Meet Marcel

Oh dear, sweet blog, what a long time it has been.

The catastrophe that has struck me is best described as the onset of adult life. I finished my Ph.D., ceased being a grad student, and have begun teaching. On the balance I can say that the adult world is what I expected it to be—which is why I was so studiously avoiding it.

I did however find some things to get obsessed with and preoccupied by in the adult world. And since, in the true spirit of obsessiveness, I get truly obsessed with my obsessions, I have had almost no time for bicycles in the last year—either riding them or building them. But the teaching year is now over, and so it's time to make a slight return.

Let me begin by catching you up. In December, my shop partner Olivier and I learned that, alas, our shop space was being reclaimed. This was no surprise, as I wasn't using it at all, and the space was needed for other things. So since December I have been shopless. Not so Olivier, who had a perfect little space in his recently-purchased house, and moved the stuff in there. He has been building away ever since.

He said he needed a project, and I was more than happy to give him one. Since 2007 (yes, that is five years ago) I have been trying to get a randonneur built. I have had all the parts—TA cranks, Schmidt hubs, Mavic derailleurs, and so on and so on—in my closet for each of those five years. I placed orders with two separate custom builders, each of which look quite a long time to not work out. Then I tried making the randonneur myself (he was called "Adam Jr." in this state), but I messed up the BB drop, and so Adam Jr. became Jocelyn Lovell Bike. Then I got caught up in Greg Curnoe bike; and then I got caught up in the aforementioned adult life. Thus the project passed on to Olivier, who has done an absolutely superb job of it. (I should add that what took two professionals and myself five years to not complete took Olivier about one week to finish.)

This bike is a "collaboration," which is another reason to like it. I built the fork, "investment-stamped" the lugs, shaped them and then filed them. Olivier did most of the work: everything else, including the frame, a front rack, a stem, and a décaleur.

I have named the bike Marcel, to reflect this spirit of collaboration. Marcel Proust, you see, is one of my favourite writers. He is also French, like any good randonneur. The name of his great work, In Search of Lost Time, sounds like it could be the title of a time trialist's autobiography, which adds to the fun. It so happens that Olivier, whose first language is French, has among his surnames "Proulx," which is a nice North American relative of Proust's surname.

So: Marcel. Let's have a look at him.

One of many "constructeur" glory-shots: the little area where the taillight light braze-on mount meets the seat tube pump peg. God Bless you, Olivier! (Amusing side note: it was no fewer than three years ago that Olivier and I built the taillight that will screw in to that hole [at the time, it was to screw in to a bike named Clive.] I named the light Kermit.)

Olivier's lovely curved SS bridge, between Mafac bosses almost centred on the stays.

Olivier's equally lovely stem. Some things that I did in this shot: I put a fun shape into the handlebar clamp and I prepped and filed those beautiful Cinelli CS lugs. I hardly modified their basic bird-beak shape. The more I look at and think about lugged bikes, the more I think that is the proper lug shape.

Olivier's extremely elegant front rack, with extra-simple and extra-beautiful internal routing. It mounts to the Mafac bosses on the fork, which I made long ago, and whose inarguable loveliness is largely the result of fork blades bent by John Medclay.

I just love Olivier's way of attaching stays: strong, light, and leaves the stays at a perfect spacing for Mafac bosses. A great hanger, too. I didn't go crazy with lug-filing; just made things reasonably even. (I've photographed this bike from the non-drive side, incidentally, for Greg Curnoe-related reasons; and no, I won't use that Sugino post, whose flutes are unfortunately too long.)

Oh, say! What's that? New logos? A new name? "Bis"? Lots of lines and dots? What is all that about?

All questions answered in the next post, which will, I promise, arrive in fewer than nine months.

Paul Butler's "The Greg Curnoe Bike Project" at the AGO

Paul Butler's Greg Curnoe Bike Project is under way at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and runs until November 13th.

For my own totally different Greg Curnoe Bike project, completed last spring, read my artistic statement and look at photos.

Gaudi Bike, Step 1; and Bikes and Guitars

Yesterday I took the very first step for the next bike, which I am calling for now by the dramatic title "Gaudi Bike." This first step was putting brass in the transitions of some a stamped Cinelli CS lugset to begin my "investment stamped" process—a sort of time-waster that allows me to do nice silver-brazing on old, long-pointed lugs. The seatlug (which has a reinforced binder, also) looks a bit a double-beaked baby bird asking for a meal. I have kept my framebuilding hobby "starved" for the past while; it is hungry!

