For one and all still listening...
Those "things" on the Ritchey are structural reinforcements. Tom didn't put them there to look like lugs, he took a thin piece of tube, brazed to the tube to add to the wall thickness. Full stop.
The reason they look like lugs is that Tom Ritchey shaped them, and so they kinda look like "lugs". They ain't lugs, and they ain't there for lookin' pretty, they are there to make the ends of the tubes stronger. They are there to add to the wall thickness. As soon as Tom started having his own tubing made to his specs, with thick walls and short butts, these "GUSSETS"!!! were no longer needed, and they don't appear on his frames anymore.
As much as some may want these to be "embellishments" on other wise "plain" fillet frames... they're not...
Someone please call Tom and confirm this.
Grant McLean Toronto.Ca
are you saying the the lug part of this was actually a bunch of brass that was layed down as the fillet and then sculpted to seem like a lug? e-RICHIE chester, ct
On Fri, 21 May 2004 15:43:41 -0400 "Neill Currie"
<neill_currie@comcast.net> writes:
> FWIW, Ritchey used this construction on his top of the line MTB
> framesets: the Annapurna, from the early '90's.
> They were fillet-brazed, then filed to look just like a lug. Don't
> say it can't be done, or why would anyone...... otherwise one
> starts questioning most endeavours that are not purely functional.
> Neill Currie
> Deering, Nh........just back from 3 glorious days on the Cape, with
> bike, just a "simple" fillet-brazed item.
\