Dream Bike: LEGEND VENTICINQUESIMO

of the wallet from road cycling top 100

Legend are a brand founded in Italy in 2009 by Marco Bertoletti, a man with 30 years of frame-building experience, who decided to take it all and make a new brand, one that builds stunning bikes from all four major materials.

They’re based in Presezzo, near Bergamo, right in the heartland of Italian cycling, one of the most cycling-mad places in the world. If you put stock in the cycling-rich roots of your bike brands, Legend’s bikes might as well come with a complementary place on the start line at the Giro because it doesn’t get much better.

Legend reckon the Venticinquesimo (which translates as 25th, and that one’s true) is one of the most stunning bikes they’ve ever made, and it’s hard to argue with that. The frameset is a combination of grade 9 titanium lugs and 3K weave carbon tubes, taking a classic frame building technique and mixing it with new materials.

Some of the techniques used to make this frame are genuinely amazing. For example, all the welding is done in an inert gas chamber, and then each weld is individually finished by hand until it’s all but invisible.

And every single frame is handbuilt to order, so the geometry will be tailored exactly to fit you – great for any rider but even better if you have specific fit requirements that make stock frames a difficult proposition.

And the choices don’t stop with geometry. You can even choose what type of bottom bracket you want on the bike. Fancy BB30? No problem. And if you want to stay traditional with a threaded BSA bottom bracket, you can have that too. Same with routing.

Legend will build you one of these to fit mechanical or electronic shifting. Amazingly, Legend also offer a disc brake version of the frame, although you’ll need to contact them for pricing should you want one of them.

One thing Bertoletti pointed out to us when we spoke to him last year was that the Legend isn’t a performance bike. That doesn’t mean the ride quality won’t be lovely, but rather that working with dual materials provides challenges, and a dual material bike like this won’t – in pure performance terms – be quite like one of Legend’s full carbon frames.

Basically, this isn’t a bike for racing, it’s a bike for people who like bikes – setting aside the fact that you’d have to be completely mad (or eye-wateringly rich) to race on a frameset worth north of six grand.

• PRICE: £6,300 (frameset only)
• WEBSITE: Legend Factory

Another big attraction of the Venticinquesimo is exclusivity. This bike is like the limited edition of limited edition bikes, and the factory in Italy only makes enough of these every year to scrape into double figures. So not only do you get a bike that’s made to measure for you, it’s one on which you will almost certainly never have to nod to someone else riding on your Sunday morning ride.

Every Venticinquesimo frameset comes with a unique serial number laser etched into the frame, a small mark that confirms you as a member of a very exclusive club should you choose to buy one.

Long beach loses its cycling icon

Octavio Orduno, known as the oldest cyclist in Long Beach, if not the world, has died. He was 106.

The retired aerospace mechanic from Santa Paula was a local celebrity among cyclists in the south bay. Every day, he would pedal down Ocean Boulevard to the beach, park or farmer’s market — ignoring the roar of lawn mowers and growls of pit bulls, but always smiling as he passed young women in flowery skirts.

Some days he would get stuck on an incline and had to will his legs to pump. Drivers from passing cars used to cheer him on, “You can do it!”

“He was our Superman,” said his daughter, Angelina Orduno. A stubborn one.

The father of six preferred a two-wheeler. But at 100 years old, his wife, Alicia, insisted he get a tricycle.

When the city’s bike coordinator, Charles Gandy, learned about Orduno’s enthusiasm, he promoted the centenarian’s story online. Orduno became the grinning symbol of cycling in the city. Fans would greet him at bike-lane ribbon cuttings and bike festivals.

At public events, he soaked up the attention. He used to greet the men with tight handshakes and approach the ladies with gentle hands and puckered lips.

He had trouble seeing and couldn’t hear well, but each time someone asked him his secret to a long life he gave the same answer: “Keep moving and eat healthy.”

He seemed to live on vegetables, fruits and nuts. He also had an appetite for Mexican telenovelas.

His own life, too, was pretty dramatic.

As a teenager during the Great Depression, he ran away from home, wandering from Oregon to Wisconsin by freight train. Later he became a gardener to the stars: Claudette Colbert, Charlie Ruggles, William S. Hart. During World War II, too old to enlist, he taught women how to build airplane engines. At his 104th birthday party, he jitterbugged to his favorite mariachi music.

“He just loved life,” Angelina said. “And he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.”

Cycling became the highlight of otherwise uneventful days in his later years.
Alicia, his wife of 60 years, got used to him coming home scraped and bruised. Once, he arrived in the back of a police car. Another time, he crashed against a two-wheeler and ended up in the hospital. He had a concussion and could not recognize anyone for days.

Soon, though, he was back on his red Torker tricycle. His usual ride was to Bixby Park, where he watched the skateboarders do ollies and flips.

He quit those journeys two years ago because no matter how hard he tried, he could no longer get his trike up his building’s inclined driveway.

That didn’t stop him from riding, though — in tight circles around his building’s parking garage.

What finally stopped him was the theft of his bike’s front wheel.

“He was upset,” Eddie said. “But I think, by then, he was too old to keep going.”

Orduno spent days by the window, watching the world go by. Gradually he became weaker, and on doctors’ advice, the family put him in a convalescent home.

The old man was not happy. One day, he got up, determined to head out the front door, Eddie said. He fell and broke his hip.

Several days later, on Jan. 16, he died due to complications of the fall. He was two months short of another birthday party.

“If he could, he would have been riding still,” Eddie said. “He would have made it to 107.”

Robbie ‘the legend – the god’ Naish in Cape Town

Robbie Naish – still one of the greatest

Always the best – I remeber watching his windsurf video VHS !!! all those years ago and thinking WOW back then

Then kiting and toe in surfing ….

 

This is the intro to RIP – does anyone know if its on DVD?

Longines legend diver

Collection Heritage Collection

Case: Round, in stainless steel with domed scratch-resistant sapphire crystal, with several layers of anti-reflective coating on the underside, internal turning diving bezel and 2 screw-in crowns ; screw-down case back stamped with a “diver” symbol. Diameter: 42.00 mm. Water-resistant to 30 bar (300 metres).

Movement: L633 self-winding mechanical movement beating at 28,800 vibrations per hour and providing 38 hours of power reserve.

Functions: Hours, minutes, seconds and date at 3 o’clock.

Dial: Black lacquered dial with indexes and luminescent material, silvered hands with luminescent material.

Bracelet: Black synthetic strap with stamped buckle.