Les Vélos de Paris

[bexley]

I found a place today called Rando Cycles, which is actually a store, shop next door, and what seems like a showroom which is where the yellow tandems were–all specialized in randonneuring. Wtf, how did I not know about this till now?

The store is pretty well stocked with Ortlieb, Berthoud, Tubus, clothing, cotton bartape, cheap and generic French fenders and porteur racks, Park tools and a small selection of components. The shop may be the best part, with a couple Americans as employees and a very amicable scruffy proprietor who’s probably American too. Hard to tell through the scruffiness. He says they used to build frames and are planning to start up again in a couple years, once one of the guys has learned. For now they distribute frames from a French company called Cyfac, which seems to make good custom frames of all sorts though they can be almost as ugly as the name. I did really like the component choices on the Cyfacs they had, one of which is the red bike below with the Nitto front rack.

It was a good day.

]

[Rusty_Piton]

Gimmie dis!

[Cadence]

Where are the tarckbikes?

[wickedwagon]

[quote=Rusty Piton]Gimmie dis!

[/quote]
kinda reminds me of teh misfit

[spaghetti]

sup girls de Paris?

[bexley]

Yea, that amazing series still stands at a less than respectable 3. One ex, one crush, and one roommate’s girlfriend.

I need something with the trigger-readiness of a Nerf ball gun to snap all of the sup girls on bikes. Plus I’m too busy looking; not long ago at a red light this French guy on a scooter called me out on checking out a sup ass a little conspicuously. “Excessivement!” he yelled.

Weird. Never been called out on that by a stranger before.

[Dickason_Daniel]

you must really have been quite excessivement about it to get called out as such.

[spaghetti]

a parisian damned you for your oogling!
i was under the impression that they were naturally more pervy than the italians!

[surfcat]

I think he was probably teasing Bexley, and/or Bexley was blocking his view…

[petit_jong_cat]

[quote=bexley]Yea, that amazing series still stands at a less than respectable 3. One ex, one crush, and one roommate’s girlfriend.

I need something with the trigger-readiness of a Nerf ball gun to snap all of the sup girls on bikes. Plus I’m too busy looking; not long ago at a red light this French guy on a scooter called me out on checking out a sup ass a little conspicuously. “Excessivement!” he yelled.

Weird. Never been called out on that by a stranger before.[/quote]
I think surfimp’s right. Maybe he was just pulling your leg.

Parisian women are so beautiful. They all seem to have such exquisite tastes in fashion and instinctively know how to pair outfits and accessories together, it’s a sight to behold.

Thanks for sharing your pictures w/ us. Makes me want to see Paris even more and more. I’d love to have pastries for breakfast all day, every day. That’d be something I could get use to.

[bexley]

Bonsoir à tous.

This will probably be the last installment for my underachieving thread since I’m moving to Berlin next week. So many TAF fixies passed by, sup girls undocumented, and Frederiques ignored, amongst some other regrets during my time in Paris.

I hope to be back in France with the bike for some touring this summer, but the outlying areas of Berlin look promising for short summer tours, so we’ll see.

I give you nothing special this time. Just a couple typical, utilitarian Parisian bikes plus my BJ by the canal and a sup girl made uncomfortable by my request to photograph her with the bike.

[turpencat]

girl sup

[Joe]

[quote=bexley]Bonsoir à tous.

This will probably be the last installment for my underachieving thread since I’m moving to Berlin next week. So many TAF fixies passed by, sup girls undocumented, and Frederiques ignored, amongst some other regrets during my time in Paris.

I hope to be back in France with the bike for some touring this summer, but the outlying areas of Berlin look promising for short summer tours, so we’ll see.
[/quote]
we need a die Fahrräder in Berlin sequel thread, bitte

[mr_fop]

Bex is cool as hell… it’s been well over a year since he said he’d do the frenchie sup girl and doesn’t let down. I was hoping for topless sun bathing but whatever.

[Captain_Gnarlock]

RIP thred

[tjayk]

lovin’ the kiddy hauler.

are you fleeing the country b/c sup girl is preggers?

[stronglight1047]

mr. bexley, without your advance permission i am reviving this awesome thread to share my less awesome pix from my recent work trip to paris.

here’s a humble porteur i saw on the street:

some US friends were in town at the same time, and we went to the alex singer shop in levallois:

the guy working was really nice and spent nearly two hours with us. he let us into the back rooms and told us about some of the individual bikes. i wouldn’t have noticed the crazy headset on this one, for instance, nor would i have known that that cable guide treatment is unique in the history of singer. it belonged to ernst czuka’s brother:

many bikes there are owned by the czuka family:

the guy (i didn’t get his name, regrettably) has worked there making only the racks for two+ years. he hopes to make frames in another two. he must be pretty good; here is one of four bikes the family has given him. he rode this one to the shop that day, he called it his “fixie” (used the english word):

upcoming projects:

work in progress:

the jig hangs from the ceiling:

tubing:

the assembly room. the bike on the floor with the plastic-bag-covered red saddle between the two guys is a chrome singer with a complete 7900 group, so it’s not all historical reenactment stuff. also, notice the glass ceiling. there wasn’t an electric lamp on anywhere in the entire shop, but the light was perfect for working:

back on the street. this mercier was very nice, except for the saddle:

spotted this merckx tag from belgium, but google tells me no relation:

all kinds of people on all kinds of bikes. the velib (city bike rentals) were everywhere. they had deep fenders, shimano dynohubs, roller brakes, etc. most appeared to be in good shape from what i saw, although co-workers told me they are often stolen or stripped for parts. i saw trucks relocating them from the low-elevation stations back up the hill by montmartre; apparently people like to coast downhill…

went to a bike shop near my hotel:

they had this oscar egg in for repair. probably 70 years old and still used regularly. notice the LAM brakes:

this was parked nearby:

then i got drunk and took a blurry shot of this peugeot mixte. sorry, i have a 1980-81 peugeot fetish:

our TV truck also produced some of this year’s tour de france:

[euflavine]

Oh man, I stopped by the Singer shop but the only worker there was busy cleaning and was very helpful, but didn’t seem interested in showing me around. I wish I could have seen that back room stuff. The in progress BB shell is AMAZING.