Bike porn

Ive never scene one of these on a quality steel frame. They always have grooves/little tube shaped guides built into the BB shell. My frame (reynolds 653) is like that feather though, the front mech cable has no guides at all.

I have never seen one of those on a vintage steel frame but I'm sure I've seen them on modern and decent steel.

I know the groove/tube type thing you speak of though and would say that I'd expect there to be quite a difference in performance between grooves/tubes and what that Feather frame has.

I was, and still am, considering a IGH for my 29er. One thing that appeals is that the weight of your entire gear system sits exactly over your rear contact patch. Aiding out of saddle efforts, on poor surfaces.

I purchased the Paragon sliders for the Rohloff as I'm half considering shifting the Rohloff to the Cielo 29er.

Would like to have drop bars on the Mather, and now that the Hope V-Twin exists it would be possible to get the Mather into the singlespeed cyclocross config or the fixed config I originally wanted.

Ive never scene one of these on a quality steel frame. They always have grooves/little tube shaped guides built into the BB shell. My frame (reynolds 653) is like that feather though, the front mech cable has no guides at all.

My Cielo came with one of those plastic guides.

It's not even a geared bike.

I have never seen one of those on a vintage steel frame but I'm sure I've seen them on modern and decent steel.

I know the groove/tube type thing you speak of though and would say that I'd expect there to be quite a difference in performance between grooves/tubes and what that Feather frame has.

Performance of what? The friction on the cable won't be noticeable on an indexed system and most likely not on a friction one either. And I don't see the wear being an issue. Bikes have been set up like this or with the guides that braze onto the top of the BB or clamp onto the down tube since* forever*. I have a 1952 Gillott that has a pair of little pulley wheels for the bare dérailleur cables which was obviously an over engineered cul de sac cause you just don't see them on newer bikes. Sturmey Archer always supplied a pulley wheel type thing which also seems total overkill.
The way I see it the cables will eventually wear through the paint and possibly cut into the steel of the bottom bracket shell then a little grease will stop them wearing out drastically quickly.

Y'know correct me if I'm wrong.....

Not knocking Tom Donhou in any way - who I think is a fantastic framebuilder - but I find this sort of thing a bit twee:

And in general what I mean by "faux-heritage Americana" is that Rivendell look... can't fault the craftsmanship, but it does go out of its way to evoke traditions that I'm not sure ever really existed.

For sure. All super nice. But it feels like a crossover from American classic custom / hot rod stuff, no? Not a real art deco tradition.

Shared with Roberts... ;)

I agree, mostly.
Obviously the American new-wave of builders are outside of the tradition that they're emulating/referencing/continuing (for most of them the last is a stretch). The tradition definitely exists though and some like Richard Sachs (who worked as an apprentice at Witcombs in Deptford) make stunning classic understated (by US tastes) bikes, some like J.P. Weigle make too perfect modern reiterations of mid century French cycle-touring bikes (Herse Singer etc). But the tradition exists and his work is beyond stunning.
Whenever I look at his stuff; http://www.flickr.com/photos/49353569@N00/6852191107/in/photostream
I wish I could see a file mark or a slightly sloppy bit of brazing, these are bikes -to be ridden - tools can be pretty but they're still tools. They remind me of modern remakes of Jean Prouve chairs with all the clean weld and perfect paint, no soul.

Also the thing most of the US 'retro' builder do which looks totally cocked up it use extended top head lugs. Only thing I don't like about that winter frame. That's definitely the Rivendell influence, this is either for people who can't get into a half way decent low riding position or don't know how to ride a bike with tight or less than zero stand over clearance (and yeah I know smaller frames are stiffer blah blah but these frames are not being ordered by weekend warriors chasing their PB). It's worse than a 50mm stack of spacers.

For sure. All super nice. But it feels like a crossover from American classic custom / hot rod stuff, no? Not a real art deco tradition.

I was looking at Vendetta bikes last night.

(I really like the 'orange crush' road bike, with customised lugs.)

Their Entry into NAHBS even had hand pin striping on it. I always wonder about this when I catch a bit of 'American hotrod' or similar. Old guy walks in at the end of a technical build, and everyone treats him like god because he can draw stiaght lines?.

That bike has "fixie disease"

Its a shame, because aside from the colours. It rocks.

Reader's wife- for example.

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The rims are a step too far. But other than that, its fun.

Max tubing is oval so comes with special lugs which no-one use as they are too ugly compared to the quality of the tubes. Opting to braze. Vendetta modified the supplied lugs to make them look nice, and to shoot the seatstays into the back. This is the sort of work I like to see at NAHBS. Not the OTT pin stripping.

But thats just me.

I was just about to ask if that was Columbus max.
Ironically it looks better on a small frame.

Ive never seen one of these on a quality steel frame. They always have grooves/little tube shaped guides built into the BB shell. My frame (reynolds 653) is like that feather though, the front mech cable has no guides at all.

That's because these plastic guides becaume obligatory with the introduction of STI.
Shimano pushed frame manufacurers to use them.
Not for the financial profit, more for the shifting performance.
Especially for the 1st generations os STI, all small details counted. Also BB cable guides. But chains, cables, ramped cogs as well.
Mr. Garbelli of Rossin gave me a very angry face when I kindly asked him to do this for the Festina team.
I guess that most frame manufacturers followed.
Most frames changed to alu and plastic then, maybe that's the reason why you don't see so many on steel frames.

