Bike porn: Knotted, have a towel ready for the drool...

[Kalidurga]

Oh. My. Gosh... Merlin fully engraved Cyrene

Make sure you check out the close-ups of the bottom bracket, etc, and click on the link to download the high-res image (inserting it here made if freaking huge).

[KnottedYet]

Drooooooool.....

OMG!!!!!!

sigh!

Well, that's one way to deal with ti's trouble holding paint...

wow...

[mimitabby]

wow! Engraved!

[Zen]

What good is the internet if you don't get a little porn now and then?
Tam knows the best sites

[KnottedYet]

(I'm almost ashamed to admit how many times I've come back to this thread to look at those pictures. )

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

We all have different tastes. Though I can admire the work involved, that engraved bike is not something I would want at all. It reminds me of one of those gaudy embossed Western style horse saddles meant for parades or something. Just not my style.
I like plainer lugs on steel bikes, too. I've seen really fancy lugs with curly Q shapes that I find just too fussy and frilly.

I have a couple of beautiful banjos with very elaborate mother of pearl engravings. When I play them people always comment on them. When I play my plain banjos I feel a bit more comfortable, like I am connected with them, and I think people listen to my playing more instead of ogling my banjo.

I can admire all the hard work though. I do wonder though whether that tubing was actually human hand engraved, or machine engraved using a template that automatically follows a pre-programmed design pattern.

[mimitabby]

I'd like it better if the engraved parts were enameled. I just don't care for grey/silver with no accents.

[Bad JuJu]

I'm with Lisa on this one. Gee that's some gorgeous work, but it's a little foofy for my taste. On the other hand, just look at those beautiful welds at the head tube and bottom bracket--yum!

[Zen]

The parade saddle is accurate. That's exactly the way the site describes it.
Even without seeing the details I think it's a sharp looking bike.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

The parade saddle is accurate. That's exactly the way the site describes it.

Oh that's funny- I didn't even read that when I looked at the pictures!

A friend of ours who lives 2 blocks from us makes engraved old fashioned muzzle loader rifles. He does the kind of freely imaginative engraving I really love:

http://www.tcurran.com/Images/BR-nosecapClose.jpg

http://www.tcurran.com/Images/BCCheeksideClose.jpg

http://www.tcurran.com/Images/BR-sideplateClose.jpg

http://www.tcurran.com/Images/BR-front-sightClose.jpg

http://www.tcurran.com/index.htm

Maybe if i get rich one day I can hire Tom to engrave me a steel bike with wild meadow plants and crickets and birds, like those I pass on my bike rides every day!

[MomOnBike]

I guess it's what you grow up with. I grew up riding an engraved saddle - that's just the way saddles of certain era came - and learned to shoot on an incredibly elaborate gun. Both the saddle and the gun were/are functional, to the point of being abused and coming back for more. Not that I had anything to do with the abuse...

Come to think of it, my 1902 Singer treadle sewing machine has a great deal of ornamentation on it, too.

Personally, I'm glad that that sort of craftsmanship and ornamentatation is coming back, to some extent, it feeds my Baroque little soul.

[KnottedYet]

I like the engraving being plain on the plain ti. (no paint) If you saw the bike from a distance you might not even notice there was any decoration, but as you got close you'd see it.

Yeah, I've got a baroque soul, too. I remember reading a story called "The Baroque Pearl" when I was in 3rd or 4th grade, and thinking "whoa, that's me!" Baroque it is!

I also grew up around tooled leather, I really relate to the (subtle) frilly on the functional.

(and someday I'll track down that story. Maybe it won't be the same as what I remember from 35 years ago, but that's ok.)

[Bad JuJu]

I remember reading a story called "The Baroque Pearl" when I was in 3rd or 4th grade, and thinking "whoa, that's me!" Baroque it is!

Ooh, ooh, I remember that story! I remember imagining the pearl, too, and what it must look like. Though I wouldn't say I have a baroque soul, I remember thinking that a baroque pearl must be so much more interesting than the plain, uniformly round pearls my mother wore.

Yes, it seems that virtually everything used to be more decorative than it is now. I, too, remember my grandmother's treadle-operated Singer (on which I learned to sew) with it's gold curlicues and pin stripes. Mmmmm. I read somewhere not too long ago that the trend now is toward toylikeness in many products, and I think that may be true--cute phones, colorful computers, even some appliances, like vacuum cleaners, have a toylike appearance. That bugs me to no end. In that sense, I guess I do have a baroque soul in that I long for the more mature decorativeness of the past. *sigh*

[7rider]

Yes, it seems that virtually everything used to be more decorative than it is now. I, too, remember my grandmother's treadle-operated Singer (on which I learned to sew) with it's gold curlicues and pin stripes. Mmmmm. I read somewhere not too long ago that the trend now is toward toylikeness in many products, and I think that may be true--cute phones, colorful computers, even some appliances, like vacuum cleaners, have a toylike appearance. That bugs me to no end. In that sense, I guess I do have a baroque soul in that I long for the more mature decorativeness of the past. *sigh*

That's because of our short attention spans and the need to....

Say, Lisa, do you think that buddy of yours can make a bunny for my handlebars...that way I'll really be chasing rabbits???

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Say, Lisa, do you think that buddy of yours can make a bunny for my handlebars...that way I'll really be chasing rabbits???

Email him! What have you got to lose? Tell him Lisa with the bike from down the street sent you.

JuJu- I think our backgrounds shape the way we see things and what styles appeal to us. When you say "the more mature decorativeness of the past", I think of Victorian ornately patterned stuff influenced by a mix of the Oriental/Persian/Gothic craze from the turn of the century. To me that stuff is claustrophobic and frantic rather than mature, and i kind of like the "toy-like" simplicity of some 1950's and some kitchy modern things. So there you go- everyone likes different styles!