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Van Hulsteijn: Real Bike Porn Has Curves

By Ray Hu - May 9, 2011

in Cars

Not to go on about this, but I absolutely have to share these amazing bikes from Holland's Van Hulsteijn.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure about the history of this frame style; it's like a more, um, pornographic version of a Y-Foil. (Similarly, I'd been meaning to write-up Ian Sutton's seat tube-less "Leviathan" frame for a while now.)

I'm particularly curious about the standover height of the convex top tube—i.e., shouldn't the seatposts be higher to compensate? (This also means it won't work with the TiGr lock...)

Van Hulsteijn's Bob Waardenburg tells the legend (paraphrased by yours truly):Locally, Herman van Hulsteijn is already known for his cyclone bikes. Herman sometimes even has a difficult time sitting in a bar because everyone wants to know about the bike. Of course, the upshot of all this attention is that Herman has met a lot of people who knew a lot of things he didn't know. He's been asking these people if they wanted to do some stuff for him—first for free, with the promise that he would pay for them one day...

This way, Herman surrounded himself with a lot of highly motivated knowledge and craftsmanship... resulting in a business evolving around a creative mastermind who has surrounded himself with cunning hard working people. You can imagine that we all worked as hard as possible to make Vanhulsteijn a successful company with high quality bicycles, otherwise we would have never would have been able to repay all our collaborators.

The photos are beautiful, yet they somehow suggest that a .jpg doesn't do it justice. Any chance a Core reader has had the pleasure of riding—or even seeing—one of these?

It goes without saying that the components—vintage or otherwise—are also top-of-the-line.

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Graham Pring

12 years ago

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I saw a polished one in Geneva and had to have one.
I ordered a 10 speed SRAM version as I do 15 - 18,000 km a year using it as a fast road bike and for lots of hills.
Fixed a few minor problems like the chain coming off over bumps and the whistle from the front fork drain hole positioning and then converted it to a 20 speed with two front crank sprockets and front derailleur.
I love it and it is always being used instead of my much lighter carbon road bike.
Love the design and get so many positive comments.
No negative comments to date.
Very stable handling and have hit 86.4 kph downhill.
It gets a very hard workout and has coped extremely well.
Some people have told me they wouldn't ride it, just stick it on the wall as a piece of art.
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Mitch

12 years ago

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Never panic. Never stop.
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M4RK

12 years ago

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Dan, did you see how high that seat is? I don't think anyone within the 95th percentile could drop a leg form that height. the fact that the seat can't go any lower is the real concern.

Also, as Mike mentioned, there's just so much stress on these joins without motivation.
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Dan

13 years ago

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amazing. beautiful photos too.

it seems some of you haven't yet learned to drop down a leg on panic stops. In any case, that bike would be worth a swift hit in the dearlies.
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Joshua A.C. Newman

14 years ago

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Elegant!

I suppose the standover height is an issue for anyone unused to older, taller frames. But the Softride-like shape is great for shock absorption and it's overall very elegant. I love the 3s option.
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Mike

14 years ago

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I have to agree with Jim, looks like a painful bump. The tension of the pinched area on the downtube and the unnecessary added weakness where the top tube and head tube join kill it for me. I like the thinking behind a minimal bike though.
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JimC

14 years ago

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That's one very poorly thought out bike, no standover clearance means pretty serious pain for any male riders doing an emergency stop...

Ugly, too - and the rear mech cable needs sorting out.
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