Quick release.

My favourite recent(-ish, 1927) bike development is the quick release skewers. So simple but damn useful. Invented by Tullio Campagnolo in 1927 after having difficulty while changing gears, which in ’27 involved removing the rear wheel and flipping it around to the the other gear on the other side. The wheels were held on by wing nuts and due to bad weather Tullio found it difficult to use the wing nuts, he lost time and his place in the race. I assume this greatly frustrated him, it would me, so he racked his mind and came up with a quick way of swapping wheels, the quick release skewers, it relies on the properties of cams. So now the invention has been used ever since, making wheel removal and installation much easier. Thank you Mr. Campagnolo for your invention, and also the parallelogram dérailleur, that’s pretty cool too.

Modern Quick Release.

Ye Olde wing nuts.

 

Ayrton Senna

Unfortunately it has been 19 years since the fatful Imola Grand Prix weekend in which Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna both lost their lives. Senna is certainly one of my idols event though I was born a few years after he passed. Not many people know that Ayrton put his name to bikes, so this post isn’t completely irrelevant. The Senna bike range made by Carraro were launched on the 28th of April, 3 days before his death.

The Mountain Bike of the Senna Range

There were 4 models of bikes offered

The 330, a leisure bike for women

The 440, a budget MTB with less sophisticated components.

The 550, a modern MTB with good components and full suspension  ideal for downhill.

The 770, an all out racing MTB top of the line components, full suspension and modern frame, built for pro racers.

A part of the profit from the bikes went to the Senna Foundation in Brasil.

Senna Mountain bike, Pic from eBay seller

If you wan’t to buy the bike pictured above it is for sale on eBay for £1,375, It is brand new though.

19 years, senna would be 53 now.

We must not forget Ratzenberger, He lost his life the day before Senna.

The orange bike.

Yes, Arancione Bicicletta means orange bike in Italian, Orange bike was taken as a name. This blog has no real purpose other than to give me an excuse to write about random bicycle related stuff. The orange bike is my first road bike, a 1995 giant team, not the best bike by a million miles but still my favourite. The bike story with me began when I decided after watching the 2012 Olympics I wanted a road bike, how cliché. It wasn’t for any reason really I just liked the look of one. The bike came to me when I bought it off Gumtree for £20. When I got the bike it was in a bit of a state of disrepair. it needed a lot of work, I had never fixed or attempted to fix bicycles before. now was the time. My first plan was to fix the bare minimum and just get it working until I got my ‘fabulous’ new road bike for Christmas  So since then I have learnt more about bikes than I thought there was to learn.

The bike the night I got it. Excuse the poor photo.

The bike after 4 months and lots of work.

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So yes this blog will be full of anything I can be bothered to write about.