On Aug 6, 2012, at 1:00 PM, Jim Cloud <cloud...@aol.com> wrote: > I find some of the various modern Constructeur bikes, built with > French components from the 1960-1970's (e.g. Mafac brakes, Simplex > derailleurs, T.A. or Rene Herse modern manufacture cranks), to be a > little strange. Richard Sachs once characterized the modern > infatuation with the French Constructeur era bike, as the end-point of > touring bike design, as being in the vein of Civil War enactors. He > also made the point that most of the riders in the top finishing group > of classic brevets, such as the P-B-P are not riding bikes that evoke > the Rene Herse or Alex Singer randonneur bikes of the past - they're > riding modern carbon fiber frame bikes. I think this was a valid > observation
I am reminded of Dr. Clifford Graves's story of PBP, in which the technical inspector told him that his Rene Herse was "too heavy" and that most of the other riders were on race bikes (I'd bet that the difference was probably all of 2 kg or so). Of course, my Rivendell All-Rounder has fenders, 32 mm tires, lights, front rack, Berthoud bag, Mafac tandem cantis, etc... And did before Jan started publishing VBQ. My inspiration was the old Guinness book. Initially I saw Jan as a sort of like-minded fellow, but he has gone far beyond me in that direction. One of my other favorite bikes is a 3 speed "club racer" type bike (I designed and built the frame) with a Carradice Nelson that I bought from Riv at least 15 years ago. And my other favorite bike is my old Ritchey from my racing days, with 25s on it. I much prefer Jan's event reports, interviews and histories to the tech articles. I have never liked bike test reports in any magazine. At least Jan makes no bones about his very specific preferences and standards, which makes it easier to interpret his evaluations. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
