Stills taken from the 1962 short documentary Vive Le Tour, which someone was nice enough to upload a subtitled version onto youtube: parts 1 and 2. These festive trucks proceed the peloton throwing out all kinds of free stuff to spectators posted along the day’s stage. This year’s caravan was 20km long (about 12.5 miles) and consisted of 160 cars, it took 45 minutes for the entire thing to pass by.
Leather tape is expensive and foam tape is too spongey for me; I like cotton tape because it’s strong, cheap, and just plain feels good on the hands. Newbaum’s is a relatively new company offering bar tape (and soon rim tape) in a great selection of colors cut and dyed, with eco-friendly dyes, here in Philadelphia. Keep reading for a (mostly) step-by-step pictoral.
A simple bag for a simple task- a rider on a long stage will need more fuel to keep up their stamina and so a member of the support team will distribute these ‘snatch and grab’ musettes of food along the way. Sometimes two closures and other times just one; the bag has to be easy to access while riding a bike. The long strap also eases the quick distribution process as shown below (grabs from A Sunday in Hell).
Suggested reading: Archival Review: Cycling Musettes & A Sunday In Hell
Rivendell Bicycle Works was founded by Grant Peterson in 1994 after Bridgestone USA went under due to a steady loss of sales. Inventor of the mustache bar (XO series!) and the very first cyclist accused of being a retro-grouch. For those not familiar with this term a retro-grouch is a cyclist who prefers an older standard of parts- leather saddles over padded synthetics, quill stems over threadless, steel frames over aluminum or carbon, and so on. Pictured: a Rivendell Quickbeam and Romulus owned by the author of vélo-flâneur.
Rivendell Mountain Works is a pack company known for it’s frameless Jensen pack (named after climber Don Jensen) that has been brought back to life after dying out in 1981. The packs are still cut and sewn by hand in America and the company is operated by just one man. A real great value for a lasting American product available with a handful of extras on both their Jensen packs and smaller daypacks. Pictured: the current offerings from RMW, a Jensen pack in use in the North Cascades, and the Mariposa daypack.
Suggested reading: What The Hell is a BOB? & Interview with Eric Hardee
I won’t guarantee that painting your car or bike in a shade of British Racing Green (BRG, for short) will make it go faster but it will certainly class it up a bit. The color found association with British motorsports during the Gordon Bennett Cup in which national teams were required to enter their native machines painted in an established national color, the colors on Union Jack happened to have already been claimed by a few other countries. Other national road going colors include Italy’s rosso corsa and Germany’s raw silver arrows.
A derny is small motorbike that is used in track and road racing to pace cyclists up to high speeds, usually driven by a larger fellow for more effective drafting of the rider behind. Though you won’t see derny’s in tons of races today the popular Kieren race use them to bring up the group of riders up to set pace and then rides up the bank to allow a final sprint to ensue. If you’re lucky enough to live in a European city that hosts an upcoming six-day race event you’ll be able to catch some derny paced track races in person.
Pictured: some earlier bulky pacing bikes used on velodromes and more streamlined versions with handlebar mounted gas tanks in use on the Bordeaux-Paris.
watch: Berlin Derny Criterium & Six-Day Race History
Some beauties spotted locked up around New York City by Johny Prolly. Really loving the Serotta (second pictured) with the pope bars, looks like a quick and easy set up to get around the city. See more in the series here.
also see: The Cannibal
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Taylor Sizemore is one of Portland’s many talented handmade frame builders (Ahearne, Vanilla, Hufnagel, to name a few) and at the age of twenty-four has a good range of track and commuters under his belt after just a couple years of building. This particular frame is my favorite, a copper plated randonneur built for the owner of Bespoke Bicycles in Brooklyn who built up the bike after Taylor was finished with his work. The whole build is really well detailed from the copper hammered fenders to the olive accents: Brooks leather bar tape, Ostrich handlebar bag, and copper railed Brooks saddle. Check out more of his work here.
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cork grips 