[CR]Teledyne top tube clips - old email

> Seems the scans are too crude to read. I would like to see this story
> though.
>
> I met Barry Harvey when he came to the Alpenrose track to race in some
> big meet around 1970. At this race he crashed and really got hurt,
> almost died in fact. I don't think he could race again after he
> recovered. He talked Teledyne into building frames using the skills
> learned from building aircraft parts. Some of the cast parts were done
> in Portland at Precision Cast Parts. Because the use of braze-ons was
> not very wide spread at the time, he decided to neck the tubing down so
> standard clamps on the front derailleur and shifter could be used. Kind
> of weird, but it worked. He also talked Shimano into making special rear
> brake cable clips, larger top tube diameter. These frames were made in
> L.A. by some very talented craftsmen. The welding was very nice. Not
> stiff enough in my opinion, but Ron Scarran (sp?) rode them to many
> victories in the period. They did however break, especially the fork. I
> talked with Barry after they quit making them. He defended the use of CP
> alloy for these frames, giving a poor argument after all the failures. I
> wish I had picked a new one up after they were out of vogue.
>
> Another related story is about Pino Morroni. South of Portland abut 90
> miles is Albany Oregon. This is where most of the work was done on
> advanced metal during WWII. It's called the exotic metal capital of the
> world, a lot of details of how to make titanium was done there. Pino was
> trying to make some light weight bike parts and got together with Cecil
> Beringer. Pino talked
> Bianchi into a project to make lugged titanium frames. Beringer figured
> out a way to braze ti, using special gold alloy in a vacuum furnace. The
> lugs were made from solid. Tubing was made in Albany, I can't remember
> the company name. For some reason I was visiting them and saw the
> tubing. Tapered stays and very nice, 3-2.5 alloy. Beringer was very
> closed about any details of how to braze these frames. I saw one bike
> made for the track. It was absolutely amazing, something like 12 lbs.
> Anyway, I know for sure this project cost big bucks. Anyone ever seen
> these bikes? Pino was one crazy guy, but really ahead of his time. He
> did a lot of parts on Eddy Merckx's hour record bike. The reason he came
> to Portland was he had a 17 year old woman racer (Kathy Ecroth) that he
> had the hots for. He gave her one of these Ti bikes.
>
> Jim Merz
> Bainbridge Is. WA