke from Stoke or Chas Roberts from Surrey, both exhibiting and all passionate advocates of their way of doing things.

The buzz is already going round about what the builders are preparing specially; it’s going to be great and we can hardly wait.

Cotic Steel Roadie – but only in 2013

from road.cc

This bike looks great.

We had that nice Cy from Cotic in the office today, and he brought along this rather fetching road bike prototype in Duck Egg Blue for us to cast our envious eyes over. It’s still in the prototyping stage right now but looks like it’ll be a goer for 2013. I can’t believe we’re talking about 2013 already.

 

Anyway, the bike. This frame has been put together using True Temper S3 tubing but the actual production bikes will most likely be Columbus Spirit. The tube profiles will be similar, although the teardrop section top tube (with the point runnning along the base of the tube) will be swapped out for an oval section one. The down tube is a biaxial oval profile, tall at the head tube for steering stiffness and wide at the bottom bracket for better power transfer. The seat tube is a 34.9mm tube (to fit a 31.6mm seatpost) so it’s pretty beefy, and the stays are fairly chunky too, ending in cowled dropouts. All in all, it looks very purposeful. We didn’t get to have a go on it but it had the look of a stiff, fast steel bike rather than a wispy, soft riding one.

 

Geometry wise it’s a pretty traditional shape, with the 58cm frame we saw getting 73° seat and head tube angles and a 58cm effective top tube. The head tube is long but not massively so, giving a fairly classic sportive position that should be good for most road riding. The steel frame is mated with a Carbon/Aluminium fork for now and the prototype bike (Cy’s own) was sporting a mix of 105 and XT gear; Cy runs a mountain bike chainset because his knees don’t like narrow road cranks.

 

It’s still a work in progress. Currently the bike’s not set up to accept mudguards; there’s no eyelets and the bottom bracket features side lugs to increase stiffness rather than a chainstay bridge. Cy’s warming to the idea of mudguard eyelets though, possibly hidden on the inside of the seat stays a la Cannondale CAAD 8. Certainly it’s the kind of bike you could imagine being pressed into all-year-round service. Currently the frame will take a 28mm tyre, so it’s entirely possible that later versions will have room for 25s and a full-length mudguard. I guess we’ll see.

And the name? Ai is just the prototype sticker that all the Cotic development bikes get. What it will actually be called is anyone’s guess. “The naming usually happens when the factory calls me up to say the bikes will be delayed if we leave it any longer”, says Cy. Production is probably a year down the line, as there’s prototyping in the production material to do yet, as well as a bunch of testing. We’re looking forward to it already though.

http://www.cotic.co.uk

 

Madison Street Bike by the Detroit Bicycle Company

JP special

It would seem a shame to take one of these black retro beauties out into the unforgiving pothole strewn streets of a Glasgow winter. It might be best to display the hand-crafted Madison Street bike indoors, perhaps in the living room, nicely leaning against the mantel. It certainly deserves a place next to other pieces of art.

Detroit Bicycle Company founder, Steven Bock, builds each bike to order from the finest parts. For those who appreciate high-quality bike parts, all frames are made with Columbus SL CRO-Mo tubing and Nova lugs. The Madison Street’s main attractions are the beautiful copper-plating of the Campagnolo and Cinelli parts, track rims with Vittoria Zaffiro tires and the inimitable Brooks leather saddle.

Each bike is customised, so prices vary, complete bikes priced at $3,200 and up, up …. UP

Old Raleigh clubman meet the new err…. Raleigh clubman

From the excellent road.cc

Raleigh brought a new bike to show us this week. Although it’s in their brief ‘Touring Series’ for 2012 the new model with a sub-40″ wheelbase, double chainset and side-pull brakes is more of a fast day-rider which is surely why they’re giving it a venerable name from the Raleigh back catalogue; Clubman.

Our recent invitation to the Hillingdon racing circuit to see the Raleigh 2012 carbon road bikes bought to light that they were planning to offer in the UK a selection from the very interesting steel-based niche machines developed for the US market. One in particular, the Clubman which our Dave only saw as images and a spec list really caught his eye inclined as he is to bashing off the odd hilly Century on finely-wrought steel. This week Raleigh came good on their promise to show us the first one that arrived.

Some deft touches on the 2012 Clubman but it’s all about the functional, mostly.

It seems odd that the company celebrating next year their foundation in Nottingham in 1887 should be focusing attention on America but that’s been the apparent priority these last few years as they’ve clawed back a place for themselves in the world’s largest bike market and upon which the strength of the brand is necessarily based.

