Team Lope Tyre Clubbe » bike bio

Team Lope Bike Bio: Crook Type 3

wrongrobot — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:03:35 +0000

Crook Type 3 is a transformed version of Crook, the Cinelli Mash I built up and rode on Aids Lifecycle 9, from SF to LA. The concept was simple, and absurd: after completing the 570 mile ride (if successful, which it was) I would swap out the gray frame that made that journey for the limited edition green/ white variant, celebrating the achievement. You can read about the build process for Crook Type 3 here. Suffice to say, I kept the bottom end from the original Crook, and replaced the top end, going with a silver dip theme above the frame line.

Cinelli Mash 09 Limited Edition Green/White Adidas-inspired variant
SRAM Courier 300 Cranks (48/165)
Shimano A520 pedals
Custom wheelset: Soma hubs laced to H+Son 43s
Sugino Track Cog system (17) (Currently 75 inchgear)
SRAM single chain
Dia Compe brake/ carbon fiber cable housing
Paul Comp cross lever, silver
Titanium spacers
Columbus headset and seatpost clamp
Thomson Elite post, silver
Thomson X2 stem, silver
Nitto RB-021 compact bullhorns
VO elkhide wrap
crankbolt wrap caps (!)
Brooks Swallow saddle, honey
Thomson stem cap
Continental Gatorskin Hardshells 25c
Awesomeness

Here’s the build in the wild…

Note the Paul Comp cross lever. That was a hard find, with a deceptively simple solution: Order direct from Paul Comp…
The elkhide is still stretching and getting comfy but it’s gorgeous. I miss gel padding, though. Crank bolts for bar ends. HA!

The gold hub works nicely with the color scheme, which was fortuitous. I’ll eventually have a brass bell on the front end too.

Sneaky inclusion of my Three-Pin rider logo under the chainring, for science.

On Crook 1.0 there was a quote here: ‘by hook or by crook’ which was my inspirational mantra for getting through ALC on a fixed-gear. Now that that was done, I elected to retire it, moving the bike name from the head tube to the usual position here. The cog decal moved from seatpost to seat stay. Oh, and there will be a pinup girl on the nose, it’s just not done. The other missing decals are a Type 3 lettering piece for the name, and a vinyl of our ALC logo used on our ride shirts.

Some adjustments will follow, in seat height and stem. But so far, it’s a greeeaaaaat rahde!

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The Case of roadLook’s Mystery Tyre Failery

wrongrobot — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 20:26:59 +0000

So, as I’ve mentioned in the roadLook bike bio and throughout TLTC, I’ve had a mystery tyre issue on roadLook for a few months. Just random flattery. Repeatedly. Right after I installed super annoying hard-to-service Conti Gatorskins. With my bikes, particularly my road bike, I get no flats for months, then a string of them. And not like a repeated flat from the same burr or whatever, but randomly generated fails. In this case, I got maybe two pinch flats, two true external punctures and at LEAST two valve fails. Anyway, the problem was solved once and for all (I hope) when I recently replaced both the tyres, which I grew tired of wrestling, and the tubes, cleaned/inspected the rim and tape, and started over with the sweet red track tyres.

Funny thing the night I did this. I could have sworn cigawee was involved, but it wasn’t. It was just a circumstance where I was experiencing physical phenomena I hadn’t considered before, and it took me by surprise. And I was in a weird mood, and thus, documented it.

When I sat down to replace the Contis that night, I started by inflating the flat to see if it was slow enough that I could detect the source. But instead of inflating, the pressure built up in the valve and the pump. This sometimes happens with my pump, so I adjusted it and tried again. Same result, but it was different than the usual. The pump was registering a high pressure and staying constant. So I partially unseated the tyre in order to examine the tube to see if it was getting any air. There was none. But when I pumped again just to see what was what, the exposed portion of tube suddenly expanded out of the tyre altogether, like a balloon animal. It was so surreal that I didn’t even stop to consider why. I just pulled the tube from the rim and checked it out in it’s weird Lovecraftian glory.

