Ken Denny wrote:
>
> The BL article implys, and many believe, that Cino developed the allopy
> handlebar.
>
> The development of Cinelli alloy bars, to the best of my knowledge came
> much later in his career, as late as the early 60's, and went into
> production in the mid 60's. However, I think we should try to determine
> here, with the help of some of the historians on this list, as to when the
> earliest lightweight, dropped style, racing handlebars first appeared. I
> know for a fact that Caminade developed them as early as 1935/6, and that
> the British publication "Cycling" hailed that development in as August 1936
> article hailing that makers achievements. the 1940 Hudson Superlight
> Accessories catalog lists Hudson Dural Bars and stems (thanks C.S.).
>
Reynolds (the same company that made 531 tubing) offered aluminium alloy
handlebars from 1935 (and anodised with various colours including black). An
early 1960s Cinelli catalogue I have only features steel bars.
Ken continues:
Another Cinelli myth, that has long been trademarked as a Cinelli "first"
is
> the fastback seat stay. Interesting that there is a Condor on EBay that has
> a very nice fastback seat stay detail. That particular design can be
> attributed to British builder William B. Hurlow, who developed that idea at
> Condor Cycles in the late 30's, later utilizing it in his own designs as
> well as for work he jobbed for the Holdsworthy concern. Weather or not
> Hurlow's work in this area can be attributed to other influences I do not
> know for sure, but in speaking with him on several ocassions, his feeling in
> the design o fthat particular stay detail was that it was a "natural
> location for the stays to terminate, directly on the centerline of the top
> tube, and the graphic detail of integrating the binder bolt into this detail
> was a 'natural' outcome."
>
>
Condor Cycles did not exist in the 1930s. Bill Hurlow worked at Grubb in the
late 1940s and I don't think went to work for Condors until the early to
middle 1950s. Whilst at Grubb I don't think he used a fastback seatstay
design and I don't think he introduced the fastback design at Condors until
the early to mid 1960s. I have an undated Condor catalogue which I would
place at about 1960 the fastback design is not featured though the various
Bill Hurlow lug designs are. He also built the top end frames for Mal Rees
whilst building Condors. Again the one Mal Rees catalogue I have from about
1962 does not feature fastback stays. However I have a Mercian catalogue
which appears to be dated as 1959. There they introduce a new model, the
Superlight which does feature fastback seatstays and which theu claim to be
new. The fastback seatstay design I think probably can be credited to
Cinelli though what do we quite mean by fastback design? Cinellis fastened
his to the seat tube bolt behind the lug most others fastened their's
directly to the rear of the seat tube.
Regards
Hilary Stone