Finally a minute to spill the beans, which I have been authorized to do at this time. Please pardon the lumpy mess.
As per suggestion and popular request, Chuck has responded favorably to adding a third day to next years' event. The additional day will be Friday (I think that is Oct.4, 2002). So far, what has been slated for a 4 hour session that day, will be an extended and more in depth and detailed demonstration of "classic" or "traditional" framebuilding techniques. These are the main contrubutors to a bike frames' character and style. The demonstration will be an extention of the topic I spoke on at this years symposium which dealt with pointing out a few of these details on several classic frames that were on hand. Chuck tells me that there is already reasonable likelyhood that an ideal workshop/location for this portion of the program is nearby the central Rose Bowl location of the rest of the event. With a proper facility, I can probably touch upon a few styles of dropout styles including brazing some, get through adding onto and shaping custom lugs, hit the basics of doing cutouts, cover a few types of seat stay attachments, braze a lug junction, and do some finish filing on a lug after brazing. I figure an intermission will be needed somewhere in the middle.
The focus of this presentation will be directed at framebuilders mainly with the intention of performing live some operations that many younger or newer builders may never have learned in this era of plug on dropouts, seat stay plugs, investment cast lugs, and so on. The features that are common to most of the vintage frames we all admire but are not part of the mainstream bike industry of today. No doubt these techniques will never come into vogue again; but it wouldn't hurt these young whipper-snappers to see some of it before it's gone forever.
Obviously anyone else attending the Velo Rendezvous will be welcome pending space constraints, etc. and I expect there will be a modest fee involved so we can pay the owner of the facility for the use of same.
I'm not sure what Chuck has in mind for the balance of the day Fri., but it's probably something predictable like a "ride" or something. Gosh, maybe a round of bicycle polo on vintage road bikes would be a nice change of pace. I'm up for chasing a bunch of guys on rare and valuable bikes around with a big mallet all over a grass field loaping after a ball shaped like Tullio Campagnolos' head. Good excuse to put some gnarley dents in other peoples frames. Could be good for business! I'm sure we won't have difficulty finding something to do.
That's it for now.
Brian Baylis La Mesa, CA Where it thought about raining, but it didn't. Might have been an earthquake around midnite though. Something went bump in the night. Check the news.