Now this really is filthy
http://www.aurumania.com/
(gold_bike_crystal_edition)
a snip at £72,000. The £4,500 wall mount is an additional extra

EDIT: God you'd think they'd have maybe proof read the description text and spotted the Word formatting fuck-ups when they're trying to charge 80k euro for a push bike. Some very shoddy Photoshop work on the image too...so fuzzy you can hardly see it

Chatting to a friend about the above bike. Here's his customised Brompton

Just had to share this link with you lot:


bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/

There's some pretty good humour on there.

I've never heard of Masi bicycles before, but on the days I drive to work, I've noticed on biking commuter that has one, and I thought it looked pretty cool. Nowhere near as cool, however, as some of their other bikes:

HA!

urgh! Americans shouldn't design cycling apparel. Leave it to the continentals.

Lance has had his Time Trail bike nicked.

Lovely looking thing it is

http://twitpic.com/1i8t1

*edit
the photo embed doesn't work or something so here's the link to the pic

Those Masis are beautiful. Except, on the non-fixie, there's Shimano gear. On (presumably) an Italian bike. WTF?!

Yeah, I've got Shimano on my Colnago. Lovely to use, but it's not right.

This barely fits on here, but I know you lot are design nuts as much as bike nuts, so...

In case you missed it when WOM mentioned it on another thread, this is representative of the new range of bikes that Ridley have made (for no discernible reason!) :

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More models here, if you're interested, and this is their main site.

Those Masis are beautiful. Except, on the non-fixie, there's Shimano gear. On (presumably) an Italian bike. WTF?

Faliero Masi sold the company to Americans in the 70s. It was owned by Schwinn at one point, but nowadays it's owned by Haro, the Californian BMX company. Like most bikes these days, they're all made in China or Taiwan.

Quite often they're made by Giant, in fact, who produce bikes for Trek, Specialized, Schwinn, and Bianchi, among others.

Alberto Masi, Faliero's son, still produces hand-made, traditional Masi frames in Milan. But because of the licensing issues, they're sold in the U.S. as Milano.

Those Masis are nice.

I almost got a 'Kona' tourer in the cycle-to-work scheme this year that had a similar retro paint job (but in my fave sky blue).

Anyway, this dabble in cycling porn comes after puncturing two days running, yesterday in a horrible downpour, today (in the bizarre belief that it couldn't happen twice in a row) with no spare tube on board, so I limped to a N.Shields bike shop, then, since even his track pump couldn't get it hard (oo-er), I limped all the way home on a semi and am feeling disgruntled.

Real cycling to cycling porn is a bit like the relationship between real-life sex and fantasy porn, then, in some ways.

I saw a LeMond fixie in a shop yesterday, and they had some sign saying it was the last one in stock, and they weren't making any more of them. It was gorgeous.

I have Shimano gear on my early 80s Univega. I think Univega is owned by Schwinn now, but I think it was independent back then, but maybe even back then it was faux-Italian.

Today was the first day I was able to go out with just some mitts on my hands, instead of sealskinz. Cycling is just brilliant isn't it? I rode along the coast, the roads were quiet and my Colnago simply purred. I cleared my head and when I got home I had a snigger about Felicity limping home on a semi.
Bring on the summer

L'Acheteur Cycliste did a kind of steel-is-real Italian special this month, looking at bikes by Gios, Daccordi and Cinelli. Toro will be pleased to know that the Daccordi was all-Campag. Gios sneaked in some Spécialités TA, and Cinelli's beautiful frame (the XCR) was kitted out in Sram RED and some horrendously bad taste wheels. Unfortunately they don't scan well as the decent pics are all across two pages.

But here's the XCR frame...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/mar/01/bike-insurance

Anyone want to take this man's advice?
If anyone scratches a postcode on my bike. I will kill.

I hope people don't mind me bumping this thread but I was hoping to get soem advice. I'm going to take part in the cyclescheme but I don't have a clue where to start with finding a bike.

I'd like a road bike, with gears and a freewheel. I'd like something that looks nice. I don't really want to spend more than £700 (ticket price). Should I just go for a Giant or a Specialized? Or can I find an decent Italian bike for that little money?

While I haven't cycled for 10nearly 10 years or so my commute would only be the 10k between Brixton and Bank. I'm not sure if that makes any difference but it may do I guess.

That XCR frame is rather nice... but the top tube should be closer to the horizontal.

Actually Ricky I am going to double bump it up.

As I get closer to my mid century and show no signs of getting technically better on a mountain bike (actually more the other way around on recent performances) - my mind is turning to road bikes.

I actually really like hill climbing, and to just concentrate on the hill in question rather than roots, mud, ruts, horse shit and rocks would be nice.

Plus I saw winking at me in a window in the Ardeche last week a Bianchi Via Nirone 7 - bottom of the range Triple with Shimano Sora groupset on it for 799 euros. In true Bianchi colours.
Which seemed a good deal.
But.....
Being of the opinion that part of the pleasure of these things is doing the research I resisted plus that Sora sounds like the equivient of an Altus on MTBs.

So I want a km eater that is good on hills , looks the business and doesn't have wheels that crumple at the first bump in the road, cycle ways around here do assume you have more than twiglets holding your rims together.

I will still do off roading on the full susser; but as more and more people I seem to come across who do off roading seem to think it is a BMX for tricks it is starting to tick me off.

Budget - hmmm tricky there's no way the chef d'achat will loosen the purse strings as much as for the Kona full susser ("another bike, you've already got two!' and the point is?)
But starting around 1000 Euros.

So narrow tyred people - what's the advise?

Giant and Specialized do good bikes in the range Ricky is talking about, as do Bianchi. Other big Italian marques start at about VTTB's range for the entry-level bikes.

They'll all be light, fast, reliable pieces of kit - but obviously, component and frame quality go up the mroe you're willing to pay.

In a complete sidetrack, I was given some of this for my birthday, surely the perfect gift for the cyclist who has everything: