As recently as a hundred years ago, Prague and the Hapsburg Empire looked down their noses at the primitives in London and Paris. Even their though science, technology and crafts were starting to be eclipsed by industrial revolution production in England, Germany, France and USA, Bohemia was still widely considered the creme de la creme of western civilization--a region that England, France and Germany all felt compelled to subjugate one way or another in order to eclipse Bohemia as the cultural center of Europe. And of course the Hapsburg Empire controlled not only the oil fields of Ploesti in the Balkans, but they controlled the land bridge to the oil/gas fields of central Asia AND the middle east, just as they had controlled the same land bridge for a couple centuries in other types of trade with the East. Their strategic relations with the Ottoman Turks gave them a great influence over the Bosporus and Dardanelles, as well, I suppose. In the end, however, they were containable and conquerable, because they never succeeded in developing a global naval force that could impose their culture and economy on the naval-facilitated globalization that swept over the world during the 18th and 19th Centuries. I tend to view Favorit, despite its uneven quality of components, as an indicator of that regions rich underlying cultural and economic capabilities. The Czechs, as they were known by the time of Favorit, were still able to throw together a bicycle company that made all its own components, despite having suffered the break up of its empire by the Allies after WWI, after violent conquest and oppression by Nazi Germany in WWII and in the midst of violent conquest and oppression by the USSR. It would have been amazing that this society could have even gatthered the wherewithal to weld a few tubes together under the totalitarian boot heel of the USSR--which was as desirous of keeping its Eastern European satellites hamstrung dependents, as the west was interested in liberating them. Rather than ridiculing them for producing inferior copies of French bikes, which is exactly what the Japanese did at the beginning. I tend to find them inspiring. In Japan, the post war economy was capitalist and progressive from the start of reconstruction. And Japan's exports were subsidized and nurtured by American import regulations and central bank policy. The Czechs and Favorit faced just the opposite situation. The west was doing everything it could to strangle the USSR's economy and only nurtured its satellites economies in ways intended to drive wedges between them and the USSR. Naturally, the USSR responded by keeping the Favorits and Jawas and Puchs and DKWs of the Iron Curtain world on as short of a leash as possible. In sum, it was perhaps a bigger accomplishment that Favorit did what it did, than that the Japanese bike makers did what they did. And it is not surprising that circumstances lead to broad Japanese successes, while Favorit could never take the next steps to improving their product quality. In a reasonably short time, the USSR itself was to fall apart. Few companies can flourish when political and economic regulations are stacked asymmetrically against them for long periods of time.
Don Wilson
Los Olivos, CA USA
> << (like the influence of Alphons Mucha on classic
> bicycle ads and graphics) >>
>
> Tim, tell us more about this! Very interesting!
> Dale Brown
> Greensboro, North Carolina USA
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: timvictor@gmail.com
> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Sent: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 11:06 AM
> Subject: Re: [CR]Re: Odd-weird-interesting-scary
> NOS 1972 Czech bike & saddle
>
> Dale wrote:
> > #320062087983 and 320062471061
> >
> > That is a funny-cool-weird-odd-scary bike! These
> "Iron curtain" companies are sort of like Yugos..
> They LOOK normal but are still distinctly Third
> World when it comes to machining tolerances, etc.
> >
> > One thing bothered me in this auction.. Ths
> seller appears knowledgeable so why would he say
> "Has a really nice leather seat made by Brooks or
> Ideale I suppose." He knows that is pure BS.
> Troubling... What else is BS in what he says?
> >
> > Dale Brown
> > Greensboro, North Carolina USA
>
> Thanks for the comments, Dale, especially for the
> "What else is BS" heads-up.
> I read right past that, and never imagined for a
> moment that the saddle would
> be anything other than a Warsaw-Pact copy. I had
> only seen the listing for the
> full bike, not the other one for just the saddle.
>
> Yes, about "iron curtain" companies, I have several
> dozen Russian and Ukrainian
> copies of Leica and Hasselblad cameras. Their
> factories were capable of some
> very technically sophisticated stuff when they felt
> like trying, and consumer
> goods were often made in the same plants as their
> weapons and aerospace
> products. But worker morale was typically at rock
> bottom and quality control
> usually non-existent. Doug Fattic has relayed some
> great anecdotes about
> this world.
>
> Part of the charm for me is that it's a window into
> the world we didn't get
> to see at the time, "behind the Iron Curtain" that
> I heard so much about
> while growing up. Also Czech culture is wonderful
> and much overlooked
> (like the influence of Alphons Mucha on classic
> bicycle ads and graphics)
> and Prague is a most wonderful place to visit,
> fabulously beautiful and
> cultured. But the cameras sure are a lot cheaper to
> buy and ship and
> easier to store too.
>
> Peace,
>
> Tim Victor
> Greensboro, NC, USA
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