They came to the handover of our pin-up together, the frame builder Ulrich Vogel and his customer Klaus Obermeier. They call each other by their first names, although they only came into contact through the frame building order. And that says a lot about the way in which such a unique velophile piece is created. You look at a normal bike, sit on it, go for a test ride and buy it - or not. With a customised bike, many things are different, and the decision-making process is definitely different. "About half of the working time on a frame is spent in dialogue with the customer," states Vogel.
For Klaus Obermeier's Randonneur, the two men first sat down together for a long time and selected the sockets in which the tubes would be soldered together. They quickly agreed on the curves of the tube connectors for the main frame, and also on the fact that they still needed to be machined: "They had bags under their eyes, so to speak," says Ulrich Vogel, and the customised frame shouldn't look that sad. The smooth, angled fork head in Vogel's range, on the other hand, met Obermeier's taste, but the cut-out hearts in it did not. The customer and artisan agreed to remove them during soldering. A customised wheel is also an aesthetic project, even before it is a matter of simple technical values.
The reason for the new construction was Obermeier's desire for a successor to a "RuFa" steel wheel from the 1960s. It provided the desired geometry for Obermeier's very, very long day trips. It was absolutely clear to him that it should be steel again: "Aluminium frames are much too hard for me, I get tired much faster on them," he says, describing his experiences. And the time was ripe for a bike without compromises such as screw clamps. For a customised bike from Vogel, a specialist in hand-turned mounting parts. The fact that the classic touring road bike looks so elegant is also thanks to such customised products.
With a standard frame, superfluous threaded eyelets always remain free, or clamps and cable ties have to replace missing fastenings. With a one-off, on the other hand, it is often clear in advance which parts are to be fitted and how. "I always make the soldered-on parts from stainless steel," explains Ulrich Vogel and then points out details that escape the quick glance: All the mounting parts are positioned precisely so that the mudguards can curve beautifully parallel to the tyre and the luggage rails of the carrier are parallel to the ground. Vogel has partially replaced rattle-prone struts with his own designs, such as the front lamp and mudguard bracket. And Klaus Obermeier, an enthusiastic screwdriver, has even screwed in leather washers in some places to prevent screws coming loose and any rattling when fitting his sometimes very sophisticated add-on parts.
The threads for the bottle cages are also highly perfectionist. Vogel has not only made them from stainless steel, but - like all threads that lead into the inside of the frame - designed them as "blind holes" that are sealed at the back. This means that no moisture can reach the steel tube walls, some of which are only 0.5 millimetres thick, even from the unpainted inside.
It goes without saying that with so much attention to detail, the paintwork is no coincidence (but the colour of the US version of a 1978 Fiat Spider that we spent hours searching for together). And so the velophile owner and his frame builder have simultaneously achieved and missed their goal: the visually simple appearance should not cause a stir. However, thanks to the perfectionist realisation of precisely this simplicity, the bike has developed a powerful charisma. Even complete cycling laymen stopped in front of his Randonneur, reports Obermeier. And smiles proudly.
The entire test report was published in Trekkingbike issue 3/2015. You can read the complete issue in the Trekkingbike app (iTunes and Google Play) or order the issue in the DK shop.
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