Re: [CR]Re: Bugattis and bicycles

(Example: Framebuilders:Cecil Behringer)

Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 13:18:14 -0800
From: "Chuck Schmidt" <chuckschmidt@earthlink.net>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: Re: [CR]Re: Bugattis and bicycles
References: <147.41f2d707.2f6ded0d@aol.com>


StuartMX4@aol.com wrote:
>
> The Bugatti Trust at Prescott hill climb has a cyclemotor engine in pieces
> and on display and also one of the other Bugatti designed bicycle with small
> front wheel and a very short wheelbase. A member of the Vintage Sports Car Club
> rides a replica of the bicycle. In all three cases, you look at them, admire
> but wonder exactly why he made them. In the case of the cyclemotor engine, I
> suspect it was war time boredom. I think they are all daft and I would love
> to own any of them.
> Styart Tallack
> In West Sussex where a Bugatti was among the cars at the VSCC pub lunch
> meeting on Friday. It is good to look and dream. As well as cars, local members
> own Bates, E.G.Bates, Gillott and Geoffrey Butler.

I read that Ettore Bugatti was a real fan of bicycle racing and the Tour de France in particular and that every July he would take a vacation to follow the Tour in a special purpose-built car he made for himself.

As to his bicycle designs? I believe all engineers dream of coming up with an _original_ bicycle design of their own. Almost a holy grail...

Chuck Schmidt South Pasadena, Southern California

"When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man's convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man's brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle." --Elizabeth West, Hovel in the Hills

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