Picture the scene, i'm cycling to work, its a sunny day and coming from the cycling path towards the main road, I see a chap on a bike already on the main road. Once I get to the road, he's about 100m ahead. After a little guaging of the speed I'm thinking "yeah, i'm catching up"

a bit down the road, i'm behind him. he knows it. i pull out to pass him, say hello, nice day blah blah blah, and pull back in … not really changing my speed and carry on. about 10 seconds later, he pulls up beside me and we start to have a blether.

At this point you do the obligatory thing … check out the other bike.

Hmmmm, powder coat pink …. thats different, but a nice colour.
Steel lugged frame with really thin lugs …. thats different.
front mech shifter on the down tube, rear shifter as an sti … thats different.
Really really narrow drop bars.

So i ask him "nice bike … where did you get that ?"

" I built it … myself "

Take another look at the bike … pink, steel tubes, funny shifters, narrow drop bars, ah ha! little signature on the frame

Graeme Obree

"you're the name on the frame aren't you?"
"yup"

Doh! 😆

So we carry on down the rest of the road nattering. What a nice chap, mad keen like but good to talk to.

He did joke " At least you can genuinely say you caught up and passed me, but i said to myself there is no way you were going to drop me " 🙂

It put a smile on my face the rest of the day.

Cool!

front mech shifter on the down tube, rear shifter as an sti … thats different.

All the rage in the peleton in the Alps at one time.

Brilliant 🙂

pretty odd to change your name to match your bike frame dont u think

He said the down tube shifter was purely weight saving by removing the guts from the left hand sti and that you rarely use the front mech.

Good job he wasn't riding a Pompino.

He's actually got my mind thinking about trying to build my own bike, we were talking about how he did it, and I have to say, its something I would love to attempt as a long term hobby.

Who's Graeme Obree?

When I lived in London, I used to go out on the Sigma Sport (bike shop in Kingston) rides on Sundays. One week that I wasn't there, a friend of mine was out with them on the fast group ride to Box Hill. At the time he was very much a rower who rode bikes for fun/training so wasn't really up with the cycle racing scene or the well known names (yes, you can tell where this is heading…)

At the time, my friend was in the GB rowing team rowing with Peter Haining, a reasonably well known (at the time, particularly in Scotland) World Championship winning lightweight rower. My friend got chatting another Scottish rider in the group about Haining (since my friend was wearing rowing kit to ride in, the conversation had swung around to that) and this guy seemed to have met him a few times.

The ride made it's way to Box Hill and shortly after the climb started, my friend and this guy had dropped everyone else. About a minute later, the guy turns around, says to my friend that he really needs the toilet and then just shoots off at a pace that my friend says was unlike anything he's ever seen.

My friend gets to the top, sees the guy's bike leant up with the guy presumably in the toilet. A few mins later one of the other riders in the group turns up and my friend comments about just how fast the other guy was. The response was along the lines of "you do know who that is, don't you…" – yep, Obree. A really, really nice, genuine guy by all accounts.

Armstrong in 2002 with the one STI, one downtube shifter set up for the mountains – pre UCI weight limit days.

what were you riding?

wonder what he thought of it?

I was riding a cube hooper … a hybrid thing: all alu frame, 700C wheels, alfine hub and disc brakes. we chatted about it, and came to the same conclusion i did when I chose the bike, it suits my needs for the commute perfectly.

we weren't going particularly fast, just the speed you would go along at for the commute. if he wanted to, he would leave me for dead, I have no doubts about that.

Top chap, Graeme Obree. Had the great pleasure of riding round Islay with him (well, quite a long way behind him if truth be told… 😳 ) back in June. Full story of the day is here for anybody who's interested…

http://www.thewashingmachinepost.net/obree/review.html

Here's his bike in all it's skinny-steel glory (55×11 top gear IIRC)…

And here's the man himself fixing his puncture, while still blethering non-stop…

What a freakish looking bike.

it does seem to have super slack angles

i don't doubt that it suits him perfectly but it does seem to differ from the norm somewhat

v small, short stem, narrow bars.

Must work for him, each to their own!

I too have had the pleasure of having a 5 minute natter with him after he gave a talk in Glasgow to raise funds for the new transport museum. Left the same impression on me – a really nice down to earth bloke. Some really funny and interesting anecdotes – like being having the shortest ever pro peloton career (about a day).

cynic-al – Member
v small, short stem, narrow bars.

Must work for him, each to their own!
Dunno about "short" stem, it's virtually non-existant… 🙂

But yeah, it seems to work for him. I've not got any pics which show his riding position, but he sure covers the ground at a fair old rate of knots.

I think this geometry developed out of his attempt to get the most aerodynamic position on a conventional frame for an attempt on the hour record:
http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/graeme-obree-bidding-for-hour-record-again-21712
Because tri-bars are not allowed, he stretched the bike frame instead and narrowed the bar width. Typical Obree lateral thinking, but unfortunately the design turned out to have serious handling problems at speed on the track.

the rear triangle was long as well which he said he wanted due to the aero style he likes.

There's no doubt its a twitchy ride … he must be used to cycling close to others cause he had me pinned in against the side of the road with his bars a matter of inches from mine and he was all over the place … i was waiting for the clatter of the 2 of us crashing in a heap. 🙂

Apparently 653 tubing, silver solder and tweaking of the lugs to get the angles he wanted.