IAP aluminum bicycle frame "classes" at MIT were more than a one-time thing. One of the folks in my company took one in 1974 or so (probably in the Klein session, I'll have to ask him), and I took the class (I use the term loosely) in 1980 or so. I know it was offered as late as 1984, and probably past then. Those early frames were 6061, 1.25" O.D. tubing, with standard headsets, but glued-in bottom brackets (we had a machine shop grind the races off of regular spindles). I remember lots of daring fun mitering tubes with those big milling cutters on the less-than-perfectly-stiff Bridgeports we students had access to.
It's great that Klein was poised to capitalize on this offering and was able to (and wanted to) make a business of it. Those early frames were crude, and I give him credit for realizing the potential that was there (I think a lot of us took the engineering lesson to heart (and my co-worker still rides his IAP frame)).
Scott Minneman San Francisco, CA
-----Original Message----- From: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org [mailto:classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of Donald Gillies Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 9:31 PM To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: Re: Aluminum fatigue, was Re: [CR]More on Alan frames
Indeed, the idea of oversized aluminum tubes originated in an MIT IAP (January Break) class offered by one of the professors of mechanical engineering who was trying to get the idea across that you could increase the strength of aluminum tubes by making them oversized.
Gary Klein was a student in this one-time class. He was THE ONLY student who took it to heart and decided to try to found a business based upon the idea.
I saw one of these frames in 1981 in the mechE department. It was being used as a paperweight. I immediately asked if it was a Klein frame and I was told "no" and I was told the whole story. There were about 20 frmaes made - no forks - in about 1974. I've read the biography of Klein and it strives to obscures the history of the fat-tubed aluminum bike. Klein was the guy who commercialized it - not the inventor.
In our capitalist system, all spoils go to the one who commercializes something. The originator 9 times out of 10 gets nothing. I have watched friends get rich on software that I wrote.
And, many professor jobs don't pay enough to live in the cities where the jobs exist, and there's an unspoken rule that to make ends meet many professors HAVE TO run a company based on ideas funded by research grants from the government. This is how modern universities get a second faculty subsidy from the government, which allows them to hire the thousands of administrative paper-pushers needed for the heavy lifting of administering a university *snicker* ...
- Don