Re: [CR]Interview with Bill Stevenson

(Example: Framebuilders)

From: <OROBOYZ@aol.com>
Subject: Re: [CR]Interview with Bill Stevenson
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 08:57:11 EST

In a message dated 10/28/2002 8:40:25 AM Eastern Standard Time, stevens@veloworks.com writes:

<< > This link gets you to the on-line Bicycle Trader and has a neat interview with > Bill Stevenson from 1996. It is pertinent to the discussion about provenance > since he talks about being one of the guys who brazed the Eisentraut Limited > frames in the early 70s. I suspect many listmembers would think that a 70s > Eisentraut was probably built by Albert Eisentraut. Lou Deeter, Orlando FL

The Eisentraut Limited was a lower-priced production model ... and pretty much a complete failure. Eisentraut himself pretty much disavows them. >>

Well, slow down.... The Limited was a financial flop but they worked just fine as bicycles! Albert doesn't like them because it caused him business head aches! It was a less expensive alternative to his one-at- a-time customs, the Limited being, by its definition a production frame..... rather like the Rainbow Traut later on (he apparently couldn't resist trying again) and many people were involved with their manufacture. I don' think Eisentraut promised, even with the A frames, that he brazed every joint or filed every lug. There where times it was just him working and times he had assistants...Bruce Gordon was working for Eisentraut back then too. Who else, anyone know? That doesn't make those frames a loser as bikes except for the monetary aspirations Albert placed on them. And, of course, the decals were... shall we say an "unfortunate" aesthetic decision when viewed backwards in time? <g>

Dale Brown
Greensboro, North Carolina