Getting a new bike should is fun?

Andre Jute wrote:
On Nov 20, 11:19 am, "Gennaro" wrote:
"Andre Jute" wrote...

[...]

Not slack, busy choosing a new bike
[...]
Frustrated. I'm six weeks into the process and no forrarder.
[...]
Andre Jute
Frustrated
Although I agree with the fact that you shouldn't look for bikes
too far away from home, I must say that I finally got my
very classical Roberts steel touring bike and I'm delighted with
it and quite happy with the whole buying experience.

I'll write a bit more about it as soon as I can (and in the hope
it's not too OT...). Here's the bike:http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/2282/img5643cu2.jpg
(I hope this link works!)

bye
Gennaro

Nice bike. I don't see how a fellow's new bike can be off-topic at
all. The frame is the basis of all the tech -- in fact the last
bastion of individuality on bikes, now that everything else is bought
off the shelf and not even a bracket is manufactured by the bicyclist.

Andre Jute
Once cyclists were men

Call me a heretic, but I don't place any real importance on frames.
Nearly all of my bikes were assembled from a motley collection of
components, my oldest frames being 40 year old lugged steel, newer ones
welded aluminum. Some are a bit lighter, some a bit stiffer
(torsionally), but they all ride fine.

Unlike Chalo, I haven't actually fabricated any bike components, except
for the occasional bracket. With such a variety of relatively
inexpensive components available these days, combined with either
inexpensive new frames or frames salvaged on trash day, I have a garage
filled to overflowing (~15) with very functional bikes.

A few things have contributed to creating more choice than ever in
components, things like the Internet, mountain biking and utility
cycling. Some people like to have one perfect bike, some people, like
me, prefer to have many different bikes. These days it's easy to do either.

On Nov 21, 1:28*am, Tom Sherman
wrote:
André Jute wrote:
[...] *It isn't even like I'm undecided and window shopping. I know precisely
what I want: a very simple, unbreakable, infinitely servicable bike
with refined comfort. So I'm speccing lugged steel[...]

No deicing salts in Ireland?

No point in salting roads without ice. Last time we had ice was
probably around 1990, and that lasted only a couple of days. If the
ice comes back now that global warming is over, I'll just not ride for
those few days in the year.

Ireland officially has a mediterranean climate.

This is what eventually happens to steel frames around he
http://www.yellowjersey.org/mitch.html.

Hey, Andrew, what colour will you line the lugs? I think yellow will
go well with the general russet and skyblue of the rest of the bike.

Andre Jute
The artist's eye may cloud but thrills his colour evermore

"Andre Jute" wrote in message
...

I'm really very keen on a brazed bike with lugs.

I mentioned this before, but thought it may be worth mentioning again - the
lugs thing. When you spoke to the custom builders, did you specify lugged? I
do wonder if it would put people off, especially when combined with your
other requirements. I suspect lugs for the frame you want won't be easily
available, and fillet brazing or even welding (a sensible option with some
modern steels) would be more appropriate.

Also you keep mentioning trapeze and mixte. I'm not aware of the former
being in common use in English - eg it's not on Sheldon Brown's glossary.
Ladies frame or step-through or even just lowered top-tube may make more
sense to a builder.

Clive George schreef:
"Andre Jute" wrote in message
...

I'm really very keen on a brazed bike with lugs.

I mentioned this before, but thought it may be worth mentioning again - the
lugs thing. When you spoke to the custom builders, did you specify lugged? I
do wonder if it would put people off, especially when combined with your
other requirements. I suspect lugs for the frame you want won't be easily
available, and fillet brazing or even welding (a sensible option with some
modern steels) would be more appropriate.

Also you keep mentioning trapeze and mixte. I'm not aware of the former
being in common use in English - eg it's not on Sheldon Brown's glossary.
Ladies frame or step-through or even just lowered top-tube may make more
sense to a builder.




I do think Andre's preference for a brazed frame with lugs combined with
his other requirements limits his choice enormously. Welds can be very
smooth ie on my Santos combined with an impeccable paintjob.

http://picasaweb.google.nl/LoetjeH/Santos#

Lou

On Nov 23, 2:46*pm, "Clive George" wrote:
"Andre Jute" wrote in message

...

I'm really very keen on a brazed bike with lugs.

I mentioned this before, but thought it may be worth mentioning again - the
lugs thing. When you spoke to the custom builders, did you specify lugged? I
do wonder if it would put people off, especially when combined with your
other requirements. I suspect lugs for the frame you want won't be easily
available, and fillet brazing or even welding (a sensible option with some
modern steels) would be more appropriate.

