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Al, my hole-drilling friend:

Interestingly, my old Takara road bicycle had a LOT of holes drilled in the components when I still had Campagnolo parts.  When I went to Sun Tour and Dia-Comp parts the holes were fewer, but larger and more artistically carved.  Drilling component parts, however, when well done, can produce a part that is truly beautiful.

Here’s a good article of the bicycle hole-drilling group think in the late 1970’s when my last bike was built and why you see very few holes in road bicycles today.  My current bike (my lightest ever at under 11 pounds) has almost no holes drilled.   Even the brake handles, full of holes on my old Takara, are now carbon fiber, wafer-thin front-to-back on my Trek to reduce air drag, but wide enough to push sideways with a finger to do gear changes.

https://journal.rouleur.cc/the...SUhgoikzI7cEFy3nPPK8

Last edited by Gordon Nichols
Gordon Nichols posted:

Al, my hole-drilling friend:

Interestingly, my old Takara road bicycle had a LOT of holes drilled in the components when I still had Campagnolo parts.  When I went to Sun Tour and Dia-Comp parts the holes were fewer, but larger and more artistically carved.  Drilling component parts, however, when well done, can produce a part that is truly beautiful.

Here’s a good article of the bicycle hole-drilling group think in the late 1970’s when my last bike was built and why you see very few holes in road bicycles today.  My current bike (my lightest ever at under 11 pounds) has almost no holes drilled.   Even the brake handles, full of holes on my old Takara, are now carbon fiber, wafer-thin front-to-back on my Trek to reduce air drag, but wide enough to push sideways with a finger to do gear changes.

https://journal.rouleur.cc/the...SUhgoikzI7cEFy3nPPK8

Gordon:  I had my Campagnolo Record components drilled and milled in Philly I think, by “Rinzetti Modifications.” Spelling may be wrong. The parts looked just like those on EddyMerck’s bike in the pic!  Way lighter and I never broke any of those parts... You took me back to my youth!

Stan, my wife hit the roof when she found out the cost ($1,875 after a year-end discount because it was a leftover and small size) back in 1980 when we barely had the money for it.  Maybe that's why I kept it for so long and rode it over 60,000 miles!  My Trek Madoné probably cost the same, in current dollars, but weighs less and I caught hell for buying THAT, too!  Currently have almost 10,000 miles on it.

It would make zero sense to drill anything on the new Trek - the brakes are super-light and tucked behind the fork and crank hub, are well out of sight, and major parts of the derailleurs are carbon fiber.  Pretty much everything on this bike was designed with benefit of a computer to have maximum performance at minimum weight.  

And, yes.....  This is probably the last road bike I'll ever buy.  Unless I get hit again (that would clinch it) and/or the frame cracks (nothing yet).    

Last edited by Gordon Nichols

By the time I had the money to buy anything decent (early '90s), a Record gruppo all by itself was $1500+, without rims, bars, stem, or frame. I bought a Chorus gruppo from a mail-order place in NY for $750, and thought I'd stolen it.

I had a Waterford Reynolds 731 frame built for about $1000 about the time I became a journeyman fitter in '93 or so. I moved the Campy stuff to a Titanium frame built by Lightspeed with Merckx geometry shortly after I went into business in '97. It was double-butted Ti tubing, which was stupid-cool. It was only a couple of years before I bought my first speedster and stopped riding (which was one of the biggest mistakes of my life).

The bike is still one of the coolest things I own. It's my fondest hope to get my fat butt on it again this summer.

I still have my Campy C Record equipped Rosin, made for me in the early 90’s. And, my custom built Albert Eisentraut frame with all Campy Super record converted to titanium spindles and bolts.  It helped that I owned a bike shop for 20+ years. I raced road bikes since I was 15.  Rosin is Columbus tubing, Eisentraut is Reynolds. Both were great bikes and won a bunch of races... waaay back when.

Paul Mossberg made BIKES?    

My Sunday Morning Riding Group (all auld Pharts and Phart-etts) has a couple of Titanium "Seven" bikes, IIRC, made in Cambridge, Mass.?  Both polished metal and both beautiful.  Both are custom-sized frames (I think all 7's are, but not sure) and one, for Pat, who got new knees last year and is even shorter than me (He comes from the "Hobbit" side of Ireland) rides on 26" wheels.  It looks perfectly proportioned, just tiny. Pretty cool, really.  He keeps telling me I should "downsize, too.

