[CR] American-made bike components, was: New Equipment Failure Rate

(Example: Framebuilders:Chris Pauley)

From: <GPVB1@cs.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 14:08:02 EDT
Subject: [CR] American-made bike components, was: New Equipment Failure Rate
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org


Tom Dalton wrote:
> Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 06:33:26 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Tom Dalton <tom_s_dalton@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: FW: [CR] New Equipment Failure Rate
> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>
>
> Brandon Ives wrote:Talking about all this makes me wonder why
> the US never had a really good bike part group company. There are
> wonderful companies that make select parts, but nobody in the classic
> era was able to put a full group together, Thoughts?
>

To which Tom added:
>
> This reminds me of a project the guys in my LBS used to talk about...
> Building an All-American bike. Mind you, it involved having Ben Serotta,
> back when he actually built bikes, build a custom frame with a big ol' BB
> shell to accept the Wald crankset. Full Wald grouppo, Carlisle tires....
>
> Tom Dalton
>
> Bethlehem, PA
>
>

Ah yes, the elusive black(smithed) Wald pig-iron 50th Anniversary gruppo!! Talk about rarity.... :-)

Anyone remember Excel derailleurs? My wife assembled them in the olds days in a factory in Illinois for minimum wage. Really gave those Shimano Larks a run for their money for a year or two...(not).

I don't believe they made anything like a gruppo, or even an aluminum freewheel, unfortunately tho'.........

Greg Parker
A2 MI USA