Also you keep mentioning trapeze and mixte. I'm not aware of the former
being in common use in English - eg it's not on Sheldon Brown's glossary.
Ladies frame or step-through or even just lowered top-tube may make more
sense to a builder.

Don't let your head swell too much, Clive: you're right on almost
every point. One of the more desirable frame builders replied that
what I want is a mountain bike with a sloping top tube and it would
have to be fillet brazed because they can't get lugs. That's rubbish,
actually, as lugs are available at Ceeway and Nova for the mountain
bike they (and you, in your first note on the subject, but not I) have
in mind. Lugs for even a trapeze are available because I see frames
with lugs in photographs of newly designed bikes offered. I don't know
if these are good quality lugs that are available but the point is
that if my chosen framebuilders don't have the lugs and won't make the
effort to get them, I'm screwed. So I've told them I'll accept fillet
brazing. To overcome the other problem of them not understanding the
form factor, I sent a couple of photographs, and a set of measurements
and angles. We'll see what they come back with.

One point of interest is that Mercian (not the builder I'm currently
talking to though Mercian is on my list as well) say on their site
that their Lady Mercia trapeze is fillet brazed rather than lugged
because they cannot get *good quality* lugs for it. They also say that
it is no longer a mixte, as once it was, because no one makes the long
diagonal tubes.

When you lose or lower the top tube, as on a trapeze frame, a
difficulty arises with heavy and hard riders flexing the seat tube.
The diagonal tubes of a mixte were originally added to ladies' V
frames to overcome this problem. My frame will deal with the problem
by adding an intermediate stay between the seat and chain stay.
Practically, the intermediate stay each side will join the "top tube"
of the trapeze in front of the seat tube because where it crosses the
seat tube the mudguard will be at its closest approach to the seat
tube and there is no space to attach it to the rear of the seat tube.

All the same, despite your reservations, if things work out with this
frame builder, I will get everything I want except for the lugs;
welding is totally unacceptable -- I may as well buy another ali bike,
then, or go back to reinforced fibres or wood, which is what I used
for my geribike experiments. If it doesn't work out with these guys --
perhaps because what I want is too far outside their experience -- I
have found a stock frame that is used by a famous bike manufacturer
that is exactly what I want (including the lugs) and is available at
not too outrageous a price and for delivery at no longer than a custom
framebuilder will require -- except that the size I want falls between
two available sizes. Nothing is ever perfect! Still, I've found with
my two beloved Dutch city/touring bikes that, given that the frame is
stiff enough, size is pretty adaptable if you start within an inch, or
possibly even an inch and a quarter, of perfection. (1) That wasn't
true in the days when I rode fast mountain bikes off the shelf, which
either fitted or didn't and could be vastly irritating when you got
the size wrong by as little as half an inch (and the clowns who
designed them of course always got the handlebar height too low by six
inches).

I appreciate your interest, Clive. Did you buy your bikes off the
shelf or have them built?

Andre Jute
Ein perfektes Sorglos-Rad für Schöngeister

(1) With my body shape and preferred back angle on the bike; I
wouldn't generalize that prescription to everyone. But I find it
significant that Andy Blance sizes his Thorn Ravens the same way I
size my bikes, one size down with a long top tube, one size up with a
short top tube. We talked the other day about how the significant bike
sizing parameter should be top tube length rather than the more common
seat tube length; an additional reason not then mentioned is toe
clearance when turning the front wheel.

On Nov 23, 3:26*pm, Lou Holtman wrote:
Clive George schreef:



"Andre Jute" wrote in message
...

I'm really very keen on a brazed bike with lugs.

I mentioned this before, but thought it may be worth mentioning again - the
lugs thing. When you spoke to the custom builders, did you specify lugged? I
do wonder if it would put people off, especially when combined with your
other requirements. I suspect lugs for the frame you want won't be easily
available, and fillet brazing or even welding (a sensible option with some
modern steels) would be more appropriate.

Also you keep mentioning trapeze and mixte. I'm not aware of the former
being in common use in English - eg it's not on Sheldon Brown's glossary.
Ladies frame or step-through or even just lowered top-tube may make more
sense to a builder.

