I'm with Brian 100% here. I think extended headtubes are freakin stupid. I hate to burst people's bubbles but Grant is a marketing person NOT a framebuilder. Don't get me wrong I've met Grant twice, back in the mid-90's, and like the man, but too many people take his words as gospel. He say's he's designing in a classic style, but I've never seen any "classic" bikes with extended headtubes. So by definition "classic" stems should work just fine on bikes that are tall enough. I think the problem is he's designing for riding in the drops and as bars have gotten deeper the stem has to rise. All my bars are level with the seat or an inch above and I don't seem to need an extended headtube, I also don't use deep bars. The answer is to raise the toptube and unless you have a really high BB it shouldn't matter. Please let's not start a whole Grant thread since it's one of the main reasons I left iBOB after 4 years. We can discuss the bikes and the "real" builders, but until Grant picks up a file and torch let's just leave him out. enjoy, Brandon"monkeyman"Ives
"Nobody can do everything, but if everybody did something everything would get done." Gil Scott-Heron
On Wed, 23 May 2001, Moos, Jerry wrote:
> Brian, what is your objection to extended headtubes? Obviously you disagree
> with Grant Petersen on that subject. I think you made a comment at Cirque
> that "there are better ways to achieve the objective", but I'm curious what
> those ways are. One can obviously use a stem with a very long quill, but
> that rules out a lot of classic stems, or one can slope the top tube upward
> from seatube to headtube much more sharply than Rivendell does, but at some
> point this causes the frame to look strange, like the team issue Giants.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jerry Moos
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brian Baylis [mailto:rocklube@adnc.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 2:55 PM
> To: Philcycles@aol.com
> Cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Subject: Re: Fight pickin' ... Re: [CR]Quiet again
>
>
> Phil,
>
> To a degree I find this true for myself as well, although my customer
> bas has become only those that want what I specialize in. I never build
> anything I don't want to build, like extended head tubes (have turned
> dwon lots of those requests) and so on. Good example of a frame not
> likely to be ordered is the frame in progress shown at the Cirque, much
> of the details of which weren't shown in the photo on Dales' site. By
> the same token, I've built some rather elaborate frames for paying
> customers since the Wizard days.
>
> Brian Baylis
> La Mesa, CA
>
> P.S. Got Bruce looking into a Flying Scot for me. Not really sure what
> they are, but whatever it is, I'll take one.
> >
> > In a message dated 5/23/01 8:10:01 AM, CYCLESTORE@aol.com writes:
> >
> > << The best work from custom work shops is commissioned by the buyer, not
> the
> > builder. I would guess David Bohm and Richard Sachs best work came from
> their
> > best customer (if you can define that) that was willing and able to pay
> for
> > it. >>
> >
> > Oh, boy! I get to start one!
> > My best work-not highest quality but most elaborate and thought out-is for
> > myself. My customers (with one exception) are not normally willing to
> spend
> > the time and/or money for this sort of stuff. And I don't mean just work
> time
> > but time spent defining just what you want. I've made nice bikes for
> > customers but not as nice as my own because I really know just what I
> want.
> > And it's very hard to draw that sort of thing out of a person because they
> > may not know the range of choices available to him and the education
> process
> > takes as long as building the bike. I like to do it but it's tough to get
> a
> > customer to go along.
> > Phil Brown