Raoul Delmare pondered over the pleasures of seeing peoples addresses from all over the world and who is farthest to the north...
Like him I would like to thank Brad Orr "for the most excellent , and most needed , factual message about steel metallurgy !" and no doubt Brad lives in the most arctic environment of us two, but nevertheless Uppsala is situated some 200km further to the north than Fort McMurray. Fairly chilly just now - four inches of snow and -15C - and I am riding none of our classical bicycles.
Thinking on one though: some odd twenty years ago I bought and built up a Centurion Super Tourist frame (Champion tubes) and rode it up to five years ago when the right rear dropout - what else - broke. The ride was always somewhat indifferent and when I started to ride bikes with a bb drop twenty mm lower I thought I understood why and the frame was put to rest in my cellar.
These last days however I am ordering a Mercian Vincitore custom touring geometry for my daughter and letting them repaint a Colnago Super from 1976 for same daughter. Thought I could let the Centurion get my desktop 1010A dropouts and new cantilever braze-ons (instead of destroyed ones) placed for mtb wheels, whereby letting the bb go down those twenty mms as well as get plain, but decent, enamel while they already were at it. Took some measurement this afternoon and found that trail would lessen from 54 to 48 mms which is rather the opposite of my wishes.
So my question to the collective experience here: how much does it matter? is it worth £75 for a new fork with less rake? and how do you measure rake - parallell to the ground or 90deg from the line through the head tube?
I admit this is just for the joy of making experiments and also that is is - at best - only half topic so forgive me Dale, but an answer would be nice.
A very pleasurable 2003 to you all with lot of cheap and enjoyable backroom finds!
Olof Stroh
Uppsala Sweden