Below is a photo taken in the same room as the above, my living room:

For a long time I've been meaning to put up a post about bikes and (mostly Fender) electric guitars—relatively simple, often colourful devices whose designs came to maturity in the post-war years and have mostly changed, if at all, for the worse. I'll actually write that post some day—but for now, this accidental juxtaposition of my Sonic Blue Fender Classic Player 60s Strat (the 2006 model with the AY-signed pickups, a phenomenally nice Mexican-made guitar) and Jocelyn Lovell Bike sort of makes my point for me. (Yes, I did design the Lovell paint scheme around this guitar -- including the slightly green white on the headtube, to match the "mint" pickguard! But the blues are a bit different.)

What I Learned on My Summer Vacation

This has been the busiest summer of my life. In addition to finishing and defending my thesis, I've had to deal with the downside of thesis-completion—finding a job—and then preparing to do that job. (I'm teaching a course at the University of Toronto. It's the first time the course has ever been offered before, so I had to develop the entire syllabus from the ground up.)

All of this was made even more challenging by the fact that I had a long-planned vacation set up for August—I had to squeeze a year's worth of work into three months. But the vacation was wonderful. And while I did almost no framebuilding this summer, I did get a lot of ideas while I was away. Here is a cycling-themed summary of my summer vacation.

After spending a few quiet weeks in Poland, I went to London—where my visit happened to coincide with the London-Surrey Cycling Classic, whose start I was able to see. I was hoping to mingle with the riders before the start, but security was tight. No Tom Boonen autograph, I'm afraid—but if you squint, you can see him in the Belgian colours at the front of the pack. Cycling-wise, London reminded me a lot of Toronto: lots of fixed gears, some reasonably nice; generally cycling-unfriendly streets...

I made my first visit to the Netherlands, which I found generally less amazing than most bicycle-loving Torontonians do. I think the Dutch bikes in Toronto are nicer than the Dutch bikes I saw in Rotterdam, which mostly looked like mountain bikes. But I was suitably impressed with the separated bike lanes, and it was exciting to walk across the Erasmus Bridge, where the 2010 Tour de France started.

I couldn't help but be impressed by Flanders. Commuting cyclists get excited about the Netherlands; racing fans get excited about Belgium. I was hoping to bump into Tom Boonen in his home region, but failed again. I bought a copy of Het Laatste Niews, the Antwerp-based newspaper with the excellent sports section, despite my complete lack of Flemish.

By far the most educational stop was Barcelona. I was impressed not by the bicycles, but rather—like every other tourist in Barcelona—by the Gaudi buildings. And Gaudi gave me some very good bike ideas. This is because he is the most incredible constructeur ever. I was particularly floored by the Palau Güell—which is less colourful and crazy than most Gaudi buildings, but was designed from the ground up, and is really conceived as a whole, with every tiny detail (and there are, at least, millions of little details) fitting into the larger project. My favourite parts were the secret hallways above the guest rooms to permit spying; the handmade furniture, wrought-iron, and hardware fittings; and the incredible central dome around which every room on every floor is built. I was so impressed with the Palau Güell that I forgot to take any pictures. Above is a picture of the chimneys of the nearby Casa Batlló, which has charms of its own. I very much like the idea of decorating something luridly functional like a chimney: it would be fun to do something similar with fenders or mudflaps...

I am going to set aside at least one day a week for framebuilding this fall. I have a number of projects in mind—the first of which may well be called Gaudi Bike!

The World's Nicest Carbon Frame Could Be Yours!

Nice in two senses. First sense: Noah Rosen of Velocolour, painter of all my frames, did an elaborate and stunning paint job, inspired by his childhood love of pinball. (If there was a soundtrack to this bicycle, it would obviously draw heavily on Tommy.) Second sense: this frame is being auctioned to support the charity Right to Play, which helps disadvantaged children in their efforts to play and have fun (a worthy cause!)

It's good-looking and it does good work. It's a very nice frame.

This project was put together by Michael Barry Jr., one of Canada's finest cyclists and the son of Mike Barry of Mariposa fame, Noah, and Pinarello. Michael and Noah jointly came up with the pinball idea; and Noah painted the frame, which Pinarello donated. If you're in the market for a fabulous and unique bicycle frame, and you're looking to support a good cause, go to the eBay auction. It ends in four days.

