Freek,
Thanks for the charming framebuilding story. I don't have any like that; but I read with interest the bit about how he marked frame details on t he floor. I plan to spend a little time spewing some of my opinions and experiences with different builders and fixtureing and how it might (or might not) effect the process. It's an interesting topic and one that la ypersons know almost nothing about relative to the frames they admire an d ride. Kepp your eyes open for my website to appear, it's getting prett y close.
Cheers,
Brian Baylis La Mesa, CA Yes, I want to grow up to be a framebuilder someday.
Good day listers!
After a long and cold winter, now summer seems to have reached the Netherlands (what happened to spring?), so it's time for a story (before I go out for a ride)!
In the 50s and 60s Jaap van de Bergh ran a well-known bikeshop in Amster
dam
.
He was also a framebuilder, and catered for many Amsterdam and regional
racers. His brandname was Bergh Sport; for some reason the headbadge (
http://www.wooljersey.com/
The shop, and workshop, of van de Bergh was in the Jacob van Lennepstraa t, just outside the 'grachtengordel', in the 19th century ring of Amsterdam . O n warmer days, Van de Bergh, while working on a frame, usually left the do or of his workshop open (not something to recommend I believe). One day in the summer, the police came to a house across the street, to settle a disturbance; they came on horses, and left them in the street, tied to a
lamppost.
A customer in van de Bergh's shop (probably there just for a friendly ch at, or 'slap ouwehoeren' as we say in Rotterdam), noticed the horses and tho ugh t a practical joke was the right thing to do. He walked across the street,
untied one of the horses, led it gently into the workshop, and tied it t o the workbench.
Unruffled, van de Bergh just went on brazing whatever he was brazing at the time, leaning against the horse in a relaxed manner. So much for the jok e.
Now the way van de Bergh built his frames was not with a jig, but with t he help of markings on the wooden floor of his workshop. This seemed to hav e worked well, since he had a lot of satisfied customers; many of them had a new frame built for every new season.
Some months after the visit of the horse however, complaints began to re ach him. 'This bike won't go round the corners', 'I keep hitting the pavemen t when accelerating out of the corners', etc. The horse, weighing over a 1 000 kilo's, must have shifted something in that wooden floor!
*(This story was told to me by Pieter Buysman, who worked for van de Ber gh in the 60s)*
**
Freek Faro
Rotterdam Netherlands