At 1/16/2006 09:31 AM -0500, Charles T. Young wrote:
>Think how much fun it would be to build up a "deathbike" from various
>deathbits. Where to start and how many options do we have?
>[Snip]
>Stem shifters for impalement opportunities - which brand would provide the
>best puncturing abilities?.
I'd like to nominate this one from Huret that was on my wife's 1972
Gitane Mixte.
http://bikesmithdesign.com/
I keep it around because it's related to a funny story. WheelGoods, here in Minneapolis, in '72 started calling themselves "The Bike Fitters", in radio ads. "Come in and get a bike custom fitted to you". What they did was subtract 1" from 1/3 of your height to get the frame size. Jane was 8 -1/2 months pregnant with our youngest, and had gone into false labor. The hospital sent us home and on the way we passed WheelGoods and saw they had a sale on.
Our "Sales Associate" was a youngster about 18 y/o who got freaked by Jane's big belly and occasional twinges. He asked her height, (5' 6") and started to show her 21" bikes. She finally decided she liked the looks of a white 5 speed mixte with its chrome fenders and chain guard. The kid got it down for her, and when she straddled it, the giant shifter poked her right in the gut. He asked how it felt, and she replied "It will probably fit just fine when I'm not pregnant". So he asked "Oh! How tall are you normally?"
Squealing MAFACs I've also had no trouble getting bikes to stop with them. But this talk of the squealing reminds me of reading the ride report of an American on PBP back in the '70s. One of the nights the fog was so thick that he just stayed close behind a group of French riders so he could follow their tail lights. The squeal of their MAFACs would alert him to slow down. At one point he realized that his silent Campi brakes had the potential to get him rear ended.
Mark Stonich;
Minneapolis Minnesota
http://mnhpva.org
http://bikesmithdesign.com