LeMond

Before Armstrong there was LeMond, and he still inspires in a way that Lance can not. And I have no idea why, maybe he's a nicer person, or maybe it's because he won close races and didn't so outclass his rivals as to leave them like amateurs. LeMond make lovely looking bikes and this one is fixed too. A proper fixed with track fork ends, I had no idea LeMond made these.

Purple Fixed

Diplomat

Belying my lack of recent posting I have actually been collecting quite a few bike photos. This handsome road bike is a Diplomat, a manufacturer I've never heard of though I have some suspicions that it may be a Schwinn.

World Track Cycling Championships

Photos of the top secret bikes used by the all conquering British track team are hard to come by. This photo I've had to cull from the BBC. It's been a truly amazing few days in Manchester for the British team, more victorious than I could ever have imagined, but I am reluctant to pick out any individual efforts for praise because there are just too many to write about. Instead I'll pick my 'best of the rest' and that honour goes to the brave and strong Belorussian, Aliaksandr Lisouski for his phenomenally exciting win in the Men's Scratch Race.

It may not be apparent from this blog (such as it is, filled with photos of old, kinda worn out looking, bikes) that I am a bit of a cycle racing fan. And, normally, I am pretty open minded towards all types of competition, downhill mountain biking, cyclo-cross,kerin, road racing, ect. But I do have a wee favourite, and that is sprinting. And this is why...



(WARNING! This video is quite long).

I have never been the biggest Raleigh fan. Possibly because of the shear ubiquity of them when I was young, they never seemed special to me. But this shiny example did catch my eye with it's nice '80's paint job and ,the ever faithful, Reynolds 531 tubbing.

Well done to Mark Beaumont. Mark beat, by about three months or something, the Round the World cycle record. Now, and not to belittle Mark's Herculean endeavours, I had no idea that there even was a Round the World cycle record but now I know that it currently stands at 195 days and to achieve such a feet one must risk imprisonment and mugging amongst other bad and good experiences.

Sheldon Brown died this week. If you don't know who he is have a look at his website, I highly recommend it. This is a very old photo of the man himself riding a Raleigh Twenty, a bike which Sheldon seemed particularly keen on.



And here he is with his wife on their big day. I love this photograph.

My sympathy to his family and friends.

So, I've shown you some lovely foreign bikes but now we must get back to British and to start, I've this photo of an old Coventry Eagle. It's another old British name to have been swallowed up by the brand hungry Falcon Bikes. This is one that I spotted next to a stables in Glasgow and you can see from the sticker that it comes from the (emm) 'stable' of The Common Wheel.

Oh yeah, see that photo below of the xmas tree in the utility bike? Want to know how to get your tree in your bike??? watch..



missed!!!

Let me try again with the image uploader.............



pheewww it worked and first up we have a bucket bike, now I call them bucket bikes only for want of their proper name. They are veryvery popular in Amsterdam, ferrying everything imaginable about the city.I wish I'd been able to have a shot on one.



A row of very colourful frames.



Another utility bike.



A lovely old workhorse.



A bike for carrying cheese. Invaluable.

A belated happy new year you lot. I've been having some bicycle fun already this year by going to Amsterdam, the home of the European city bike. And for your eager eyes I've taken a few photos. But it seems that Blogger is playing funny games with me and won't let me upload them, so I'll try again tomorrow.
In the meantime you can entertain yourselves by looking at this comprehensive Amsterdam bike voyeur site.