The fact that Raleigh’s heritage is partly based on what the Americans used to call “English Racers” isn’t doing them any harm at all now that road bikes, ‘Gran Fondo’ rides and commuting to work are back on the Stateside agenda.

In what might be called ‘carbon racing’ they’re as up against it as any company in that scary field where balancing the tightrope of low weight, competitive price, sufficient strength and the dreaded lateral stiffness/vertical compliance is the stuff of a bike company product manager’s nightmares.

In the area where customers are looking for something else – certain undefinable aspects filed under ‘character’ – as well as extremely measurable features like price, longer-term performance and the ability to be repaired by a blacksmith up a track in the Gironde, the Raleigh folks can call on in-house memory; they haven’t had to reinvent the wheel, as it where.

Nicely lugged cro-mo fork and just about room for 28mm tyres and mudguards.

The 2012 Clubman which we’ll be seeing in Raleigh dealerships in the Spring is that most classic of all road bikes; the all-rounder, winter hack, Audax, randonneur, fast tourer. Whatever you want to call it, it has a 39½”/1,000-and-odd millimetres wheelbase, 72° head angle allied to an almost 2″/50mm fork rake, clearance for 28mm tyres and mudguards but with calliper brakes and all the eyelets you could wish for to attach the mudguards and a rear rack for lightish loads.

Despite the tradional-handling geometry, the modish sloping top tube will please bike shops used to sizing customers on mountain bikes and help riders with a comfortable, slightly raised front end. In short, Clubman looks like it should be great for everything except actual racing, heavy touring or traversing muddy fields. If you’re the sort that plans on riding 5,000 – 10,000 road miles next year, mostly commuting with longer weekend rides, you’d likely have a very satisfactory year on a Clubman and just need to change the chain, cassette, tyres and brake blocks ready for another year.

In 2012 it will be 125 years since successful Nottingham lawyer Frank Bowden bought into the new-fangled bicycle technology. Interestingly, he’d been advised by his doctor to try cycling for the sake of his health. His name lives on in the steel ‘Bowden cable’ that still controls our brakes and gears.

OK, the Reynolds 520 cro-mo tubing isn’t the lightest but neither are the fitted Vittoria 25mm tyres and Brooks Swift saddle; this is about going faster for longer and in comfort. The important thing is that the whole package comes in under the grand at £950 and we guarantee that if you bought this as a first proper road bike and later graduated to some flighty seducer for big rides, you could still be happily doing most of your daily mileage on this Clubman years later.

Up-to-date components like Shimano’s latest 2×10-speed Tiagra transmission with a 50/34 crankset and 12-30 cassette will surely be appreciated for their deft shiftability, spares availability and interchangeability in the long run; that’s a lot of abilities. Older touches to complement that saddle are traditional metal mudguards and looped stainless ‘guard stays although we’re less certain about how practical those painted ‘guards are but, hey, they’re going to look good in the showroom to match that neatly-finished frame.

Coming: Raleigh Sojourn, full-on £1,100 tourer with Reynolds 631 frame, disc brakes.

Mind you, that’s not all Raleigh are doing in their touring range for the forthcoming Spring bike-buying season. There’s a fun-looking £600 tandem called Adventurer, a rather more earnest black £500 upright tourer complete with a rear rack and elastic luggage straps that can only mean one thing: commuting. And the bike that we really wish they’d also bought with them this week if only Raleigh had one in the country; the Sojourn, a proper expedition tourer for £1,100.

Compared to the Clubman, this all-new model has a longer wheelbase, lighter Reynolds 631 steel tubing, wider 35mm tyres, a triple chainset, ‘bar-end shifters and the Shimano disc brakes that Dawes might by now be thinking they’re going to have to fit to their benchmark Galaxy tourer next year. Raleigh Sojourn at £1,100 v Dawes Galaxy at £1,150. Now that’s a road test that’s going to need writing.

Details: raleigh.co.uk

Genesis Day One Finish Line – the Reynolds 853 steel Alfine hub gear beauty

ride.cc Genesis are launching a new version of their Day One all-rounder with Shimano’s 11-speed Shimano Alfine hub gear. We’re pretty sure that this is the first production Shimano Alfine 11-speed equipped drop bar bike – it’s certainly the first we’ve seen. The combination of an Alfine 11-spd hub and drop bars is made possible by the new Versa 11-spd lever, a piece of kit almost as eagerly awaited as Shimano’s Alfine hub itself.

