Tom Sanders wrote:
>
> It seems a slippery slope to use the term Constructeur as
> anything but a
> descriptive term...it just does not seem to work well to
> define narrowly any
> group of builders or exclude others. Mike Barry, Brian
> Baylis, Peter Weigle
> and Bruce Gordon all make extra parts ...are they
> Constructeurs or bike
> builders who make some extra parts? Which parts would
> qualify one as one or
> the other? Art Stump and George Omelenchuck made parts
> that Singer and Herse
> did not, I believe. Stump and Omelenchuck probably
> lacked the time to build
> very many bikes this way...Art once told me he had build
> 18 and I only know
> of three or four Omelenchucks...If he made a dozen bikes
> I'd be amazed.
> More like machinists who built bikes. I think they are
> not different, only
> have different talents and interests...and that
> semi-wonderful French
> terminology. In the end they are all bike builders and
> we get to slipping,
> once again, into such discussions as how many angels can
> dance on the head
> of a Campagnolo drop out screw...you can tell it's winter
> and folks are
> spending a lot of time at their computers... :^)
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
- W. Shakespeare
Emanuel lowi Montreal, Quebec
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