Re: unabashed plug, Crumpton

dustoyevsky wrote:
>
> Just as a side note, I was talking to Nick on a ride a week or so ago,
> IRT stay length and room between the chainstays for "wider" tires,
> since I'd noticed that one of his customer bikes had a whole lot more
> "tire clearance" just aft of the BB than his personal ride. The brake
> bridge on the customer bike was quite a bit higher, also. How about
> that, a well-regarded custom CF builder leaving room for 25mm tires,
> mud, and out-of-true wheels? There's some progress for you! <g>

Now that is a good thing.  I wonder how he managed it with prefab stay
units?

I used to hang out occasionally with this guy at Dead Baby Bikes
events:

http://www.outsideconnection.com/gallant/hpv/joe/

Joe would occasionally become visibly irritated and perturbed that I
would spend so much time and expertise making ordinary bikes, as
opposed to some ungainly feet-forward abortions.  He thought it was a
waste of my effort.  Now I find myself in Joe's position, thinking in
regard to Nick's bikes "why bother, when you could buy almost the same
thing on eBay for less than the cost of materials?"

I guess it's like curly lugs.  I don't mind curly lugs, but I'll be
damned before I'll spend a fortune and years on a waiting list to get
a bike whose only real distinction is curly lugs.  Still, there are
folks who do go to absurd lengths to get curly lugs (and the maker's
mark thereof).

As for me, I don't opt in to being choosy.  I can either be choosy, or
I can give up cycling, or I can hurt myself.  If I were 5'10" and 150
lbs., and every manufacturer of every bike-related thing in the entire
world made something that would work just fine for me, I suppose I
might get distracted by minutiae.  But to my eyes, every bike with
73.5 degree angles, short stays, plastic forks, too few spokes and too
little tire clearance is so interchangeable with all the others as to
become invisible.  They all make me say "meh".  I wouldn't know how to
pick from among them except by weight and price.

Chalo