The bike is inspired by the Genesis Croix de Fer Cross bike that Vin Cox used to set his round the world cycling, hence the ‘163 days’ badge on the seat tube – referring to the amount of time his epic ride took. Had the 853 version of the Day One frame been available when Cox set out on his ride that is what his bike would have been based around. According to the guys from Genesis the inspiration provided by Cox’s round the world record-setting bike extends beyond merely the way this Day One is built up – the frame geometry has changed a touch too becoming slightly more relaxed for a more stable ride.

You don’t have to think quite that ambitiously to get the most out of the Day One Alfine 11, though. Genesis see it as a multi-purpose set-up that’ll turn its hand to pretty much anything, including commuting duties. You can even take the Day One back to its roots by converting it to a singlespeed – removable cable guides are a nice tough offering a neat finish should you choose to go down the one gear route… although don’t forget where you leave them.

The frame is made from Reynolds 853 steel – with heat-treated, air-hardened, butted tubes – whereas all the other Day Ones are Reynolds 520. The fork is cromo – that should lop a chunk of weight out of the frame and compensate for the extra weight of the 11-speed hub– and you get a full complement of mudguard and rack mounts for multiple set-up options.

The wheels are similar to those Vin Cox used on his global ride – or as close as Genesis could reasonably get on a production bike. That means you get the Alfine hub at the rear, obviously, and an alloy front hub laced up to Alex CXD rims with stainless black spokes – 32 per wheel. The tyres are 28mm Continental Ultra Gatorskins and the brakes are Avid BB-7 mechanical discs.

The Day One Afline 11 will be available in October and will cost £1,699.99.

Frame and Fork

Frame	Reynolds 853 Steel
Fork	Cr-Mo
Headset	n/a
Colour	White

Transmission

Shifters	Versa 11spd Sti
Rear Derailleur	Alfine
Front Derailleur	n/a
Chainset	iveline 40t 3/32″
Bottom Bracket	Cartridge
Chain	KMC K810 3/32″
Freewheel	Alfine 18t

Wheels

Hubs	Alloy Disc Fr/Alfine 11spd Rear
Rims	Alex CXD
Spokes	Stainless Black
Tyres	Continental Ultra Gatorskin

Brakes

Brakes	Avid BB-7
Brake Levers	Virsa Sti

Misc

Weight	10.4 kg
Sizes	52, 54, 56, 58, 60cm

Good ‘audax’ to you sir – Singular Osprey

New Osprey from Singular cycles looks darn fine … a steel roadie for putting the miles in.

£530 for frame and about £1300-1400 for similar build to road.cc

 

Lovely slim steel tubes, beautiful lugs, classic geometry, classic looks and a classic ride.

Singular have been through a few rounds of prototypes with these, the last of which you see here. There are a few further tweaks for the production run which is now underway. Final specifications are;

• - Full lugged construction with double butted 4130 cro-mo steel
• - Clearance for 28mm tyres with mudguards
• - Braze ons for mudguard and rack mounting
• - Internally routed brake cable
• - Choice of 1″ threaded or threadless fork

geometry on the 54

This from Road.CC

We were all ooohs and aaahs when we first saw the Singular Osprey at the London Bike Show in January of this year. Sam at Singular has been carving out a niche making interesting bikes, starting with the Swift 29er MTB and the Peregrine monster-cross-cum-tourer and Gryphon drop-barred 29er followed. The Osprey is Singular’s take on the classic road machine: gate framed, lugged and skinny tubed, it’s a real beauty.

The bike we’ve got to try out is the same one that you’ll see pictured on thewebsite, which is a pre-production sample but basically the finished production frame. The only difference with the production model is that you get rack as well as mudguard bosses. The frame is built from lugged, double-butted 4130 Cromoly, and will take a 28mm tyre with a mudguard. The rear brake cable is routed internally along the top tube to keep the bike looking nice and clean.

The fork features a lugged crown and it too is 4130 Cromoly. There’s an option of Chromed chainstays and fork dropouts; our test bike has the shiny bits and if you want them you’ll need to add £180 to the basic price of £530 for the frame and fork. The frameset is available with a threaded or threadless fork, both of which are 1″ diameter.

In terms of geometry the Osprey sticks to the classical rule book, with 73/73 angles in the larger frames, steepening up the seat tube and slackening off the fork a bit in the smaller sizes. The top tube is, of course, as flat as the Norwegian after-party at the World Champs road race.

The Osprey is finished in cream and blue-grey and ours is built up with a mish-mash of silver componentry, Brooks saddle and bar tape and classic dimpled mudguards. It looks very fine indeed, and has already drawn plenty of admiring glances. The proof of this particular pudding is in the riding though, so we’ll report back when we’ve thrashed it round the lanes a bit more…