The Radavist

This week’s Reader’s Rides comes all the way from Australia, actually Adelaide, South Australia. John Stamatakis sent in his Stratos track bike and the shear size of the frame alone merits a post. At a massive 60cm, this is one of the larger NJS bikes I’ve seen.

Check out more photos from this week’s Reader’s Rides below!

This week I’m doing a little something special for Reader’s Rides. First up is a super straight forward bike check of Honor Forte’s Velo Orange Polyvalent touring bike. I met Honor at the Philly Bike Expo where he was riding a yellow RB-1. Since then, he’s put together a rather unique Polyvalent build:

“I wanted to send you my new build since I haven’t seen many of them built up this way on the web. It’s a Velo Orange Polyvalent touring setup. I’ve spent a few years reading over Rivendell literature and have always been attracted to the way they approach what a bicycle should be used for, so I wanted to build something that would be at home on city streets, fire trails, bike camping trips, long tours, etc. An everything bike. I already had a 650B wheelset and a full touring parts group I was moving around between frames, but they’ve all found their home and best fit on this frame. It truly is a multipurpose bike. Something interesting I decided to try out though was the new VO Integrated Decaleur with the Ostrich handlebar bag.

It’s great. You’ll see in the pictures that the decaleur is bolted through the leather of the bag, and attaches directly to the rack, low to the wheel instead of high up on the bar. Combined with the low-trail fork, the bike handles as if nothing’s on it even with a full heavy load in the bag; I find that I can lean back on a long ride with no hands on the bar and it still glides straight as an arrow with no wobble. Last thing worth noting is my rear fender-line method, just because I havent seen this done elsewhere. I wanted the fender close enough to the tire to maintain consistent fender spacing, but need to move it forward when taking the rear wheel out (horizontal dropouts). My solution was to cut a thin strip of a used intertube, weave it around the fender and chainstay, and tie it off with a knot on the non-drive side chainstay. It’s a small detail but it solved a big problem for me.”

If you’re into this kinda stuff, check out a full parts list below.

I get a lot of email submissions for the Reader’s Rides entries that were clearly forwarded to every other damn blog out there. Now, if you know me, that’s not gonna get it posted. What’s the point then? Out of a dozen recent emails, Stephen Gutierrez’s stood out most to me. He included some background and introduced himself and that’s the kind of interactions I like to have. Now I know this is a little outta place and sorry for ranting but I wanna showcase your bike, not make it a reposted and thus, watered down entry.

If there’s one track bike that will stand the test of time, it’s the Schwinn Paramount P14. Made in the USA from the still-standing Waterford blood line, loud and boisterous and damn, do they ride nice! Stephen had his re-chromed, re-painted and he spent hours polishing all the components. Amazing.

Check out more photos of Stephen Gutierrez’s chwinn Paramount P14 below!

You guys thought I forgot about you didn’t ya? Nope! I’ve just been running in overdrive for the past few weeks and the Reader’s Rides entries got put on the back burner. Hell, I’ve got so many bikes to post up that next week, I’m gonna do something special with them. First though, I’ve got Agustin Cacciola’s amazing track bike. Agustin is from Buenos Aires, Argentina and his Géliano Super Vitus 980 pista is one Beautiful Bicycle.

Check out more photos below!

This week’s Reader’s Rides are hot hot hot. First up is Peter’s D.A.M.P. Mudburn CX. Love the color! Then we’ve got Daniel from Denmark’s 2010 Colnago Dream Dream pista. Daniel says there were only 2 made in this color. Damn fine bike. Last but not least is Dean Nixon‘s Pog Pista built for Team Canada in 1972. This one in particular is drool-worthy!

Check out more photos of Dean’s Pog below!

Photo by Billy Brandwein

It’s good to see some classic track bikes coming through the inbox as of late. Even in the snow, it’s easy to appreciate this 1988 Raleigh track. Billy’s got quite the bike and quite the lens I might add. Shooting with that Zeiss must be nice! But not as nice as ripping around on that bike!

Check out more detail photos below!

This week’s Reader’s Rides entry showcases what I refer to as “classic steel” and “new school whips”. Anthony’s Raleigh track versus Stefano’s Faggin. Which one do you like better? Well, I’ve got more photos of Anthony’s Raleigh below. This thing’s a real looker!

Check out more photos below!

Photo by Eric Baumann

This week’s Reader’s Rides entry is one beautiful road bike! Michael Sadler is Josh from Arc En Ciel‘s roommate up in Union Square, Massachusetts. He’s a musician and has a love for classic steel bikes, finding stability in their ride. Like most of the northeast right now, his town is covered in snow, making for a lot of “indoor time”. At the beginning of the season, he and Josh conspired on how to build the ideal bike for around-the-town schenanigans and long road rides.

Here’s the final product. It’s lovely! See more details below, including a full build list.

This week’s Reader’s Rides submissions were spot on. I introduced you to Thomas earlier this week when he sent me in his logo submission (which is about to become some t-shirts). Along with that email came photos of his drop-dead gorgeous GTB track bike, complete with detail photos! This is the ideal Reader’s Rides submission. Crisp lines, great photos and a beautiful bike.

Check out the details below!

Joe’s Nagasawa

You just can’t beat a pristine Nagasawa can you? That’s what I learned when a reader from Down Under forwarded me his friend’s bike. Yow! There have been some beauties coming through my email and it’s hard to figure out which bikes to post with such stellar bicycles photographed so beautifully.

Check out some more Reader’s Rides below!

Wow! In less than a week, I got over 50 bikes submitted. While this torrent of track and road bikes keeps trickling in, I’m going to post up my 10 favorites each week. Once it slows down a bit, I’ll go back and sift through the ones I haven’t posted yet, adding them to new Reader’s Rides entries. To start off, let’s all drool over Sven Cyclenerd’s Somec. That’s what I’m talking about! Sven added this via the PiNP Facebook.

Check out nine more Reader’s Rides below!

I’d love to shoot all your bikes if I could. But the reality is, I can’t. Which is why, after a lot of thought, I’ve decided to open up Prolly is not Probably to more reader-submitted content. So, if you’ve got a noble steed worthy of some web-exposure, a camera (or a friend with a camera) and some time, you can submit your bicycle to me and I’ll post it up once a week with others. Need an example of a nice photo? Check out my post on Maurice’s Marinoni or my recent profile on Jim’s McLean.

Now, you know me well enough to know that I have my particularities when it comes to bike portraits. And all I’ll ask is that you:

–Include one drive-side shot: Get down level with your bike and try to capture it all in photograph from the drive-side.

–Include one detail shot: I want to see what makes this bike stand out from the rest! A nice lug shot or maybe a detail component shot would be ideal.

–Resolution: Please! Send me photos at least 800px wide!

–No Crap: Readers want to see beautiful bicycles, not clunkers. No offense to the beautiful beaters of the world!

You can submit the photos via email or post them on the Prolly is not Probably Facebook! As soon as I get submissions, I’ll set up a Category page.

Thanks!

Photo by Billy Brandwein

Photo by Billy Brandwein

We took a look at Billy’s Raleigh track bike in last week’s Readers Rides post and now we get to check out his girlfriend Sarah’s 1986 Bianchi Pista. I’ve always loved the classic Pistas and this one is in mint, well celeste condition. Gorgeous bike!

This week’s reader’s ride comes from Ali Becker as she rides across the Great Northern Bike Route. She talks about her journey from overstuffing panniers to her current svelt bikepacking setup and entertains us with a poem about packing her rig up…

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