Oh!  And I went to a dinner a few years back in honor of Bernard Hinault for his charity.  Bernard is a 5-time winner of the Tour de France before the Armstrong era.  

Five Time Winner......  

I expected some YUGE! guy with bulging arms and tree-like legs, but no......   Bernard Hinault, five time blah, blah, blah, blah......   Is almost exactly my height and build (read that, "not a big guy").  He signed one of my riding jerseys for me and, I swear to God....   His scribbly written signature is almost identical to my daughter's!

Last edited by Gordon Nichols

The old bikes, those built before, say, 1995 or so, were rolling art.  Especially some of the more flamboyant makes like Colnago, but even my Takara has hand-cut lugs at the frame intersections and lots of cut-outs in different parts (ALB would love them) that make the bike interesting and artwork.  Even my old aluminum handlebars have engravings on them, the lower fork and rear drop-outs are both chromed and the rear has adjustable axle snubs to adjust for the derailleur and to keep the wheel straight.  You don't see that stuff anymore.  Now, frame members are welded (or glued, if they're carbon fiber) directly into each other with out lugs and specific derailleur or brake components are specified or they might not fit.  I also have a chart of precise torque settings for anything on the bike to keep from over-stressing the carbon fiber parts.   

Mossberg as in the same company that makes shotguns. They briefly made bicycles in the early 70s.

And having thought about it for a while, the frame was heavy steel and STIFF. I gave it to my sister, it had Suntour stuff on it.

The cheap Campy stuff was on a Peugeot bicycle I picked up for $50 a couple years later(I was still in HS) and I rode the crap out of it. Trued the wheels, new tires, cables, and handlebar tape. Looked brandy-new and worked like new when I was done.

Last edited by DannyP

My current Trek carbon is a really stiff bike, either powering uphill or hung out on a bumpy curve.  It does not perceptively flex (at least I can't feel it).

Until..........    If you ride it over a set of more-or-less perpendicular train tracks and expect it to rattle your teeth out, it is as soft as a marshmallow.  THAT really surprised me.  Computer designed frame, taking advantage of the "grain" of carbon fiber for both strength and suppleness.  I didn't believe it til I rode one.  Makes a Cannondale Aluminum I rode for a week once on a trip feel downright dead by comparison, and Cannondales are really nice bikes.

Last edited by Gordon Nichols

Stan wrote:  "The bike is still one of the coolest things I own. It's my fondest hope to get my fat butt on it again this summer."

Me, too, Stan.  I got a used Ridley Fenix carbon fibre bike a couple of years ago, and got back to enjoying riding.  It's tough, though, living in a climate where at least five months are too cold, sleety, snowy, and downright crappy to get the bike out.

But, come the first nice day of Spring, I'll be out there, trying to duplicate what I used to be able to do fifty years ago. 

Was I really that slim and fit...?

bob kent state

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I will bet the Peugeot had a Stronglight cotterless crank, Mafac brakes, Simplex (black plastic!) derailleurs and Mavic rims if it was one of their racing bikes.  They sponsored my team prior to Cannondale and, provided us with thier top of the line bikes at the time, the PX-10 model with Reynolds tubing and the above equipment.... I converted mine to all campy groupo with Cinelli bars and stem. Keep in mind, this was about 1979 - 1985. 

   I also had a full chrome plated Holdsworth from England that was a really nice reynolds frame with the most incredibly fancy lugs (at the tubing joints) that I ever saw. I wish I had pics of it! The workmanship in the old frames was amazing.

   Also, the Reynolds tubing is British steel. Not aluminum as we might assume here on this side of the pond. If the Reynolds 531 label was at a diagonal, it meant the tubing was double butted, or thicker at the joints where the stress was magnified during sprinting or climbing. 531, straight across meant the tubing was the same thickness throughout. 

   The French, English and Italian bikes all had their own threading for the bottom bracket and headsets.  It kept things interesting when someone would want to switch equip from one bike to another! I had the full Campy tool box that was many thousands of bucks with precision taps and dies wand tool guides to properly fit their components.  Customers would come in from all over Ohio, PA, Canada an NY to get their frames alligned, tapped, repaired etc.  We did brazing and later started repaints too! 

  I had the first Cannondale dealership in NY State and sold a bunch of them.  Their first bike on the market was about 3K back then, a 15 speed touring bike that had a wheelbase nearly as long as our Speedsters! LOL 

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