In a message dated 12/6/02 3:14:54 PM Pacific Standard Time, henox@icycle.net writes:
<< Brent Steelman, who was an Excel importer at one time, might have some relevant information.
Years ago, I asked one of my French bicycle business customers about Excel tubing and asked for pricing. (I was intrigued by the steel/carbon combination tubes and by the light weight).
My customer replied that Excel was a small firm, difficult to deal with, and unreliable. I quickly dropped the idea.
I doubt he would have made these comments about Vitus (with whom he was doing business on a regular basis and from whom I had bought tubing). >>
I have an Excel bike made by Brent that I still love. Other than a failed
headtube (a batch of the WRONG tubing was inserted in the bicycle tubesets) I
have loved the bike for years! In all my discussions with Brent, it was
extremely clear this was a tiny operation, not at all like Vitus. There was
one fairly crazy guy who ran the company and was the source of the
"difficulty" in dealing with them.
As an aside, I was impressed enough with the tubing that I introduced it to
Greg Lemond. I had paid to attend the 1st Lemond training seminar at The
Pedaler in El Sobrante, I attended the second seminar the following year as a
volunteer "fitter" for the paid attendees. At the second one, I had made
arrangements for Brent to have a bike there that was Excel and close enough
to Greg's size that he could evaluate it. He liked the tubing a lot and
instructed us to send a set to Roland Della Santa (who I knew fairly well)
and to send the bill to his dad. Well, when I told his father that I was
about to send a tubeset to Roland at Greg's request and that Greg had
instructed me to send the bill to him, and could I please have his address,
his FAMOUSLY cheap skate "dad" accused us of shamelessly trying to promote
our tubing at his expense and refused to pay for it! That it was "per Greg's
request" fell on deaf ears and so we never sent the tubing to Roland. My
motivation at the time was entirely that this tubing could possibly give Greg
an advantage in his quest for another Tour victory (I admit, I was a huge
fan). I can categorically say that before then, Greg had never heard of Excel
tubing and that his first experience riding it was on a Steelman!
Stevan Thomas
Alameda, CA