Mr. Lockley, Thanks a whole lot for remembering. About the emergence of SL: do you once braze SL stays onto 531 triangles? Is compliance different than comfort- able to rebound quicker at high speed vs pencil stays being softer most of the time? Or I wonder if the riders comments were not more along the lines of the natural exuberance that comes from anything seemingly new and exotic (especially something from Italy); as I'm sure many of those riders had ridden plain gauge English stays as well; although as many on this list have said before it certainly would be interesting to have some engineers and riders get together to test some of these notions. Alas now it seems that steel is fighting it out with Carbon:
In the late 70s/early 80s when Colnago, Pinarello , Ciocc etc frames were becoming popular in the UK, UK builders had to try to emulate them. I produced a lot of road racing frames at that time and was often told by top amateurs that the success of the Italian frames lay in the handling, cornering abilities. These riders swore by the Columbus SL seat stays which came as biconical plain gauge items. These, it was claimed, gave a far better "compliance" whereas the single taper Reynolds tended to "skip".
Here are a few links to some of Jan Heine's wonderful bikes:
A 62' Singer 700c:
http://www.mindspring.com/
Its looks to me like the Herse might indeed have pencil stays- though I can't quite tell, while the Singer I think conversely posses's thicker stays and a pencil fork. Thanks,
Jeremy Lieberman
New York City