I’d be the first to admit that the geekery of bike components appeals to me as much as the actual cycling. As the author Robert Penn says It’s all about the Bike. I’m currently fiddling away on a road bike project, using a 10 year old Peugeot picked up off ebay as the basis, and choosing replacement parts is great fun.
My tastes started off retro, or ‘vintage’ as the cycling crowd would call it (retro to them means the ’80s), preferring steel, honey brown leather and highly polished metal. Recently though, I’ve been getting into the look of more contemporary parts just as much. In particular, I’ve been lusting after the Cinelli Ram bars ever since I discovered them:
The unified stem and bar shape is just so pleasingly flowing, and the variety of graphics that look good on it really show it off as a piece of art as much as a functional component:
(photos © Bike Rumor)
It makes sense to me to make this much fuss of the handlebars, its the one part of the bike (other than the front wheel) that you’ll see the most. At around £500 these aren’t going to find their way onto my Peugeot Project anytime soon, but I can’t help planning in my head what custom graphics mine would have…