Charles, I agree with you to a certain extent, but you're making an apples vs. oranges argument. France and Switzerland may share a border, but they're not the same country and their craftsman and building style history is quite different, particularly from the early 30s to late 50s. Allegros and Mondias are really some of the best bikes ever to come out of Europe as a whole, but that's because of the tradition of perfection within Swiss craftsmanship. France was more about making due, getting it done, and pushing the envelope. Swiss builders were thinking more along the lines of perfecting an ideal not really aboput creating something new. Urago's are not much, if any, better than the Swiss bikes, but they were one step up from the other French production makers of the time.
Of course we all have an eye and desire for different bikes and it's hard to take our personal preferences out of the equation. best, Brandon"monkeyman"Ives back off to work on my wife's mixte which is modeled after a Mondia in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
On Wednesday, Mar 2, 2005, at 10:18 US/Pacific, C. Andrews wrote:
> Dale and Brandon wrote:
>
> "On Wednesday, Mar 2, 2005, at 07:51 US/Pacific, Peter
> Weigle wrote:
>> I agree with Dale, Uragos are special bikes! I can't
> believe more
>> hasn't been said about them on this list.
>
> Folks talk about Peugeot, Gitane, Motobecane all the time, I
> think the
> problem is the best production bikes like Urago rarely made
> it to the
> U.S. I always keep my eye out for Uragos and Hurtus since
> all the
> examples I've seen really have been one step better than
> similar models
> from other makers. Of course there are undiscovered and
> underrated
> marquees from most countries. The upside of the
> "undiscovered"
> beauties is that they can be had for a mere pittance.
> enjoy,"
>
> *********
>
> Uragos are nice enough I suppose, but they always seemed to
> me to be not much different than a top-line Allegro, or
> Mondia, or similar production frame of the period. Not to
> mention the Swiss Condors. Mondia was around for as
> long, or longer, as was Allegro. And the nicest Mondias I
> ever saw were pretty nice. Including
> a track frame from from the 1960s I saw at CyclArt that was
> a real beauty. And the Mondia Special frame rides as nicely
> as any sport-touring frame I can think of. Custom or
> production. Whoever designed it knew what they were doing.
>
> No slam intended, but I don't see where Uragos are all that
> different in kind from the better production frames out of
> France or Switzerland in the period involved. That said,
> some had very cool graphics, and pinstriping. So did
> Mondias, though. And Allegros.
>
> Charles Andrews
> SoCal
>
>
>
> "What concerns me is not the way things are,
> but rather the way people think things are."
>
> - Epictitus