Re: unabashed plug, Crumpton

Chalo Colina wrote:
> 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?"
> 
If one reads Joe's published rants, it becomes obvious he would 
certainly qualify as out side the main stream of cycling.

> 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).
> 
I would rather have a bicycle with plain lugs. Ornamentation for the 
sake of ornamentation is unattractive.

> 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.
> 
Sorry to say, but I doubt that there is much money to be made in 
bicycles for those who are in the 99.9th percentile in both height and 
weight.

-- 
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful