Piano World Home Page Forums Fun Stuff! - Parties, Tours, Projects & More... Just For The Fun of It Calling all Cyclist/Pianist or Pianist/Cyclists

I thought I'd start a fun thread for Pianist (Piano Players?) who are also keen cyclists, or not so keen, whatever. I'll kick off with a pic of me with my bike, a Dawes "Galaxy" Touring bike.

Great thread bluebilly!

Here are some snaps from my mobile phone. Low quality, but it should give you an idea of my hobby.

Small tea farm, Tenryu mountains:


Another mountain shot:


Fuel for the road:


Irago peninsula tour to Mie-ken (2008):


Trip to Tokyo (2009):


Jitensha-love - finding my Trek 1000 (aka Courtney) after being stolen outside a supermarket:


Shocking! Cracked downtube - rip Courtney:


New ride: Brand new, customised Trek 2.1:


My brand new Trek 2.1 is still pretty much brand new - I purchased her for a couple of weeks before my accident (six weeks ago), and haven't ridden since.

Looking forward to Autumn and being able to get back in the saddle!

Cheers,
James
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Kawai James and LiztAddict, great photos, I hadn't realised we have some serious cyclists on the forum, with some serious bikes. Whilst I'm awaiting delivery of my new piano, I've no piano to play, I'll dig out Bike photos to pass the time away.

Two more below, one of my mountain bike, also a "Dawes" and a photo of my bike at the Point of Ayr Lighthouse in North Wales, taken whilst I was touring Wales a few years back.





I've taken these photos off floppy disks hence the poor quality, I'll carry on digging now.

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P.S. You'll note my bikes carry mudguards over the wheels, which is indicative of the kind of weather we enjoy here in the UK.
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Sorry, me again I'm afraid, I'm still digging, this is a photo taken on one of my cycle camping trips down through France into Spain. My tent is the green one on the left, my pal is boiling water on the Meths (Spirit?) stove to make tea. We're camped in the grounds of a château, the owner of which was a real nice guy, he was inebriated all of the time we were there, he told us he used to be the skipper of the Plymouth to Roskoff ferry but got fired....I wonder why?

Great pics chaps! I shall look forward to doing more riding in the Autumn, and perhaps even look into packing a tent with a view to a spot of camping in the mountains.

LidtzAddict, do you have any more information about the pictures we're seeing? It looks like you're involved with a racing team/group?

I do like the traditional stylings of your Dawes, bluebilly. Is that now the same model that Claire Balding is currently riding around the UK on?

I have a detachable rear-wheel fender for the rainy season, however during the summer months it stays at home.

Cycling is undoubtedly one of my favourite past-times. Knowing that my ankle injury would prevent me from riding for the best part of four months has really me up in side...plus I've lost over over 6kg in the past six weeks...

Cheers,
James
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First picture - it was a ride from Idaho Springs, Colorado (west of Denver) to Mt. Evans. Start at around 2100m elevation in Idaho Springs and end at 4300m elevation on Mount Evans. Distance is 45 km. The picture was taken at about half way near Echo Lake.

Second picture - that was at Interbike in Las Vegas a few years ago. It was the morning ride before the expo. Had neutral support provided by Mavic (you can see the yellow Mavic car).

Third picture - that's my van loaded with stuff and bikes on the trip there.

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Hi Kawai James and LitzAddict, I've been road cycling for 54 years and I'm now 66 years old (please don't spread it around) but even now when I go out on my bike a feel 12 years old again, you Guys know the feeling.

I've been watching those Clare Balding TV shows...do you get those in Japan? I'm not sure which model of Dawes she's riding but I'll take a look next time the shows on. I've owned three Dawes touring bikes in the last 54 years, a Dawes "Debonair", a Dawes "Super Galaxy" and my present Dawes "Galaxy" which I purchased in 1995 for £500, the present model is priced at around £1300. I must confess I tend to stick with Dawes because they're still made (assembled?) in Birmingham, near where I was born, the TI Reynolds 531 double butted frame tube was made in a factory just a quarter mile from where I was born and the "Brooks" hand made leather saddles are still made in Birmingham.
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bluebilly,

Thanks to the internet, I am able to watch or download most of the UK programmes 24 hours or so after broadcast, allowing me to maintain something of a connection with dearest Blighty.

I caught one of the Clare Balding programmes and found it quite interesting to watch in the background, while preparing my dinner. I seem to recall that we didn't see Clare doing a great deal of riding though.

Mark Beaumont on other hand is a true cycling legend. His cycling documentaries are absolutely fantastic - he's cycled around the world and ridden from the one end of North America to the other end of South America (scaling the tallest mountains in each continent to boot). An incredible athlete, and yet so modest about his achievements.