The tube, out of the tyre and exposed, still maintained this massive air goiter. I was tripping out. The more I pumped, the bigger the goiter got, but the rest of the tube stayed limp. After thinking about it, I realized that I had superdeformed the rubber at that one exposed area, and it was now weaker and hot and more ductile than the rest, so the air pressure went to where there was the least resistance. It was funny, it took me a minute to think this through, because I’m so accustomed to thinking about such things the way I did in Physics classes, where the container is a constant physical state, that I hadn’t considered what happens when the container itself has variable material properties. So, whatever, I had a weird, wrong tube.

I deflated it, massaged the tube, then inflated it again to see if the same behavior would occur, because I was just being weird at this point, and it was late. And of course, since there was no tyre binding the tube, the entire thing stretched out, yielding a supertube. I was all amused about it, for whatever reason.

Anyway, this is a whole lot of random nothing, but it all lays the groundwork for this:

By containing all but the tubery around the valve, I was able to create the world’s first old timey tweed tube.

Tell me that moustache doesn’t rock!

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Team Lope Bike Bio: roadLook

wrongrobot — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:20:19 +0000

As longtime readers know, I’m partial to the 2003 year Look road racing bicycle. I actually fell in love with Looks around the World Ending Millennium, when I was riding my sweet, sweet Bianchi Veloce (Toro, now Lung’s) which was my favorite bike maker and the best product at my price-point as a poorly-paid young architect in the big city with happy hour martinis to pay for and monochrome Banana Republic outfits to acquire and what not. A prominent senior designer and former racer had just received his new Look frame, which was promptly stolen from his LBS, Bike Odyssey, in a foolish and short-sighted gambit by one of their regular customers. Anyway, when I saw the finished bike, i was floored. I hadn’t seen a modern road bike with so little team graphics. Just black, with white lettering. Look logos. Done.

Look 001: RIP

Some years later, I found a 2002(?) KG281 on craigslist, and jumped at it. Carbon black, with traditional lugs, a little big for me, and at a great price, since the buyer bought an Orbea. I got it, loved it, worshipped it, rode it, then got it stolen. That story can be found here elsewhere. But my love of Looks was not defeated, and further research confirmed that I loved this era bike more than those of earlier years, and certainly more than today’s zoomy 5 series frames.

Look 002: my sweet, sweet ride today, as it first appeared

I acquired this Look KG381 Team – Jalabert Edition on New Years Eve. I got a second frame, in team black, same year, and made it into the fixed-gear, Villain. But this one, which we tend to call the roadLook, is my long-distance staple. I love it. It’s light, it’s responsive, and it’s super comfortable. After initial acquisition, I made a number of changes. I swapped the Mavic Open pro wheels (Dura hubs) with the deeper Easton Vista SLs I had on my Cervelo Soloist, and swapped out the Sella seat for a honey Brooks Swallow, with a new Ergo carbon seatpost. The Open Pros are fine rims, and those wheels were probably lighter than the Eastons. I use them on wrongBike. But I was still missing the deep Scirocco Campy wheels that were on the Veloce, so I wanted the deeps to stay.

Later, I added a new stem, FSA carbon aero bars (wide and flat at the tops, not full tri bars, but SO comfortable) and some new tape here and there. Other than that and some monkey business with the Garmin Edge mounting and such, and it’s been pretty stable ever since.

The one thing that has been a recent annoyance has been the Continental Gatorskins I put on last year. Kevlar sidewalls to prevent the exact flats I was getting in SF the year prior, where a bent nail or metal brad is pushed out and upward and claws the sidewall to ribbons, usually on a descent between two MUNIs and a giant scorpion on my back and —- anyway, I’ve had nothing but problems with them since. Actually, I never did determine that the problems were with the Gators. They could have been a long string of unfortunate flats coincidentally occurring since the Gators went on. Some were pinch flats, two were direct punctures, and the rest, other than one valve failure, were all unexplained. But the rub was that those damn Gators are terrible to service in the field. I just don’t have enough skin on my fingers for those tight beads under deep rims. GUH. So recently, as part of my round of service work on the bikes after my move, I replaced a recent flat, and removed those damn Gators evermore*. I’m now running track tyres in Go Fasta Red. It looks pretty wild.

