WHY A WATERFORD BIKE IS A JOKE

Andre Jute wrote:
On Apr 27, 2:44�am, jim beam wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:
On Apr 26, 9:21 pm, Jay Beattie wrote:
On Apr 25, 3:05 pm, Andre Jute wrote:
On Apr 25, 5:35 pm, Jay Beattie wrote:
On Apr 24, 9:35 pm, Andre Jute wrote:
On Apr 25, 4:42 am, RonSonic wrote:
On Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:23:52 -0700 (PDT), Andre Jute wrote:
On Apr 25, 4:05 am, jim beam wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:
I have two aliminium bikes which are both eminently satisfactory
except for one detail: the welding on one is ugly
that's an ignorant jobstian bull**** excuse. if the mechanicals are
good and the microstructure good, that's all that matters to your
ability to ride the damned thing.
How it it "ignorant" to demand aesthetic satisfaction from the
artifacts one owns. Stop blustering, Jimbo; it makes you sound like a
troll. A Ford gets you there. A Bentley gets you there with a smile on
your face.
Andre Jute
"The brain of an engineer is a delicate instrument instrument which
must be protected against the unevenness of the ground." -- Wifredo-
Pelayo Ricart Medina
yeah, and the brains of non-engineers need boiling in brine and vinegar
sometimes.
Especially the zero-aesthetic barbarians.
Andre Jute
The Real Thing -- slogan I coined for wool, later used for a fizzy
drink
Original text, in case you want to know, dealt with value for money
and pedigree in steel bikes:
Criticising Waterford as lacking "pedigree" is probably not a real strong
argument.
Nobody accused Waterford of having zero pedigree, Ronni. The problem
is that Waterford just doesn't have the pedigree of say Bob Jackson or
Mercian, but Waterford charges three to five times as much as they do
-- not three to five per cent more, three to five whole multiples.
Holy Moses, i've heard of the last of the big spenders, but Waterford
is the last of the big chargers.
And it isn't just a difference in depth of pedigree that makes
Waterford look so greedy. At Bob Jackson (and possibly at Mercian too,
I can't remember now and there are plenty on RBT to look it up) you
get a bike without local frame-stresses because it is brazed in an
open hearth for even heating, so there are technical superiorities
too. And the historic connections, for instance Bob Jackson is the
only place where you can get authorized Hetchins wavy chainstays.
I have no connection with Bob Jackson or Mercian, who are both long-
established traditional British bike makers; I normally order my bikes
in the Benelux or Germany.
There are some good bargains to be had with the Mercians even with
shipping, and depending on the exchange rate. As for hearth brazing
and the heat affected zone, modern air hardened steels do not behave
in the same way as 531 or SL/SP. Mercian uses air hardened steels,
starting with Reynolds 631 in its lower priced frames, which
purportedly gains strength in the heat affected zone. The Waterfords
are a whole other animal judging by the website, and some of the
additional cost can be justified by the proprietary tube sets, etc.
Some is obviously hype.
I'm not unwilling to pay something for pedigree, given that it is not
overpriced like Waterford's, and given that it is real, not just some
wiseguys in a building once used by a famous name, or who bought the
right to use the name.
But the surprising thing about the best pedigreed products is that
their makers usually charge very little or nothing for the name
itself, merely insisting on not cutting quality of components and
workmanship in order to appear competitive on price. So you get what
you pay for.
Waterford clearly charges a premium for the name. I think it far too
high. YMMV.
BTW, I think the mystery attached to custom steel frames in the UK is
much less than in the USA. The UK has a history of street corner bike
shops with resident builders and a more utilitarian approach to frame
building. It is sort of like the Amish not getting all that excited
about Amish chairs, whereas the same chair mightbe revered as art in
some Manhattan gallery. Over here, custom steel is art, and the
builders are revered as rock stars, barely a rung below really good
baristas. So there Amercans do pay a premium for mystique.
Heh-heh! That's probably the reason the resident mouthbreathers
that's why you're a fred andre - if you're a nose breather, you're not
pushing hard enough.

