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Luxury Car-Bike Collabos
How much is too much to spend on a bike?Is that a stupid question? Do people in the top 1% of the top 1% ask questions like that?When car companies collaborate with bicycle companies, you just know...
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Mariposa Cycles - Reborn
I once had the pleasure to meet Mike Barry, the founder of Mariposa Bicycles. He was as knowledgeable and pleasant a person one could hope to talk with about bicycles, and his shop in Toronto was a...
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The Unstealable Bike
How did I miss the biggest breakthrough in preventing bicycle theft to come along since some Victorian-era miscreant first stole a Penny Farthing in the 1870s? Thanks to the blog Midlife Cycling for...
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Greg Curnoe - the Bicycle Artist
Many of Curnoe's self portraits show him in a bicycle cap, or jersey.After posting an article about the rebirth of Mariposa Bicycles recently, a reader suggested that I should also post something about...
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School's Out For Summer
Friday was the first day of summer break for my kids. I'm a full-time teacher, so it's summer break for me, too.We spent our first day of break doing something we love to do - riding our bikes on the...
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New Hour Record
I'm sure it's no secret by now that there's a new Hour Record in cycling. Bradley Wiggins rode 54.526 km in an hour on Sunday, breaking the previous record set by Alex Dowsett at 52.937 km. The last...
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Rapha Re-Imaginings
The folks over at Rapha have an imaginative approach to memory. There's often talk about "vintage style" in their marketing for their super-expensive cycling clothes, and on their website and blog, but...
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Mazda Builds A Bicycle
Last month I took a look at a lot of car companies making bicycles -- and somehow I missed this one from Mazda. Unlike the other examples I've shown, it doesn't appear that Mazda has partnered up with...
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The Cannibal Turns 70
Few people can be said to have dominated their respective sports the way that Eddy Merckx dominated bicycle racing from the late 60s through most of the 70s.A much younger Eddy Merckx, wearing yellow...
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Old Mercian Catalog - 1969
Going through a box of old magazines and catalogs, I came across this Mercian Cycles catalog from 1969. Regular Retrogrouch readers know I've been a big Mercian fan for a lot of years and have eight of...
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Bianchi L'Eroica Bike
I'm guessing that any fan of vintage and classic bicycles is familiar with the L'Eroica ride events. Having begun in Italy, participating riders mount vintage bicycles (pre-1987, according to the...
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All-Road: Another Must-Have Bike Category?
Now that you've been convinced to get yourself a "Gravel" bike to replace your "Cyclocross" bike (which was totally unsuited for riding on gravel, you know) there's another new bike you have to add to...
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Saddlewax Vintage Saddle Archive
The Retrogrouch has limited internet access for the next few days - so blog updates will be likewise limited. But if you checked in for something new today, I don't want to leave you totally...
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Another Opinion on Bike Weight
The Retrogrouch is still working with limited internet access. But if you checked in here for something new to read, here's a little something to tide you over.I've written about bike weight before -...
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How Aero Can You Go?
In the never-ending quest for more incremental gains in speed, Specialized has a new weapon with which performance addicts can max out their credit cards: the Specialized S-Works Venge ViAS aero road...
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10 or 11? Does it Really Matter?
Remember when "10-speed" really just meant "10-speeds," as in, total? 2 chainrings x 5 cogs? Yeah - those days are gone.I just read this post from Performance Bicycle -- you know, the internet and mail...
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Throwback Thursday: 1970s Mercian Catalog
In an earlier post I had some scans of an old Mercian catalog from my collection - one from the 1960s. I have several others, including this one from the 1970s, a time that Mercian was probably at a...
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To Build A Wheel
I sat down this week to build a set of wheels. Building wheels is one of those jobs that any serious home mechanic should try some time. It's a rite of passage. Saint Sheldon Brown says of wheel...
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Tour de France Coverage Retrogrouch Style: 1985
With the 2015 Tour de France entering its second week, and me still not really paying much attention to it, I thought now would be a good time for some Retrogrouch TdF coverage: 1985.Hiring LeMond onto...
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Badger. Badass. Bernard Hinault
The first time I saw the name Bernard Hinault in print, it accompanied a photo of a compact Napoleon-like man in a Mondrian-print jersey throwing a punch at some striking workers, his face in a fierce...
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