-
That's some serious loot right there, nice catch!
-
I can only part with the largest one - 59 cc tt, but I'm pretty reluctant about intl shipping.
-
There's this one frameset that I've known of for the past 3-4 years. I've been calling the guy who owns it every year, precisely every 6 months, in June and December, only to hear 'nah, try again next time'. Last week, for a change, he said 'yeah, come over' and I almost pissed my pants. I've always thought of this one as the symbolic end to my collection, a holy grail even, why not. However, I'm kinda happy that it took me so long to get it, cuz I managed to snatch some pretty cool crap on the way. The collection is somewhat complete.
Anyway, enough of the pretentious bullshit, here it is.
One of the first road Rychtarski aero framesets. This one takes a regular headset, has some nice fixed brake mounts, a crimped seat tube and can run only one derailleur which results in a pretty quirky shifter boss. Tubes were shaped by Lech himself.
And this purdy thang
I used to own the road version of this one that I bought with track forks - sold the entire set not knowing that I might actually need it in the future... The above one came with a road fork, oh the irony.
Also this. But I don't even care at this point.
-
Not sure if this has been mentioned on here, but since 2014 I've owned a Takhion Aero that was 'adapted' to take a regular headset. It was missing lots of small parts (clamping bolts, rear caliper, bottom headset cup, bar plugs, headset cap etc) that I've been trying to find over the years with no luck at all. On top of that the entire front needed a proper rebuild. And until like 1.5 months ago I wasn't even aware how difficult it will be - it turned out that the top hs lug is weirdly shaped and the top tube is 26.2 or something in diameter, which meant that either I have to find a Takhion lug, or make one using 3d printing magic.
Either of those seemed impossible until a month ago, when Vadim Vorontsov (son of Reginald Vorontsov, the inventor of the Takhion) contacted me through Flickr to buy a 1" carbon fork. I asked him if he could help me out with the lug and shyly mentioned the missing other parts.This came in yesterday's mail.
I AM BEYOND STOKED. I didn't even ask for the bar plugs or the clamping bolts and yet here they are. Vadim and his dad are the best guys.
-
The search is over, so any minute now, bud!
-
Koba is finished, rides real nice.
vpCogworks
tom-g
gdm-
Post a reply
About
Crimson Ghost's polish bikes, looong term builds + KOBA
Posted by
Having read the entire @sensom 's thread twice, I decided to go on a little adventure myself, albeit by car. Took my trusty ole ol man with me, or actually asked him to drive me there since a) I never bothered to get a driver's license and I'm in my late 20s, b) I was expecting a loot I couldn't possibly come back with by bus/train, which is the usual and preferred way. My max working load is 5 frames and a backpack full of forks and bits, but since I got out of hospital recently it would've been unwise to mess up the masterpiece of an endoscopy surgery the doctors had performed on me. Also, the last time I had a bikes-related trip with my dad, we went to Lithuania and came back with a Takhion, so that went well and we had fun. Anyway, here he is after shouting 'holy fuck look at them poppy fields' and abruptly stopping the car:
Said fields as photographed by the man himself:
One thing that was made the trip far more exciting than the Takhion one were the (country) roads, which were full of twists and turns, not unusual for this particular part of Poland. Lithuania was totally flat, but had beautiful fields of gold.
Having arrived at the scene of murder, we had to wait ~30 mins for the coach to show up, but when he finally did, shit hit the fan. I'm a seasoned biek thief, not to brag or anything, and much like Johnny Cash I've been everywhere, but that particular complex of three sheds full of both the latest carbon frames and piles of rusty crap right next to each other made me gasp in amazement. 5 fucking stars, well done sir. Even my dad found something for himself as the coach had a stripped down (as in no engine, no nothing) Panonia motorcycle, so while the old farts were fanning out over some pile of junk, I was browsing my kind of eerm vintage uhhmm cycling yyy goodies. Oh, worn-down crap, that's the phrase.
Tiny road (!!!!) Ellsworth sitting on a pile of cheap mtb wheels and Pawlak gaspipe frames (incidentally, the cornerstone of Polish cycling)? Whooo buddy, don't mind if I do!
I snapped a couple of other pics, which I hope will make it to the Non-Digital Photography thread when the time comes.
We ended up taking 3x track Ellsworth frames, 1x road Russian titanium and a pile of NOS tubular rims. The tiny road Ells didn't make it, we'll never forget you bud, rest easy.
We packed our shit and left just in time since the coach was just starting his daily routine of shouting at his pupils (elementary school kids). Will he not be ashamed of them? We'll see in a couple of months when I return to pick up the rest of the Ells'.
Lookin' sharp.
And one for daddy. That's me, not my father - he's getting a 6-pack of his favourite cold one. And of course I'm going to swap the fork for a steel one and build it up as a hhsb beater.
This message was brought to you by Polish Cycling Federation, I gotta get back to work.