Or perhaps just a lot fitter than you, Jumbo. Perhaps less time on the
keyboard and more on the bike might help you close your mouth before
the flies get in.

maybe if you didn't spout ****, you wouldn't /have/ to keep your mouth
close andre.



reacted so much over the top to my standard comparison between
manufacturers, which Waterford lost by so far as not to be in the
game. But I wish Waterford luck in the collecting their premium; if I
were Waterford, I'd charge the roadies on RBT a double premium for
being so awkward and anti-social.
You should see what we pay in the US for the old, fruitwood, crap
furniture from the 30s that the British have cleared out of their
basements and that are sold here as "antiques." On the other hand,
the Japanese were paying $70 for used Jeans from the US, so I guess it
goes both ways. -- Jay Beattie.
I can understand all this. Americans, by and large, don't have history
(and very few of them are thoroughly rooted in the land),
and that's why americans do stuff. �all you ****ing stay-at-homes are
hidebound by your traditions and old habits.

Yes, Jumbo, we're trying to find out what "stuff" you've done to
justify your wretched presumption of a divine right to tell us what we
can say and what sort of bikes we should ride.

all you ****ing stay-at-homes are
hidebound by your traditions and old habits.

Nah, Jumbo, I'm not the one who can't imagine where one would get a
chainstay if Truetone or whatever they're called doesn't make a
chainstay in the right length. You're the one who's hidebound by
tradition and old habits, a victim of racing fashions. I don't ride
bikes that look like every other bike; you do. And you can hardly call
me a "stay-at-home" -- I've for instance toured your entire country on
the Greyhound for six months; have you, or did you just assume once
again that you know more than people who make the effort? I won't even
bother to ask if you've ever been to any of my countries, because we
know you haven't.

You're a blustering clown, Jumbo.

oh, the irony. if only you knew how that contradicted your previous
paragraph!



Less bluster and more clowning would
be more amusing and equally informative, because currently you aren't
telling us anything we don't already know.

when are you going to write anything that's not self-serving
narcissistic bull****?



Andre Jute
Visit Andre's books at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/THE%20WRITER'S%20HOUSE.html

masturbation.




and those
who do somehow feel that their history isn't as valuable as anyone
else's. It's silly. But the Daughters of the American Revolution make
up for Americans' cultural cringe in spades!
Andre Jute
Kulturny

"jim beam" wrote:
RonSonic wrote:
[...]
along with the seat stays. But I'm sure it serves to keep his
ass in front of the rear wheel and maybe keep the front tire touching
the ground
on uphills.

in theory, but afaik, you can't /get/ a 21" chainstay in steel.

A lot of 'bents have chainstays over twice that length. As a matter of
fact, most tubes on 'bents are NOT off the shelf cycling items, but come
from such places as aircrafts suppliers who sell seamless 4130 Cro-Mo in
all sorts of diameters and lengths.

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
LOCAL CACTUS EATS CYCLIST - datakoll

Tom Sherman wrote:
"jim beam" wrote:
RonSonic wrote:
[...]
along with the seat stays. But I'm sure it serves to keep his
ass in front of the rear wheel and maybe keep the front tire touching
the ground
on uphills.

in theory, but afaik, you can't /get/ a 21" chainstay in steel.

A lot of 'bents have chainstays over twice that length. As a matter of
fact, most tubes on 'bents are NOT off the shelf cycling items, but come
from such places as aircrafts suppliers who sell seamless 4130 Cro-Mo in
all sorts of diameters and lengths.


but parallel wall, straight gauge tube isn't best in this application -
that's why bike tube manufacturers go to the trouble and expense of
tapering and butting!

any fool can use pain tube. and it seems they do.

