A Legend Embarks on the Route of a Tour de France Stage

We all have dreams. Vladimír Vidim, from Prague, is no exception, but he goes further and makes those dreams come true. A passionate cyclist and a bicycle maker, he decided to resurrect the legendary SLAVIA, the bicycle first made by Laurin & Klement – the predecessor of the ŠKODA brand.

4. 7. 2019 Lifestyle SPORTS

A LEGEND IS BORN

The SLAVIA is a legend. At the end of the 19th century, a bicycle was a rare and expensive means of transportation. Around this time, Václav Klement purchased a Germania bicycle made by Dresden-based Seidel & Naumann. When it broke, he sent a letter of complaint to the company’s branch in Ústí nad Labem. Unhappy with the manufacturer’s reply, Klement decided to set up in business with his friend, Laurin, and they gave their company the patriotic name of SLAVIA. They started making bicycles with the same name in a workshop on the outskirts of Mladá Boleslav.

He cannot imagine his life without bicycles. Back in the days of socialism, there were no good bicycles in Czechoslovakia, so Vladimír learnt how to build them himself. A racer himself at the time, nowadays he trains the youth team at the Dukla cycling club in Prague. His company also fixes the club’s bicycles.

Vladimír has built all manner of contraptions over his life. “As a trained locksmith I always tried to harness the skills craftsmen had in the past,” says Vidim, who has created replicas of all sorts of historical bicycles, including a draisine, boneshaker and a penny-farthing. Aside from building bicycles, he also rides them and has broken dozens of records. On his penny-farthing, for example, he managed to ride 470 kilometres without his feet touching the ground once. He didn’t get off the bike for 23 hours. To make this record, Vladimír had to ask a group of his friends to ride ahead and check that there was no train approaching and that all the crossing gates were open. He thought up his SLAVIA project, culminating in his participation in L’Étape, as another major challenge.

NO RACING-BIKE BLUEPRINT

Vladimír’s bicycle is nearing completion, but he admits it hasn’t been easy. Some original Laurin & Klement SLAVIAs designed for everyday use have survived and can be found at the ŠKODA Museum and in private collections, but there was no trace of any racing models. “As things turned out, no one was aware of any surviving racing version of the SLAVIA. That approach led down a blind alley,” explains Vladimír.

There was nothing left for it but to start building his bike according to old photographs, period brochures and other documentation from the ŠKODA archives. He used rulers and protractors to deduce the original lengths and angles.

Things got harder when it came to working out the details because the pictures didn’t really show whether the tubes were straight or bent. Any experts diverged in their opinions. In the end, Vladimír used 32-millimetre-diameter chromium-molybdenum weldless tubing. He had to build the bike all the way from scratch, including all the components and the connecting pieces for the tubing. He used thicker tubes to build the back of the bike, which lacks a centre bridge piece – the part of the frame previously used to attach the mudguards.

The preparations and building took three months. The search for documentation and deciding on the right way to build the bicycle took three weeks. The biggest problem cropped up right at the beginning: shortly after Vladimír decided to launch his project, he fell off his bike and broke his wrist. “I could only use one hand for six weeks. Luckily, I can control both the lathe and the milling machine with just one hand,” he says. He used all of this time that had kept him from training as an opportunity to prepare the documentation.