Tim Gunn drew our attention to a real novelty, the Multi tubed Bugatti Bicycle Frame design by Ettore Bugatti. He suggests that there may be interest in some replicas. He also notes with respect to some earlier replicas:
"I beleive stump had to reinforce the frame with cross bracing to strengthen the frame, which helped, but was not to the original design."
With all due respect to Master Designer Bugatti, I don't get it. The design. I don't understand how an unbraced (diagonally among the stick bundles) bike frame with 4 times the number of tubes (roughly, it may only be 3x) and no cross-bracing is going to be better -- seems to me that it will be somewhat heavier, and about 4x more expensive to make, with no obvious advantages (yeah, the bb may be a bit more constrained by the wider tube joins, but my understanding is that the downtube mostly "sees" torque, for which the 4 mini-downtubes don't seem to make sense. This is no Alex Moulton space frame.
But, my Beloved Spouse, a real engineer, says I just don't get (emotional) things sometimes, so I guess this Bugatti is about some sort of viscera... :-) Tastes vary, but I don't think I'll stand in this particular queue waiting.
harvey "curmudgeon" sachs
mcLean va