Andre Jute wrote:
On Apr 27, 2:36�am, jim beam wrote:
RonSonic wrote:
On Sun, 26 Apr 2009 10:49:42 -0700, jim beam
wrote:
Chalo wrote:
Michael Press wrote:
?Tim McNamara wrote:
?Michael Press wrote:
It is not a custom frame unless you consult in person with a master
frame maker. He talks with you, watches you ride, then builds the
exact frame that you need. Mailing in dimensions is just that.
How about if you consult with a non-master framebuilder? ?;-)
What do you think? The idea is to hire the best advice
you can if you want a custom frame. Otherwise it is
semi-custom.
You presume the framebuilding expert would understand more about your
riding than you do.
so what variables does a steel frame builder have at their disposal
chalo? �how much math do they do?
Building well and coaching well are very
different skills, and I imagine they are usually exclusive of each
other. �In any case, I don't think a custom frame buyer would usually
be best served by letting the builder tell him what he wants.
all they typically, and all they basically /can/ do, given the
limitations of tubesets available, is make something to a certain size.
�beyond that, their parameters are pretty much fixed. �and i've yet to
meet a steel frame artisan that does any math to address things like shimmy.
If I had done that with any of the several frambuilders I approached,
I would have gotten a frame with roughly 17" chainstays, when really I
needed 21" to maintain normal proportions.
so how exactly does greater elasticity serve you then big guy?
Don't know about the elasticity thing, that'd have to be addressed in tubing
size and choice,
that's the problem - in steel, you really don't get much choice.

Only if you're the sort of hidebound clown who waits for someone else
to develop a set of tubes, which will limit your geometry. But people
with initiative and brains build bikes to their own design (rather
than what they're *permitted* to do by the mainstream tube suppliers)
by simply developing their own tubes. The modern Pedersen is made with
such specially developed tubes, I ride a bicycle made with such tubes
specially developed by Van Raam and Utopia, any materials expert who
isn't fast asleep should be able to cite a dozen more examples.

you still don't get it do you.



along with the seat stays. But I'm sure it serves to keep his
ass in front of the rear wheel and maybe keep the front tire touching the ground
on uphills.
in theory, but afaik, you can't /get/ a 21" chainstay in steel.

Bloody hell! You put yourself forward as a materials expert, Jumbo?
What the hell is wrong with you, man? If you can't imagine how Chalo
made his chainstays -- and every high school with a metalwork shop has
dozens of kids who'll be happy to enlighten you -- why not just ask
him instead of pontificating emptily about what can't be bought off
the shelf?

wow, you don't even know what you don't know!


What's the point of knowing about materials if you're just another
fashion victim who thinks that, if it can't be build with standard off
the shelf parts, it can't be built at all?

Andre Jute
Why do colleges drain the imagination from all the students of
technical subjects?

why do ignorant narcissistic fools presume to lecture?

More worthless, vague mutterings in his moustache from "jim beam".
Specifics, Jumbo. Vague mutterings won't do. You sound like you're
drunk on conspiracy theory. For a start, tell us what you've ever
built to justify your claim to being a materials expert. -- Andre Jute

On Apr 27, 5:03*am, jim beam wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:
On Apr 27, 2:36 am, jim beam wrote:
RonSonic wrote:
On Sun, 26 Apr 2009 10:49:42 -0700, jim beam
wrote:
Chalo wrote:
Michael Press wrote:
?Tim McNamara wrote:
?Michael Press wrote:
It is not a custom frame unless you consult in person with a master
frame maker. He talks with you, watches you ride, then builds the
exact frame that you need. Mailing in dimensions is just that.
How about if you consult with a non-master framebuilder? ?;-)
What do you think? The idea is to hire the best advice
you can if you want a custom frame. Otherwise it is
semi-custom.
You presume the framebuilding expert would understand more about your
riding than you do.
so what variables does a steel frame builder have at their disposal
chalo? how much math do they do?
Building well and coaching well are very
different skills, and I imagine they are usually exclusive of each
other. In any case, I don't think a custom frame buyer would usually
be best served by letting the builder tell him what he wants.
all they typically, and all they basically /can/ do, given the
limitations of tubesets available, is make something to a certain size.
beyond that, their parameters are pretty much fixed. and i've yet to
meet a steel frame artisan that does any math to address things like shimmy.
If I had done that with any of the several frambuilders I approached,
I would have gotten a frame with roughly 17" chainstays, when really I
needed 21" to maintain normal proportions.
so how exactly does greater elasticity serve you then big guy?
Don't know about the elasticity thing, that'd have to be addressed in tubing
size and choice,
that's the problem - in steel, you really don't get much choice.

