Or, “If you could have ten bikes, what would they be? ” For Bobby B.
1. The Quickbeam in full commuter drag. Maybe with the S3X, or the Sachs Automatic, probably just fixed.
2. Bontrager mountain bike with drop bars. I love this bike.
3. The Gravel Roadster, but custom made to fit me. Ideally made by Rob English. Gears, 60mm tires, fenderable, ~20lbs. Right now I’m using the GR for 10 mile loops with the guys from work, and I enjoy the contrast with their bikes.
4. Matt Chester fixed gear. Hunter fork. I’ve loved his bikes ever since I saw one on Fixed Gear Gallery aeons ago.
5. Jones titanium spaceframe. Truss fork, shorty 6-speed cluster, H-bars. Every Jones mod available.
6. Rob English snow bike. Superlight, but giant tires. The Gravel Roadster x2. Basically, my idea is that a fatbike doesn’t need to be heavy-duty, because the massive tires insulate the bike from shocks.
7. Time Trial commute bike. For my 19 mi trip to work. In style. This would also be a Rob English bike, I think. Fenders, Hetres, lighting, and a Ruckus front box.
8. Cyclocross bike. A vanity racing bike, just for showing off. Legolas, Sachs, Speedvagen, or Ira Ryan. A pretty track bike would fill the same (nonexistent) void.
9. Custom Rivendell fixed gear offroad bike. A Quickbeam with more clearance. Threadless steerer, vertical dropouts. Gusset.
Not a single bike on this list has tires narrower than 33mm…
In order of use/want and also might already have.
1. city bike/porteur: full fenders front rack. Mine still needs a rack, but I’m mostly there.
2. Road bike. long reach brakes 1x gearing clearance for 35’s but mostly ride with 32’s
3. hunter monster cross (ha, I already have this bike)
4. rigid ss mountain bike with type 2 fork and jones bars (have this one too)
5. Coconino 29er SS, all modern with disks and suspension fork and what not.
6. super light SS city bike, jitensha bars. because it would be nice to have a 15 lb bike to carry up all those bart stairs
7. ebisu road, just want mostly because I love the colors and clean aesthetic
8. igleheart cross, segmented forks are cool
9. albert eisentrout rainbow trout road, because I love that seat stay arrangement and oakland
10. chester or potts cross with narrowed type 2. Because one of these has to be titanium, duh.
Oh! Potts Ti ‘cross bike and an Igleheart! I had a hard time getting to 10, but now I see where I went wrong. Igleheart had a great S3X demontable bike at an Oregon Manifest. Great bike, and beautifully unshowy. A Potts bike is easier to get than a Chester, and I’ve wanted one for far longer.
Speaking of titanium and road bikes, I met a woman on Wednesday who has the first or second ever Lemond titanium bike. It’s really pretty, no graphics or badging at all, celery green tape.
Ha, yeah I think If I thought about it I could probably come up with another 10! I really like Igleheart’s bikes. They have a particular unshowy but cool/neat I dunno vibe that sets them apart from other nice tig bikes for me. I’ve wanted a chester forever, but at this point it seems like i would probably be more like to drop the $$$$ on a potts than actually take delivery on a chester :) That lemond sounds sweet celery green tape and brushed ti would be a good color combo. I always forget that lemond made ti bikes. I was just briefly googling about them to see if they were made by trek or a subcontractor and found this article with sonoma county’s own gary helfrich about how they were made at trek: http://ftp.cyclingnews.com/sponsors/lemond02/ Kind of interesting. I have been on a low key multiyear hunt for some kind of ti road bike from the 90’s that takes 47-57 reach brakes and isn’t too expensive, still looking though.
That’s a good quest. The Lemond titanium seems kind of rare (but the one I saw looked really “right”), but there must be thousands of Litespeeds and Bassos around here that have been put aside in favor of carbon. There are Sandvik-made Bontrager Ti road bikes out there, too.
1 – Fixed commuter
2 – Classic Track
3 – 4 Road bike
5 – Light Tourer – Randonneur
6 – Expedition Tourer
7 – Porteur
8 – Cargo
9 – Mountain Bike
10 – CX