Re: [CR]Care and Feeding of All-Chrome Frames

(Example: Framebuilders:Bernard Carré)

From: <Gjvinbikes@aol.com>
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 22:46:01 EST
Subject: Re: [CR]Care and Feeding of All-Chrome Frames
To: Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org


In a message dated 2/8/01 8:46:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, steve@fridayscomputer.com writes:


> I've never owned an all-chromed bicycles and not much of what I own is
> chromed at all. Does one have to be careful about riding them in the rain,
> or perhaps at least more careful drying them off afterwards? Will a chrome
>

My younger son, Gaelen, is just 11 now. He has been riding a tiny fully-chromed British bike called "Ammaco Triathlon 24", which came originally with a very odd 24" wheel size that we were unable to find decent tires for - a size that Terry had used for a while on lady's bikes I believe. We solved that by having him build his first set of 650C wheels on Velocity Deep-V rims.

Anyway, the frame has been ridden fairly extensively in inclement conditions, and the only hints of it noticing are around the lugs, primarily in the BB area. Otherwise, it has held up to the abuse of being hauled around on a back-of-car rack with the same indifference as my Performance Picaro Ti-mobile. Even a slipping Joytech rear skewer has not managed to mar the deep shiny chrome finish on the stamped drop-outs.

This frame was apparantly made, or finished, in England out of some kind of butted chromoly. Perhaps the chrome-plating process used in its construction was unusually well done ?

He's just decided he has out-grown it and is trying to decide between a small Specialized Allez, a small Trek 470 or a small Nishiki Olympic (all lugged steel, at least). He calls the Specialized Allez 'Black Alice", since its black and he like it when adults try to correct his pronounciation of "Allez".

I hope he settles on that one, for a while at least, since I recently got a used pair of "retro-boutique" wheels for it - a pair of Specialized TriSpokes that match it perfectly, even down to the yellow lettering...they make nice sounds at high speed and have a freewheel, so I guess its OK to mention them here ? You could even put a freewheel on the front one if you wanted to !

Glenn Jordan - Durham, NC