Only if you're the sort of hidebound clown who waits for someone else
to develop a set of tubes, which will limit your geometry. But people
with initiative and brains build bikes to their own design (rather
than what they're *permitted* to do by the mainstream tube suppliers)
by simply developing their own tubes. The modern Pedersen is made with
such specially developed tubes, I ride a bicycle made with such tubes
specially developed by Van Raam and Utopia, any materials expert who
isn't fast asleep should be able to cite a dozen more examples.

you still don't get it do you.



along with the seat stays. But I'm sure it serves to keep his
ass in front of the rear wheel and maybe keep the front tire touching the ground
on uphills.
in theory, but afaik, you can't /get/ a 21" chainstay in steel.

Bloody hell! You put yourself forward as a materials expert, Jumbo?
What the hell is wrong with you, man? If you can't imagine how Chalo
made his chainstays -- and every high school with a metalwork shop has
dozens of kids who'll be happy to enlighten you -- why not just ask
him instead of pontificating emptily about what can't be bought off
the shelf?

wow, you don't even know what you don't know!



What's the point of knowing about materials if you're just another
fashion victim who thinks that, if it can't be build with standard off
the shelf parts, it can't be built at all?

Andre Jute
Why do colleges drain the imagination from all the students of
technical subjects?

why do ignorant narcissistic fools presume to lecture?

On Sun, 26 Apr 2009 18:36:20 -0700, jim beam
wrote:

RonSonic wrote:
On Sun, 26 Apr 2009 10:49:42 -0700, jim beam
wrote:

Chalo wrote:
Michael Press wrote:
?Tim McNamara wrote:
?Michael Press wrote:
It is not a custom frame unless you consult in person with a master
frame maker. He talks with you, watches you ride, then builds the
exact frame that you need. Mailing in dimensions is just that.
How about if you consult with a non-master framebuilder? ?;-)
What do you think? The idea is to hire the best advice
you can if you want a custom frame. Otherwise it is
semi-custom.
You presume the framebuilding expert would understand more about your
riding than you do.
so what variables does a steel frame builder have at their disposal
chalo? how much math do they do?


Building well and coaching well are very
different skills, and I imagine they are usually exclusive of each
other. In any case, I don't think a custom frame buyer would usually
be best served by letting the builder tell him what he wants.
all they typically, and all they basically /can/ do, given the
limitations of tubesets available, is make something to a certain size.
beyond that, their parameters are pretty much fixed. and i've yet to
meet a steel frame artisan that does any math to address things like shimmy.


If I had done that with any of the several frambuilders I approached,
I would have gotten a frame with roughly 17" chainstays, when really I
needed 21" to maintain normal proportions.
so how exactly does greater elasticity serve you then big guy?

Don't know about the elasticity thing, that'd have to be addressed in tubing
size and choice,

that's the problem - in steel, you really don't get much choice.


along with the seat stays. But I'm sure it serves to keep his
ass in front of the rear wheel and maybe keep the front tire touching the ground
on uphills.

in theory, but afaik, you can't /get/ a 21" chainstay in steel.

Whoever builds for him would probably be ordering CrMo tubing rather than
preshaped chainstays. It isn't like weight is _that_ big a factor and yes
rigidity is necessary. I don't see any rule that says all the tubes have to come
from a frame builders catalog.

