That bike that made you go "WHOA!"

[jemdet]

I had a Royce Union road bike that made me go “whoa” at least once every ride. I locked it to a traffic sign and waited for it to get stolen.

[buddybikes]

My Firefly (ancient rim brakes and takes only 28 tires)

[Waldo62]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

Pinarello Dogma Magnesium. Landmark bike that lives in a "What if" universe where alloy continued to be the dominant frame material. Stunning frame.

What happened to it?

[Waldo62]

Switching to a Kinesis carbon fork from an alloy fork on my 1992 Merlin Road -- holy crap!

Brian Baylis -- a bike that springs forward.

Picchio Special -- a fantastic all-around bike. Ditto for Della Santa; 1975 Masi GC; early 1980s Richard Sachs.

1978 Ron Cooper -- a bike that encourages me to train because the better my legs, the better it rides.

A no-name Pegoretti with an aero down tube and a steel fork that descended like nothing I'd ridden before.

Spectrum Ti -- a bike that flies.

Rob English -- a bike that makes me brake on uphill turns and is the go-to double century bike.

[Toddykins]

My Vamoots CR was the first I suppose, but the last was an ebike - branding I can’t remember. There, I said it. I challenge anyone to have a bigger ‘whoa’ moment than the first few strokes with pedal assist.

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by Waldo62

What happened to it?

It's living it's life in Washington state I believe, riding around Puget Sound.

[weisan]

The first and biggest "whoa!" happened when I upgraded from my first road bike, a 30 Ib Fuji to my first "real" road racing bike, an Italian lugged steel Olmo when I was 16.

Subsequent "whoa!"s were much smaller but a few notables ones are:

The first road bike I got in the US - a sub-16 Ib KHS forgot the model but it's their top of the line rocketship. It got stolen outside my garage in less than a week. I then used the insurance claim money to buy my first Serotta, a legend Ti, which started a drawn out affair with a long line of Serottas that come after it, all very fine machines in their own right.

Another whoa! moment came in the form of a Pegoretti Lugino that I borrowed from dbrk and rode at fingerlake. The most exhilarating "steel is real" experience I had after several years of messing around with carbon, Ti and other mixed materials, made me realized once again "it's the design, not the material, stupid!".

Soon after my faith in steel was revived, I went on and acquired a couple of steel bikes that were simply outstanding....ritchey road logic and more recently, Rivendell Road Standard.

But finally, I settled on a Ti bike - a 17-yr-old Merlin Agilis, as my primary ride based on the collective experience of "whoa!" I have accumulated - not the sexiest, or the most fancy bike I ever had but it became an extension of me.

[PacNW2Ford]

Early 90's Schwinn Paramount OS, white with silver "Team" decals hanging in a Schwinn shop in Santa Ana, CA. As a kid, the 60-70's Paramounts were always the "back of the catalog" cool bikes. I found a leftover white '91 OS with black decals a year later. After a shipping incident, had it repainted by Waterford with the silver decals and rebuilt it with Dura-Ace 7400. Still have it and it got eBaumann's Dura-Ace/Mavic GL330's a while back.

[lavi]

First time I ever felt it was in college. I paid $100 or so to some other starving student for his Trek something (1991 or so). I have no idea how good or bad it was as I had only been bmx and mtb up to that point. I couldn't believe how fast the bike felt. I could keep up with cars going 25. I was gobsmacked.

I just felt that same feeling again two months ago (and many many bikes later) when I got on a Pina Dogma. Wowza! No placebo effect. No new bike legs. The damn thing just goes.

[Kirk007]

Good topic! Lot's of bikes have made me go "whoa." Maybe I'm an excitable boy or l very discerning ; ). The first - a Serotta legend to bought off the Velonews classifieds. It opened up this whole high end bike world to me.

Next, a custom Glen Erickson tandem that carved up the downhill run from the village of Castegnetto Carducci to the Z'Martino in Tuscany as if it was a world cup GS course.

Lot's of great bikes since that for various reasons have come and gone. My Peg Marcelo took steel, for me, to another level.

Right now, all my bikes can make my heart sing on any given day (hard to go wrong with bikes from Hampco towers, Tom Kellogg, Max Kullaway, Richard Sachs, Dave Kirk etc), but the bike that is really opening my eyes right now is my lugged steel road Spectrum that I ordered when Tom announced he was retiring. I have no idea why it is, but it's something else. I just go quantifiably faster on it. It makes me want to drop 20 pounds, shave my legs and move the Alps.

Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk

[Matthew]

Coors Light Serotta

[charliedid]

Stingray

[duff_duffy]

Mine was a blue Cannondale...went from BMX bike to my friend selling me his dads road bike. Used to draft behind trucks for fun hitting 40+ with ease while wearing running shoes and no helmet in my late teens smiling the whole time. Name of model eluding me, just remember it was blue and white and fast. How I did not get killed. I can’t match the speed I used to but still dart behind a truck now and then

[NHAero]

Hey, mine too!

Originally Posted by steveandbarb1

My Firefly (ancient rim brakes and takes only 28 tires)

[weisan]

Originally Posted by duff_duffy

Name of model eluding me, just remember it was blue and white and fast.

I had a black one. It was fast...and stiff.