With all the attention focused on the fixed-gear bike projects, I sometimes take the roadLook for granted. But it remains my ‘best’ ride, from a performance, value and sheer mileage perspective.

Please note, for those not in on the reference: that seat position is deliberate, but only for the photo. Joblue knows what’s up. As does BSNYC…

*Not to disparage Continental. Those sidewalls never did get breached, and I used the more expensive Conti Attack series racing tyres, with asymmetrical tread, on this bike and my other road bikes, for years.

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Team Lope Bike Bio: Villain

admin — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 07:24:16 +0000

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

So, I had wanted to squeeze one more bike project in before my daughter was born, 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 went:

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 then, 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 intended to make this beloved Look into a fixed-gear.

Carbon fixed gear bikes aren’t terribly uncommon in the world, designed as such or even as conversions, though it was certainly the first time I thought to try it. It was also pretty naughty, in a sense, to build a second Look from the ashes of the first stolen one, making a fine brand-aware three Looks having been in my hands. And the project, while challenging and entertaining, ultimately yielded a fine, fine ride. Villain is, at times, my favorite ride. It’s big gearing allows for flatland bombing, but it’s lightness and tight assembly make it possible to climb with, though it’s never easy. Commuting into Mill Valley from SF and back was always interesting, especially under wind. Anyway, a successful experiment. The gearing is: 46/15 with 165mm crank arms and gives me an 80.6 inchgear, which ain’t bad!

Read the various process logs, and other Villainy goodness, here!
And view the Photo Gallery here!

team lope bike bio — the Tumbler!

ironlung — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:26:45 +0000

(dig that steeep angle.)

(check out that clearance — TIGHT.)

(fucking LOVE this curved cut out in the seat tube.)

The Tumbler

i’m more excited about this bike than any other i’ve ever built. and i didn’t even build the headset! (more on that later.)

the 2010 version of the leader 725TR has been hotly desired by not just most of the team lope crew, but also by damn near anyone who wants an aggressively angled, light track bike that can handle the punishment of urban riding. it’s got a high bottom bracket, a very pitched-forward posture, sturdy mountain-bike welds, fat aero tubing, and from an aesthetic perspective, it’s available in raw with clearCoat, as well as matte black, among a few other hotly desirable choices. because it’s made of aluminum, it’s really light, very stiff, and pretty damn strong.

both massan (MASHSF, macaframa) and emi (MASHSF) ride this frame in various year’s iterations, and those dudes ball, so you know it’s good shit.

i’ve had my eye on it for a while, and after debating back and forth a bit for all the usual reasons when one’s about to drop a few hundred dollars, i finally pulled the trigger a couple weeks ago.

when i placed my order online, i’d actually ordered the aluminum forks, but i got a call that night from LEADER, who said that an error in their site’s construction or upkeep or whatever had caused them to miss the section of the site where i ordered the forks, as the forks i ordered were not available at that time. the options they gave me were to a) return my money, or b) upgrade me to carbon forks (whose regular price is TWICE what i ordered).

so.
duh.

so there i was, sitting on a 3-day delivery wait on a super dope frame and seriously upgraded forks. (and for the first time ever, i didn’t tell WR, who is always springing bike surprises on me. since i was going over there AFTER i’d have the bike assembled, i figured i’d just show up with it, which was AWESOME. hahaha!!!)

