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Reading time: approx. 8 min
Important note on the lead photo: The vintage bike. Made by Staiger, from 1959. It looks great, but it took 40 hours of restoration work, from polishing the rims, lacing, dismantling the components to wax preservation. Hence 1000 euros.
Spring awakening! Life is returning! Time to look for a new two-wheeled companion, as the trusty old bicycle recently died: Requiescat in pace. But which layman knows the inhabitants of the bicycle zoo? Isn't there a risk of acquiring a half-wild two-wheeled animal that then turns out to be impossible to domesticate? In the second part of our popular series, we give the uninformed further important insights into the fauna of the bicyclettes.
A day in the life of the vintage freak: With a bicycle and Dominique in the forest. Bianchi bike, with rod brakes. The tennis clothes are also in keeping with the style. From the film “The Gardens of the Finzi-Continis” (1970), worth seeing. (
The vintage bike
The vintage bike is the great individualist. It is already older and therefore always believes itself to be something special. It is just that the colleagues from its generation have already died and it is one of the few left. The older passers-by always find the remaining bike nice and want to stroke it.
Anyone who wants to treat themselves to the luxury of such a bike needs a good bike surgeon within walking distance, as many of the parts on these bikes are prehistoric and parts are no longer available anywhere. However, as the older technology is usually simple and no artificial wear was used at the time, vintage bikes are, contrary to expectations, quite reliable if they have been cared for and well fed in the past.
Anyone who wants to give an old bike a pension needs to be careful. Unfortunately, vintage bikes are not kept in a way that is appropriate for their species in dark garages and damp sheds, and are then thrown onto the market at collector's prices. These bikes are almost always starving, sick and doomed to an imminent death without medical attention. Knowledgeable dealers do things differently and lovingly nurse the fossils back to health. At the end of the day, there is even a guarantee on them.
A gravel bike. From the company Sciu Bikes, with bags from Ortlieb. You can fit a lot of gravel in there (gravel = gravel). Similar bikes from Sciu cost around 4000 euros, the bags 400 euros. (
The gravel bike
The gravel bike is a strange animal. Something like a gazelle with elephant legs. Or a 100-meter runner with dice cups. Even at first glance, it's a very artificial creation from the test tubes of the bicycle industry. If you look at Leo, the lion says that gravel means "gravel" or "gravel". So can you transport gravel with it? In principle, yes, but only a single stone.
First of all, it has handlebars on the front like a racing bike. It wants to show us that it is unruly and a fast rider. Which isn't actually true. Because if you look down, you don't see delicate, thin racing rims, but thick off-road rollers.
Gravel bikes originally come from the construction industry and were first used to compact gravel surfaces when building highways. Something that used to be done by steam rollers. Today, a peloton of around 200 gravel bike riders is used here, all of them one-euro workers. They ride back and forth for an hour, then the tarring can begin. In between there is a short break during which isotonic drinks are served.
Who should own a gravel bike? Riders who are afraid of curbs. And those who want to go faster on uneven terrain. And last but not least, riders who are not afraid of being laughed at for the thick legs and tires of this beast.
The carbon bike. This one is top-of-the-pops, namely from Colnago, model C68. For about 16,500 euros. Can be financed with special funds. Available, for example, from Neckar-Bike near Stuttgart. (
The carbon bike
The carbon bike is the industry's latest creation. DNA pieces were pieced together under an electron microscope in long, day-and-night work to achieve the desired properties. The result is a highly bred animal for a brisk bike ride.
These gallopers have very thin bones. And their hearts beat twice as fast as those of a normal bike. They have many, many gears and individual parts, and not even the seller knows what material they are made of. This is all for professionals, who are ideally sponsored by a major industrialist with a big cigar. This is important because the professional then gets a new bike when the old one breaks down due to a heart attack.
Who will give such creatures a home? Primarily sports enthusiasts with thick wallets. They can really have fun with such a light bike. Admittedly, a fast ride on it is pure joy. It runs like a pig. However, carbon is not really sustainable. You can only throw it away sustainably when it is broken. But that is often the nature of luxury.
Caption: If you don't want to buy a tandem, you can try it like Laurel and Hardy. It saves a lot of money, but you won't get very far.
The tandem
If two people want to cycle together, one can sit on the handlebars. Or on the crossbar. You often see this in Vittorio de Sica and slapstick silent films. If you find this uncomfortable, you should buy a tandem. Bicycles for several people are called tandem (2), tridem (3), quadruplet (4). Tandems are the whales of bicycles. You need a large aquarium to house them. What makes things even more difficult is that you rarely ride them because it's not often Sunday. There are racing tandems, travel tandems, folding tandems and fun tandems.
Real tandems have four brakes. Two normal and two drag brakes. Two additional ones are necessary because otherwise the brakes will fail when going downhill. And that is dangerous. Tandems that don't have these are fun tandems that nobody needs. Riding a tandem is great, but only for the captain: that's the person who sits in front. He can steer and brake. The stoker, that's the person who sits in the back, can only pedal and has no say.
Tandems are usually bought to mend a fragile relationship between two people. For the reasons mentioned above, this only works in SM relationships: S sits in front, M sits in back. All the other people ride the tandem three times and then put it in the garage. As a result, most tandems are pretty lonely and collect dust.
Was that it? No. To meet the encyclopedic demands of our readers, In the next episode of our popular series “Our Bicycle Zoo” you will find further classifications of creatures with two wheels as well as the specification of their behavior. Stay tuned. (Christoph Preussler)
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