Hello Norris,
Good luck on the Reyhand project. <snicker>
Regards,
Guy Apple Sunnyvale CA USA 9th gen American
-----Original Message-----
>From: Norris Lockley <norris.lockley@talktalk.net>
>Sent: Jun 18, 2007 5:55 PM
>To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>Subject: [CR]Mike Kone's rene Herse Announcement
>
>
>
>Ok...call me stupid, if you want, but twenty-four hours and goodness kno
>ws how many emails on this subject later, I still don't get the plot. It mu
>st have something to do with the American psyche !
>
>Is this how the story is going to go when the production...hand-building
> of the new RH's ,starts? Mark starts to build a frame as he ha
>s always built them, to a very high standard I am told, with great attentio
>n to detail, and to the client's personal specification or at least his phy
>sical measurements; he selects the tubes, fettles the lugs, mitres the
> tubes and the stays etc etc..brazes the whole thing up..adds the braze-on
>bits..finishes the whole assembly..polishes and burnishes etc etc .sprays i
>t to a fine lustre and then.... he is going to either coach-paint on or add
> decals with the name "Rene Herse". ...when what he has built is an excelle
>nt Mark Nobillete.? What's the point.? If I did that in the UK m
>y clients would have me in front of the Trading Standards Board answering s
>ome pretty pointed questions. ..Even if you can point to the certificate en
>titling you to use the name, it still doesn't make the frame a Herse...just
> a Herse look-alike.
>
>if there is such a demand for Herse-type frames in the States, why not j
>ust simply build a model, styled on Herse's designs and call it the Nobille
>te "Modele Rene Herse". or "Retro-Renes"? That, to use a word in popular po
>litical usage these days in the U" would be more "transparent", not t
>hat I am in any way suggesting that Mike and Mark are into counte
>rfeiting Herses as some builders in the Uk have counterfeited Hetchins.
>
>Another very puzzling problem for me is the reverence for and
> the almost..yes..worship of...Rene Herse frames that many American cyclist
>s, and particularly some of the List members display. And yet it seems
> that this same reverence is in itself a little fickle..witness the slight
>difference in opinion in some recent CR contributions about whe
>ther a road racing Herse is really as good as a touring or camping one. All
> that Rene or one of his artisans did was to choose different gauges of tub
>es, possibly different lugs ( I notice that the RH currently on Ebay has pr
>essed lugs not cast ones), different drop-outs, and possibly fork blades an
>d stays and cut ,mitre, file, braze, fettle, finish etc..all with the
> same level of skill and dedication as they did on the touring frames.
> Clearly Rene produced frames according to customer demand and from what I
>have read in French cycling Press the demand for serious touring and campin
>g bikes declined seriously in the 50s, as cars became more affordable, and
>demand for racing frames tended to increase.
>
>I have spent large parts of my free time in and around France for the pa
>st fifty-five years..and for the last thirty of those I have traded with do
>zens of French manufacturers, distributors, frame-builders/constructeurs et
>c..and I have to admit that on odd occasions during conversations acc
>ompanied by a "vin rouge" or two..I have heard the names of Singer and Hers
>e mentioned, but never with anything approaching the same sense of awe that
> I encounter on this List. In comparison with the UK, France is a lar
>ge country, but nevertheless I think that frame-purchasing customers on bot
>h sides of the Channel have, over the years, displayed similar trends and b
>uying habits.
>
>Many French people only acknowledge Paris in the sense that it is the ad
>ministrative capital of France, and as such the Parisians have to be tolera
>ted. Even in this age of cheap flights between regional capitals, of TGVs ,
> of fast autoroutes I still met up with an enormous number of French folk w
>ho have never been and even worse have no inclination to visit Paris. "Pari
>s is for the Parisians...not for the French !" is a not uncommon sayi
>ng. French cyclists tended to purchase their hand-built frames from l
>ocal builders..and in the heyday of French cycling there were hundreds of v
>ery competent builders in the capital cities of the French regions and depa
>rtments, such as Lyon, St Etienne, Nice, Dijon, Lille, Macon, Grenoble etc.
> If you lived in the centre or south or north of France,why bother to
> travel all the way to Paris to get a Herse when you could cycle over
>to visit Reiss, Longoni, Routens, Follis, Ondet, Errard, Janicaud, Duret, w
>hose products were probably perceived to be the equal of the Singers and He
>rses of Paris, assuming that is that the "paysans" of France at large had e
>ver heard of the latter.
>
>I have a question to pose to the List..and it isn't a rhetorical on
>e. If Herse frames and bikes are so good.. so desirable so renowned a
>nd so much an integral part of the French "patrimoine".then why has no Fren
>ch builder ( and there are still some KOF ones still working in France prod
>ucing some excellent frames ) sought to relaunch the marque? Perhaps the id
>ea never occurred to M Chollet of Follis, or Jean-Paul Routens of Cycles Ro
>utens, or Daniel Cattin, or Alain Michel, or Jean-Sebastien Joffres, or M B
>esson, or M Genet, or Alain Tourral, or Pithioud, or Gilles Berthoud?
>
>Why does it take a couple of Americans to keep the name alive? Would it
>be the same if, after their respective retirements at some future date, the
> name of Brian Bayliss were to be stuck on to frames built by a crafts
>man in the suburbs of Paris? Would English-made and transferred Richa
>rd Sachs frames be like the real thing that so many discerning America
>n cyclists now wait years to own? I really think not.
>
>To close with a cynical question, that of the price of the "nouveaux Her
>se" frames. Is it expected that they will, due to their Gallic influence an
>d forebears, carry a premium...perhaps a "cachet - supplement"? More
>importantly...would members of the List who lust to ride astride an "RH" re
>gardless of its country of origin, be willing to pay that premium?
>
>I'm due to spend quite a lot of time in July in and around Lyon. Does an
>yone chance to know who owns the rights to the "REYHAND" brand.? I'm j
>ust thinking that maybe the time is propitious to relaunch REYHAND, to be p
>roduced with finest UK craftsmanship.
>
>
>
>Norris Lockley....perhaps just old age catching up with me...Settle UK
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>---- Msg sent via TalkTalk WebMail - http://www.mytalktalk.co