Last few days many people going on about 1970/80's steel lugged frame bikes and current bikes. Also questions as to why Ten Speed Drive went away. From my perspective the two things are related. I am sure there were some bad business decisions at TSD, but I think the main point is that they tried to sell only high end road bikes when MTB's were the hot thing. At some point in mid '80's steel road bikes were very hard to sell in retail bike shops. Not to say there is anything wrong with lugged steel frames at all, but the average person walking into a bike shop has a hard time seeing the difference between one steel frame and another. The color/artwork is the main difference to anyone but the expert rider. So, road bikes had to come up with some easy technical feature that anyone could see. Titanium frames are one example. Easy to show your buddy that you have a state of the art, expensive bike. Also, aluminum frames just had/have a much easier time selling on the floor. I think that aluminum frames give very high value if done properly. Now that MTB's are not selling very well compared to 10 years ago, road bikes are more important to bike companies. It is still very important to have some easy way to tell what makes your frames better than the next one. A lot of this is just smoke and mirrors, but my opinion is that real improvements have been made. I personally see nothing wrong with using advanced materials. The challenge as a designer is to not only make the very best bike ever made, but also to be able to sell it and make money. Which frame is best? This is a matter of taste, but when it comes to the ride I am sure it is with current designs.
-----Original Message----- From: classicrendezvous-admin@bikelist.org [mailto:classicrendezvous-admin@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of Brandon Ives Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2002 2:43 PM To: chuckschmidt@earthlink.net Cc: classic list Subject: Re: [CR]Vitus Steel
On Thursday, Jul 25, 2002, at 02:19PM, Chuck Schmidt
<chuckschmidt@earthlink.net> wrote:
>I have some late 40s and early 50s Automotos that are built with Vitus
>steel tubing. One even has the MEGA kool tubing decal that says: TUBES
>GARANTIS -AVIATION- SANS SOUDURE and shows an aeroplane (1930s style).
So this begs the question. Why were all their bikes made from aluminum?
enjoy,
Brandon"monkeyman"Ives
SB, CA