Velo City: Bicycle Culture and City Life

Kurtz Randonneur

Kurtz Randonneur

2013 brought us the hundredth edition of the Tour de France, but it will also bring the sixth London-Edinburgh-London randonnée, which has been held every four years since 1989. It’s a scenic and self-sufficient brevet that carouses north, up the eastern seaboard, over the Humber Bridge for a brief incursion into Scotland, before heading south again to London.

Rainer Heuer, from Berlin’s Panda Cycles blog, kindly wrote in to tell us about this randonneur-style road bike, purpose built for the LEL by Dávid Szabó of Kurtz Cycles in Hungary. It’s a stout frame for a stout rider, built to withstand the rigours of this endurance event which traverses terrain of both sealed and unsealed roads.

Kurtz Randonneur

“We are Panda Cycles from Berlin, a German weblog for cycling and cycling culture. Our friend and photographer Mathias will participate in the London-Edinburgh-London brevet this July. For this 1400km event, which takes place every four years, he built this lovely randonneur. The bike was built around a custom frame welded by Dávid Szabó of Kurtz Cycles.

Kurtz Randonneur

“Dávid lives and works in Budapest, Hungary. He learned his craftsmanship under supervision of Doug Fattic in Niles (Michigan) and later Tiziano Zullo in Castelnuovo (Italy). The tube set is based on Columbus Zona. With its large diameters it is not only able to support a 240+lbs rider, additionally it gives the frame a rather compact look despite the frame size of 62 cm.

Kurtz Randonneur
Kurtz Randonneur

“Dávid proves his eye for detail on this project in particular. Starting with the head tube expanding slightly towards the stem to avoid lots of spacers, over the elegantly integrated lighting solution and the optically unobtrusive rack mount at the back wheel up to the stunning black paint job with green pearl effect with matching fenders.”

Kurtz Randonneur
Kurtz Randonneur

Special thanks to Rainer Heuer for the words and images. See more on the Panda Cycles blog.