Another from the archive of interesting CR posts:
I did originally intend my reply to go to the whole group and haver now
posted to everyone.
I would agree that most of the British framebuilders building funny
frames went out of their way to build something different but there was also
a clear intention to build a better frame to. The British magazine Cycling
in the 1920s right through to the 1950s was full of technical articles on
improving bike design written by so called experts. Unfortunately very few
of these had any engineering background. This was also true of
framebuilders. At the turn of the 20th century many innovative engineers
worked in the cycle industry. By 1910 almost all engineers of any quality
had moved onto the automotive or aeronautic industries which were far more
exciting.
Some framebuilders called themselves engineers but very few actually
were. When a top rider came near to the end of racing career he as often as
not opened a bike shop and began building frames or at least selling frames
he had someone else build though often on the premises. Selbach, Grubb,
Southall, Lawterwasser are just some examples. Others came into it through
family connections Baines, Bates and others were simply entrepreneurs
Holdsworth, Claud Butler, Hyman Hetchins.But what they all shared was a lack
of engineering knowledge. Framebuilding essentially is nothing more than
slightly high tech plumbing I can't remember who said that it probably
was Mike Mullett an English framebuilder who worked at Raleigh SPD and was
partly responsible for building Zoetemelk's 1980 TDF winning frames and has
also built until recently under his own name too. However it is essentially
true. Wages were low so all sorts learnt to build frames. They all
wanted a
share of the market and so tried to build a better frame than the
competition (in that they were egged on by ill-informed writers in Cycling)
and one that stood out from the competition.
Most of Britain's funny frames have already been covered in C+ Hetchins
(not by me though), Bates, Baines, Thanet Silverlight and Paris Galibier.
Taper tubed frames have yet to be done as have the Saxon short-wheelbase
twin seat tube ones. But there are plenty more interesting Design Classics
old and new to come yet.
Hilary Stone