Please take the following in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek manner . . .
I had a French one a long time ago. She rode fine - very sweet, charming, almost coquetteish. Always wanting to sit in a cafe and talk about existenstialism and the poet Verlaine. Definitely more at home on a trip to the country for a romantic picnic than a city-center criterium. While not the most exciting one, French cyclists I've known simply shrug and with a wink have intimated something along the lines of "that is what ze "other" bike is for !" (ze velo' mistress ?). I guess like us CR list members that means that they like to have a number of different bikes in the stable, er, garage.
The Italian job, whoa . . . Ba-Boom ! Talk about high-strung and emotional - there was nothing laid-back and sedate about her "handling" or "classic design". Maybe because this was the eighties and things had started to get steeper and faster ? Aesthetically much different from the Frenchy job - more "attention to detail" one might say. Geometry - wise the French one was more Jean Seberg ( I know she isn't French, thank you very much), the Italian one was more like Sophia Loren. Sigh . . . both lovely in their own way.
The English ones I've had vary a bit. Some of them were cold and distant at first, maybe a reflection of the climate as much as the style of riding in the U.K. There were some models that were definitely hard to coax any interest from - I'd say that these were intended for the UK emphasis on long time-trials, so "handling" was not a real priority for those designs. I did have a couple of short-wheelbase machines and track/path models that were anything but cold and indifferent, though. Rather bawdy, earthy, almost in a Tom Jones (the novel, not the Welsh singer) sense. Some of the older English riders I knew long ago referred to bikes such as these as "oversexed", a term I take that translates to "lively and responsive" . . . maybe a real handful. English cyclists that I knew who had such a bike often appeared tired and worn-out. I'm guessing they rode too much and needed more rest. Long time-trials will tend to do that, I guess.
For American bikes, well why not just refer to the mid-1960's Beach Boy's song "California Girl's" and use their very accurate descriptions - but apply them to bikes from the different U.S. regions.
When repeated often enough your friends and fellow riders may start to believe that you actually have some sort of knowledge about the subject of which you are so voiciferous about. When they are not smirking, laughing, and rolling their eyes behind your back !
Finally, I wonder about national culinary preferences and how the different bikes tend to ride. My French and Italian ones always seemed to have a slight odor of garlic and olive oil to them. The U.K. bikes had a different scent - more fried fish and potatoes, sometimes mushy peas. If we are going to refer to horribly vague, innaccurate, and dated stereotypes regarding bicycle design and handling, perhaps we need to also mix these variables into the fold ? How much has hamburgers and fast-food contributed to US bike design compared to Scottish bike design - where Haggis is a big staple of the diet, as I have been told.
Bottom Line - after being around bikes for well over thirty years, I just don't believe in alleged national "traits" amongst bicycle design. I remember learning in college that myths and stereotypes are most useful for influencing and controlling the simplistic and ignorant.
I'd love to see ANYONE try and gather any three (heck, even two) Italian, or French, or English, (or WHATEVER nationality) framebuilders together and see if they could get them to agree on much of ANYTHING regarding design or construction. What a laugh !
Like trying to herd cats !
For an even bigger laugh ask those builders about some of the designs they built twenty or thirty years ago. Framebuilders can get easily annoyed by those with long memories. Bike design goes through cycles and is highly influenced by fashion swings just as much as any other aspect of the bike world. What seemed completely "rational" and obvious in one era looks mighty foolish, dated, and ill-conceived just ten years later. The nebulous "classic bike design" is MUCH more fluid than is often realized. "Design" oftentimes just follows whatever and wherever the market seems to be moving. And it very rarely EVER (IMHO) has roots in some sort of nationalistic outlook or experience, other than everyone tends to copy a little from those they learned from.
Like people, it is best to speak of a specific bicycle and it's measures, and your subjective feelings about its specific behaviors, instead of trying to imply that similiar bikes from a geographic region will display those same traits, especially over a period of time.
Having said that, I think I'll take the English "Path" design, Guv'nor. I'll die a tired but happy rider, with a smile on his face <G>
Wink-wink-nudge-nudge,
Mike Fabian
San Francisco, CA, USA