We’ve just finished an exciting build. We used a 650B randonneur/porteur frame made by Velo Orange, called the Polyvalent. Ours might be the first in Australia. We’ve built it up as a showcase for some of the VO gear we stock (and as a great bike in its own right). It has a big VO Porteur front rack, VO cantilever brakes, headset, saddle, rims, etc. It has a dynamo hub, is shod with Grand Bois Hetres and stays upright while stationary thanks to a Pletscher bipod kickstand. It will soon have a VO chain guard. We installed a B+M Lumotec IQ Cyo just under the floor of the rack, and a B+M tail light on the rear mud guard.
We lent the bike to Blakey, a local bike aficionado, friend and sometime customer. Here’s a link to a flickr set he’s made to document his weekend with the bike. You’ll notice we’ve stolen some of them for this post – he takes a nice photo. Blakey loved the bike and raved, in particular, about how it rides over rough ground. Not surprising since the bikes that it’s inspired by were used by Parisian newspaper deliverers over rough cobbles.
It’s a great bike for taking medium-sized loads and is prefect for around town. This is thanks to the frame geometry, which is optimized for carrying a load on the front, and running large-volume tyres, just like the old French bikes that inspired it. Blakey says it earned a lot of admiring looks, and it certainly looks right with something nice in the bidon cage.
This build came in at around $2500 and is going to another of our favourite customers, but we’ll be building more. If you’re interested, drop by and have a talk – because the frame is so versatile, radically different builds are an option – it could be run as a single speed or with a gear hub. I would really like to build one with drop bars and a small front rack that could be used for fast commuting and day trips in the country.
July 21st, 2010 at 4:40 am
nice bike, didnt know you guys did VO gear, have been looking for a bit on their website. Will have to come by and check it out.
October 25th, 2010 at 10:54 am
Nice build! I’m in the states, but I’m about to mount the exact same lights on the same bike, with the same rack! How did you mount the front? It looks like you’re using the standard Cyo mount, but inverted. There must be an additional piece though, I think? I suppose a picture would be worth a thousand words here
October 26th, 2010 at 5:08 am
I’d love to post a close-up picture but the bike is now out in the wild under one of our customers.
We used a rack stay which we bolted between the eyelets and then used the slot in that to bolt a right-angle strip of stainless steel to. The inverted mount then attached to this.
VO make a bracket which allows roughly the same mounting which you can see here:
http://store.velo-orange.com/index.php/accessories/lighting/vo-rack-to-light-bracket.html
Ours is a bit better protected but also a lot more work.
November 8th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
Nice, thanks for the feedback, sorry for my slow response. I couldn’t tell what was going on in the photo before but based on your description I now can. I love my new bike (much like this except with drop bars) and will be mounting my lights shortly.