What Bike Are You Never Going To Sell?

[eshew]

This one just rides too well to let go.

Bianchi Ti Martini?Wowsers!

Agreed, unusual frame design. Tell us more about the ride and handling please

It's a pretty unique ride. I've got it setup for long XC rides at the moment, for true tight & twisty XC trails I'd want to replace the ti riser with a flat bar, to weight the front a little more. Right now it's my distance trainer, & it does it rather well.

The front triangle is plenty stiff laterally, vertical compliance up front is tough to judge with the freshly serviced Z2, bit it tracks quite well.

The rear is... interesting. It lacks a cross brace behind the BB instead relying on rather large chain stays. The seat tubes are curved in a bit, this gives probably a half an inch of vertical compliance when seated and hitting a sharp edge. Very comfortable to ride seated.

When pedaling out of the saddle at 100% the rear end can sway a bit, same when hitting corners hard & fast. More so than any bike I've ridden. It's different & I love it every time I ride it, usual ride is 25-30 miles.

The crack was caused by my assumption that titanium was unbreakable. The bike had a titainium RF bb at the time (since replaced with steel) and under full power out of the saddle pedaling I could get the bike & cranks to flex side to side by inches. It was massively fun preloading the frame with every pedal stroke but resulted in a crack on the non drive BB/seat tube weld. Crack was welded by TiCycles, RF Ti BB was replaced with a shimano steel & it's since calmed down nicely.

 

[videojetman]

At the moment I have the stems being made for my trimnell fork, so when I have my Raleigh torus back to a rideable condition, my plan is to never let it go.
And my other plan is to get the bikes I sold out of nessesity.
Which are my pace rc100, and my dolomite Klein attitude.
My other plan is to find and keep a merlin newsboy when one surfaces.

 

[M-Power]

It's a pretty unique ride. I've got it setup for long XC rides at the moment, for true tight & twisty XC trails I'd want to replace the ti riser with a flat bar, to weight the front a little more. Right now it's my distance trainer, & it does it rather well.

The front triangle is plenty stiff laterally, vertical compliance up front is tough to judge with the freshly serviced Z2, bit it tracks quite well.

The rear is... interesting. It lacks a cross brace behind the BB instead relying on rather large chain stays. The seat tubes are curved in a bit, this gives probably a half an inch of vertical compliance when seated and hitting a sharp edge. Very comfortable to ride seated.

When pedaling out of the saddle at 100% the rear end can sway a bit, same when hitting corners hard & fast. More so than any bike I've ridden. It's different & I love it every time I ride it, usual ride is 25-30 miles.

The crack was caused by my assumption that titanium was unbreakable. The bike had a titainium RF bb at the time (since replaced with steel) and under full power out of the saddle pedaling I could get the bike & cranks to flex side to side by inches. It was massively fun preloading the frame with every pedal stroke but resulted in a crack on the non drive BB/seat tube weld. Crack was welded by TiCycles, RF Ti BB was replaced with a shimano steel & it's since calmed down nicely.

Excellent review. Got a real feel for the handling. Like the loss of chainstay bridge design, less clogging in UK weather. Never seen one of these before but i will keep an eye out now.

 

[Hotwheels.]

And my other plan is to get the bikes I sold which are my pace rc100, and my dolomite Klein attitude.

What an idiot! :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm:

 

[one_bad_mofo]

After promising to get myself a Roberts DogsBolx when the first one was featured in MBUK BITD, I finally bought one new in 2001. It's single speed only (track ends and stops only for the rear brake cable). I bought it almost on a whim. I'd just been to the local court to drop off my divorce papers and I thought I'd cheer myself up with a look at the loveliness in Roberts' shop ( I was living locally to it at the time). One thing led to another and I made an appointment for a sizing session.
The first time I took it out I' thought I'd made a terrible mistake. The ride was so dull. Well, that was until I got off the tarmac and on to the dirt. What was meant to be a short shakedown run to make sure I'd got it built up okay saw me not getting home until after dark. The ride started at 5:30 on a weekday evening in mid-June!
Now Chas is no longer building I can't get a replacement should anything ever happen to this frame, so there's zero chance I'll ever sell it.

 

[videojetman]

And my other plan is to get the bikes I sold which are my pace rc100, and my dolomite Klein attitude.

What an idiot! :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm:

Not really, sometimes holding onto bikes means not having a car to drive.
But when I’m in a better position I won’t need to sell any.

 

[Johnboy]

Re:

Now Chas is no longer building

True, but Geoff Roberts http://www.geoffrobertsframes.co.uk and Winston Vaz still are https://www.varonha.co.uk. I reckon they could knock one up for you that's close to the original spec, no idea what that would cost mind.

Winston actually makes a frame with the D.O.G.S. B.O.L.X. name it seems.

 

[uno-speedo]

Re:

That is a tough question. But put a gun to my head (very dramatic!) I would keep my 1987 Steve Potts Custom. After 10+ years of ownership, I've finally found (after actively searching during this period of ownership) period correct NOS Araya RM20 rims, which is the final piece of the puzzle (other than a NOS Potts LD Stem!) :xmas-big-grin:

Since the studio photo was taken, I've replaced the seatpost with a WTB/Cunningham FASP post (another part that was very hard to find and not cheap) with integral WTB modified Zefal pump and SG-C (round) chainrings.

 

[uno-speedo]

chinky tyres

I sincerely hope this is NOT what I think you are referring to.

If it is, please educate yourself.

 

[ishaw]

Re:

I suspect that was a typo for chunky, with the u and I next to each other on the keyboard.