now now that it’s assembled and ridden, i have to say this bike is fucking badass. the new angles are FAR more aggressive than any other bike i’ve ever ridden, and the higher bb with these more aggressive angles also makes for a higher seat, which means i can see over more stuff. it corners tighter and faster, it’s super light, and i’ve upped my gear inches from loos3y(tm), so i’m going a lot faster. my house to WR’s in 50 minutes, in fact. take my word on it, that’s good time on a fixed-gear.

i’m LOVING this bike. it’s fast, light, strong, and it looks SUPER badass.

and my excitement hasn’t been marred by the couple of iffy issues with the bike, either. for one thing, it uses a zero-stack headset, which is the same as an INTERNAL headset, but not the same as an INTEGRATED headset. so i called my LBS and asked if they had a zero-stack, which they said was an integrated. i said i had never worked with this tech before, so i just needed them to validate what i needed and set it aside, which they did. and when i got there, i had done the research and found that zero-stack was NOT the same as integrated, so i checked what they’d set aside and explained myself to them, as, sure enough, what they’d set aside was not what i needed. i was sent to the shop. and the guy in the shop took my lack of knowledge about this particular tech as GENERAL lack of knowledge and started to tole how it was going to be. "i have some cups here that’ll lmake the integrated work with this head tube. i’ll press these cups in myself so you don’t mess it up." ??? "how much is that?" "$10." i decided that would be ok, but i tole, "you’re sure those cups going to make the integrated hs work in this internal setup?" he said yes. and then they didn’t. so he tole that he’d just need to get back to me tomorrow once he had it figured out. to which i replied, "no, i’m going to go across the street and have a drink and you’re going to fix this before you close in an hour. i didn’t come in here to have you do anything, and what you’ve done is wrong, so get it right." then i went across the street and had a jack and a PBR and waited for his call. as it turned out, he found a zero-stack, popped out the offending cups he’d tried to remedy the problem with, and only charged me for the price of the original headset i was gonna buy, and not for any of his labor. now that’s more like it.

(this marks the first time in a LONG time that i’ve had the LBS do anything to a bike of mine, and it will also be the LAST, goddammit.)

the other thing that would ordinarily mar a person’s feelings about a new scoot, but which isn’t bothering me, is that the bottom bracket creaks. because the bike is aluminum, it doesn’t have the normal flex of steel or even of chromoloy, so wherever there are extreme forces at play (fixed drivetrain, hello!), those pieces are going to now flex, and the noise they make is reverberated through the frame and amplified to audible. so basically, my bb creaks every once in a while, usually after a skid or a back-torque. i can help this problem with a new chain and a new, METAL left-side bb cup (mine is plastic, and cracked, so it’s flexing a LOT), but i fear it will always do this. who cares, though.

as i said, this bike is rocking my world right now, and that’s what counts.

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team lope bike bio — bianchiBlue

ironlung — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:52:04 +0000

this bike came and went before we even knew each other.

i landed a KILLER deal a while back on what was essentially a complete bianchi road bike from the 80s. it was only missing wheels. at the time this bike was produced, the italian manufacturer was getting their steel from japan. this is a very desirable bike not just for the name, but for that japanese steel detail. i scored it for a song, and the reason was that the guy who had it sitting in his garage gathering dust hated the idea of it not being used. so he offered it to me. as i said, it was only missing the wheels — every other component on it, complete down to the original suntour groupo, was intact, meticulously maintained, and in essentially perfect working order.

so naturally, i stripped and fixed it. hahaha!!! no, the reason i did so was that it was hanging on my wall for a long time, starting to gather dust in MY shop now, and i remembered that he wanted this bike to get some loving, so i explored a theory i had. the theory was that i had enough parts just laying around that with a frame and fork, i could pop out a whole bike without having to buy anything. and since my inent with this bike is to restore it to it’s vintage road racing glory (i saved all the vintage road components that i took off of it, naturally), i was blessed with the freedom to just cobble together a fixed-gear bike that would have an expectedly short life span — no concept, no studious research, no slooowly gathering up parts — just throw it together, enjoy it for however long it rolls, and strip it back down again to get it ready for it’s future as my second bianchi road bike.

