+1; Will's posts are among my favorites. Don't get senile *too *quickly, please.
On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 8:23 AM, Shoji Takahashi <shoji.takaha...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Will, > Thanks for the history! I love these stories. > > Happy New Year to all, > Shoji > > > > On Wednesday, December 30, 2015 at 9:47:06 AM UTC-5, Steve Palincsar wrote: >> >> >> >> On 12/29/2015 11:52 PM, William deRosset wrote: >> >> Dear Will, >> >> Expanding on my own post--is this a sign of senility? >> >> >> No more so than a composer taking a delightful short melody and expanding >> it into a full-fledged symphony. This is a wonderful exposition, and I am >> sure you are 100% correct. It explains everything. >> >> >> I did want to point out that the rear fender lines of early Rivendell >> designs aren't accidental. They are consistent with most non-constructeur >> builds of any era. There were a few Japanese bikes, a few now very >> influential French bikes, and a few British bikes that bucked this trend, >> but they were the exception, not ordinarily widely produced, and, >> significantly, ordinarily featured vertical dropouts. >> >> If you design around maximum "versatility", you build around horizontal >> dropouts (fixed wheel/singlespeed/internal hub gear/derailleur gears all >> work fine), and, if you maximize the tire clearance for a given >> bridge-mounted brake, then you end up with an offset chainstay bridge given >> the dropout configuration--bad fender line, but big tire clearance without >> deflating the rear tire. This is the bargain the early Rivendell designs >> made. You can do anything with them, they're lovingly built of the best >> materials, fantastically finished, and they maximized the stock technology >> of the mid-1990's. >> >> Digression: I bet there is a lag from the widespread switch to vertical >> dropouts and capitializing on the improvement to fender alignment made >> possible by vertical dropouts. It sounds like Grant's designs caught up >> sometime after the early bikes (including my own Heron) and the early >> Atlantis were designed. >> >> This switch to vertical dropouts resulted from a push from the MTB world >> to shorten chainstays, one initiated by....Grant Petersen's MB designs. It >> was enthusiastically picked up by the 22mm-max-tire-crit-racing bike >> designers that finally drove "road bikes" into a ditch that Grant worked >> hard to avoid with his road-going designs, before leading/following his >> demographic into lovely cruisers and non-suspension light mountain bikes. >> "Gravel bikes" and most cyclocross bikes, honestly, are probably the >> non-racer's commercially-available road-bike answer to the mass-market >> road-racing bike, which started to fall into the specialization trap >> starting sometime before I rode road bikes thirty-five years ago, and has >> stayed there, immobilized by strictures of "lighter, stiffer, and more >> aero", and the "purposeful" racing aesthetic of really tight tire >> clearances. Modern racing bikes are a ball to drive, but they're not >> practical machines for most of us. Moving on.... >> >> In fact, many builders though the mid 2000's, including Waterford, just >> specified a standard cast bit for the chainstay bridge, which, depending on >> the chainstay length and the chainstay configuration, would be located in >> different places relative to the rear axle, but well away from the arc of >> an inflated tire as it was removed from a (hypothetical) horizontal >> dropout. Basically, that one, even if a threaded boss was added for a >> fender, had a go/no go spec, and users of fenders could work out how to >> make up the difference on their own time, and if the buyer isn't insisting >> on more closely-specified design, or didn't know to ask, then why torture >> your builder to locate that bridge in a given spot--about an "unimportant" >> detail? "It has clearance, clarence...." >> >> With vertical dropouts and braze-on brakes, there really isn't any good >> functional reason (there are production reasons, but they're minor if you >> care) not to place the bridges equidistant from the wheel axis, and there >> really isn't any good reason not to include a threaded boss perpendicular >> to the fender--unless it isn't a design consideration or unless you >> specifically don't want fenders on the bike. Even so, basic good design >> puts the support structure in the right places. For example, my own Road >> Sport, built by Waterford under contract to Boulder Bicycles, includes >> equidistant bridges and would fit fenders and its design tire fine, even >> though the bike was intended *not* to accept fenders by its maker (no >> eyelets, no bridge bosses. Mine ended up with one bridge boss, due to a >> prototyping error...) due to the potential horror of toe clip overlap >> potential on racing bikes. >> >> >> >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- Resumes, LinkedIn profiles, bios, and letters that get interviews. By-the-hour resume and LinkedIn coaching. Other professional writing services. http://www.resumespecialties.com/ www.linkedin.com/in/patrickmooreresumespec/ Patrick Moore Alburquerque, Nouvelle Mexique, Vereinigte Staaten ************************************* *The point which is the pivot of the norm is the motionless center of a circumference on which all conditions, distinctions, and individualities revolve. *Chuang Tzu *Stat crux dum volvitur orbis.* Carthusian motto -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