Pin-striping is apparently absurdly hard to do.
There's a great bit of film of one of the (jack) Taylor brothers pinstriping a frame held casually in one hand, flat cap bad light...
Their pinstriping -for me- is something to get excited about (niche porn) its casual and elegant and probably a bit Zen.
I need to get a frame pinstriped -very few people do it these days, I'm thinking of using Argos - the casual/Zen look is what the frame has now, I don't want hot-rod perfect masking taped business.

I agree, mostly.
Obviously the American new-wave of builders are outside of the tradition that they're emulating/referencing/continuing (for most of them the last is a stretch). The tradition definitely exists though and some like Richard Sachs (who worked as an apprentice at Witcombs in Deptford) make stunning classic understated (by US tastes) bikes

Oh, Sachs I love. The fact that he's an ex-racer, and makes proper racing bikes, probably has a lot to do with it.

That's because these plastic guides becaume obligatory with the introduction of STI.
Shimano pushed frame manufacurers to use them.
Not for the financial profit, more for the shifting performance.
Especially for the 1st generations os STI, all small details counted. Also BB cable guides. But chains, cables, ramped cogs as well.
Mr. Garbelli of Rossin gave me a very angry face when I kindly asked him to do this for the Festina team.
I guess that most frame manufacturers followed.
Most frames changed to alu and plastic then, maybe that's the reason why you don't see so many on steel frames.

That's v interesting -I didn't know that. I remember the change to non-wound cable outer at that time to remove compression but I didn't think the friction would have been an issue.

Oh, Sachs I love. The fact that he's an ex-racer, and makes proper racing bikes, probably has a lot to do with it.

He's also a sarcastic mo'fo, ATMO.
Which is nice.

Pin-striping is apparently absurdly hard to do.
There's a great bit of film of one of the (jack) Taylor brothers pinstriping a frame held casually in one hand, flat cap bad light...
Their pinstriping -for me- is something to get excited about (niche porn) its casual and elegant and probably a bit Zen.
I need to get a frame pinstriped -very few people do it these days, I'm thinking of using Argos - the casual/Zen look is what the frame has now, I don't want hot-rod perfect masking taped business.

Kinda like the hand drawn aspect.

Still, my mum has loads of hand finished plates, and ceramic cottages, in the house. Just not my thing.

Other puke colours are available but this looks really nice.

http://www.pinarello.com/eng/lungavita_590.php.

Back to porn... engineering porn.

TA Carmina cranks. They have a splined changeable spider so can be any BCD you want:

Also been perving over SKF bottom brackets recently:

"Roller bearing distributes the load over a larger surface area."

"Patented multi-stage seal keeps bearings clean."

"One-piece shell improves alignment and allows the use of larger bearings."

"Large spindle and roller bearings on the driveside increase load capacity."

Effectively you get a drive side BB cartridge, you position it against the frame with a spacer if needed for the chain line, and then just screw on the other side and you're done.

That the warranty is 10 years and covers the bearings is just nuts.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6068/6084042161_2f90cc68ba.jpg

http://old_school_cycles.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/.pond/mhtaylorcurvetube.jpg.w560h312.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2752/4434744890_6e1b3ec577.jpg

Back to porn... engineering porn.

TA Carmina cranks. They have a splined changeable spider so can be any BCD you want:

Also been perving over SKF bottom brackets recently:

"Roller bearing distributes the load over a larger surface area."

"Patented multi-stage seal keeps bearings clean."

"One-piece shell improves alignment and allows the use of larger bearings."

"Large spindle and roller bearings on the driveside increase load capacity."

Effectively you get a drive side BB cartridge, you position it against the frame with a spacer if needed for the chain line, and then just screw on the other side and you're done.

That the warranty is 10 years and covers the bearings is just nuts.

Both are top engineering porn in my book (slightly sticky mag).
I've been thinking about the SKF BB to replace my Phil which didn't last noticeably long commuting all weathers in London (currently replaced by a Miche which will go the same way). I saw them for sale via the publishers of Bicycle Quarterly are there any stockists in UK?

My ridiculously tall friend (6'9") has the TA cranks so he can use the .5m long cranks he needs.

Pin-striping is apparently absurdly hard to do.
There's a great bit of film of one of the (jack) Taylor brothers pinstriping a frame held casually in one hand, flat cap bad light...
Their pinstriping -for me- is something to get excited about (niche porn) its casual and elegant and probably a bit Zen.
I need to get a frame pinstriped -very few people do it these days, I'm thinking of using Argos - the casual/Zen look is what the frame has now, I don't want hot-rod perfect masking taped business.

Indian Pinstriping - YouTube

^ Awesome
Fuck Von Dutch

This place is the only official UK retailer:
http://www.shedbornbikes.com/skf-bottom-bracket-24-p.asp

It's a one man randonneur shop, but he sells the SKF as historically they were always used by the French companies, and they remain the best engineered one (in his and other touring dudes opinions).

SKF are weird in that when they launched, they didn't really understand the cycling world. SKF being just a ball bearing company. So they eventually sold distribution rights to an avid fan of their stuff (Jan Heine of http://janheine.wordpress.com/ ) who then sells them via his own company ( http://www.compasscycle.com/Home.html ) but who does also distribute to places around the world.

Shed Born Bikes are the only UK distributor and dealer of them.

A few sites claim to have them... but check the stock levels and it seems false. Just Shed Born.