Re: [CR]re:753 , Bruce Gordon and a HI HO SILVER

(Example: Events:Cirque du Cyclisme:2007)

Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 13:47:04 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jerome & Elizabeth Moos <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: [CR]re:753 , Bruce Gordon and a HI HO SILVER
To: john@os2.dhs.org, 'CLASSIC RENDEZVOUS' <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
In-Reply-To: <44BFE352.3010509@new.rr.com>


Maybe 753 is yet another great example of why competition equipment should often not be marketed to the general public. Professional athletes usually do not care about durability, so long as the equipment lasts to the end of the day's event, and don't care at all if the equipment can be repaired so long as the sponsor is able to just supply another new one. I think someone recently cited the comment attributed to Colin Chapman that a race car that didn't fall apart 50 yards after passing the finish line had been overdesigned. Production machines, be they bicycles or sports cars, should have a different set of design criteria which includes durability and ease of repair.

Unfortunately a significant segment of the public has a mentality of having to have what the pros use, even when that is totally unsuitable for the consumer's actual use. And quite obviously many Marketing departments not only exploit that mentality but actively attempt to instill that mentality in the public.

Regards,

Jerry Moos Big Spring, TX

John Thompson <JohnThompson@new.rr.com> wrote: Jerome & Elizabeth Moos wrote:
> There seems to be one school of thought that the 753 "test" was as
> much a publicity stunt by Reynolds as a sincere attempt at quality
> control.

I'll be more charitable and suggest that 753 was a special-purpose (e.g. record attempts) tubing that the frame manufacturers' marketing people latched onto as a way of boosting the "prestige" of their marques.
> In some sense one wonders about 753 in general. Was the idea that
> this tubeset was so thin-walled that it needed heat treating to
> achieve adequate tensile strength? If so, maybe it was just a bad
> idea, as it defeats two of the major benefits of steel frames,
> durability and repairability.

As a special purpose tubing, it would still make sense, though.
> Even if one could insure that the original builder didn't overheat
> the tubing, there is no way to control the repairs made after a
> crash. In my view, it's better just to make the walls a little
> thicker than rely on heat treating. But that was the day of the
> superlightweight craze.

Reynolds never recommended repairing 753 frames, but we (Trek) were told that if it absolutely had to be done, the only tube they would consider replacing on a 753 frame would be a chainstay.

--

-John Thompson (john@os2.dhs.org)
Appleton WI USA