I do think Andre's preference for a brazed frame with lugs combined with
his other requirements limits his choice enormously. Welds can be very
smooth ie on my Santos combined with an impeccable paintjob.

http://picasaweb.google.nl/LoetjeH/Santos#

Lou

It's an aesthetic preference. I've done my modern thing in choosing
the Cyber Nexus groupset in an ali frame with the Bauhaus welds
sitting there staring sullenly at me. Hmm, actually, compared to the
puddle welds in places on my Gazelle, the welds on the Trek are
exemplary, but they're still only smoother, not really smooth.

I just want one bike that is a thing of beauty through and through,
zero compromises. Of course it must be functional too, but the Bauhaus
principle of form following function does not have as its corollary
that a thing must be ugly to be functional. There seems to me a
certain value in giving work to an artist with an open hearth or a
brazing torch simply because there are fewer of them than the chaps
applying the industrial process of welding. I'm not pretending it is a
reasonable or efficient impulse.

A young artist, seeing in my study a blueprint of my design for a
small-tube fully triangulated bike (not what I'm ordering at present),
suggested that I could get it brazed by the instructor at the nearby
art college... I've already gone as far as I intend to in adapting my
ideal design to the expectations of the chaps who'll build it. If they
won't, I'll learn to braze (I do silver soldering of electronics all
the time) and do it myself.

Further on the subject of lugs. It strikes me that everyone assumes
you *have* to buy lugs and that if the angles are not available you
shrug and give up. Not so. If the bike is to be painted anyway, making
lugs by the bifilar method is an obvious solution. This simply slide
another closefitting pipe over the end each bicycle tube, and after
the whole lot are soldered together, voila, lugs at any angle you
want. This process is still used on ali bikes to brace high stress
points at the head tube junctions with the top tube and the bottom
tube, and sometimes even on steel bikes by inserting a pipe at tube
ends rather than using it outside. Bifilar lugs or part lugs are also
used for decoration by some American frame builders in steel. Bifilar
lugs made by my method can easily be decorated as you please. Pointy
lug are made simply by using a suitably sized hole cutter once or
twice at right angles on a piece of pipe. The only lugs that you
probably have to buy, unless you know how to do investment casting,
are stainless steel lugs intended for polishing. Note that the famous
Hetchings lugs were made by welding extra pieces of scrap pipe onto
standard industry lugs and then filing away; if not painted, they were
chrome-plated to hide joints.

Shortfalls of imagination I solve immediately. Pitfalls of cost may
have to wait until my wife comes home.

Andre Jute
Aesthete, with power tools

"Andre Jute" wrote in message
...

If it doesn't work out with these guys --
perhaps because what I want is too far outside their experience -- I
have found a stock frame that is used by a famous bike manufacturer
that is exactly what I want (including the lugs) and is available at
not too outrageous a price and for delivery at no longer than a custom
framebuilder will require -- except that the size I want falls between
two available sizes.

What's the frame?

I appreciate your interest, Clive. Did you buy your bikes off the
shelf or have them built?

I'm fortunate in that stock frames suit me - I've never had to go custom to
do what I need. Also these days I don't want steel, partly because I CBA to
maintain it such that it won't rust and partly because suitable Al frames
are easier to find for my needs/desires.

Not sure what would be next on my bike list - a solo MTB is a possibility
(only got a tandem), or maybe a posher replacement for the road tandem. Not
in a hurry for either though.

(from another thread)

I'll learn to braze (I do silver soldering of electronics all the time)

Is that low temperature stuff (ie the modern replacements for leaded solder,
using an iron) or using a torch with traditional silver solder?

Re learning to braze - do you have a local community college who will do
courses in such things? Could well be interesting, even if you weren't
building a frame. I'd definitely want to do it on borrowed kit first.
Alternatively you could try a Dave Yates framebuilding course - I've read
good things about those, and it would be an interesting way to get a custom
frame.

On Nov 20, 1:59*pm, Lou Holtman wrote:
Andre Jute schreef:



On Nov 20, 4:21 am, "Bill Sornson" wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:
Andre Jute
Not slack, busy choosing a new bike
COMPLETELY OFF-TOPIC IN THIS NEWSGROUP!!!

I apologize abjectly for talking about bicycles.

(Whaddya gettin'?)

Frustrated. I'm six weeks into the process and no forrarder.

It isn't even like I'm undecided and window shopping. I know precisely
what I want: a very simple, unbreakable, infinitely servicable bike
with refined comfort. So I'm speccing lugged steel, lowish (trapeze or
mixte) standover, long wheelbase, Rohloff hub, Big Apple 60-622,
dynohub, disc brakes, no suspension. (I'm even thinking of keeping to
cable-operated discs in order to keep everything simple.)

