The Many Bikes of an Inveterate Tinkerer...

I have lurked here for a long time, nodding along on the politics threads, occasionally chipping in about crap buzzwords, and snaffling the odd item from the classifieds. It's time to introduce myself and my revolving door collection of bikes...

It all started in 2009, housesitting for a friend awaiting a skip that never came and, having nothing else to do, watching a stage of the TDF. All of a sudden I was filled with the impulsive desire to buy a road bike. With the bizarre overconfidence of someone who knows nothing, I went to Halfords and picked out a lovely looking red Carrera Vanquish. No record of this bike appears to exist in picture form, but I remember it was exceptionally heavy and very trusty, except for the time I messed with the limit screws on the rear derailleur thinking this would help with my shifting, slipped the chain off the bottom whilst sprinting and spent an afternoon getting patched up in A&E.

This was also probably the longest kept of all my bikes. I mainly commuted on it until I was rather unpleasantly bullied out of a rowing club and having had my fill of team sports decided to start cycling. I started doing some club TT's, and enjoyed myself so much that in no time the bike was sporting clip-on tri bars and some Spinergy wheels I'd picked up from a colleague.

It was in this state that said bike was stolen, in broad daylight, from my garden shed, and where our story of bikes I actually have pictures of begins...

Not one for half measures I went directly from the Carrera to a Cervelo S5, as one does. I found a second hand one in my size from a chap who'd raced it as a junior, narrowly avoided going over the handlebars on a test ride (brakes that actually did something when you pulled the lever were a revelation), and after crossing his palm with silver took it home. One bike for everything - Training, TTs, maybe even some road races? Perfect.

Over a few years the S5 turned into trigger's broom, with the only thing that remained as I bought it being the frame itself. I put Di2, carbon clinchers, and the integrated bars from the later model S5 on it over the course of a few years, here it is in its final guise (and yes I did move the saddle back after this was taken...)

There will be a bit of jumping backwards in forwards in this as I weave the narrative of attempting to justify my financial incontinence. Saying 'one bike for everything' wasn't quite accurate as of course the UK has a long and unpleasant winter and despite what many cyclists in the Berkshire area seem to think, riding a Sunday best bike all year is unwise.

I'd always wanted to learn more about building bikes, and this was back in the days when the PlanetX website was an Aladdin's cave of things they'd bought in bulk from defunct brands, hence I found myself in posession of a SAB La Rocca frameset (carbon rear triangle, very nice...) and a 105 Groupset, which I built into a winter steed. I left the chain far too long to the point where backpedalling caused it to skip down the cassette, and then being me didn't bother doing anything about it until it was stolen out of my shed whilst I was on holiday. I hope the perpetrator enjoyed their rubbish shifting experience...

Anyhow, the insurance paid out and I came out with this Giant Defy, with a mix of Ultegra and non-series bits which I slowly upgraded to Ultegra, because matchy matchy. The other notable thing about this bike was that it was supplied with the spokes untensioned, leading to me getting a few miles away from home and finding myself pushing a brand new bike with two pancaked wheels home.

A year of doing TTs on the S5 with clip ons went by, but really I knew I could go much quicker on a TT bike, right? Then one of PlanetX's many sales came along and before I knew what was going on I was adding an Exocet2 frame to my cart and starting to scour eBay for wheels and parts, except for the front end which I found under the desk at a new job I'd started and the guy across from me said it was his and he had no use for it any more. Grand.

Despite how delightfully green it was, I could not go any quicker as it turned out. Partly due to the dreadful position (all the gear and no idea springs to mind...) and partly because the pawls on the freehub on the disc were knackered and it had a nasty habit of going 'bang' and leaving me hopelessly freewheeling. At least the fish liked the look of it.

We're up to mid 2015 now and my attention span seems to have come to its end, I'll come back tomorrow with some more...

