Chuck Schmidt opined:
The holes in the fork crown always reminded me of those silly fifties Buick portholes. <http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/edu_k-12/images/ buick_fender_mounted_portholes.jpg> <http://rivendellbicycles.com/gallery_new/rivendell/ riv_gp_headtube_400.jpg>
Here are some more KOF portholes:
http://classicrendezvous.com/
Actually, I am in total agreement with Charles and Chuck. The artistic eye tells me there is incongruity in some aspects of the Riv designs and the scientific side of me questions why that may be. Mr Starck touched on the mathematical side of the why. In facial form, structure and reconstruction of parts, we deal with golden section ideas as a "go-to" reinforcement or substantiation of why some things function and then coincidentally work in terms of beauty. Studies have been done measuring conclusively that babies can sense an attractive mother differently than a less attractive one. There appears to be some hardwiring in all of us, courtesy of our Creator. That being said, it may be somewhat different in different races. The golden section mathematical rules do not work in quite the same ways for Asians, for example.
A week or so ago, the Wall Street Journal had a piece on the changing aspects of frontal appearance of cars. A lot of people apparently base a large part of their decision to purchase a vehicle based on its face. The snarly Chris Bangle BMWs and the new Camrys are examples of how a relatively nasty expression has displaced a pleasant face in the car market. I hope we don't have a bike market where the market gravitates evermore to caulk-beaded tubes, etc and forgets the decent pleasing beauty of lugs, especially those done well, regardless of our comparatively petty artistic predilections.
Ken Wehrenberg, Hermann, MO