Jon Schaer wrote:
> Bill Shook (started American Classic) made his own aluminum
> frame around that same time period (he already had some of
> his own manufactured components by then, too). He raced on it
> in college, and I think did a few others for friends. It's
> still around somewhere, probably in FL. It pre-dated the
> welded Kleins and Canondales, I think. It was instead bonded
> (like Treks), but used the same oversized tubing concept.
> There was an article in Bicycling in the early 90's that
> claimed a Roger Durham frame had been used as evidence in a
> Klein/Cannondale lawsuit over the OS tubing issue, but it was
> Bill's frame that was used. I read the court transcripts.
Alright! You finally answered a question that's been in the back of my mind for decades. I attended the 1974 Fitchburg classic, and saw the home-made Al frame of the winner, but forgot the guy's name and always wished I'd learned more about it at the time. Now I know it was Bill Shook - I found a webpage with past winners of Fitchburg!
If I remember correctly it had very clunky outside lugs, with pins through the joints, no doubt secondary to the glue in terms of holding it together. Interesting but ugly. I remember being quite captivated by a female competitor's Eisentraut, which I thought was the most beautiful frame I'd seen up to that point (talking about the bike not the girl though her frame was also stunning...), knocking out Strawberry which had been my previous fave. (Yes I had seen many Masis and Colnagos at that point in my life) Between the girl and the Eisentraut, I didn't pay as much attention to Bill Shook and his history-making frame as I should have.
Mark Bulgier
Seattle WA USA