30 January 2011

A Circus Monkey In Red

I've cycled long enough to have seen some truly strange components.  Some were mechanically or functionally quirky; others simply left me wondering what their designers and manufacturers were thinking.


And a few simply look strange.  To wit:


Its brand name is apt:  "Circus Monkey."  Actually, I think it looked rather like a Ferris Wheel designed by someone who jumps through hoops of fire.  


Although it definitely wouldn't look right on any of my bikes, and I probably wouldn't buy it even if I could use it (It's made for mountain bikes with disc brakes, and I don't have one), I actually like it.  Or maybe I like--or, at least, admire-- whoever designed it.  I mean, how could you not?  


To grossly paraphrase Shakespeare, a hub by any other name would probably spin as smoothly.  Still, who wouldn't at least stop and look at one called "Circus Monkey"?  Especially when it looks like the hub in the photo.

2 comments:

  1. For whatever reason, I just don't like colourful bottom brackets, hubs, and headsets. Even when you mostly can't see it, like the BB - they get on my nerves.

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  2. I went through a "rainbow" phase with my bike components. I think of it as one of my many youthful follies.

    There's a red-silver-and-blue bottom bracket. It's sold by probably the last retailer you'd expect to offer it: Velo Orange. Ironically, I once had a Zefal pump in that same color scheme. I didn't choose it: At the time, Zefal was making its "Competition" pumps that way. I guess they couldn't anodize the middle part in white (I don't recall seeing white anodizing in those days.) so chrome-silver was as close as they could get to it and a tricolore pump.

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