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So, thinking, who has the most fully-formed N+1 addiction? I was trying to work out how many bikes I’ve owned in circa 40 years and its not *that* many:
c.1979 – Raleigh Grifter (red)
c.1985 – catalog special 10 speed with suicide levers and a nice titanium-look finish. Stolen from 6th form and didn’t ride again until my mid-30s
c. 2004 – Ridgeback Nemesis Nexus 8. Hub gears/brakes, Conti slick tyres, Mavic rims, stealth black. Bloody awesome bike for the money (£450), stolen by someone in my apartment block. Didn’t ride again until my early-40s
c. 2013 – Felt QX80D hybrid. Acera, mechanical disc brakes. Did IoW Sportive on it, quickly realised I could do with a road bike so went to;
Triban 3, Red, rescued from London commuting duty when my brother moved home and bought a Dolan. Still have this bike, full on Trigger’s broom – only the headset and frame are original. Gone from being a 2300 triple to Ultegra Di2 to living in the attic for 2 years, now rebuilt with Tiagra 4700 as a fast/dry bike
One One Dirty Disco. My “fastest” bike. Too small and I didn’t get on with SRAM shifting and the BB5s
Merida Cyclocross 500, blue. My favourite bike to date, currently regretting selling it but I needed a tourer to use as a tagalong and wasn’t happy with Merida being sponsored by despotic Middle Eastern regimes.
Fairlight Faran in blue/orange. Fully loaded steel tourer – guards, panniers, tagalong rack, big tyres. Probably weighs around 16kg. Most definitely Not Fast but looking forward to the day I can strip it back and pop some skinny rubber on.
So that’s 8 in total, as long as you don’t count the 3 iterations of the Triban as separate bikes.
My difficulty is that I like building bikes now – currently avoiding the insane frame package bundles on Planet X at the moment (steel audax frame, bars, wheels, headset, seatpost, saddle for £250 anyone?). Or a carbon one for £500…
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Sorry I should have sorted this a few days ago but Matthew… this cracking collection, plus transforming a twelve quid ebay folder into something rideable, deserves some road.cc socks! Email me at jack.sexty@road.cc with a delivery address and your size and I’ll post some out to you.Oh gosh, this will be long. I’m old.1965 – 24″ single speed coaster brake. A Super Elliot’s I believe. My 8th birthday.
1969 – Inherited my older brother’s blue 27″ with – marvel of marvels! – 3 speed derailleur gears and a nice lightweight alloy front hub. Destroyed said hub by putting the front wheel in backwards, the LHS cups (now on the right) decided to screw themselves in crushing the hub. Rebuilt the wheel on another hub and the older brother never commented. Phew.
1972 – converted the old 24″ into a chopper, with waterpipe fork extensions and a home-welded Z-bars, a sissy bar converted from a pot stand and a custom saddle made by myself. The front wheel barely stayed on the ground long enough to turn.
1973 – converted an old 28″ frame into a mountain bike with 28″ wheels with 2″ tyres. The rims were made for rod brakes but I fitted a single rear caliper which wore the brake pads concave, but it did stop. Galvanised water pipe front forks attached to home-made crown and water pipe riser bars. Harken Hex-grips. Indestructible. Rode it to the station for years and it was never stolen. Still in the shed somewhere.
1973 – saved and bought my first road bike, a Raleigh Record 27″ 10 speed, Huret derailleurs and Weinmann centre pull brakes. Rode it all over the place, eventually wore out the 5 speed block till the chain skipped. So heavy! 14kg of British steel. Eventually c. 1982 was buzzed by hoons at 100mph – I saw their wing mirror pass under my handlebar – and gave up the bike except to ride to the pub or the shops over the years. (recently restored, image).
Until…
2009 – Bought a £12.50 Universal folder off Ebay to ride to work. Spokes kept breaking on the awful wheels.
