--- Norris Lockley <norris.lockley@yahoo.com> wrote: > ...It was also common practice for large manufacturers > such as Motobecane, even on their lower range bikes, > to fit steel bungs, these usually taking the form of > a thick-wall tube with a split in it to allow the tube > to compress on entry into the crown...
Yes! I noticed this on some Motobecane bikes that were not quite top-of-the-line, and also on some of Peugeot's almost-PX-10 frames. It always puzzled me a bit. The actual frame would be really light, yet the forks would seem to weigh a ton, despite having Reynolds blades. I suppose they expected the boy racers who bought those bikes to put them through the equivalent of a Paris-Roubaix every weekend.
But the real problem with those reinforcement sleeves - when used in smaller frames - is that they limited the amount of space you had for adjusting the height of the stem. (And I'll leave it at that. If I get started, I'm liable to get as worked up about stem adjustment as I do about bottom brackets...) Cheers, Fred Rednor - Arlington, Virginia (USA)
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