sure enough, it worked. and BOY did it work. this bike turned out to be one of the strongest, most badass bikes i’ve ever made. a steel frame is the core that makes any bike moBetta, so that was the start, but the angles and the posture i gave it combined to make it this beautiful, perfect townie cruiser. it wasn’t a masher at all — it was a goin-out-for-pizza bike. a cruisin-to-the-waterfront bike. a straight up relaxer. it was kind of a cadillac — you get into it and it can haul, but why fuckin bother? it felt so good to just rrrooolll…

anyway, nothing special about the componentry — it had the original front brake and cranks and 42T chainwheel, my strap-n-cage platform pedals, a swobo seat, schwixie(tm)’s old riser bars, the lean’s old grips, a generic brake lever i had laying around, and a set of wicked silver deeps i bought off of WR.

those wheels are sort of an additional reason for the temporary state of this bike’s life — i bought them to make a fixie for (SG)f, who’s grown to LOVE cycling and our time out on the pedals together. so they were always intended for her bike, which is now underway, and wearing them.

thus, this bike is gone again, relegated to being just another frame and fork on the wall of the shop, awaiting it’s revival … again.

couple of great contributions it gave to the world, though…

+ one night (SG)f wanted to ride our bikes down to try out a new pizza joint. after dinner, she opined that we should take a ride … "that way." this ended up being a very long, late-night ride all the way across town to aquatic park, where we sat and watched the stars under an unseasonably GORGEOUS, warm, clear night.

+ on halloween morning, WR found some time to have breakfast with one lung before spending the day shuttling more shit out of his old apartment here in the city. having not been thinking about riding, he didn’t bring a bike. and we’d have been foolish to drive to the breakfast place we were thinking of, so i was able to provide a "loaner fixie" to my good buddy, which he quite enjoyed riding to and from our delicious meal.

i’d say that’s a life well spent!

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Team Lope Bike Bio: Ghostal

wrongrobot — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:33:27 +0000

So, loyal readers may recall that I have several bikes already. And my most recent project undertaken, Ye Blacke Death, was begun predicated on a number of rationales, including: it should be inexpensive, it shouldn’t be a fix-e project redo, and it should be old timey. That all said, during the weeks leading up to my most recent move, I had begun performing experiments on Fix-e, which was actually my first project, thanks to Lung’s tutelage. However, one thing was certain: that small frame wasn’t getting any notsmaller. Adding the drops only worsened the issue: the frame is too small for this wrongrobot. Using those drops meant hunting for a very long stem (such as Ntto’s long boys at $140 or so) and even then, it raises the bars, but brings them closer in the process, somewhat hampering the process. So, I began scheming to build a new bike from the ashes of Fix-e, which might, in the Team Lope tradition, be retired for awhile. Keep in mind, at the time I started down this mental road, I was still imagining that there was a good chance most of my bikes were going into storage, meaning any bike that wasn’t a good fit was probably hibernating. Now, I have a bikeBasement(tm) the size of Bent Ankle, West Texas, and prolly could have left Fix-e as is for occasional nostalgia rides. But I wasn’t thinking that way at the time. I was thinking economy, fitment, and recycling. So, like I have done in the past, I picked one or two details from Fix-e, and carried them into a new concept bike.

That bike is Wrong Ghostal*, the somewhat literal spirit of the now-deceased Fix-e. It’s wrong, because it’s mine, and it’s also wrong, because riding a ghost bike seems to inherently bring those tickets orbiting my skull that much closer to being punched, and that means lights out. But anyway, I decided to do it. My man Lung has already been building a Dream in Racing Cream, which led me to postpone that look yet again in favor of matte black on Ye Blacke Death, and that ALSO meant that the rattlecan finish on Fix-e would be redundant anyway. Further causing the retirement of ole fix-e was my decision to sell her sweet, sweet deeps to Lung for his projects, since thy were still nearly new, and had plenty of awesome therein. So what the hell, I says, as long as I’m building the ghost of fix-e, and fix-e was all about experimentation, why not build a little out of my comfort zone rather than another conversion frame?