I recently watched another great programme (around the time of the Tour de France) about a chap who decided to build his dream bike - travelling to bespoke part manufacturers around the globe. As a Brit he also bemoaned the decline of the bicycle industry in the UK, but visited the Brooks factory in Birmingham to see his beautiful leather saddle being made.

I'm still unable to ride my bike properly (I started making the slow commute to the office this week), so having all these nice cycling TV programmes to watch gives me something to look forward to.

Cheers,
James
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Hi James,

I watched all of those Cycling shows too. Monday night I noticed Clare Balding was riding a Dawes Super Galaxy, I owned one of those for twenty years!!. Mine also had those brake levers known as "safety levers" but became known as "suicide levers", if you used them in emergency they were totally ineffective because of the amount of cable they had to pull before the callipers pulled. Clare was "cycling" in the Cotswolds last time, more or less on my patch. I have another bike which I haven't photographed yet, I built it myself. I was looking for a Audax/Fast touring bike but couldn't find an off-the-peg one which met my requirements. I bought the wheels for £50 from the classifieds in our local newspaper, the frame is Reynolds 501, I rescued it from the scrap metal skip at our local dump, it had good quality calliper brakes on it and a good Campagnola bottom bracket, I gave the guy a "drink" for it..£2!!. The rest of the parts I sourced from eBay, Cycle Jumbles and Cycle Sales, total cost around £100. I'm using that bike more now than my Galaxy.

Sometimes in the late 80s, I bought a "junk" Motobecane road bike with real Reynolds tubing for $10.

I repainted it, rebuilt it completely. Rebuilt the wheels with Araya CTL-370 rims, Wheelsmith oval spokes, 13-19 6-speed sprockets, and it was one heck of a racing bike.

Blimey, LiztAddict, you had a real bargain, do you build your own wheels, that's serious bike mechanicing, something I've always wanted to learn to do. I took a pic of my mongrel bike whilst out cycling today. My Galaxy is hanging on it's hook in my garage. Thankfully, I was riding the Galaxy the day I bumped into Prince Charles one day whilst I was out on a ride, I would have hated to have met my future Monarch on a mongrel bike.

bluebilly - yup, I put my first bike together when I was 12. Built the wheels from hubs, spokes, and rims. Later on, I even figured out how to used 36-hole hubs (easier to find) with 28 or 32-hole rims. 28-hole rims were cheaper than 32 or 36.

I haven't seen an angle-adjustable stem like one on your bike! Frame about 60 cm? campy components?

Wouldn't it be fun if we all have a ton of free time, and we could just bike around Europe from one piano factory to another?

I bought four of those adjustable handle bar stems when they were on special offer on-line, I like the tops of my bar to be level with my saddle, traditional touring upright position. The frame on my mongrel bike is 24" and my Galaxy 25", with my leg length I'm right on the limit of the sizes of frames I can buy off-the-peg here. When I "rescued" the frame it had a Campagnola BB and Campy side pull brakes.

I bought a pack of 700x25 inner tubes last year at a cycle sale, £5 for 3 tubes, they were marked up as "Continental", the stencilling on the tubes says that, but I'm having trouble getting the presta valves to release off their seatings when I try to inflate the tyre, I can do it fairly easily when I inflate with my track pump at home but I suspect if I tried to use my frame fit pump out on the road I would have problems. I sprayed just a smidgen of silicon oil into the valves but to no avail, I guess I'll have to buy replacement tubes and write the 5 sovs off.

I do have a ton of free time but are there any piano manufacturers left in Europe to cycle around, if there are I would guess they're in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. I say a "ton of free time" but just because I have my new digital piano fixed up and ready to play folks around here keep finding things for me to do.

Stumbled across this on YouTube and was going to give it it's own thread, but this one seems to fit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kbLKhUu2Gs&feature=channel

And yes, I enjoy cycling myself and regularly ride to work, although it is just a short ride of 1-1/2 miles.

Thanks Feeble for the video link, amazing!!. That's one advantage of an acoustic piano, you don't have to plug into to anything. I guess there can't be too many hills around where those Guys live?
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I'd attach a 12 kg Casio digital piano, 20 kg for a battery, 1 kg for a hub power generator and save myself from hauling 200kg acoustic piano around.

feeble - no matter how long or short the distance is, if you ride to work, that's great!!!

I agree, I'm a pleasure cyclist the real cyclists are the people who use a bike daily in preference to other means of transport, as feeble does.
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Yup, I agree 100%.