My Recent Bikeman Order

Aside from the 3T bars on my first decent road bike (a Bianchi Nuovo Racing which I purchased new in 1983 at age 15) I’ve only ridden Cinelli bars, and mostly the 66 model. Well, the 66 is long gone and so is most of the NOS supply. I was pretty leery to try any of the newer bars on the market, especially with the ergo bends, but I decided to suck it up and stop being such a retrogrouch. So I ordered some Ritchey Comp bars and a matching Comp stem. 31.8 seemed like overkill, but whatever. I did stay with the Cinelli tape. Oh, and of course Shimano brake levers. I love Shimano brake levers. Continue reading…

Bikeman Order

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My Latest Rivendell Order

I’ve always had a hate/love relationship with Grant Peterson. I love him cause he helped kill off the ridiculous Biopace chainrings back in the 80s. Some of you may remember Bridgestone’s MB-2 ads proclaiming “round chainrings!” Yes! Sweet! However, Grant’s dislike of Shimano caused him to spec a lot of weird crap on his bikes, and I regularly cursed his name while building up Bridgestones back when I was a lowly wrench in bike shops. The Giants and Treks went together easily, while those B-stones with their crappy Suntour derailleurs, Ritchey cantis and crummy wheels were a pain in the ass. I think Grant was the last person on the planet to switch to the Shimano cartridge BBs. Anyway, I wasn’t sorry to see B-stone go away, and find it humorous that they have such a following today. Yes, the catalogs were cool and the colors were cool and lugs are cool and the X0 bikes were cool but for the most part Bridgestones were inferior to the garden variety Giants and Treks from the same era. Continue reading…

Rivendell Order

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