Re: [CR] KOF F/S 55cm Della Santa newvex lugs

(Example: Framebuilders:Rene Herse)

Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 17:48:43 -0400
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
From: "John Betmanis" <johnb@oxford.net>
In-Reply-To: <BAY118-DS5BD67B8CFAADA32F0F26BC4F30@phx.gbl>
Subject: Re: [CR] KOF F/S 55cm Della Santa newvex lugs


At 02:12 PM 30/08/2009 -0700, Walter Nash wrote:
>I have chronic low back issues. I run a lot of spacer on my C-50 Colnago to avoid hurting, having my left leg go numb, and to keep me riding.
>
>When I had Roland DS build a steel bike for me a couple of years ago, he cloned the C-50 geometry at my request and put the extension on the head tube to minimize the spacer stack. I like it. I feel good on it. I do not hurt and my leg does not go numb. Thus, I ride more because of it.
>
>If someone does not like the look of it on their bikes, they are free not use it. If a person does not like it on someone else's bike, they probably ought to just keep it to themselves....

Walter, I don't believe anyone here, least of all me, was faulting the construction and quality of the subject bike. If a frame with an extended head tube lug is what works for you, that's great. It probably looks better than if a framebuilder had tried to kludge an extension using traditional lugs. However, after seeing traditional lugs for more than half a century, to me the extended Newvex top head lug looks just plain weird, even ugly. I've learned now that this style has been developed to accomodate the new, modern, threadless fork construction. I just wish that the maker of those lugs could have also made traditional style lugsets (Classex?) that would be more pleasing to the eyes of us older folks, but perhaps there isn't a big enough market for that.

John Betmanis
Woodstock, Ontario
Canada