Lou,
A quick P.S. I have a hard time believing that Colnago was the first to bend fork blades cold in 1956. I suspect Reynolds was bending them cold at the factory maybe even from the beginning; I suppose it wouldn't be hard to find the historical answer to that question. Perhaps he means "amongst his local contemporaries", who were heating them to bend them. Sometimes the old time Italian framebuilders tend to think that the sun orbits around Milano, the center of the universe. Just a thought.
Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA
The center of the Universe. OK, MY Universe!
In a message dated 1/8/2004 12:39:45 PM Eastern Standard Time, Grant.McLean@SportingLife.ca writes:
> http://www.cyclingnews.com/
This excerpt from the link:
CN: What were some of the technological advances you are most proud of from the early days?
EC: At first, my bikes were known for their unbreakable forks. In the old days, in order to bend the fork blades, the metal was heated up. So in 1956, I realized that if the fork blades could be bent without heating, they would be more flexible and absorb shock better because once the metal is heated up, it loses some flexibility. So I figured out a way to bend the blades fixed in a jig on a workbench with two pieces of wood. But before I got this new development right, believe me, there was a lot of hard work and I had to throw away a lot of tubes to get it down perfectly. In the late sixties, I was the first to develop microfusion (cast) fork crowns to further improve the fork. I had seen some special parts for airplanes and for shotguns made by Microfusione Italiana. Since the forks had to be extra strong for racing the pave, I decided to eliminate the stamped fork crowns and lugs and take a different direction.
We discussed this last month or so and the general consensus I took away from the framebuilders was that the fork bend isn't where the flex occurs, but that it occurs at the junction of the steerer tube and the fork crown(I think I got that right). Ernesto Colnago's comments seem to refute that. Anyone care to reopen this discussion? Intuitively, it seems to me that the fork would act like a spring at the bend. Lou Deeter, Orlando FL