merziac

Doesn't get much cooler than this, especially if its really 1 of a kind, even if not its 1 of very few so there it is.

Hopefully you can make it really work for her, seems like many of these don't workout no matter how cool we think they are.

ms. merziac loves any new bike she gets but most of them are challenging for her to ride.

I need to drill down but she has a fairly modern bike she likes and rides when she does ride.

The 46-7 womens touring Paramount is a very poor rider and I expected to get the "we don't need anymore bikes" speech but she was thrilled on Mothers day, good thing it was green.

merziac

You're probably forgetting to tell her that we are all knowing, all seeing, expert, strangers on the internet.

albrt 

I actually just got done building her a bike - I'm trying to get her accustomed to road bikes rather than upright bikes because she has been talking about doing a tour at some point. She has a road bike but it is a heavy 1970's Nishiki mixte. The riding position is pretty aggressive for her. She won't ride anything that isn't a stepthrough/mixte, so I found a late 1980s Schwinn World, swapped out most of the steel parts for alloy, and added mountain bike gearing and a shorter, more upright stem so the drop bars aren't so low. I kept the suicide levers because she likes those. The geometry is reasonably close to the smaller upright bikes she likes.

Then I found the Technobull. So my plan is to give her the World first, try to convince her to work on riding drop bars for a month or two, and then bring out the Technobull. Fortunately this plan somewhat fits our travel schedule for the summer.

Chombi1 

I remember a Technobull featured in one of the cycling magazines in the mid 80's.
It was a special super lightweight racer that was like only 14 pounds or so. My brother and drooled over the pics of the dark blue German bike in the magazine.
Did not see.much about Technobull bikes after that......

martl

A Technobull is definitely something very special. Heinz Günther Sattler was highly praised as a framebuilder and inventor. Many of his creations were pioneering stuff, be that exotic tube mixes, lugless work, internal routing, trying disk brakes (in the 1980ies!) etc etc etc.
Here is, for example, a TT bike he built for and with another stalwart of german bike engineering, Hans-Christian Smolik. As can be seen, it sports a brake integrated in the fork, an integrated seatpost, a split downtube, a selfmade RD, it also had a homemade shifter integrated in the left brake lever and a custom made stem with integrated digital stopwatch (digital speedometers werent around yet).

He also did more conventional stuff but he was sought-after as a framebuilder, so we can say whichever Technobull you're looking at, it was made to the highest standard and often specific to the customers wishes, definitely no run-of-the-mill job.

Pompiere

Very interesting. From the article, the mixte may have been a one-off or custom order.

With everyone's attention on the bike, no one has mentioned the Eclipse rack. I remember them from the late 1970s with their unique pannier mounting system. There was a rod sewn into the pannier that slid into the channel on the rack. They also sold an adaptor plate so you could use their panniers on a Blackburn style rack.

smd4

Isn't Technobull what people spew when they're talking about Di2 or hydraulic disc brakes?

bamboobike4

Beat me to it....that's what I get for mulling it over.

C&V discussions of geometry, gear inches, group compatibility, headset stack heights, etc. etc.
Bull sessions, and meant in a good way.

Great headbadge.

Spaghetti Legs 

I can't help but think that is the brand TechnoViking rides.

ehcoplex 

THAT is a super-cool bike!

I can relate to the effort involved in, er, training one's partner to ride a road bike- I'm involved in a similar 'project' (though I think now the issue is less about the style of bike, and more about the, uh, 'style' of steep hills all around us...).

merziac

See post #3

And,

Pompiere

Oops, the coffee hadn't kicked in yet.

merziac

No worries, that Merz came with the mounting brackets but no panniers. After awhile I saw an article about the Seattle bike show that Bob Freeman had a C+V show in it. Messaged Bob and he asked what I would bring, Merz TW189 I said.

"Thats Tom Winterowd's bike that I helped him build for Paris brest Paris, you should reach out to him", didn't go to the show as it snowed but Tom lives in Canby OR so my son and I rode out to his place, had a great visit, got the original panniers and a set of Jand's, all the paperwork from the build, tools, parts, a Silca pista, and more. He never took it as he deemed it a bit small, Bob got Davidson to rush a new bike through that Tom took for a great result.

Initially I didn't remember that the brackets were Eclipse and took them off for being ugly and saved them.

Ultimately glad it didn't go since it didn't get ridden a lot and probably wouldn't be in great shape like it is but it would be cool to be able to say it went.





Initially I didn't remember that the brackets were Eclipse and took them off for being ugly and saved them.

albrt 

Update on the Technobull - I cleaned it up a little, and took the rack off for now since I don't have the matching bags.



Built up and without the rack it weighs about a pound less than my 1989 Paramount, which has an aluminum fork. Replaced the rear wheel because it had a bad sealed bearing and I couldn't find a replacement the same size. The wheels were mismatched anyway, but I am saving the old rear in case it was a Technobull original. The seat is up high from me test riding.

Wife still hasn't seen it - next week is her birthday so maybe I'll give her a picture. She won't be back here for another 6 weeks or so.