Old Flowers and Frankenbike II

guest — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:23:12 GMT

Last Sunday morning was our annual fall colors ride on Old Flowers Road. Ten people showed up at the 9:00 am start time with three additional people getting an earlier start. I did a really bad job of taking photos on this ride. If other people want to post photo links in the comment section, that would be great.

The only photo I have is the one below, taken with a timer. In hindsight, I wish I would have had everyone closer to the camera. Also, I’ll work on getting all of the names correct and correctly spelled. For now, left to right: Doug ?, Dave Newman, Bob ? Todd Singiser, ?, ?, Steve Douglas, Mike ?, Doug ?, Scott Ellis, Ron Kennedy, Carl Ciacci, me.

The group ended up splitting again, with five rolling the dice on weather and doing the White Pine climb. The rest of us chickened out and headed back. Turns out the weather cooperated. I do find it interesting that there are days that I just don’t have the spirit to take weather risks, while on other days I’m the first one to say “let’s go!”

Another thing I find interesting is that there are some people that will ride great, no matter what equipment is under their bum. The shining example from this ride was Carl Ciacci, a former Villanova racer. His trusty steed for the day was Frankenbike II. Frankenbike II cannot be classified as a light-weight, ubertechnical marvel. It is, however, a glorious piece of work.

As the name suggests, the Frankenbike family is assembled from the parts from other bikes. Yes, bike grave digging that would make Boris Karloff proud. To be classified as a Frankenbike one of the rules is that if parts must be purchased, the total cost of the final product can be no more than $50. The financial limit is one of the things that makes building a Frankenbike fun.

Carl and his brother constructed Frankenbike I, which I haven’t seen, but can imagine it is a classic. I’ll try to talk Carl into posting all of the particulars about Frankenbike II and also send me a side shot of it so I can post it here.

Do you have some bike parts that could live a new life? A Frankenbike in your future?

Blog Posts From Active Expert: Gale Bernhardt Tagged With frankenbike

Old Flowers and Frankenbike II