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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
- E6toSE3 2 hours 19 min ago
I've posted before about being 69, lifelong cyclist as my main transport, much of it in, through, under, over London and how it's bicycles that...
- David9694 3 hours 21 min ago
I hope you're all checking your insurance policies, helmets, test certificates and road tax, it's the 2024 round-up...
- check12 5 hours 2 min ago
200 people out of a close by population of how many? Just build it and stop being a wuss
- Spangly Shiny 6 hours 34 min ago
To paraphrase Field of Dreams, "Build it right and they will come: and use it!"
- Rendel Harris 8 hours 56 min ago
And a Happy Christmas to you, road.cc staff!
- Rendel Harris 9 hours 43 min ago
The odds of not being able to find a single pedestrian - just one, note, "any pedestrian" - in an area containing more than about ten of them who...
- bikeman01 11 hours 23 min ago
I love how wannabe racer reviewers talk about fork flex under braking like their tyres are made of glue. I find traction gives long before fork flex.
- hawkinspeter 12 hours 30 min ago
They don't make them like they used to
- LongitudeLatitude 13 hours 20 min ago
Thanks for using my picture of chocolate in your opening picture. The original can be found here, chocolate! | LongitudeLatitude | Flickr.
- lesterama 13 hours 47 min ago
Fair comments. I'll put my hands up and say I got the wrong end of the stick with this one. ¡Feliz navidad! Here's a pic for the season of goodwill.
Add new comment
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?"