A stroll through Paris. Monday 11 June.

A couple of days in Paris with a flexible agenda, a stout pair of walking boots, and my trusty point-and-shoot camera. 

The 1.9km cobbled surface of Avenue des Champs-Élysées takes a ‘slight’ gradient just before the half-way point between the Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe. Think of that when the final circuit of the Tour de France finishes here on the 22nd of July.

Montmartre.

Place du Tertre, Montmartre.

Montmartre.

Sacré-Cœur Basilica.

Cimetière de Montmartre.

Cimetière de Montmartre.

Cimetière de Montmartre.

Moulin Rouge.

Musée du Louvre.

The French stop for lunch. In Paris only children and tourists snack or eat whilst on the go.

Notre Dame Cathedral.

Notre Dame Cathedral.

A street in Paris.

Centre Georges Pompidou.

Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Roue de bicyclette’ is part of the permanent collection at the Pompidou Centre.

Creative Multiversities (3 May - 6 Aug), Centre Georges Pompidou.

Gerhard Richter, Panorama (6 June - 24 Sept), Centre Georges Pompidou.

A stroll through Paris. Tuesday 12 June.

Today it rained a little more than was necessary.

La Tour Eiffel.

53 rue Victor Hugo, Levallois-Perret, Paris.

http://www.cycles-alex-singer.fr/

http://www.classicrendezvous.com/France/bicycles/Singer_home.htm

Window shopping.

Olivier’s race bike with DA 7900. None of the Singer bicycles on display are for sale: this is a custom shop.

Quill stem with English-threaded BB is what you get. Stems are not for sale separately. 

Better view from the inside of the shop. Not usually open on a Tuesday morning but Victor (finishing some racks out the back) lets me in rather than mop up the mucous accumulating on the shop window.

Victor has been working here for 3 years and brazes the racks, assembles the bikes and helps run the shop. A race bike takes half a day to assemble. A randonneur can take a couple of weeks. Olivier Csuka builds/ brazes the framesets.

Hallowed ground indeed.

Spare parts. Old and predominantly French. Box on the side contains a complete bicycle ready to be shipped to a Japanese client with a number of Alex Singer’s already in his collection. Of the 20 or so bicycles made each year half go to Japan with the remainder staying in France or sent off to the US.

The door remains closed but people can see activity inside and so they come in. Victor attends to a customer.

Wiring for the front light passes within the rack but has to jump around the corners where the tubing has been brazed. 

The wire then passes from the rack into the frame then on to the generator on the rear stay. It’s the little details that take so much time.

Singer’s get used. This one has a tough life.

It’s been raining in Paris for the past few days but (tut-tut) this is the dirtiest chain and cassette I have seen for a while.

This one is for Ernest’s wife. 
Full chrome randonneur, Mafac brakes, Maxi-car hubs, TA Specialites chainset, Huret derailleurs, Berthoud fenders, Ideale saddle with aluminium rails.

This one is for Ernest Csuka.
Classic French constructeur includes Singer's own (expander) seatpost and (lever/caged) front derailleur. 
Possibly the world's smallest frame with a derailleur hanger sits just behind Ernest's bike.

A small shop on an otherwise unremarkable street.

Musée d'Orsay on the left bank of the Seine.

Now this is what I call a line.

Ballet, dit aussi l'Etoile par Edgar Degas sits in a small room just outside the main collection of impressionist works.

Musée d'Orsay.

Playing boules in the Tuileries Gardens.

Bedtime story before heading home.

Campagnolo dropout adjusters

Yesterday the troll stuck his head out and blinked in bewilderment at the blazing spotlight that was Shimano’s formal unveiling of its revamped, 2013 Dura-Ace groupset. Call it seamless integration or planned obsolescence (it’s the same thing, just different ways of looking at it) what is clear is Shimano has redrawn the battle line when it comes to consumer expectations of a top-end groupset. And when Shimano makes a statement, everyone that has anything to do with bicycling, sits up and listens. Just a month ago, with rumours and spy pics flying all over the internet, I too thought that Shimano’s designers had somehow managed to drop the ball and gift SRAM and Campagnolo an increased market share based on aesthetics alone. And the resurrection of Flightdeck, with a moniker that promised everything of a bicycle computer, only stirred resentment from a cyclist who paid way too much for an electronic gizmo that became less than worthless within a year (the connection to the levers corroded and fused - integrated, as it were, in a way Shimano never intended - so the wires had to be cut to remove the headpiece). But Shimano doesn’t tend to make mistakes. And Di2 has clearly proven itself. The total package, particularly the Di2 9070 electronic gruppo, looks fabulous. And the troll lusts for it. If only Shimano made a saddle and a frame (think enhanced biometrics and direct mount derailleurs and brakeset) then the seamlessly integrated racing bicycle would become a reality. No need for choice nor an aftermarket industry. 


The shimmer of a brave new horizon can be a little too much for one morning. So the troll went back under his rock and into the cave of retrogrouch bicycle crustiness. Back to checking crib sheets for mixing and matching old parts compromised by parochial technology and an obligation to make them work with other parts made by other companies. When the troll reappeared this morning he had these in his grubby little hands:

They are not glamorous. They are not expensive. They are not even that uncommon. Once ubiquitous they are no longer used on modern bicycles. They were used at a time when when you could reasonably expect to pass your bicycle on to your child (along with other things like your books, your music collection, a house that you fully owned, and maybe some moral values). A time when bicycles were made to last and a spare parts catalogue actually meant something (like a spare parts inventory). Things were different then. 


But things have always been different. And the recollection of a time passed often offers little more than a selective focus based on a current bias. Bicycling has been one of the great achievements of human endeavour and the subject of countless tinkering over the course of its evolution. Customised components? Think Pino Moroni. Bicycle integration? Think Alex Singer and Rene Herse. It's true that the more we look at something the more depth and diversity we tend to see. And bicycles are a great case in point. Some ideas have done their time while others, for now, continue to endure. Think Mikael Pedersen (the Dursley Pedersen bicycle hammock), Alex Moulton (small wheels, rubber suspension and a truss frame), John Boultbee Brooks (leather saddles), the various attempts at shaft-driven bicycles, Nobuo Ozaki (designer of Suntour's slant parallelogram rear derailleur), that group of hippie Californians who brought us the off road “mountain” bike, and that (nameless) guy who gave us lock-on grips so we could hold on to them. Saying nothing of the innovations brought about by the companies created by Tullio Campagnolo and Shozaburo Shimano.


Yesterday, Shimano officially launched Dura-Ace for 2013. 


There was a time when a need to adjust the rear axle alignment also allowed you to subtly alter the wheelbase of your bicycle. Some find this nostalgic. Most these days (if they even know about it) find this rather quaint.