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This Team Lope Bike Bio chronicles my first ever carbon fixed-gear build. And it’s a villainous ride indeed!
Read on!

So, I wanted to squeeze on more bike project in before this summer, when the botlet arrives, and I had a few candidates, which included a break-apart travel bike mod to Fix-e, and a p-far I’ve been chasing for the last year and a half. But then fate seems to have skewered me with a destiny arrow, and I don’t even believe in fate. But here’s how it goes:

After my beloved Look 1.0 was stolen, I pined for it’s replacement. I could never find the original all black/carbon frame again, in my size, online through classifieds, ebay, craigslist and the like. I set up routine auto-searches for same in ebay and google, and proceeded with life. Ultimately, I found a sweet, sweet Look to replace my first one, this one being a KG381 Team with the commemorative colorscheme and signatures business for most-special-Look-rider Laurent Jalabert after his retirement from pro cycling. I love this road bike. Probably three times as much as the Look that preceded it. You can find more info about the Look love I’ve had up until now, here. The new Look is lighter and pretty much, in my mid, the perfect Look: still retaining the conventional geometry and classic lugging of the previous gen (like my stoleLook(tm) but slightly more fly tube sections and a top notch groupo. I’ve ridden it ever since and I love it so. But, though I had a proper Look to ride, I always had a nostalgic pining for my first all-black Look, and left those auto-searches running. And now, thanks to the general economic collapse and earth-cracking-in-half, suddenly some frames like my beloved stoleLook(tm) began to pop up, and I realized that though I could not technically AFFORD it, I had an opportunity to go after my old love, and make it new.

I flirted with a frame that was the exact match to my old one, but the seller was dodgy. I also had a lead on a KG381 Team like my new Look, but a true team bike that was a spare for a very famous TdF rider of some dubious distinction, but it was set up as a complete bike, and had a proper Dura Ace road kit on it, which would be a great deal overall, and a wonderful historical artifact, but a shame to bastardize with my new purpose. For, you see, I intend to make this beloved Look into a fixed-gear.

Finally, I gave up my options on these bike frames and said, it’ll be right when it’s right, and if that doesn’t happen before botlet, then it will happen later. And sure enough, a few days after that, a SECOND Look 381 Team, again just like my road bike but in team kit all-black, appeared on ebay at a bargain price. And so what choice DID I have.

After painful shipping delays due to Fed-Ex route mangling, my new beauty arrived earlier this week, and the project has begun.

This frame is in wonderful condition. Some very slight blemishes in the carbon here and there, but otherwise perfect. The seller included the stock carbon fork which was used with this model year, which has a steel steerer, and also included a Cane Creek integrated headset. The Ergo post, also carbon, was not only in perfect shape, but it came in its original box (now I have two, since it is the ONLY part of the Look 1.0 that I retained after the theft, ha.)

So, the plan is pretty absurd, I admit: a carbon fixed-gear. Carbon is extremely light, so you can go faster, and tire out more slowly. Fixed-gear speed is limited by gearing, and the lack of freewheel is tiring in and of itself. It’s more of a proof-of-concept exercise. I want to make a bike out of the frame, and I don’t want a second road bike. It must be a fixie. It MUST.

And, for safety, i will stuff the top tube with clouds, in order to weight it down some.

The name of this dastardly machine?
[fu]Villain(tm)!*

Onward!

*from my original speculative lyrical quote, after misreading that the theme song for Quantum of Solace was a duet with Jack Black...

"He’s a super slick spy dude with a cock of gold and a quantum of FUCK YOU VILLAIN!!!!"

And what could be more moustache-twirly than a bike that is:
-unfarily judged
-preposterousl
-involves an excessively elaborate master plan

So there you go!

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1. Bike Build Process Log: Villain- Yes Brake
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3. Bike Build Process Log: Villain- Ergo Post, Bars and Coggery