In a message dated 9/10/2004 5:05:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time, jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net writes:
<< He speaks of an upgraded carbon fork option >>
We sold some of the first Graftecs..
My partner Bob (I had a partner in the old days) and I riding a local club's metric century together and 1/2 way through he commented to me that the bike felt "funny". We arrived at a rest stop and discovered that the seat tube had become unplugged from the BB! We stuck it back in and road back home gingerly. (And then returned it under warranty like 50% of its brethren)
Re: fork "upgrades... Oddly, most of the Graftec forks were made in Texas (frames were made in Sou. Cal.) They were supposed to have a carbon fiber "wrap" in the upper middle only about 4" wide. There were low rings brazed on the full chrome fork (Haden cast crown) which the carbon was fitted up against.. Funny looking and probably just cosmetic but Graftec made grandiose claims..
Anyway, they seemed to have trouble shipping the frames with these and many ending up just having plain chrome forks (still full chrome & same crown etc.). So this guy probably got caught up in all that and has the silly-wrapped version.
Dale Brown cycles de ORO, Inc. 1410 Mill Street Greensboro, North Carolina 27408 336-274-5959 fax 336-274-6360 <A HREF="http://www.cyclesdeoro.com">cyclesdeORO.com</A> <A HREF="http://www.classicrendezvous.com./main.htm">ClassicRendezvous.com</A>