So I bought second hand hub brake hubs and a 5 speed Alfine rear and rebuilt the wheels using BMX hubs. Heavy as lead but great riding through the snow.
2010 – Got a Raleigh Twenty, enthused by Sheldon Brown’s description of them. Totally original, from a shed in Letchworth where it had lain since goodness knows when. Was fun to ride, though I never customised it in the end as it was so cute. Obscure wheel size made tyres difficult. The hub dynamo and lights worked like a dream, still.
2011 – Sold the Twenty to one of my students who rode it to uni for years and to work afterwards. Bought a second hand Ridgeback Flite flat bar 700c with 9×3 speed Tiagra/105. Got the bug and improved it to 10×2 speed 105. That was a good bike, fast too, but very harsh and a bit flexy in the bottom bracket. My first bike with Allen keys and an Ahead stem.
2012 – A pink Planet X Carbon Pro, bargain, with 10×2 speed Ultegra. Light but vague steering and flexy. Sold the frame pretty quickly and moved the components over to…
2013 – Bianchi Infinito, the first model, with the flax inclusions (anti-vibration) and the curvy frame.
Used the Ultegra on it until i took of the Ultegra group and put Super Record on instead (having come into a small legacy after my mother died). A lovely bike, smooth relaxing for long rides, but lacking a bit of get up and go when you wanted to get up and go.
2014 – Canyon Ultimate AL 9.0 – Put the Ultegra on this bargain frame. When they were first imported people bought them for the 10 speed DI2 and sold the frames cheap on Ebay.
Rode that until 2017 when the frame cracked, later with an Athena group on it.
2015 – Tempted by a bargain (new) Sempre Pro. They were being sold off cheap at the end of the model. Put Chorus on it and it was brilliant but it was rarely used, so it went off to a good home 10 months later, because…
2016 – Sold the Sempre Pro frame and put the SR group on a bargain Colnago EPS frame that I got at a price too good to refuse, new old stock from Italy. Amazing bike, handmade in Italy, even the tubes are handmade. The model before the C59. Stiff as anything and comfortable. Seem fairly rare.
2016 – Got the hankering for a steel frame again and bought a bargain Tommasini frame from a chap somewhere on the Great Western line. Built up with 2009 Record 9 speed. Lovely.
2017 – As the Tommasini wouldn’t take modern groups (127 rear spacing and I wasn’t prepared to bend a classic frame) a Brian Rourke frame found its way to me. Now built up with a bargain Chorus group from the Sempre Pro.
2017 – the Canyon cracked and I bought the cheapest frame I could find, and end-of-year bargain Cinelli Experience. Which turned out to be a bit of a bargain rocket, stiff as you want and comfortable too. My current ride to work. The white bar tape and saddle are now black. Guards and lights spoil it.
Got a bit of push back from the OH on the Rourke so no new bikes for a while… One in, one out, is the new rule.
Oh gosh, this will be hard.
Oh gosh, this will be long. I’m old.
1965 – 24″ single speed coaster brake. A Super Elliot’s I believe. My 8th birthday.
1969 – Inherited my older brother’s blue 27″ with – marvel of marvels! – 3 speed derailleur gears and a nice lightweight alloy front hub. Destroyed said hub by putting the front wheel in backwards, the LHS cups (now on the right) decided to screw themselves in crushing the hub. Rebuilt the wheel on another hub and the older brother never commented. Phew.
1972 – converted the old 24″ into a chopper, with waterpipe fork extensions and a home-welded Z-bars, a sissy bar converted from a pot stand and a custom saddle made by myself. The front wheel barely stayed on the ground long enough to turn.
1973 – converted an old 28″ frame into a mountain bike with 28″ wheels with 2″ tyres. The rims were made for rod brakes but I fitted a single rear caliper which wore the brake pads concave, but it did stop. Galvanised water pipe front forks attached to home-made crown and water pipe riser bars. Harken Hex-grips. Indestructible. Rode it to the station for years and it was never stolen. Still in the shed somewhere.