I don't see how you so completely discount fore - aft balance in a case this
extreme. Not only it that a LONG seat tube, but he's going to need the seat
pretty well back to keep the saddle - pedal position decent.

Not having the rider hanging off behind the wheel isn't a trivial thing. Lots of
nice bikes have had much longer stays than the present fashion.

Tom Sherman wrote:

"jim beam" wrote:

RonSonic wrote:
[...]
along with the seat stays. But I'm sure it serves to keep his
ass in front of the rear wheel and maybe keep the front tire touching
the ground
on uphills.

in theory, but afaik, you can't /get/ a 21" chainstay in steel.

A lot of 'bents have chainstays over twice that length. As a matter of
fact, most tubes on 'bents are NOT off the shelf cycling items, but come
from such places as aircrafts suppliers who sell seamless 4130 Cro-Mo in
all sorts of diameters and lengths.

In the case of my Bohemian MTB, the chainstays are burly unicrown fork
blades fillet brazed to a 1.5" wishbone.

In the case of a bike I'm building right now for a 7 foot friend of
mine, the chainstays are straight gauge 3/4" x .035 chromoly tube.
His stays are closer to 20" because the HT & ST angles in his frame
are steeper than those I prefer.

Chalo

RonSonic wrote:

"jim beam" wrote:

in theory, but afaik, you can't /get/ a 21" chainstay in steel.

Whoever builds for him would probably be ordering CrMo tubing rather than
preshaped chainstays. It isn't like weight is _that_ big a factor and yes
rigidity is necessary. I don't see any rule that says all the tubes have to come
from a frame builders catalog.

The frame I am building for a 7 foot tall friend is all straight
gauge seamless 4130. He's not nearly as heavy as I am, but with tube
lengths in the 30" range stiffness, not strength, is the driving
factor. The relatively small diameters of +1/8" oversize steel,
combined with generously long stays, keep crank and tire clearance
issues to a minimum while avoiding hokey stuff like crimped or s-bend
tubes.

I don't see how you so completely discount fore - aft balance in a case this
extreme. Not only it that a LONG seat tube, but he's going to need the seat
pretty well back to keep the saddle - pedal position decent.

I favor a 70 degree seat angle too, which exaggerates the problems
caused by one-size-fits-none chainstays.

Not having the rider hanging off behind the wheel isn't a trivial thing. Lots of
nice bikes have had much longer stays than the present fashion.

Yep. Not only does a Carl Fogel-like survey of vintage cycles confirm
it, but even longer chainstays are making an appearance in the new
crop of longtail frames like the Surly Big Dummy, Yuba Mundo, and Kona
Ute. Long stays are the best way yet to make room for a big pile of
goods while preserving as much as possible the qualities that make a
bike pleasant to ride.

Chalo

On Sun, 26 Apr 2009 23:02:35 -0700 (PDT), Chalo wrote:

RonSonic wrote:

"jim beam" wrote:

in theory, but afaik, you can't /get/ a 21" chainstay in steel.

Whoever builds for him would probably be ordering CrMo tubing rather than
preshaped chainstays. It isn't like weight is _that_ big a factor and yes
rigidity is necessary. I don't see any rule that says all the tubes have to come
from a frame builders catalog.

The frame I am building for a 7 foot tall friend is all straight
gauge seamless 4130. He's not nearly as heavy as I am, but with tube
lengths in the 30" range stiffness, not strength, is the driving
factor. The relatively small diameters of +1/8" oversize steel,
combined with generously long stays, keep crank and tire clearance
issues to a minimum while avoiding hokey stuff like crimped or s-bend
tubes.

I don't see how you so completely discount fore - aft balance in a case this
extreme. Not only is that a LONG seat tube, but he's going to need the seat
pretty well back to keep the saddle - pedal position decent.

I favor a 70 degree seat angle too, which exaggerates the problems
caused by one-size-fits-none chainstays.