Doesn't sound like much to ask for, does it? So I thought. I was in
for a disappointment. Only two firms actually build a bike like that
and dealing with their dealers is a nightmare of unanswered letters
and rude shop assistants wittering on in German about long delivery
lists. Actually, when I got to see the bike from one of those firms, I
crossed it off my list (after six weeks or so, all I have to show for
my time is lists, mostly of what doesn't work, or doesn't work
together). Their bike isn't simple at all, too many little
crossbracing pipes for my liking. (I actually have a better -- fully
triangulated -- small-pipe design than theirs on my drawing board, but
I filed it because of the uncertainties of finding a builder.)

Okay, so can you buy a frame off the shelf? The hell you can. There is
only one steel frame actually available off the shelf for 700Cx2.35in
BIg Apples and that is the Surly Karate Monkey, and, while brilliant
by its own lights, for me such a short chassis bike is simply crude
and rough.

Then I decided to give up most of what I wanted and just buy a
Cannondale, which at least is beautifully presented *and can be fitted
up with the Karate Monkey fork if the Headshok is too much trouble,
and a guy who has the same frame wrote to me saying it looks like 50mm
tyres might fit, and 42mm certainly will because he's done it. The
dealers advertising it couldn't deliver; Cannondale had sold out.

Okay. So back to where I started. Can I get a custom frame made?
Should be easy, I thought. But most of the guys on a list Clive
referred me to, and other lists I already had, are no longer in
business, and the ones who are good enough to have survived are full
up and/or very casual about new customers, usually both. Sample: A
week after writing to him, I called one guy and asked him if he's
interested. Oh, yes, he said, he's reading my spec and he'll get back
to me with a quote by the end of another week. I'm still waiting.

Now I'm talking to another firm, a longtime survivor of excellent
reputation They're happy for me to talk directly to the guy who'll be
brazing my bike, so at least the time I invested in the spec got me a
hearing with a guy who can make it happen.

But I'm so cynical from my experiences these last couple of months, I
have a fallback position, in which I have traced a lugged steel frame
available off the shelf with which I have to give up only two of my
desires (drop back from 60mm to 50mm tyres, and give up either the low
standover or the disc brakes, because the dedicated Rohloff lugged
frame is not available in the trapeze, only a generic long horizontal
slot with which you cannot use disc brakes). However, even here, after
two letters querying whether the 50mm BA will fit with space left for
a suitable mudguard, I have different answers from different people
and will have to ask again.

At least one of my lists is a sourced outfitting schedule, which is
already something saved from this frustrating waste of time.

BS (bike stuff)

Bike stuff and bull****, in my present mood, are not much different.
I'm about a hairbreadth from saying thehellwithit and building the
bike I want out of wood, which is a wonderful material.

Andre Jute
Frustrated

Andre, look around at:

http://www.santosbikes.nl/

I read they comming to Ireland. I have one of their bikes.http://picasaweb.google.nl/LoetjeH/Santos#
It has an eccentric BB.....

Lou

What sort of brakes are those on the rear of that bike? And is that a
4-sprocket cassette? (Apologies if it's my eyes - anything is possible
today.)

Brian Huntley schreef:
On Nov 20, 1:59 pm, Lou Holtman wrote:
Andre Jute schreef:



