Alec here is an awesome dude —both in terms of personality and ability. He’s one of the nicest guys on staff at Velo Orange, always super helpful when I’ve dropped by their Annapolis warehouse to annoy them with fender questions and emergency orders of red cloth bartape. And on a couple DC Randonneur rides earlier this year (I’ve only managed to get out for the 200K shorties, no night-rider, multi-day, crazy-man brevets) he was all smiles, kind words, and seemingly tireless legs.
So it irked me, nay, pissed me the eff off when in the comments of this VO blog post about Alecs recent 1200k ride (plus 60 miles each way to the start/finish from his home) I read the belittling and oh-my-god-so-pedantic comment of former US Cycling Team member Ted Lewandowski.
Map Cycles is wrapping up a small production run of nice and simple squared-off front racks. These are getting close to my dream front rack: one constructed of a single tube bent to form a continuous shape… like some sort of mobius rack. You know those contour line drawings that are made without lifting the pen? Imagine a rack that was designed like that … one unbroken line. That’s what I want.
-Ritchie
Do you realize just how idiotically impractical that would be? In reality it would be a weak, completely flimsy, piece of shit that would be lucky to last 20 miles without failing. Unbroken line, my ass. What is it with you and aesthetics? Can’t a rack just be a rack … that works!
My friend Cory pulled this bike out of a family garage. We’re going to clean it up and get it rolling.
Jorn Ake on Flickr nailed it when he called this a “Gas-pipe steel … randonneur.”
Weighs an effing ton, but it’s outfitted for the long haul. Japanese build, as far as I can tell. Royce Union was a department store brand during the Mid-70s bike boom. This one is still in surprisingly good mechanical shape. Shifts through all the gears, and the old tires even hold air.
My friend just wants to use it as a city bike with the occasional Saturday ride on the greenways. For that, it should work. We’re going to clean it up and give it new tires, tubes, brake pads, brake & shifter cables, bar wrap, and maaaaybe an Interloc Racing Design freewheel with a wider range of cogs — I like the 6-speed 14-17-20-24-28-32 option. That should help this behemoth get up and over the few hills that do exist around DC.
I personally dig the thorn catcher that skims the front tire to knock off burrs and other sharpities, the Atari-joy-stick-like shifters, and the “Tokyo Brake” levers, which are a pretty blatant Mafac knock-offs.
-Ritchie
Ahhh the bike boom, I remember those year. So many shitty, heavy bikes built in the name of fashion. That’s pretty much what’s going on with my friend here. This bike was never meant to do a double century, but he sports those rando bars because people wanted to emulate the pics they saw in magazines of late-model hippies touring across the country on decent bikes that weighed half as much as my man Royce there.
Wasn’t all bad. Got a lot of guys riding. And bikes like this are as sturdy as they are heavy. No carbon fork failure here.
Seems like lately it’s “Same shit, different decade” with my fixed geared brethren leading the way. They’re definitely lighter than those old gas pipe jobbers, but about as practical when it comes to the log ride. The riders brought to the street by today’s bike boom are just now starting to get wise and go for more mature and capable rides. I for one welcome you, late-model hipsters.
Learning to ride a bike was maybe the scariest thing I’ve ever done. No—definitely — it was without a doubt the scariest physical act I have ever undertaken. And I did it when I was 4.
Alec here is an awesome dude —both in terms of personality and ability. He’s one of the nicest guys on staff at 