Not having the rider hanging off behind the wheel isn't a trivial thing. Lots of
nice bikes have had much longer stays than the present fashion.

Yep. Not only does a Carl Fogel-like survey of vintage cycles confirm
it, but even longer chainstays are making an appearance in the new
crop of longtail frames like the Surly Big Dummy, Yuba Mundo, and Kona
Ute. Long stays are the best way yet to make room for a big pile of
goods while preserving as much as possible the qualities that make a
bike pleasant to ride.

It's always a compromise, but the first thing is to fit the rider for the
position he needs for the type of riding he does. Let's just shorten that - fit
the rider, first. After all the rider can't be cut, bent or rewelded into
place.

I hadn't thought of using fork blade tubes. Nice.

It's pretty obvious that you're far enough off the end of the bell curve that
some "standard" measurements have to change. Kinda boggling that jb can't seem
to even visualize this problem.

The project for your pal sounds interesting as well. He's also off all the
standard charts that say at what size and weight to use which particular tubes
and tube sets. You gotta post pics of that one.

On Sun, 26 Apr 2009 23:02:35 -0700 (PDT), Chalo
wrote:

RonSonic wrote:

"jim beam" wrote:

in theory, but afaik, you can't /get/ a 21" chainstay in steel.

Whoever builds for him would probably be ordering CrMo tubing rather than
preshaped chainstays. It isn't like weight is _that_ big a factor and yes
rigidity is necessary. I don't see any rule that says all the tubes have to come
from a frame builders catalog.

The frame I am building for a 7 foot tall friend is all straight
gauge seamless 4130. He's not nearly as heavy as I am, but with tube
lengths in the 30" range stiffness, not strength, is the driving
factor. The relatively small diameters of +1/8" oversize steel,
combined with generously long stays, keep crank and tire clearance
issues to a minimum while avoiding hokey stuff like crimped or s-bend
tubes.

I don't see how you so completely discount fore - aft balance in a case this
extreme. Not only it that a LONG seat tube, but he's going to need the seat
pretty well back to keep the saddle - pedal position decent.

I favor a 70 degree seat angle too, which exaggerates the problems
caused by one-size-fits-none chainstays.

Not having the rider hanging off behind the wheel isn't a trivial thing. Lots of
nice bikes have had much longer stays than the present fashion.

Yep. Not only does a Carl Fogel-like survey of vintage cycles confirm
it, but even longer chainstays are making an appearance in the new
crop of longtail frames like the Surly Big Dummy, Yuba Mundo, and Kona
Ute. Long stays are the best way yet to make room for a big pile of
goods while preserving as much as possible the qualities that make a
bike pleasant to ride.

Chalo

Dear Chalo,

Our great-grandfathers favored long wheelbases:

http://www.auctionflex.com/showlot.a...ction=&lang=En
or
http://tinyurl.com/cvnsol

To appreciate how long the chainstays were and how far the front wheel
stuck out, look at the gaps between the tires and the front sprocket.

The gap between the rear tire and the sprocket is about 3 inches, and
there's about a six-inch gap between the end of a horizontal pedal and
the front tire. (The steel cranks and inch-pitch front sprockets back
then were about the same size overall as modern aluminum cranks and
half-inch front sprockets.)

For comparison, a modern short-coupled 2009 Paris-Roubaix bike:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/tech.php?...Roubaix_Team_3

The modern rear tire overlaps the chainring, and the end of the modern
pedal is only an inch or two behind the front tire.

The long wheelbase gave a smoother ride on the hideous roads of the
1890s. Wooden-track racing bikes had shorter wheelbases, but still
looked like stretch limos compared to modern bikes:
http://www.virginmedia.com/digital/g...kes.php?ssid=2

You have to squint, but you can see that there's still a gap between
the rear tire and the front sprocket on Major Taylor's oddball
4-chainstay 1899 Eagle track bike, and the pedal would still be a long
ways behind the front wheel for a modern bike.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel