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Things Come Apart - bicycleHow many bits make up a bike?
Eight hundred and ninety-three, apparently.
The image above is from a series produced by Canadian photographer Todd McLellan showing everyday objects reduced to their constituent parts. The bike in question is a 1980s Raleigh, and McLellan has also dismantled a fire extinguisher, a bedside clock radio, a typewriter, a chainsaw and a host of other familiar things. The book of the images, Things Come Apart, is published by Thames & Hudson and will be available soon.
Dave is a founding father of road.cc, having previously worked on Cycling Plus and What Mountain Bike magazines back in the day. He also writes about e-bikes for our sister publication ebiketips. He's won three mountain bike bog snorkelling World Championships, and races at the back of the third cats.
Latest Comments
- froze 1 hour 2 min ago
This was a very good listing of bikes for under 1,000....
- Hirsute 4 hours 23 min ago
Radar tells me their closing speed, if they are slowing and how far away. Then I decide to say a prayer. The change of light pattern is incidental.
- lonpfrb 4 hours 43 min ago
Quite so, which is why our village 20mph zone covers the whole residential extent. Of course, enforcement is another thing..
- lonpfrb 5 hours 9 min ago
No, that's very doubtful while proper testing would be fully destructive.
- don simon fbpe 6 hours 23 min ago
What's wrong with dropping down on to the Millenium Bridge, or the swing bridge, then the brief, but satisfying climb back up the hill? #training....
- chrisonabike 7 hours 4 min ago
The relatives might of course disagree, but in general I'd countenance a relatively light sentence* if only we could fix it so that those who...
- ktache 7 hours 43 min ago
Id forgotten that I got a second hand set of project two's for my getting to work bike over twenty years back.
- Veganpotter 8 hours 40 min ago
My bet is that all these tires popping off are from people with bad pressure gauges or they're simply just putting too much air in on purpose. ...
- chrisonabike 9 hours 56 min ago
David9694 - you were right! These new autonomous vehicles really are conspiring to run out of control!...
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10 comments
It's a steel frame right? So a bit of heat applied to the lugs and hey presto - 15 more bits.
I still think a good quill stem is one of the most beautiful things going.
On a bike of that vintage, well over half of those 893 parts come from just one - the chain. 570 parts roughly.
if your going to dismantle the saddle why not the frame and fork? seems an odd thing to do.
No matter how i put it back together I guarantee there would be 4 screws left over who's purpose would only become apparent after the first mile!
Why three saddles though?
Base, foam and covering I think
Wow - I love stuff like this, it shows you all the beautiful thought and engineering that goes into even the smallest piece.
I bet the photographer has got an amazing tool kit, too!
Awesome.Imagine how long it would take to build the bike back up from that picture!
The real question is whether there would be anything left over when he'd finished!
"Hmm, what does this bit do then?"