[CR]Lugs: plain or fancy?

(Example: Production Builders:Pogliaghi)

Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:09:50 -0400
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
From: "John Betmanis" <johnb@oxford.net>
Subject: [CR]Lugs: plain or fancy?

After posting here about the Nervex lug catalogue scans, stating that frames built with Nervex lugs appealed to me far more than a list of exotic and expensive French and Italian makes (forgot to mention Cinelli), I was contacted off-list by a noted framebuilder informing me that Masi did in fact use Nervex lugs, either the ref 49 or the ref 32 model. I should have specified the Nervex Professional style, the one most of us think of when "Nervex" is mentioned. He also went on to say that at one time he too was obsessed with fancy lugs, but got over it.

Maybe it IS an illogical obssession. I remember when I first started using Windows 3.1 (almost going back to the on-topic period here), I always had beautiful graphics for my desktop and fancy screen savers because I knew how to do it. Years later, after many computers and hard drive crashes, I just gave up and stayed with whatever the default was. Maybe that's how the pro framebuilders felt after seeing their fill of stock Nervex Pro lugs and not wanting to spend more time than it takes to build a frame hand cutting their own fancy designs.

My love for fancy lugs goes back to when I first started riding as a teenager in the early/mid fifties in the U.K. My first bike was a gaspipe Hercules with plain straight lugs that just had oval cutouts in the spigots. As soon as I had two part-time jobs, I got myself a Claud New Allrounder with real fancy "lugs". Conventional knowledge around the Club was that fancier lugs were superior because they distributed the stress better than straight cut ones. I really don't remember seeing plain lugs on anything but cheap utility bikes. Oh, I think I did see them on some expensive Italian bikes in a shop window, chrome even, but these, like most things foreign, were regarded with suspicion at the time, like Columbus tubing. LOL!

Decades later, when I decided to take up cycling again in Canada in the late seventies, I was surprised to see that most lightweight "racing" bikes had plain lugs. These were mostly Japanese and patterned after the more expensive Italian bikes. What had happened? I felt like Rip Van Winkle. Just think, if I'd slept another 30 years the bikes would all be plastic or TIG welded by robots. Well, I did find bikes with less than the plainest of lugs, but it wasn't easy.

Today I still much prefer fancy lugs. It just tells me even from a distance that the frame is "a cut above", where the builder cared about its appearance rather than seeing how many frames he could crank out in a week. Oh, sure, it would still take a lot of time and patience to build with thinned and tapered plain long point lugs, but you couldn't appreciate the workmanship unless you looked real close or recognized the name. No doubt some of you who got into the sport or hobby in more recent years might view fancy lugs as an anachronism, such as Louis XIV furniture, lace doilies or gingerbread roof gables, but to me they'll always be the mark of a superior bike.

John Betmanis
Woodstock, Ontario
Canada