• In terms of spec, as a fixed gear & vintage road bike enthusiast I'm concerned about the plethora of standards (wheel axle - BB - brake - chainring - gearing) in this space...

    How do you feel now after few pages of recommendations on performance, standards that change every season, and will soon be as obsolete as a 1 inch Girvin Flexstem?
    I love your collection of bikes, there's a beautiful consistency in their heterogeneity (to paraphrase an old teacher from uni), what would happen if it all become eroded by all this performance/market driven cacophony of flat mounts and hydro and whatever... Nothing wrong with it, but is it really you?

  • Thanks Loic, this is a good point and one that I have gone over in my mind....

    Both the Duratec and De Rosa above started out as intentionally functional builds like this one, but have ended up looking individual for a range of reasons (time, irreverence, serendipity, budget etc).

    I'm relaxed about obsolescence -When I built that De Rosa 18 years ago it was the classiest frame I could afford, but it came with 1" steel fork at a time when even my winterbike had 1.125" full carbon Mizuno.

    18 years on I'm glad I bought a Chorus headset as it's still very smooth, but I'm also very glad I swapped the Millenium stem a for an Alter a few years later....

    In all that time I've never felt the pain of not having that extra 1/8" on the steerer tube.
    I didn't get Time Carbons when I built it cos I ran out of cash. Nowadays I'm pretty happy with the assurance/longevity of steel and the wait penalty I can live with.

    To directly answer your question, I'm hoping that because it's me, it won't end too samey.
    All my favourite bikes started out as functional and intentional builds that evolved a little over time.

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