#clockwork-bikes

Radar

Archive Re-Up: Benedict’s (Ronnie Romance’s) Clockwork Dirt Droooop Tourer

When we lost our 2014-2015 image bucket back in 2018, it was a huge bummer, but over the past few months, I’ve been digging out hard drives and re-editing some photos, in the hopes of filling in the bigger holes.

2014. What a wild time. I was living in Austin, TX and connecting with individuals who would become some of my best friends. From Matt and his prototype Crust Bikes Evasion to Benedict, aka Ronnie Romance, and his Clockwork Dirt Drop Tourer, some of my favorite bike and personality moments came from that era. Today, in conjunction with Bené’s Blue Lug post, I wanted to re-up this classic photoset, so enjoy!

Benedict’s Romantical Clockwork Bikes Dirt Droop 29er

I should also note that my intent here is only to upload lost photos, keeping the text and formatting intact.

Reportage By: john watson

Ronnie’s Clockwork Dirt Drop MTB

Long-time readers will recall this bike from 2015. That photoshoot was a lot of fun and while we lost a bulk of the gallery images when our server failed, a few photos survived, including a drive side shot and the Brüt Rosé spray photo, which still to this day is tooooo hawt.

Reportage By: John Watson

Benedict’s Romantical Clockwork Bikes Dirt Droop 29’r

Yes, that says “dirt droop”, rather than “dirt drop.” You see, there are magical and medicinal qualities to the fabled “LD” stem – pardon the acronym, we don’t need to spell it out for you.

Benedict, aka Poppi, aka @UltraRomance is a wild one. One that cannot be tamed by modern ideologies, or technologies for that matter. His Clockwork Bikes frame is a time capsule of the old days of yore when men would gather or hunt for their food in the woods. Even when something appears to be modern, it’s executed in a way that harkens back to the early days of klunking. Disc brakes? He slices fresh mushrooms on them and truthfully, he only uses them to stop for a tanning session. The throwback version of the narrow wide chaingrings is just a “narrow narrow” ring. An outer “bash guard” ring pressed up against an inner ring with a spare “rabbit” personal massager holding it in place. Even his “marsh mud” tubeless setup is pulled from nature. Literally…