1. The first one has been taken with an hand made pinhole camera in the city of Lyon.
2. The second one is a dirt rider in the air.
3. The following one has been taken with an hand made pinhole camera too, during a bicycle trip close to the lake of Annecy.
4. And the last one is two old bikes with the Annecy’s lake in background.

See more of Francois-Xavier’s photos on Flickr →

Bryan is the proprietor of Renaissance Bicycles in Flat Rock, NC. Visit the Renaissance website →

Visit Reuben’s blog →

Visit Jeremy’s blog →

Here are some photos of my friend and his MASI Coltello. —David

[John Peterson came up with the following method for mounting a Rohloff shifter on a downtube shifter boss. —ed.]

The Rohloff shifter is designed to work with mountain bike bars. If you want to run a Rohloff hub with drop bars you have a problem. Sheldon Brown describes what appears to be a good work around by mounting the shifter to the stem. There is also a bar extension called the HubBub that allows the shifter to mount off the end of the drop bar. Go here for more info on both.

I would not claim to have discovered the ideal solution for everyone but for my purposes mounting the shifter on the down tube, in the “traditional” position, has worked out pretty well. One drawback to this mount is that I can’t see what gear I’m in most of the time because the angle is wrong making it hard to see the markings on the grip. That is a very minor issue. A huge plus is that the shifter does not rotate with the bars which allows for a shorter, more direct cable run.

The basic mount is a slightly modified Greenspeed long computer mount. The length and diameter of the mount match the Rohloff shifter perfectly.

I needed to “machine” the mount to fit the radius of the frame tube. I did that with 120 grit adhesive backed sandpaper stuck to an appropriate diameter of PVC pipe clamped in a vice. The alloy Greenspeed uses for the mount is quite soft and sliding it back and forth on the sandpaper cut the needed radius quickly. I cut a rubber gasket to put between the shifter mount and the frame. I put a washer (or maybe two) on the bolt inside the mount as a shim so that the mount is tight against the shifter boss at the same time that it is snug against the frame to maximize the strength and minimize strain on the boss. I used blue loctite on the threads to keep it all snug.

I was concerned that I would drop the bike or bump a doorway and damage the frame. The reality is that when the bike is all assembled the clutter of the pedals and handlebar protects the location pretty well. I have close to 4,000 miles since I put this together and no problems yet.

I chose to run the cables under the bottom bracket and along the chain stays. I have to push them pretty wide at the bottom bracket so they don’t rub the 700-37 tires I’m running. I like having the cables out of the way but I have considered running them to the top tube and then down the seat stays. Either method of cable routing would work with this mount. With Cross Check frame I was able to utilize the down tube frame boss for the shifter. I think a person could make this work on a frame without a downtube shifter mount by modifying the Greenspeed circle clamp that comes with the mount. —John Peterson

Here are some pics from a recent Sunday morning ride through Minneapolis, MN.  Beautiful light and beautiful bikes….what more could one ask for? —Adan