I passed a beauty on the street...
 

Yes, I do mean a bike. A lovely, well-maintained Motobecane, nicely appointed with wood basket, twine around the grips, detailed lugs and sharp looking fenders. :thumb: Fess up if it's yours!

http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/a...0/IMG_0990.jpg

http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/a...0/IMG_0991.jpg

http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/a...0/IMG_0994.jpg

http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/a...0/IMG_0992.jpg

http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/a...0/IMG_0993.jpg

( I recall there was a recent "randomly seen bikes" thread. I would have posted these photos there, but I wasn't able to find that thread.)

That is a great looking bike. I have thought about building some sort of box/basket, and that one looks great. i wonder if there are any dedicated threads for box/basket design and building?

Nice Moto, but that twine look just isn't working for me. Looks like one of my kid's summer camp projects.

Neal

Uhhmmmm.....not getting what the twine on the handlebar's all about........what's it for and did they really do that stuff in the past??
I would think they would wrap more of the bar if they did.......Otherwise I see Robinson Crusoe/Giligan's Island style there and not C&V.
Most likely I just don't know what I'm talking about......cause I only go back to the 80's with my biking....:D

Chombi

Maybe the owner went a little too far with the twine, but I kind of like it. I've seen it used at the end of handlebar wraps in place of tape. Perhaps, in this case, it keeps the ends of the grips from buckling up, or maybe the owner just wants to build up some callouses. ;)

+1. I think the twine is too much and pretty ugly but LOVE the basket. I want to build something similar for my girlfriend's city bike to attach to the Blackburn rear rack on there.

I'd hate to see that top tube get scraped by the steel angle the bike is locked to. The paint is quite nice, worth some padding.
The twine is a whimsical hobbit-like touch, I guess. An old GF of mine had her car's license plates tied on with twine. Whimsy is a quality I never get enough of in day-to-day life.

Take a closer look - it is a square post with rounded corners. Good point, though - if it were mine I'd be more careful.

The shift cables run through slots in the grips. Wrapping with twine keeps the cables from pulling out of the slots. It's a Rivendell idea, very poorly executed. Rivendell sells Portuguese tree cork grips that are pre-slotted for the housings and the twine. They tried to sell them to me when I picked up my Albatross bars, but I told them that it was just too "Rivendell" for me.. Besides, I had my own idea and it worked out really well.

Twine reminds me of macrame and I saw enough of that in the seventies to last a lifetime.

http://inlinethumb12.webshots.com/66...600x600Q85.jpg

I plan to be in Berkeley on Sunday. I'm going to fly kites at the Marina if there's any wind.

I've twinned handlebar tape before. It was on a bike that got left outside in the sun a lot. Apparently the sun around here gets so bad it will melt the adhesive right off tape...

nice! are those the VO city brake levers on your albatross bars?

here's how i devised a cable+grip setup on my albatross bars, judiciously using twine to secure the cables and cork tape:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4112/...ae8a501cfb.jpg

That would be the "seen in passing" thread, I struggled to find it a while back also...

Gorgeous! I don't think I've seen that one before.

Beautiful details as always! :thumb:

I have the Rivendell Portuguese cork grips (the ones without the holes), and they are stunningly beautiful. Unfortunately, I find them too hard, and may end up wrapping them with leather grip tape.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4092/...81853dbcfb.jpg
newgrips by snarkypup, on Flickr

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4129/...650ec6ea62.jpg
glamorshotnew2 by snarkypup, on Flickr

Southpaw,
I'm doing the same thing to my Raleigh Sports this weekend, but rather with that sew on elkhide over cloth. I've never seen black fake-cork wrap. I may try that on a drop bar; looks good. That's a classy rig, man.

[QUOTE=southpawboston;11520105]nice! are those the VO city brake levers on your albatross bars?QUOTE]

Yes they are. They're a bit rough, so I plan to pull them off and reshape/smooth and then polish them them this weekend. I think I'll also make them non-CPSC compliant eye stabbers while I'm at it. I'll post pictures.

I have those on my "shopping bike", but I used amber shellac. I can see that you used clear. They feel good to me , but I haven't taken any long rides. They feel like my vintage fishing rods and that's a good thing.

http://inlinethumb62.webshots.com/39...600x600Q85.jpg

heh, yeah, that's generic black cork tape from nashbar... i stocked up when it was on sale for like $5.

wow, that bike looks great, GB...

Wow! Creative and nice looking! That's not something I would have imagined, but it looks quite elegant.

Edit:

OK. This makes me think of a question. I like the idea of long-reach swept back bars for getting upright on a city bike.

However, I frequently see albatross and similar bars combined with a long forward-extension stem--the combination of which puts your hands right about where they would be with some north road or three-speed bars and a short extension stem.

In other words, you appear to be getting the same grip positioning, only with more metal, and therefore, weight. What is the advantage of the setup here? A little bit more vibration damping for the hands? It looks beautiful, but I don't understand the function.

While they may be similar in many ways, albatross style bars and North Road style bars are actually different in substantial ways. Albatross style bars have the grips almost parallel to the top tube, while North Road style bars have a significant angle to them. They're different bars, it makes sense they would be set up differently.

And for what it's worth, I always set up my North Road bars with the longest stem I can, otherwise the cockpit feels really cramped.

I like twine usually, but just to finish the bar tape. This person took it too far for me. I like a thinner gauge of twine also. Looks cluttered, I like a cleaner look.

The grip area of the Albatross bars is very long. Since I wanted to use a Pivo stem that did not have a long reach, I shortened the bars by 1 1/2" . That's when I found out that they're only thin walled for the first two inches and my bar end shifters wouldn't fit, but that's another thread.