1973 – saved and bought my first road bike, a Raleigh Record 27″ 10 speed, Huret derailleurs and Weinmann centre pull brakes. Rode it all over the place, eventually wore out the 5 speed block till the chain skipped. So heavy! 14kg of British steel. Eventually c. 1982 was buzzed by hoons at 100mph – I saw their wing mirror pass under my handlebar – and gave up the bike except to ride to the pub or the shops over the years. (recently restored, image).
Until…
2009 – Bought a £12.50 Universal folder off Ebay to ride to work. Spokes kept breaking on the awful wheels.
So I bought second hand hub brake hubs and a 5 speed Alfine rear and rebuilt the wheels using BMX hubs. Heavy as lead but great riding through the snow.
2010 – Got a Raleigh Twenty, enthused by Sheldon Brown’s description of them. Totally original, from a shed in Letchworth where it had lain since goodness knows when. Was fun to ride, though I never customised it in the end as it was so cute. Obscure wheel size made tyres difficult. The hub dynamo and lights worked like a dream, still.
2011 – Sold the Twenty to one of my students who rode it to uni for years and to work afterwards. Bought a second hand Ridgeback Flite flat bar 700c with 9×3 speed Tiagra/105. Got the bug and improved it to 10×2 speed 105. That was a good bike, fast too, but very harsh and a bit flexy in the bottom bracket. My first bike with Allen keys and an Ahead stem.
2012 – A pink Planet X Carbon Pro, bargain, with 10×2 speed Ultegra. Light but vague steering and flexy. Sold the frame pretty quickly and moved the components over to…
2013 – Bianchi Infinito, the first model, with the flax inclusions (anti-vibration) and the curvy frame.
Used the Ultegra on it until i took of the Ultegra group and put Super Record on instead (having come into a small legacy after my mother died). A lovely bike, smooth relaxing for long rides, but lacking a bit of get up and go when you wanted to get up and go.
2014 – Canyon Ultimate AL 9.0 – Put the Ultegra on this bargain frame. When they were first imported people bought them for the 10 speed DI2 and sold the frames cheap on Ebay.
Rode that until 2017 when the frame cracked, later with an Athena group on it.
2015 – Tempted by a bargain (new) Sempre Pro. They were being sold off cheap at the end of the model. Put Chorus on it and it was brilliant but it was rarely used, so it went off to a good home 10 months later, because…
2016 – Sold the Sempre Pro frame and put the SR group on a bargain Colnago EPS frame that I got at a price too good to refuse, new old stock from Italy. Amazing bike, handmade in Italy, even the tubes are handmade. The model before the C59. Stiff as anything and comfortable. Seem fairly rare.
2016 – Got the hankering for a steel frame again and bought a bargain Tommasini frame from a chap somewhere on the Great Western line. Built up with 2009 Record 9 speed. Lovely.
2017 – As the Tommasini wouldn’t take modern groups (127 rear spacing and I wasn’t prepared to bend a classic frame) a Brian Rourke frame found its way to me. Now built up with a bargain Chorus group from the Sempre Pro.
2017 – the Canyon cracked and I bought the cheapest frame I could find, and end-of-year bargain Cinelli Experience. Which turned out to be a bit of a bargain rocket, stiff as you want and comfortable too. My current ride to work. The white bar tape and saddle are now black. Guards and lights spoil it.
Got a bit of push back from the OH on the Rourke so no new bikes for a while… One in, one out, is the new rule.
About 40 years ago…..
So where are playing cards held on with pegs?
About 40 years ago…..I had the same one.
c1984 – Peugeot BMX (Kays catalogue)
c1987 – Emmelle road bike (Kays catalogue)
no idea of dates from then on but around 2002/3ish – Raleigh mountain bike (Halfords)
BTwin white Triban 3
BTwin Alur 700 (current)
Ghost Panamao City 2 (current commuter)
About 40 years ago…..
About 40 years ago…..
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