My suspicion is that the arangement you discuss with the stays connecting at both the seatube and top tube is somethat fashion related. By lowering the seatstay connection you are reducing triangulation to some extent, although I suppose there are some other advantages as well.
I look at these questions this way - Rene Hese made the top quality Camping bikes and he was free to use whatever connection he desired - in fact, there is one Herse frame I'm aware of that used such a design, but that was a tourer, not a full blown Camper. All his Camping bikes, as I'm aware, used a conventional seatstay to the lug attachment and worked great.
And - if the bike is well designed, a lot of that 50lbs should be up front anyway on the low riders where it belongs. And the rear should be using low riders too.
Mike Kone in Boulder CO
> I've seen photos of some camping bikes with conventional rear seat stay
\r?\n> arrangements (single braze point centered on the seat lug) and some where the
\r?\n> stays are brazed to both the seat tube and top tube, a few inches from the seat
\r?\n> lug. I assume this is to increase lateral stiffness for loaded conditions.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> How necessary is this for a dedicated camper with, say 170# rider and 50# of
\r?\n> gear? I tend to think "not very" but....
\r?\n>
\r?\n> My only frame of reference is my tank like, fillet brazed, OS tubed old school
\r?\n> Dakar with conventional stay attachment that I have done a little touring on.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> I'm ready to braze up the rear triangle of a 650b camper I'm making and I'd
\r?\n> like to get a better virtual feel for this before doing so. It has conventional
\r?\n> diameter main tubes, walls at 10/7/10 (SP), pretty stiff in torsion/lateral.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> A middle of the road option is to drop the seat lug end of the stays just a
\r?\n> little so that the ends engage the lug spigots and the braze joint is a bit
\r?\n> longer than if attached adjacent to the lug/seat tube pin. That would stiffen
\r?\n> the joint a little and would be less trouble than the full "GT" style attachment
\r?\n> (I know they weren't the first).
\r?\n>
\r?\n> For reference, photos here:
\r?\n>
\r?\n> http://new.photos.yahoo.com/
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Thanks for any feedback,
\r?\n> John Clay
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> ---------------------------------
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