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Does Your Bike Have a Name?

Feb 4th, 2009 | By | Category: General

Cole - The guy on the top tube of my Colnago C40

Cole - The guy on the top tube of my Colnago C40

I asked this question on Twitter and received a flood of responses, but since some people wanted more room to answer I thought I’d pose the question here and let everyone answer in the comments.

So, here goes . . .

Have you given your bike a name? If so, what’s the name and why did you choose it?

My red Colnago C40 is named Cole. To be more accurate, the little guy painted on the top tube is Cole (I’ll post a photo when I get home – UPDATE: Cole’s photo has now been added to this post).

Okay, now it’s your turn. Can’t wait to hear the names and the stories.

UPDATE: Great minds seem to think alike, because just three days after I posted this, the same question was asked by KarlOnSea on his own blog. Check it out too.

35 comments
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  1. My bike’s name is Lolo and I named it after one of my favorite peaks just outside of Missoula Montana (my home) …o/o

  2. Personally, I don’t name my bikes, but my wife named a few of them for me. My Harley is named Nikki, and my Scott road bike is called Asiana for some reason. You’d have to ask her why.

  3. Three bikes only two named:

    #1, My Maverick Ml-7 mountain bike is called “Big-Blue”, because it is big and it’s blue:

    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1157023&id=675914757

    It’s ‘real’ name is Adish – they don’t get serial numbers just names and birthdays. I kid you not!

    #2, The Giant Bowery singlespeed road bike is just called “Hard Work”. 😉

  4. My two road bikes have names:

    My Pedal Force ZX3 is called “The Rudi Projekt” because it was my project bike: I cobbled together all of the parts, built it up from scratch, and feel like it is an extension of me.

    My Jamis Eclipse is called “Son of Rudi Projekt,” even though it was completed and ride-ready well before the ZX3. This is because, 4 months before the ZX3 frame arrived, my then-regular ride, a 2002 LeMond Tourmalet, broke. So I scrambled to find a replacement frame, quickly stumbling upon this almost-new Jamis frame/fork/BB/crankset setup on eBay (the original owner bought it as end-of-season clearance for the Campag Centaur group and Mavic Ksyrium wheelset). I built it up with parts from the old LeMond, and it now lives with the not-in-laws in northern Connecticut (my “vacation ride” – it’s completed two Great River Rides, so it still gets a decent number of rides every year).

  5. i have mountain bike named bridget. On her maiden voyage we both fell from a slippery bridge about 6 feet into a brook.

  6. I guess I started this with my comment about Rosie, my rose-colored Orbea Diva on Twitter! (Named of course because of her beautiful color, but also short for Rosalita after Bruce Springsteen’s song)! She’s the one in my avatar on twitter (www.twitter.com/vivavelo).

    My first bike that I named was Annie after my grandfather’s horse, Annie Rooney – because she carried me so nicely 2,500 miles around Europe in 1988. A strawberry-roan horse, a strawberry-roan bike! (that was the first pink bike, then Rosie is the 2nd pink bike 20 yrs later – in between none were pink)!

    Another bike, a Cannondale, I named Stello after Monte Stello in Corsica, the first mountain we rode around on the island.

    My last bike I never named – I never really clicked with it (a titanium Serotta), and for some reason, my mountain bikes never got names.

  7. This is a family show, right? OK. Mine all have something to do with HTFU! But that’s all I’m sayin’!

  8. @Rudi, good to hear someone else has a little love for Pedal Force. Your ZX3 looks great. Here’s my project, er, Franken Bike.

  9. my lemond filmore is the “wild stallion”
    my orbea onix is “night hawk dragon”
    my specialized cyclocross is “the penatrator”

  10. my lemond filmore is the “wild stallion”
    this is because i was watching bill and ted and thought it was a sick name

    my orbea onix is “night hawk dragon”
    i just found this name so silly and nerdy it was a must

    my specialized cyclocross is “the penatrator”
    i mean the name speaks for its self

  11. My red bike is named Jessica (after Jessica Rabbit). If I was riding something named after a real lady, I doubt my wife would be thrilled.

  12. 3-bikes, only named the first one: Halle! Because she’s black and she’s beautiful!

  13. http://getinlost.blogspot.com/2008/01/stable.html
    This is most of the answer. With an addition of Domino a ’92 Redline Crosstown frame built-up with a donor Schwinn and parts bin stuff.

  14. http://www.socaltrailriders.org/forum/general-discussion/6370-new-rig-miss-fit.html

    She’s a 29’er, Completely Rigid, and a Single Speed, and has riser bars and Bar ends. Seeing that any one of those alone will have people looking funny at you I’ve named her MissFit.

  15. “Sally” the first girl I fell in love with at 9 years old. My Trek Madone is the first bike I owned that I fell in love with. 1 day my wife heard me talking in my shop and thought I had a women in there. That’s when she meet Sally.

  16. My Koga Miyata is named Barney, because it is an old steel frame, and it is purple.

  17. My Fischer Zebrano is The Dawn Treader, guess when I ride?

  18. I’m surprised by people who DO NOT give bikes a name 🙂

    My fixie: Guido, this is actually the name of the guy who gave it to me (in very different form) many years ago.

    My commuter: Non sequitur, because I deluded myself into thinking it would be the last bike I would buy

    My roadie: Aida. The mechanic who put it together wanted to work listening to Italian opera. I brought the Verdi masterpiece…

  19. Of all my bikes, the only one I’ve named is the one I ride the least… Penny, my penny farthing – http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattbeckwith/2322272239/

    I wonder if I my Trek and Specialized road bikes are jealous… perhaps I should name them now.