Nice bikes and I have the feeling you're not a photographer

Haha yep, it does get better as we get to the more recent ones, I thought I had more pictures of the old ones than I did until it came to digging them out...

excited for the next chapter and to see how deep have you been drawn into the LFGSS rabbit hole...

will there be a foray into gravel bikes? a commuter build based on a retro mtb frame? a fixed winter bike with full guards?

Cmon, that's not that many bikes

The people want bieks! And who am I to disagree?

So, picking up from where I left off, it's 2015 and I'm frustrated to be going so very slowly on a TT bike. I get talking to a chap locally who knows his stuff and alongside setting me right position wise, he whispers lots of seductive terms like 'Cervelo P3c', 'Tririg Brakes' and '3T Ventus 2'. And lo, I purchased a Cervelo P3c and put Tririg Brakes and a 3T Ventus 2 base bar on it. At this point the revolving door of things coming in and out to pay for other things starts to quicken.

In the spirit of throwing enough aero effluent at the wall that some of it had to stick, I swapped the forks out for a sexy slotted set of Oval Concepts, chucked a Hed Trispoke on the front and even found a disc wheel that could last an entire race distance without something exploding, which was helpful.

Eagle eyed viewers may see that I took a drill to the top tube to tidy up the cable routing. There will also be a theme here.

It was around this time that I decided I should have a go at track racing, having the Reading velodrome on my doorstep. I think I went about 5 times and generally found the whole thing terrifying. This Dolan TC1 was in my life shortly before I stumbled upon this fine establishment and broke it up to sell the various constituent parts. Those 3T bars were a ridiculous impulse purchase and I don't remember ever actually riding them. Ridiculous impulses will also become a running theme...

Back to the nice safe world of TT's, the P3 was lovely and I was going considerably more quickly. There was just one slight problem however, and that being that it wasn't a P4. Now, the P4 only existed for a few years because the proprietary hidden brake was a complete pain and seized up if you gave it a harsh look, the seatpost clamp had a habit of either eating the post or cracking the frame around the post, and it was generally a nightmare to live with. It was however exceptionally fast in a straight line, and indeed probably still is the fastest low yaw frame money can buy.

Money couldn't buy any in 2016 as they were like hen's teeth, however 8 pages into Google one particularly productive afternoon, I found one advertised on French classifieds site Troc-Velo. The only catch was that it was pickup only, in Epernay. Still, what's a 660 mile round trip when it means getting the bike you've lusted after for the past three or four weeks?

One 4am get up later and this was all mine:

And it was quickly built up into the bike itself, just in time for winter...

This was the point where I started taking more photos. I did still live in filth however so the backdrops don't get much better...

I know nothing about aero or tts. But I enjoy this!

I'm glad! I'm not sure if anyone really knows anything about aero, it's one of those conspiracies that only works because everyone believes in it, like money or gravity...

Things were relatively stable on TT front for a few years after this, the only change being putting some eTap Beep Boop on the P4. Elsewhere however, I decided to have a go at track pursuiting. This of course necessitated a bike. Once again PlanetX came up trumps with a variety of sales, as did my local bike shop who had the hilariously teeny weeny bars in for years and no one had been stupid enough to buy them. I was happy to change this.

And a close up of the silly silly bars

Just like with the previous attempt at track, I did one veterans champs pursuits, then quietly broke the bike up and sold it, never to be spoken of again. Great as the bars looked I couldn't do any starts on them without freezing up in utter terror.

This was the last track bike, although there is a Soviet Fixie commuter to come (the rabbit hole got to me eventually...)

Back to roadies now. I found myself in a job that paid a bonus which was suddenly burning a hole in my pocket. The S5 was still a perfectly good, but I was in magpie mode and wanting to replace it with something shiny. Idly browsing the internet when I should have been working I found the S Works Venge ViAS on sale. I think I was more interested in the challenge of building the completely integrated design than I was in actually riding the thing, but either way it turned up, the wheels from the S5 went on, and the matching saddle was procured. It actually rode beautifully and woke me up to the fabled Specialized handling, which will pop up again later.

