Whatever the doubtful source of this old cherry ;
> There's an old saying: "Give a piece of metal to an Englishman and he'll make
> something (possibly cobby and) functional. Give a piece of metal to a German,
> and he'll make something efficient. Give a piece of metal to an Italian and
> he'll make something beautiful". As sayings go, it's not all encompassing,
> but there you have it.
It bears little resemblance to fact.
For example, British engineering had a reputation formed at home and abroad and taught the world over. To say we are or were good at making things "cobbly" is an insult to those many successful engineers from Britain. Bearing in mind that the VW Beetle only became a reality through the post WWII efforts of British Engineers who not only helped rebuild the VW plant in Germany, set up the production systems, but to build the machines and tools for there construction.
No doubt you've tons of examples of cobbly British workmanship (perhaps the products of Joseph Lucas didn't help when used on British car export models), however we could all (no matter what nationality) do likewise for our own or other countries products, but they are only preconceptions with little basis in fact when viewed as an indicator of a country as whole.
Everyone's entitled to an opinion about this or that countries bicycles and cycle related products but I'd have to say that it's well off the mark making assumptions or statements about the trade as a whole based entirely on preconceived ideas.
I've a long story about why at one time Flying Scot's could make up more
than 75% of the bikes at a typical Scottish national race event, when they
were only a small Glasgow based builder but perhaps that's too patriotic for
the lists tastes. !
--
Bob Reid
Stonehaven
Scotland
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The Flying Scot Website - http://www.flying-scot.co.uk/