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Thursday, May 8, 2008

Darren's French-ish commuter

I had an ugly old yellow/black French road bike that really wasn't serving much purpose. Then, a former co-worker got doored, busticated his hand, and consequently had to tool around on his Steamroller set up with big upright bars. And he loved it. So I said "me too!", and yeah, after years of tongue-tickling the stem, riding perfectly upright was a revelation.

But the bike still looked awful. And if you're not going fast, you should at least look good. So, off to the powdercoater. Despite many taunts, I wanted a color approximating the Bareknuckle we just jettisoned. Judge for yourself:Fenders were powdercoated to match, the rack was left chromed. Both are from Velo-Orange. I like the upright bars, but I needed a stupid-long stem to be comfortable, so I snagged this 140mm SR stem on this little site called eBay.tinnnnnggggg!
And a nice French bike needs a nice French crank. Well, it's actually an English Lambert, but it's pretty much the same as the old TAs.I think I have a dropout fetish. I just think they're attractive.I had this bike stashed in the shop one day, and a customer referred to it as "pimpin". That works.

1 comment:

Charlotte said...

Stunning bike. I'd love to have a bike like that - really well done on all the details!