At 4:57 PM -0700 6/5/06, Don Wilson wrote:
>Do most great frame builders do their best work early,
>like many scientists and artists, and then kind of
>muddle along skillfully but not reaching those same
>heights again? Or do most keep building better and
>better bikes?
Those are interesting questions, which I have pondered myself. I think it depends on a number of factors.
1. Output: If you build five frames a year, it may take a while to get your skills fine-tuned to the highest levels. If you build 150 a year, it shouldn't take all that long, assuming you have a gift.
2. The builder: Are they a perfectionist, always trying to improve? Or are they somebody who, once they have established their name, are more interested in supplying the product, and keep demand up through advertising in its various forms?
3. The environment: A builder who started in France in 1945 was building on a rich tradition of bicycle making. They could read about and look at what had been done before them, and what was being done around them. Their customers were a discerning lot. Technical trials (for cyclotouring bikes) stimulated development even further. It did not take much to get up to speed, and then improve on that.
Contrasting this, an American builder in the 1970s had to learn from scratch. Few resources were available in the English language, and even fewer were easily available over here. Customers with little prior knowledge demanded the latest fads, such as crit bikes and 75-degree head angles. The few "old guys" who had been riding for decades were overlooked at a time when tradition was out of fashion. It took many builders a while to figure out what worked best, and to develop the authority to tell their customers that they, the builder, knew best what was best.
However, whereas American customers are becoming more educated all the time, the opposite has happened in Europe. There, people who used to ride wonderful handmade bikes now dream of Cannondales. That isn't all that new - after the 1950s, cycling and especially cyclotouring hit a big low, and instead of leading the technical development, cyclotouring bikes began to copy racing bikes, even though much of the technology wasn't appropriate. So a 1970s cyclotouring bike doesn't shift as well and doesn't handle as well as a 1955 one.
4. Supply and demand: This is only somewhat related to the age of the builder. During a bike boom, when every bike you can make flies out of the door, there is less incentive (and less time) to spend on the last 5% of finish detail. If there are few orders, and a discerning customer base, a builder may spend extra time, so that their bike will be admired, and lead to repeat orders.
Also remember that the pressures and way of operating of mid-size shops like Colnago, Cinelli, Herse, Paramount, etc., are somewhat different from the one-person builders we know in the U.S. I think what you often see with bigger European - especially Italian - makers is that they started out small and became larger, with less emphasis on quality and craftsmanship, and more on marketing and sales. Today, they buy aluminum frames in Taiwan and sell them under their brand.
In the end, I believe it is hard to generalize. For Rene Herse, for example, I prefer the early bikes over the later ones. The workmanship is better, and so is the technical execution. There was more innovation with proprietary parts. Singer had their best period in the middle, with few orders and extra care lavished on each, and after they had figured out some of the technical details. That said, the very early, superlight Singers are fascinating as well. Cinellis - I have liked all the ones I have ridden, from 1960 through 1972. For Weigle, from the two I have ridden, I believe that they are getting better with every one.
--
Jan Heine
Editor/Publisher
Vintage Bicycle Quarterly
c/o Il Vecchio Bicycles
140 Lakeside Ave, Ste. C
Seattle WA 98122
http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com