Re: [CR]KOF: Rivendell is the new H.D.

(Example: Books)

Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:21:44 -0700
From: "Mitch Harris" <mitch.harris@gmail.com>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: Re: [CR]KOF: Rivendell is the new H.D.
In-Reply-To: <20060317000416.85516.qmail@web31803.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20060317000416.85516.qmail@web31803.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


Before the horse gets reprieved let me say that Grant pointed out some things to me in the early 90s--not personally but through his bob club newsletters Bridgestone catalogs, etc. I know this stuff is marketing and hype but it also amounted to enlightening information.

I was still a young man then and liked my lugged bikes that I'd been racing for years but I'd also expected since the late 80s that a new interest in the newer so-called exotic materials would eventually replace my interest i n my lugged bikes, that I'd eventually eagerly dump N.Record for STI/Ergo, that the superiority of all the newer stuff would be so evident that I'd of course move over to it.

But that transfer to new tech didn't seem to be happening to me back then and I wondered *why*. Strangly I found that N.Record still worked fine for me and I even far preferred it to STI, even after racing on STI for a seaso n and knowing full well whatever advantages were there. I also found that I preferred my steel bikes with lugs and didn't find the need to save a bit o f weight in the frame with something lighter that wouldn't be around after a few years. I'd always though lugs were a lovely way to build a bike, for example, but as a young guy I assumed that soon enough I'd think that bonde d carbon was just as beautiful a way to build a bike. Cyclists all over seeme d to be coming to that conclusion.

I knew there were guys who collected classic racing bikes, but I didn't kno w about "on" vs. "off-topic" and I assumed that those of you collecting Masis in the early 90s would--by now--have been collecting carbon racing bikes. I thought it was only about the races the bikes were in and not the bikes too .

So when I first read Grant's Bob and Bridgestone stuff long before Rivendell, I realized *why* I was dragging my feet on transfering to new cycling technology. It seems really simple now, but his stuff back then pointed out that some of this older stuff, like lugs and steel tubing, stil l works brilliantly in every practical or technical context you could ask for , and that it's also lovely and worthwhile in ways that were taken for granted.

He seemed different to me, too, from the KOF builders who were out there because back then it was easy to assume that KOF builders were only still brazing lugs because they didn't know how to weld titanium or lay up carbon . One assumed that they'd eventually learn or they'd go out of business. But here was this guy Grant who took almost generic seeming Bridgestones and connected them to the virtuous tradition of lugged steel racing frames. Then, when Bridgestone departed the US, instead of starting up with modern bike tech like any sane guy would have, Grant instead made the case for the old ways as better and worth continuing.

So, when he'd get a piece in Buycycling about his bikes, instead of Dave Yates, for example, I think it's less because of his hype expertise and mor e because Buycylcing editors would have expected Dave Yates to still be makin g lugged steel frames. But it surprised them that someone like Grant who "had a choice," would insist in staying involved with lugged frames. In the earl y and mid 90s when lugged steel looked impossibly uncool and before the "old school" chic was born, Grant was the one explaining (to cylcists as well as media) why you'd want to continue riding lugged steel. That's got to be a major contribution to keeping that flame lit.

Mitch Harris
Little Rock Canyon, Utah