Also: Michael Barry Jr. is writing articles for The Toronto Star during the Tour de France, which are well worth checking out. His recent blog post on rider safety is a brave and intelligent reflection on a worsening problem.

Back In The Shop, Etc.

Where have I been and what have I been doing for the last month and a half? I have been to Victoria and to Edmonton for conferences; I have turned thirty and celebrated Canada Day; and I have defended my thesis. (DR.A.HAMMOND cycles now, my friends.) I have not been riding my bike very much, I'm afraid, and I haven't been in to the shop at all.

Until today, that is. It's been months since I've done any brazing—but apparently making bicycles is like riding them. It all went perfectly well. My friend Cory has a Surly that he wants to convert into a fendered city bike. I thought adding a bunch of braze-ons would be a good way to reacquaint myself with the torch. Here are some photos. (Cory is my kind of guy: he drilled all the holes for me, and outlined all the positions with a Sharpie, and wrote exactly what braze-on he wanted where.)

The above photo is the only one that warrants commentary. That's one of those brake-retainer-things for the Nexus front drum brake Cory's going to use. Normally it clamps on; but I've chopped it up, given it a shape (more shaping to follow) and turned it onto a braze-on, which I will braze on when I'm in the shop again, next week. (One comment about the other photos: I used brass for everything except the internal brake cable housing entries/exits. And no flux has yet been removed, and nothing cleaned up.)

I'll be out on another Zoo ride on the Curnoe bike tomorrow. My love of routine and habit means there is a limit to how many ride reports I can make. But I will soon post photos of Curnoe bike, two months into his life. And I do hope to ride to London soon, to visit Curnoe's former studio.

Greg Curnoe Bike Does the Zoo Ride

The weather has been awful in Toronto for the past week. The day after my last ride, it started raining; it has hardly stopped since. But today was beautiful, at last, and I made the most of it. As you can see from the above pictured, I lived dangerously. The road was broken, but I risked it.

Greg Curnoe Bike waiting for the Go train at exhibition station. The CN Tower looks on. If you look closely, you will see my new Spécialités TA-made Cinelli water bottle.

If you were looking extremely closely, you would have noticed that I had my tubular wheelset in place. Here is my spare Czech-made Tufo tire, which I bought while on vacation in the Czech Republic in 2007. (I tried to visit the factory, for some reason, but the day I planned by trip, a wild storm blew in. I took this as a sign and walked around Olomouc.)

God bless the Go train. This one took me to Rouge Hill station, in about 40 minutes—enough time to read every section of the Saturday Star that interested me. Then off I went.

The eponymous Zoo, which is on the very margins of the Greater Toronto Area. Ride a few more minutes and you see...

... beautiful sights like these. (Did I mention it has been raining a lot?) 

But the fun doesn't really start until you hit the gravel—which happened about two seconds after I took this photo. (This ride was about 85km, and I would guess about 35 of them were on gravel.)

Ah, the gravel. Empty of cars, and smooth-yet-rutty, so you're kept on your toes. I made Greg Curnoe Bike to ride over roads like this one. His big fat tubulars are designed to soak up the gravel-bumps, and his big orange fenders are designed to deposit stray pellets safely back on the road.

Greg Curnoe Bike doing what he was designed to do.

A picturesque gravel crossroads. (No souls transacted.)

Riding flat on gravel is fun, but climbing steep gravel hills is more fun.

What my ride companions (none of whom could make it today, alas) call The Roman Aqueduct.

Shortly after the Aqueduct, there is a really windy, hilly section. I needed a break at the top of the steepest of the climbs. (Note spare tubular hanging somewhat perilously, and the aforementioned Cinelli water bottle [my lugs, remember, are Cinelli CSes].)

A particularly glorious, rolling, quiet, wooded stretch. The Italians can have their strade bianche. We'll keep our strade marrone.

And so to Goodwood, the traditional resting place. Normally there is a hotly contested sprint for this sign, but today, being alone, I rode by slowly and took this photo.

The wonderful bakery in Goodwood, which provides all necessary motivation when you're struggling on the gravel roads.

More gravel on the ride back to the Go station.

Waiting for the train near surprisingly scenic Rouge Hill Station.

Today was an excellent test for Greg Curnoe Bike. Lots of rough road, lots of shaking, lots of climbs. He felt very comfortable, no bolts loosened, I rode quickly—and the rear brake finally stopped squealing. He is very good at his job. (And, yes, more teenagers said nice things about him on the Go ride home.)