Richard,
I understand your thoughts wholeheartedly and they make complete sense. I actually never thought of seeing it from that perspective.
But doesn't the 'investment cast' era bring in an additional level of production enhancement and quality control that outweighs the 'soul' lost in a completely handbuilt frame? Or what is to stop a framemaker from casting his own lugs so the 'soul' isn't lost (other than cost)?
doland "I will own a Sachs one day"
Richard M Sachs To: Doland.Cheung@sce.com <richardsachs cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org @juno.com> Subject: Re: [CR]Pinnicle of the vintage lightweight era?
03/23/2001 10:49 AM
On Fri, 23 Mar 2001 09:32:39 -0800 Doland.Cheung@sce.com writes:
What does everybody think the pinnicle of the vintage lightweight
era might be?
>>>during the mid 70s, as the 'investment cast' era was being
ushered in, bicycles would begin to lose their soul. under
the guise of new/improved/better/etc., the frame makers
sold the bill that cast pieces advanced the quality of the frame.
in truth, particularly in that era, all that cast lugs, one-piece
brake briges, plug-in dropouts, and other similar parts did
was reduce the handwork involved to produce a finely made
frame. prior to that, it was a thousand little subconscious
decisions
that occured by each framebuilder every single time an operation
or a sequence was carried out. intuition. experience. training. it
matters not what you call it. it was needed to build frames then.
when the little parts started coming from foundries and casting
houses, most of the decisions regarding interfernce fits,
clearances,
aesthetics, etc., were taken out of the hands of the framebuilders
and susequently were made by mold-makers. in time, all one would
need to build a frame would be tubing and torches. the phenomenom
of learning 'how to make frames' versus 'assembling frames' would
spell the end of the classic bike as we CR listmembers define it.
it might be easier to state that many feel that pre-fab, cast
pieces
are 'imitaion art'. i believe this is so. anything that can be
bought
by anyone or used by anyone cannot be defined as 'classic'.
please don't read too much in to this; i'm not comparing eras
nor saying 'us versus them'. i'm just answering doland's question.
e-RICHIE