This is how I entered onto the path of modern track frames. Lung has built up a sweet ride off of a Skidaddle, I mean Scattante, SRS frame, and I was really into it when he was working on it, tripping on these details track folks take for granted that conversion guys like me have to improvise, such as horizontal track fork ends instead of dropouts, and modern headsets, and contemporary geometries (sch as the SRS’ slightly sloping top tube). I thought to myself at that time, my next build from scratch will be a track frame proper, and so here we are. I looked at all sorts of options over the next few weeks, frequently in the late night hour on baby duty. My choices were endless and conflicting: a serious trixie frame, despite not being into tricks? A mean geometry to accentuate the difference from my other bikes? A custom paint job on an otherwise cool, but not white, frame? And so on. Finally, I reconciled my interest in a new frame with my competing interest to keep things on budget. And the budget is WEAK! And most cool track frames are much more expensive than they deserve being, because they are popular. Ultimately, while I was hovering on an older model Leader frame, I decided I didn’t want THAT new a geometry and section. I still like a classic frame. I just wanted something a little different than the norm. And I LOVE lugs and quill stems, but those are the gems of conversions. Time to see what I could do with modern gear.

I chose the Origin8 Del Pasado. I was most drawn to the unusual wheelstays (topstays? I calle them wheelstays. But I’m known to be wrong) that start several inches below the seat clamp. Also, integrated seat clamp. Also, clean frame. Also, GREAT deal.

So I thought about it throughout my move, and pulled the trigger once I got to the new digs.

Pros: the above mentioned wheelstays, clean lines, integrated seat clamp, price, etc
Cons: for one, the paint job ain’t the BEST ot of the gate. Better than you’d expect at this price point, certainly on par with Lung’s similarly budget-minded SRS. But you can see the points where it’s slightly off. For another, i’m not sure I’m in love with the form just yet it’s a straight fork, and I do so love my curving chrome dipped forks. But that is conversion bike territory as well. Lastly, to my surprise and horror, I think the decals are UNDER the clear coat. I’m looking into how to debadge without repainting. But we’ll see. Problems to solve.

So far so good! And nothing beats having two projects ongoing, an oldie and a new tech one. Multiple projects are a joy Lung is also quite familiar with.

*Space Ghost fans know what’s up!

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Team Lope Bike Bio: WrongBike

admin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:42:44 +0000

The wrongBike extrusion…

This bike build project began as a Vista, which was originally manufactured in Columbia, I think, but eventually they started making them in Japan… one of the many initially-Schwinn-based 10-speed brands of the 70s. The concept of this build changed a few times along the way. It was almost an old timey bike with fenders and so on, but as I went along, particularly after the paint job, I decided I wanted it streamlined, and it became a simpler bike in execution. But the details remained pretty consistent: Wrongrobot-orange/yellow paint, chrome and leather. After completion, several adjustments were made, and as with any of the bikes, are ongoing. The arc bars were cut down shorter, small wrapped grips were added, and after a long climber in Calistoga, the bars were angled upwards like risers, giving it a more upright, comfortable riding position. All in all, a great conversion!

:::

WrongBike(tm) 1.0 - long arc bars, unwrapped, two brakes

WrongBike(tm) 2.0 – short arc bars, short-wrapped in leather tape, one brake!

The WrongBike(tm) bike build gallery can be viewed here.

:::

To read the bike build process logs, read on…

Bike Build Process Log: Villain

wrongrobot — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:31:37 +0000

:::

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.

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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Bike Bio: Junior(tm)

joblue — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:43:34 +0000

Here is a 1968 Stringray frame that I am going to fix up for my son. I have the crank, arms, chainring and some headset hardware so far. I am going to canabalize my son’s current bike for wheels, etc.

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