Enjoying this, have subscribed. Also, Palmer Park velodrome is the weirdest track! It's been a while since I lived in Reading, but I remember it being very flat.

Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it! And yes it is extremely flat - it runs around the edge of an athletics track so is about 450m long, the banking's got to be in single figures angle wise. As I have found on some solo sessions there, if it rains then the contents of the long jump pit makes a complete mess of your drivetrain...

Hahaa, I remember it well. Do they still allow laps on road bikes once a week? I used to live about a 5 min ride away and it was ideal. Also very much miss the Chilterns being within weekend loop distance. Lovely though it is, East London out into Epping Forest isn't quite as nice.

I believe they still do have the weekly road bike session, at least I haven't heard otherwise. I know things were looking a bit dicey for the track league pre-Covid in terms of volunteers and haven't followed up as to whether that still runs now the world's opened up again.

I completely agree on the Chilterns - I'm out in Caversham so can be up on them within 5 minutes or over the river at Sonning on pancake flat roads in 5 minutes the other way. Much as commuting to Shoreditch is an effort I think I prefer things this way round, particularly as I actually have money spare for the bike hobby rather than it all being sucked up in a house!

Winter was coming, and I had started to hear whispers of exciting innovations such as 'Disc Brakes' and 'Tubeless Tyres'. I was also fed up of cables getting gummed up and horrible with winter rubbish. As such it was time to send the Giant off to a new home, relocate the groupset from the S5 and wave the frame goodbye, and I got hold of a nice Kinesis Racelight 4s frame on sale.

The Dura Ace 9000 crank was another one of those impulse purchases. I have always loved the aesthetics so despite it being complete overkill for a winter bike I got one off eBay and my build was complete.

This was a good winter/all round use workhorse for me for a few years, and got rewarded in lockdown with an FSA front end when PlanetX were having one of their last few daft sales. I also picked up some lovely rave tape and extremely garish cages to offset the lime green accents. A matching seatpost was also procured from this parish.

It was also around this time that I started going full on matchy matchy with those little components like top caps and Garmin mounts

This frame is still available if anyone's interested, after the rest of the build was moved onto a Ti frame last year

In the middle of 2019 I managed to wangle a role in the global arm of my company and waved goodbye to an absolutely soul destroying drive round the M25 three times a week and said hello to coming into Shoreditch. Prior to Crossrail this was a pain in the arse on the tube and anyway I wanted to get some exercise out of my commute. I needed a single speed beater, and having been lurking on LFGSS for a while went straight to the classifieds.

Luckily enough there was an XB3 Record on sale, and the idea of turning up to the corporate offices of Global Megacorp on a bike sporting 'made in the USSR' decals was too delicious to turn down.

One on-street transaction in Camberwell later and the record was all mine.

I was delighted to find this sticker had been applied, which just added to my feeling of quiet subversion every time I rolled up to the office on it

Some wheels were procured from Vincent of this parish

Along with a suitably lairy chainset and an appropriately sized seatpost. For the avoidance of doubt the child in the background didn't come with the bike

At this point I clearly either took temporary leave of my senses or broke my phone as there doesn't appear to be a picture of the final build. All that's missing really is a boring set of bars with a quill to ahead converter and the terrifyingly amateur job I did of drilling out a brake hole in the rear, which will definitely fail at some point.

This now lives at Paddington, and unfortunately use has been limited due firstly to Covid and secondly to Crossrail. I might get it out again once the temperature drops properly.

That racelight is my favorite so far!
What is the reason you have your name on the toptube of your bikes?

Thanks, I'm glad you like!

And good question on the name - it started as a bit of a personalisation thing I think, and then once I'd done it a couple of times I just kept doing it. I guess I thought if anyone stole them and was too stupid to take the name sticker off that would help tracing them too! I have fallen out of the habit of adding it now, my most recent builds haven't had it.