Hmmn, care to see a rather exact parallel? Turn on the Discovery Channel any Monday night. Yeah, we're talking custom choppers. This bike is their second cousin - gorgeous to look at, an eternal work of art, and you've got to be a madman to want to ride it. But then, like a lot of Harley's, it's not meant to be ridden.
Been there, done that, admittedly with a whole lot less talent. Back in the first half of the seventies, there were five or six of us in the Presque Isle Bicycle Club who would spend the entire winter assembling (notice, I said assembling, not building - none of us had the talent to build our own frames) the custom ride for the next season. First ride of the season EVERYBODY turned out to see what the spendthrift crazies had put together over the winter. And don't ask how much Nuevo Record I destroyed while learning how to do practical drillium.
George R. "Syke - still assembling bicycles and choppers" Paczolt Montpelier, VA
Original message:
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 15:47:21 -0800 (PST) From: sandranian To: Kevin Kruger , TheMaaslands@comcast.net, "classicrendezvous@bikelist.org" Subject: Re: [CR]Mario Confente Superlight Bike Message-ID: <20060307234721.26810.qmail@web81410.mail.mud.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <20060307233603.12961.qmail@web31402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Precedence: list Message: 8
While I really like the whole "drillium" thing, at what point does it cross the line to absurdity? That bike is definitely pretty, but it is a deathtrap (not to mention the headaches in cleaning it after a damp ride!). No one in their right mind would ride with those bars...actually...correction: Nobody in their right mind would ride BEHIND the masochist who rode that bike.
Drillium to shave weight is neat and looks great, specially when detailed with the paint. But why not just leave the bars off the bike to shave the weight? And the brakes too? For that matter, if you leave the entire bike behind, you really save weight.
Kidding, of course, and I know that that bike was built for show, not for use. Right?!?!
Stephan Andranian Fan of drillium, not "Sillium" http://www.gitaneusa.com
PS: Just received a cool new Gitane catalogue from France (1974), which features on the cover a beautiful Gitane with drilled out Campagnolo Nuovo Record parts!
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