In a message dated 6/27/2002 2:15:27 PM Eastern Daylight Time, GPVB1@cs.com writes:
<< The only Confente I've seen up close is Mike Kone's green one. It is absolutely stunning, I must admit..... But so are Hetchins, Ephgraves, Hurlows, Singers, Herses, Uragos, Gillotts, Sachs, Baylis, Columbines, Pop Brennans, DeRosas, Pogliaghis... (well, you probably get the point. Sorry for rambling).*
I sometimes wonder about Herse prices, but I am beginning to better understand that, and I do appreciate the cubic work and time he and his people must have put into those bikes as a "constructeur..." >>
I am with you Greg...
But you know, I think it is worth saying that from an artisan-construction-technique point of view, I have to say that of that list you made above, only Baylis, Sachs and Columbine belong in the same league as Confente (each having their own style, yada yada) The one-off craftsman built bikes such as these (and some others) are so much better built, even better than the legendary work shop bikes. The crisp edges, the consistent thickness of the lugs, the unstressed surfaces of each tube as it enters it's next transition, the careful shaping and matching of curves and edges, the rhythm and repetition of shapes all working together.... You really have to know a lot about the methodology and have looked at a lot of frame builders work to notice this "sweating" of the details.
It would be neat if there were some way of identifying these "levels' of attention and perfection that go into these bikes. I see this aspect get confused a lot by some of us.
I am lucky to finally own a Rene Herse and in my taking it apart and studying it's "character", I am amazed at how inventive and outside-of-the-box it's details are. But there are also construction aspects that NEVER would appear on a Baylis or Sachs or Confente or a number of one-man-shop frame builders I know of.. Much less the agonizing over the nuances that I know these guys did in every frame they built.
But of course that was not Herse's intent. He might have thought that this refinement and anal attention to detail was silly and non functional. But how much do we care about the function versus craft in a fine shot gun or guitar or folding knife or piece of furniture or ?
In the end, if someone were to say, "I don't understand why you value that Confente so highly." IT is rather like going in the Louvre and saying "I don't see the big deal about this Mona Lisa" Those persons just have to look longer and more carefully.. Study the topic more deeply... Learn about the form and what preceded it....In this case, look at Confente's work as well as that of the other fine bike makers and thereby learn about the systems that are in place that make some of us yearn for those bikes...
Dale Brown
cycles de ORO, Inc.
1410 Mill Street
Greensboro, NC 27408
336-274-5959
fax 336-274-6360
http://www.cyclesdeoro.com
http://www.classicrendezvous.com