Shimmy, shimmy, ya, shimmy ya, shimmy yo,…
I always love trying out new things, and there is nothing better for testing than making a new show bike for yourself! And so I built this new super-slim, classic-style randonneur bike. The idea was to build something based on my friends’ experiences in making these types of bikes, and I would lie if I did not confess that I took a lot of inspiration from my own bike frame building heroes, such as Thomas of Meerglas, Peter Weigle, and Brian Chapman. At first, I wanted to make a super-classic lugged frame and fork, simply because I had not done that in a long time. But then I thought: why not take inspiration from old-style frames while using modern lugless TIG welding to give it a more reduced and clean, Fernet-like look? I rifled through my frame tubes and found this standard-size Reynolds tube set with a 1" (25.4 mm) top tube and a 1 1/8" (28.6 mm) down tube, and I was smiling, since I had not had such slender frame tubing in my hands for a long time. How would a bike ride made from such thin tubes? Then I thought to myself: back then, every bike frame in the world was made like that, and no one complained about it. Even more, riders on such frames were amazingly fast and were able to ride record-breaking times on brevets like PBP, which are still among the fastest times ridden today. After some more searching, I found a super nice and lightweight René Herse fork crown and Kasei fork blades, and the puzzle started to fall together. Then the idea came up to make a Rinko bike with a super-classic low-trail geometry, which I also had not made in a long time, just to see how that steering would feel. And then I thought: if the bike were made for super-easy Rinko, it would be almost as fast to swap the complete frame, as long as bottom bracket, cranksets, and taillights were preinstalled. And what if I would make that other frame from super-light Columbus “oversize” tubing in 1 1/8" (28.,6mm) and 1 1/4" (31.8mm) which is still super slim by modern standards, but with exactly the same frame geometry, so that I could really compare the ride quality and performance of the different materials being used? So in the end, I made all that — and even more crazy stuff — like making my own 13sp 1x chainrings for really old-school but nice and super–low Q-factor (135 mm) TA Cinq Pro Vis cranksets (testing different lengths, 160 and 165 mm), using Campagnolo Ekar 13sp derailleurs with friction shifters made by Growtac, using cantilevers instead of V-brakes, which I normally prefer… trying out the new SON Ladelux while maintaining all the electrics internally routed and still keeping the bike Rinko-able? And what about that top tube bag with integrated beer can holders that I had dreamed about one night? And I always wanted to make a bike paint job inspired by Magnus Walker, who once painted his Porsche 914 in neon colors… In the end, everything got totally out of control, and I did all that — and even more weird stuff — and this bike has now become the ultimate test bed for everything I always wanted to try out! Watch out for the results of the testing ;)
Thank you so much for your amazing support on this bike, first of all to Tune, SON, René Herse, Growtac, Paul Components, Campagnolo, TA Specialités, and Velocity.
Photography: Florian Haeussler / FERN Bicycles.