NAHBS 2010 – At first glance, Dinucci’s booth looked fairly straightforward. Red road bike, army green fenders. Oh, hey, look at those solid leather grips on the bar tape. And what’s that, a flashlight on the fork leg? Surely that’s not right. Wait a second…there’s more than meets the eye here.
Sure enough, this sleeper packed more subtly trick features in the frame than any other bike at the show. It took their rep to walk me through it all, and thing after thing kept popping up. There were also two retro road bikes in the booth, and we’ll get to those, but first allow me to take you on the tour of the bike that won ‘Best Lugged Bike’ at the 2010 North American Handmade Bicycle Show…
First, what got people stopping and talking was the theft deterrent device. Who needs a U-Lock or chain when you’ve got a grenade?
Let’s start at the front. Note the solid leather bar tape that’s stitched on rather than wrapped. The handy stem purse drapes over the stem and holds anything that’ll fit into a business-card sized slot.
Check the lugs…heavily mitered, shaped and very thin.
And that “flashlight” on the front? It’s actually custom fit with it’s own mount fitted into the fork leg.
They didn’t have a rear brake run on the bike yet, the cable stop for the housing coming from the lever is on the downtube, but if you look closely you’ll see some fishing line fed through a minute hole in the seat tube and out the back to the brake.
‘But wait‘ you say, ‘if the brake line is going through the seat tube, how does the seat post go down into the tube? And, for that matter, where’s the seat binder bolt?‘ You’re a smart cookie, you. See that bolt running through the top of the seatpost? It expands a wedge into the seat tube to hold it in place.
Below that, you’ve got a custom mounted “tin cup” looking tail light. Like the headlight, it’s battery powered so there are no wires.
Further down are the beautiful bottom bracket lugs and a very unique fender mount. Normally, most mounts are on small tube, but this one’s on a full box section cross member.
Very nice sliding dropouts with chrome axle bolts bring up the rear. And now, our tour will continue with a couple of retro road bikes, one with its own trick features…
This gray number had paint-matched frame pump and a white leopard headtube. OK, we’ll bite…what else you got?
Oh, a Snow Leopard…you’re a Mac fan!
Retro grouch downtube mounted friction shifters are a nice classic touch, and the top mount is pretty slick. But it looks like someone forgot to run the cables…
Ooooh, you sly dog, you’re hiding those cables! Nice runs straight down into the frame…take that, Bicycle Repairman.
Stepping back another decade or two, you have the plasticky bow wrap handlebar tape and a very retro frame. That’s all folks…move along. Move along.
