This blog features new additions to the Cyclofiend.com Galleries. If you want to know when the Current Classic, Singlespeed, Cyclocross or Working Bike Galleries receive updates, you can check back here, "follow" this blog by using the link below right, or subscribe to this blog's RSS feed.

Most of the time, I'll highlight one of the new entries from the batches - don't take that to mean it's better or the others are worse. It's just that when I went to post those entries, one caught my attention at that time and place.

This won't be my main venue for online nattering - ride reports, technical stuff and whatever tangents capture my brain will show up over on the Cyclofiend.com "Ramblings" blog, so you ought to wander over there. If you want to see what I've been writing about, there's a feed down at the bottom of this page which has the most recent posts from that blog.

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Monday, April 19, 2010

Understated Elegance - Bob R's Toei 650B Randonneur

 It's easy to miss the details on a well rendered, yet understated bicycle. These days, with the bulk of the rides you see on the roads looking all racy with screaming logos and swoopy stripes, subtle details tend to fly under the radar.  Once you learn to tune out the noise though, certain details catch your attention. When I was processing the images for the Current Classics Gallery, this one just made me pause:

 Current Classics Gallery #771

For such a discrete and small part of a bicycle frame, there's a lot going on here - the internal cable routing not being pushed through a dimple, but running into a tapered housing; the thinned and elegant arc of the seat lug; the way the seat stays curve up and almost join; the way the seat post binder bolt fits flush when tightened.

There's nothing particularly "showy" about that work - but it pulls things together with a certain confidence of style, patience in approach and just enough flair that you know someone thought pretty deeply about it before even beginning.

The kind of bit that you just find yourself considering years after you've owned the bicycle.  And smiling about.

Today's updates to the Current Classic Gallery:
#771 - Bob Rogen's Toei 650B Randonneur
#772 - Michael Kullman's Schwinn Voyager
#773 - Tim Merrell's Peugeot PH1 OLE
#774 - Leon Lokkart's Gazelle Champion Mondial

Other Toei bicycles in the Current Classics Gallery

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Posted by Unknown at 9:42 AM
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1 comment:

RMHampel said...

Bob is a dear friend of mine and his bike actually says a lot about him. It's funny how the understated elegance of the Toei is a reflection of its owner. I imagine that
synonymity is common among people who love cycling and bicycles.

11:42 AM

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