On Nov 20, 4:21 am, "Bill Sornson" wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:
Andre Jute
Not slack, busy choosing a new bike
COMPLETELY OFF-TOPIC IN THIS NEWSGROUP!!!
I apologize abjectly for talking about bicycles.
(Whaddya gettin'?)
Frustrated. I'm six weeks into the process and no forrarder.
It isn't even like I'm undecided and window shopping. I know precisely
what I want: a very simple, unbreakable, infinitely servicable bike
with refined comfort. So I'm speccing lugged steel, lowish (trapeze or
mixte) standover, long wheelbase, Rohloff hub, Big Apple 60-622,
dynohub, disc brakes, no suspension. (I'm even thinking of keeping to
cable-operated discs in order to keep everything simple.)
Doesn't sound like much to ask for, does it? So I thought. I was in
for a disappointment. Only two firms actually build a bike like that
and dealing with their dealers is a nightmare of unanswered letters
and rude shop assistants wittering on in German about long delivery
lists. Actually, when I got to see the bike from one of those firms, I
crossed it off my list (after six weeks or so, all I have to show for
my time is lists, mostly of what doesn't work, or doesn't work
together). Their bike isn't simple at all, too many little
crossbracing pipes for my liking. (I actually have a better -- fully
triangulated -- small-pipe design than theirs on my drawing board, but
I filed it because of the uncertainties of finding a builder.)
Okay, so can you buy a frame off the shelf? The hell you can. There is
only one steel frame actually available off the shelf for 700Cx2.35in
BIg Apples and that is the Surly Karate Monkey, and, while brilliant
by its own lights, for me such a short chassis bike is simply crude
and rough.
Then I decided to give up most of what I wanted and just buy a
Cannondale, which at least is beautifully presented and can be fitted
up with the Karate Monkey fork if the Headshok is too much trouble,
and a guy who has the same frame wrote to me saying it looks like 50mm
tyres might fit, and 42mm certainly will because he's done it. The
dealers advertising it couldn't deliver; Cannondale had sold out.
Okay. So back to where I started. Can I get a custom frame made?
Should be easy, I thought. But most of the guys on a list Clive
referred me to, and other lists I already had, are no longer in
business, and the ones who are good enough to have survived are full
up and/or very casual about new customers, usually both. Sample: A
week after writing to him, I called one guy and asked him if he's
interested. Oh, yes, he said, he's reading my spec and he'll get back
to me with a quote by the end of another week. I'm still waiting.
Now I'm talking to another firm, a longtime survivor of excellent
reputation They're happy for me to talk directly to the guy who'll be
brazing my bike, so at least the time I invested in the spec got me a
hearing with a guy who can make it happen.
But I'm so cynical from my experiences these last couple of months, I
have a fallback position, in which I have traced a lugged steel frame
available off the shelf with which I have to give up only two of my
desires (drop back from 60mm to 50mm tyres, and give up either the low
standover or the disc brakes, because the dedicated Rohloff lugged
frame is not available in the trapeze, only a generic long horizontal
slot with which you cannot use disc brakes). However, even here, after
two letters querying whether the 50mm BA will fit with space left for
a suitable mudguard, I have different answers from different people
and will have to ask again.
At least one of my lists is a sourced outfitting schedule, which is
already something saved from this frustrating waste of time.
BS (bike stuff)
Bike stuff and bull****, in my present mood, are not much different.
I'm about a hairbreadth from saying thehellwithit and building the
bike I want out of wood, which is a wonderful material.
Andre Jute
Frustrated
Andre, look around at:

http://www.santosbikes.nl/

I read they comming to Ireland. I have one of their bikes.http://picasaweb.google.nl/LoetjeH/Santos#
It has an eccentric BB.....

Lou

What sort of brakes are those on the rear of that bike? And is that a
4-sprocket cassette? (Apologies if it's my eyes - anything is possible
today.)


That is no brake it is a lock. It was a little experiment. The bike as
shown on the photo had just one (front) brake no front derailleur and
indeed just 4 sprockets in the back. It was to prove that that is enough
for a commuter here in The Netherlands. Only the front brake was
dangerous in traffic since I carry some stuff from time to time in my
hand. Carry it in the wrong hand and I had no brake at all. So I put on
the rear brake and the brake lever was attached to the shifter, so I put
on the front derailleur as well. It is a full featered bike now. Only
two chainrings instead of three.
Nothing wrong with your eyes ;-)

Lou

In article
,
Andre Jute wrote:

On Nov 21, 1:28*am, Tom Sherman
wrote:
André Jute wrote:
[...] *It isn't even like I'm undecided and window shopping. I know precisely
what I want: a very simple, unbreakable, infinitely servicable bike
with refined comfort. So I'm speccing lugged steel[...]

No deicing salts in Ireland?

No point in salting roads without ice. Last time we had ice was
probably around 1990, and that lasted only a couple of days. If the
ice comes back now that global warming is over, I'll just not ride for
those few days in the year.

Ireland officially has a mediterranean climate.

Which official? By the Koeppen classification Ireland is
Marine West Coast (Cbn). Mediterranean is characterized
by dry summer and wet winter, whereas Ireland's precipitation
is greater than 50mm/month in the summer. Again, by the
Koeppen system, Ireland does not even qualify for "constantly
moist" though some sources classify Ireland as Cbf. The
criteriun for the `f' designation is that the driest month
have at least 60 mm of rain, whereas Ireland has four or
five months with average precipitation less than 60
mm/month.

Or were you making a risible with "Met Eireann"? But you
could not have been, since you said "officially."

--
Michael Press