What does your bike tell us about you?

[Yazzoo]

Cancel that, I *think* I've figured it out! I don't have a pic of my other bike, i'm sure I'd get a completely different answer for that one, it weighs a ton, has no brand, battered basket and panniers, looks like it was found in a hedge, probably where I should park it next.

P.S. Yes I know this one is in the house, but it's not like I have a child in the shed to make room for it, child has it's own bike free bedroom so all is ok in my world

 

[theclaud]

Now sporting summer tyres...

 

[Ian H]

My two distance machines. One's about 13 years old, the other nearly new.

 

[anothersam]

Looks like I have some catching up to do. I feel like one of those frame builders who has to start giving his customers longer and longer lead times.

@nickyboy, your bike was actually made using alien technology from Area 51. The good news is it will still pass a UCI inspection thanks to certain hidden technologies. The bad news is the aliens aren't happy about patent infringement and want it back.

btw this is how it looks to them. It is beautiful to their eyes.
How their right eye sees it:

how their left eye sees it:

how the eye in what we think of as a belly button sees it:

(very strange one, that belly button eye)

It may come as news to you that when you go a certain speed it starts to oscillate at a frequency undetectable to Strava (note that it has to be this exact speed, for an exact length of time, right down to the cesium standard.) At this point it is no longer necessary to pedal. That's right: you own a perpetual motion machine. Of course your tyres have to be pumped up to 500,000psi, which will be a challenge even for the highest thread count tubs.

The bell, which is clearly a stealth bell, is actually a homing device. If you want to keep your bike, either throw that bell away or attach it to something you never want to see again, such as the newest bling of a 'mate' who's been gabbing his way out of your good books.

None of which tells anything about yourself, other than that you're a very lucky nickyboy. Anyone in possession of a ride like this is both well connected and modest; such machines don't come innocently from "supermarket-type retailers", or if they do, the take-a-number machine was fixed. Your work (I mean your real work) is classified, and at least half your life, maybe more, is a complete fabrication to make your loved ones comfortable. You can't blame them if they can't handle the truth – you have their safety to think of.

Anything more I tell you about yourself will only either blow your cover or get me into hot water with the aliens, and I'd rather not go through that hell again.

 

[anothersam]

@ianrauk, there is little I can say about your bike the poets haven't already said. Shakespeare: "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." That other Shakespeare, Bacon: "What then remains, that we still should cry ti!, For being born, or being born, to sigh." Keats: "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness..." Browning: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height / Far beyond the span of those seat stays." Even Plath got in on the act, alluding to the lack of decals, no poetic license necessary: "But I grow old and I forget your name. (I think I made you up inside my head.)"

That being said, you ride in prose, as must we all on these roads. A liberal helping of titanium to smooth out the bumps marks you out as practical. Your choice of an Ultegra crankset (I think) rather than Dura Ace shows you are also sensible, though it would have been more sensible yet to follow the lead of your Eddington Number.

The colour of one's dust caps doesn't say much (the science of cycleology has moved on since the red caps post). However, that you use them at all speaks volumes, as the common practice amongst veteran cyclists is to throw them away. First, you're no weight weenie. Although you know they serve no vital purpose on a road bike, you enjoy the sense of completeness that comes from screwing them on tight after you've topped up your tyres. While some would opine the use of caps also indicates a buttoned down man, ie a conformist, the fact that you changed from pinstripes to solid black on your bar tape belies this, as secretly you know this was the wrong thing to do even if it looks better.

As part of the service I'm sharing this x-ray to show your frame has no stress fractures.*

* Picture Magnus Magnusson asking this: In the movie Heat, what book was Neil reading?

 

[sevenfourate]

Think i can take it.........

 

[anothersam]

@Yazzoo – Whoa, almost had a flashback to cyberkight's Boardman Comp with that 888, which apocryphal scrolls list as The Beast's Big Brother. Fortunately Road.cc didn't detect anything more untoward than a very slightly relaxed geometry, and they're pretty thorough.

As you have this hanging like a work of art from a stylish bike holder, you clearly work in a creative field. Accounting can be creative, too.

It's extremely clean, having been run through the decontamination airlock (wish I had a decontamination airlock) before being carefully mounted. Just make sure to tighten that holder.

This must be your spare 888; the one you keep for emergencies that never quite happen even when they're legitimate, eg, your 'user' bike gets accidentally trash compacted ("Mustn't use the spare, there always has to be a spare"). You also have a spare set of tools to work on it in a clean room you never use (wish I had a clean room).

you could hear a spare pin drop

What I'm getting at is, there is a very very unclean room with a filthy bike that doesn't even have dust caps. You call that your Mr Hyde room. Your Dr Jekyll room is where measurements are taken and slight adjustments are made in readiness...

 

[Yazzoo]

Lol it is pretty sparkling, but then it's only a couple of weeks old. There is an older, much more unloved/more used bike in the shed - the agreement for this being in the house is that it must be clean!

 

[User482]

That maintaining patios is not a priority of mine.

 

[srw]

 

[ianrauk]

That maintaining patios is not a priority of mine.

YeGods man that is a nice bike. Sorry to say I didn't notice it on Saturday. I wish I had...

 

[Tim Hall]

1: I do actually ride it and probably more miles then most
2: I'm not over fussy about cleaning either

But sometimes you combine riding with cleaning: