Re: [CR]eBay outig, 62cm Ritchey with faux lugs?!?

(Example: History)

Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 20:29:11 -0400
From: "HM & SS Sachs" <sachs@erols.com>
To: Grant.McLean@SportingLife.ca, classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: Re: [CR]eBay outig, 62cm Ritchey with faux lugs?!?


Grant McLean wrote:

Those "things" on the Ritchey are structural reinforcements. Tom didn't put them there to look like lugs, he took a thin piece of tube, brazed to the tube to add to the wall thickness. Full stop.

The reason they look like lugs is that Tom Ritchey shaped them, and so they kinda look like "lugs". They ain't lugs, and they ain't there for lookin' pretty, they are there to make the ends of the tubes stronger. They are there to add to the wall thickness. As soon as Tom started having his own tubing made to his specs, with thick walls and short butts, these "GUSSETS"!!! were no longer needed, and they don't appear on his frames anymore.

<bit'o snip>

I don't know Tom Ritchey, so I don't know what motivated him, but there certainly is a long history of adding a short stretch of tubing inside the main tube as a reinforcement. It is reputed that the first generations of Cannondales had this internal doubling at the BB, at least for the seat tube. As with the Ritchey, I guess that this gave way to the less labor-intensive butted tubing when production volume warranted the investment. Why, bottom-feeder that I am, for about 20 years I have used a headset bearing race remover made from a purple Columbia bike water pipe, internally doubled at the hitting end, and hacksaw split at the working end. It's about to give out at the working end, probably have to amputate 2" and cut new slots. One of these years.

Harvey "we make our own skip-tooth chain whips" sachs mcLean va.