Greg Curnoe Bike Photo of the Day #3: Front Drive Side

After a Sunday rest, the series resumes. Allow me to summarize my thoughts about this photo with the following statement: Noah Rosen of Velocolour is the greatest bicycle painter alive! Note the way the stripe on the headtube lines up with the edge of the logo, and the stripe on the downtube lines up with the top of the shifter braze-on.

I was thinking about putting a red Columbus decal on the fork blades. Reasoning: the fork blades are Columbus; the Curnoe bike had a Columbus decal, on the seat tube; and the Curnoe bike had a red Mariposa decal on the fork blades. But I think this looks so good the way it is that I'll probably let it be.

Greg Curnoe Bike Photo of the Day #2: Seat Cluster

Here is the second photo. This one reveals, in addition to the lovely and colourful paint job, some less than stellar lug filing. The lug edges look very mushy and the lug itself a bit uneven—which is a bit surprising, given the absolutely insane amount of time I spent on this lug. But this is the drive side, which is not the "show" side of the bike. Things may, and should, look sharper from the other side. But let's stay positive: it looks pretty amazing.

Greg Curnoe Bike Photo of the Day #1: Headtube

Noah is sending me one photo of the bike per day. This is both because he is looking out for me (I am submitting my thesis on Monday and need to focus) and because he has a sick sense of humour (I want to see them all!) But this should make for compelling blog-reading for the next little while. Here is Photo #1, which I think already presents a strong case for Greg Curnoe Bike being the nicest bike of all time.

Holy Crap Greg Curnoe Bike Is Looking Incredible So Far

Photos courtesy of Noah of Velocolour, whose masterful painting they depict.

Wow. The green looks a bit lime-y without all the red and orange to balance it off, and the frame looks generally a bit odd without the parts attached—but this is going to look utterly incredible when it's all built up. It looks pretty damned good right now.

Happy Paris-Roubaix Day

I was up at 6am this morning to watch the race, and it was entirely worth it. I don't want to be a spoiler and give away the result—suffice it to say that, as a tall and lanky cyclist, it was nice to see a tall and lanky racer take it. Not so nice to see Michael Barry Jr. hit the deck, though.

The picture above comes from one of my prized possessions: a Mavic-branded Paris-Roubaix t-shirt. I was, of course, wearing it this morning.

Another aesthetically pleasing item: my KMC X9 red chain, which arrived in the mail on Friday.

Greg Curnoe Bike: Component List

Greg Curnoe Bike will be ready very soon. For the truly interested (and bless you all), here is a comprehensive list of every part listed in the upper-right-hand corner of the Greg Curnoe print, and then every part that will go on to my version of the bike.

I only recently got a chance to look up close at the Curnoe print, so I was mostly guessing from the image itself when I put together the components for my version. So I thought, for example, that the original had Campagnolo brakes (they're Weinmanns) and a Cinelli stem/bar (they're T.T.T.). I had no idea that Curnoe used Pino Morroni QRs, but, wow, that's cool. But knowing this probably wouldn't have changed my choices very much, given the semi-autobiographical nature of the project, and given the emphasis I'm putting on "adaptation." The basis of my adaptations appears in the chart itself, where I force myself to justify my departures from the original, either on aesthetic or athletic grounds. 

Yes, I do know that I am weird, and that this is just a bike. But by clicking on the image below (and you will need to click to be able to read it), you tacitly acknowledge that you too are weird—and that this is not just a bike!

ps: how awesome was the Tour of Flanders yesterday? I'm going to turn this blog into a racing blog some day! 

Jocelyn Lovell Bike

Spring has arrived in Toronto. This has two consequences for Jocelyn Lovell Bike, who was finished last winter just as the snow started to fall:

1. I want to ride him.
2. I can now finally take nice pictures of him.

The question of riding and photographing are closely linked: until I took nice photographs, I didn't want to ride him and get him dirty and scratched; and until it was nice enough to take good photographs, I didn't want to ride him. So now things are in the proper order, and I have taken the archival photographs that will free me to ride Jocelyn Lovell Bike as much as I want.

Keats told the "fair youth" of his "Ode on a Grecian Urn," stuck eternally in a painted half-kiss,

     Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
     She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Well, Sweet Bicycle, you cannot now fade, having been frozen in these photographs. But unlike the fair youth, you can now split into two lives—one preserved eternally in two dimensions, and the other as my ever, ever-rideable (and kissable!) three-dimensional companion on blissful Poplar Plains hill climbs.

In fact, we've just been on our first hill climb—and he is a very nice, svelte vehicle. Also, I am happy to report that the first person we passed—a high school student—saw the bike and immediately exclaimed, and I quote, "Holy fuck, that is a nice fucking bike." Thank you, fair youth!