bike wank, part 1
Apr. 1st, 2006 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kirkcudbrightNot that you care, but this is going to be by order of acquisition, since that's easier to nail down (and more relevant) than the absolute age of the bikes.
Needless to say, most of these bikes have stories attached, have History for me.
Mid-80s Motobecane Jubilee Sport, bought in 1989 from Robin, who bought it off some guy in the Want Advertiser. I don't know what she was thinking, because this is too tall for me, and she's at least 4 inches shorter.
Say what you want about French engineering, they know how to make bikes. I forgot to get close-ups of the joints, but they seem to be fillet brazed, so it's got these nice clean lines with no lugs or welds. The bike I ride most often is welded, as most bikes are these days, and it usually doesn't bother me, but when I pay attention to them, the weld lines become intolerably ugly. But this is nice. And yes, the fork is chromed.
The geometry suggests a racing bike, but it has eyelets for racks in both the front and rear, and it has clearance for beefy tires (although I have super-skinny 18 or 20mm tires on it now). Not sure what it was designed for - possibly exactly the sort of riding I used it for.
This is the bike I rode on my first century, and the bike I rode in the Boston-New York AIDS ride in '96 (and the one-day 140-mile Cape-to-Cape Ride the following weekend). I did that latter ride with duct tape around the rear tire, and a paper clip holding the front derailleur together.
Alas, I haven't ridden it in a long time, since it's really too big for me, and I'm not going to grow any more. I'm in the middle of cleaning it up and repacking the bearings so that I can try to sell it. The headset took an entire evening, because the previous grease had turned to mastic. Wanna buy a bike?
Needless to say, most of these bikes have stories attached, have History for me.
Mid-80s Motobecane Jubilee Sport, bought in 1989 from Robin, who bought it off some guy in the Want Advertiser. I don't know what she was thinking, because this is too tall for me, and she's at least 4 inches shorter.
Say what you want about French engineering, they know how to make bikes. I forgot to get close-ups of the joints, but they seem to be fillet brazed, so it's got these nice clean lines with no lugs or welds. The bike I ride most often is welded, as most bikes are these days, and it usually doesn't bother me, but when I pay attention to them, the weld lines become intolerably ugly. But this is nice. And yes, the fork is chromed.
The geometry suggests a racing bike, but it has eyelets for racks in both the front and rear, and it has clearance for beefy tires (although I have super-skinny 18 or 20mm tires on it now). Not sure what it was designed for - possibly exactly the sort of riding I used it for.
This is the bike I rode on my first century, and the bike I rode in the Boston-New York AIDS ride in '96 (and the one-day 140-mile Cape-to-Cape Ride the following weekend). I did that latter ride with duct tape around the rear tire, and a paper clip holding the front derailleur together.
Alas, I haven't ridden it in a long time, since it's really too big for me, and I'm not going to grow any more. I'm in the middle of cleaning it up and repacking the bearings so that I can try to sell it. The headset took an entire evening, because the previous grease had turned to mastic. Wanna buy a bike?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-04-02 01:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-02 10:54 pm (UTC)