Hello Steven and Craig -
Thanks for your thoughts and corrections. Your perspectives are much appreciated.
My original reason for replying to Craig's post just that I wanted to know what part (he thought) was bunk, and perhaps to soften his comment. I then tried to figure it out for myself (Error), and wound up critiquing further, which was counter to my original goal. (Darn.)
Yes Craig - I spent way too much time thinking about this. ;-) Good point about the national teams in the early years. I suspect on a country-wide bicycling industry basis, the successful national teams (France? and Italy?) did bring lots of bike revenues to their countries.
cheers,
Skip Echert Renton, WA.
At 04:42 PM 7/11/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Skip and Craig,
>
>You are commenting on something that Carsten has not written himself.
>Carsten only has personally written the German version, the other languages
>are approximate translations of that which he has written in German. I am
>probably the only one on this list that can make this statement, as I fully
>understand the Greman original and was the person who wrote the Italian and
>the French translations for Carsten. The English translation has been
>written by a friend of Carsten's who is a member of the Veteran Cycle club.
>While not a perfect translation, it is quite faithful to the German original
>(probably as good as either of my translations.) If it were my own personal
>web-site, I would probably rewrite the English translation to bring it even
>more in line with the original, but that is up to Carsten (who you should
>understand is not perfectly fluent in English himself!)
>
>I have never met Carsten, but he seems to be a great fellow (otherwise I
>would not have volunteered to do the translations). I do however believe he
>has more passion for bicycles than for the study of language, so I do not
>believe it is correct to comment on writing style or grammatical
>correctness. I think he should be soundly applauded by this group rather
>than criticised for such minutiae. I know he is open to critiques, additions
>and completions, so if you have something to say, please address yourselves
>to Carsten.
>
>With regards to Skip's criticism listed below, I have put down some of my
>thoughts. I am sure others will be able to add more. Maybe, this will bring
>in more of the pre-70's content that people seem to want. ;-)
>
> > My thoughts - I believe variable gears (derailleurs) were specifically
> > outlawed by the European racing community for some time, so it is hard to
> > credit them with early variable gear innovation. However, was there
> > another racing community (in England?) that did "power the technical
> > innovation" of early variable gears? Once they were accepted by European
> > racing, did professional racing power the further development of variable
> > gears? Yes.
>
>The outlawing of the gears was subsequent to their development for use in
>racing. The development which had been advancing very quickly up until the
>begin of the ban came to a very quick decline in the period of the ban. The
>speed of the developments then increased dramatically once the ban was once
>again removed. Carsten's thought therefore seem to be borne out.
>
> >
> > MR. Rehbein writes further: "The racer explores new technological
>frontiers
> > without being charged with the development costs which can be set off
> > against the gain in popularity and the ensuing sales of cheaper models."
> >
> > My thoughts - I am not sure what this means. We seem to have three
>parties
> > here: 1. the "racer" who (presumably) tests the new development (but does
> > not "pay" for the development); 2. Someone who pays the development costs,
> > (even if the cost is in terms of lost evenings and weekends spent
>tinkering
> > in a garage) and 3. someone who reaps the benefits in sales. Ideally #2
> > would also like to be #3, if all of this is economically driven. In the
> > case of a team sponsored by a bike or component manufacturer, this model
> > works. In the case of an innovative team sponsored by a vacuum cleaner
> > company, the company clearly loses out on bike sales. It would hope to
> > recover its costs in increased sales of vacuum cleaners. No off-setting
>of
> > costs.
>
>This is part of the translation that I feel does not fully reflect the
>original, even if the German could perhaps be clearer. It was my
>understanding that he had intended to write: The racer's bicycles are the
>test-beds for that which is technically possible. The potential marketing
>value of these same bikes in helping promote sales of the particular bicycle
>brand or technology being developed is however such that the actual
>development costs of the extreme technologies tested on the racer's bike can
>readily be offset.
>
>Steven Maasland
>Moorestown, NJ
>
>
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