  20. […] by forces beyond my comprehension! Once you’ve left a comment here, why not pop over to The Fredcast to see further evidence of this sort of unhingedness (’cos it turns out that we’re not […]

  21. CremePuff = ’08 Raleigh Sojourn Touring bike. That is the first name that came to mind. It is creme color with Brooks aged leather saddle and bar tape.

    Wally – ’07 Walmart road bike – need I say more.

    I can’t seem to come up with names for the other 3 bikes.
    Maybe they lack personality. Any suggestions?

    ’07 Giant OCRC2
    ’06 Trek 6700 MB
    1980 Raleigh road bike

  22. I have a rusty old bike I use at work when I travel to visit patients in their homes. It’s a single speed Triumph ‘Jack of Clubs’ that I rescued from being thrown out on the rubbush tiop by my neighbour. One of my colleagues at work has named the bike ‘Stig’ after ‘Stig of the Dump’, a book about a caveman found living on a rubbish dump. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stig_of_the_Dump

  23. I have a Bridgestone RB-1 frame (a friend gave me) and my local bike shop dressed it up with Shimano 105 parts. He’s equipped with Speedplay Frog pedals and has gotten me many miles under my belt along with my first century last March. “Rafa” the Road bike is named after Rafael Nadal, #1 player on the ATP Tour http://www.atpworldtour.com/3/en/players/playerprofiles/?profileinquirey=pi&playersearch=nadal . Rafa is my faithful steed! The other “rides” are more generic – “H” (Trek Hybrid), “M” (old Trek 830 mountain bike) and 4900 (Trek 4900 mtn bike hardtail).

    With Rafa though, I hope to get many more miles as I can out of the frame – good old steel!

  24. i have three bikes. they all have names

    bike: scott scale 30 MTB 08
    gender: male
    name: carbo – [due to its carbon frame]

    bike: scott CR1 team 08
    gender: female
    name: the girl [shes beautiful]

    bike: tarini – firenza [fixed gear]
    gender: male
    name: tarini [obvious reason]

  25. One of my bikes is named Royal Flush as I purchased it with the significant proceeds I won while playing poker and hitting a royal flush.

  26. My wife names her bikes. Her road bike is “My Little Pony.” Her commuter/mountain bike is the “Red Truck” and her cross bike is the “White Stallion.”

    I tried to name my bikes, but they end up being called “The Kestrel” “The Fixed Gear” and “the Commuter”
    Pretty dull.

  27. My partner started naming my bikes and I like it.
    Rocky, my Rocky Mountain Element
    Hilly, my Aussie Paul Hillbrick custom Audax bike
    and Roubie, my Specialized 08 SWorks Rouboux

    Heh!! it helps me identify my bikes on my Garmin training progam

    keep on riding

  28. Little late on this, I know, but I just heard it. My garage is currently swamped with MTB bikes. Some of these are boring, but will evolve.

    ~1986 Schwinn Mirida, which I just sold was lovingly and disparging known as “THE Schwinn”. As of this time last year it was the only bike I had in the garage. The other bikes are usually referred to by their brand names with less emphasis on “the”. (the Fisher, the Trek, the Haro). The exceptions are “the commuter” which is a Trek 4500 and my wife’s Junker’s Gazelle which is a Dutch bike we brought from Europe… with its new custom paint job it needs a new name (after reassembly). Right now its referred to by its paint color: Orange.

    The most interesting naming “issue” I have is a dog specific bicycle trailer (made by Croozer). It needs a name just so I can command my dog to get in it. It will probably end up being “buda” (spelling is probably wrong), which means “dog house” in Polish (one of the three words I learned growing up from my Grandmother).

  29. I just got a new-to-me beautiful black IronHorse that I named Pegasus for my Alma Mater UCF and the fact that she’s a Horse. I’m going to paint a quarter-size Pegasus emblem on her frame. :). She was almost named Sleepy Hollow for the Headless Horseman’s horse, but with my grace (I crash every ride), I figured that name just might bring bad luck.

    My Giant sky blue road bike is named Breeze, for the way she made me feel during my first triathlon ride with her last summer.

  30. My bike is named as “Buckbeak”

    my bike is an Yamaha R15 it look like an Eagle so named it as “Buckbeak” the name of a hippogriff in 3rd movie of harry potter

  31. I named mine after one of my favorite actors… Bichael Clarke Duncan.

  32. I named my Mountain Bike ‘Shadowfax’, after the great horse that Gandalf rides, in the The Lord Of The Rings.

  33. Trying to find a name for a bike I ordered – a Moots Route 45 – thinking of Fiore – flower or Fiorita flowering – the bike is black and purple – it’s my 60th birthday present to myself! My first serious bike! I love Italy and speak some Italian so thinking of an Italian name maybe …

  34. I have a 2013 Cannondale Slice3 ultegra that I call Carroll because she is strong both in faith and war (In fide et in bello fortis).

  35. I have three bikes. One is brand new so I’m still trying to name her.
    My first is a Giant Defy Advance her name is Jocylen Dubois.
    My second is a Specialized Camber 29 and I named him Dirt Diggler.
    The third one is a Specialized Stumpjumper Comp Alloy 6/fattie. I’m still working on I’ve only put 20 miles in the saddle so far. I just thought of a name Gladys. The first trail I rode her on Cedar Glades.

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