I was in a bike shop the other day, and said in a conversation "I wax my bike". This young kid looks at me like I was nuts and said "you wax it?". Maybe we were the same when young, it was a mark of living life to the max to burn through things and buy a new one. Now we cherish these artworks from an amazing time we grew up in. I definitely install bright shiny dust caps (and even paint the crank bolt the frame color underneath!) Who knows, someday I might even find brass valve caps and do the unthinkable....
Jerry Tenenberg Encinitas, Cal
________________________________ From: verktyg <verktyg@aol.com> To: John <torup@sbcglobal.net>; Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Sent: Mon, May 10, 2010 11:07:45 AM Subject: Re: [CR] Dustcaps weighing you down? (paccoastcycles)
I forgot about having to use a prick punch or chisel to remove dustcaps with stripped hex holes or ones that were corroded in.
That was the real reason why we left them off at our shop too.
After 35 years, some reasons for doing things get forgotten! ;-(
Chas. Colerich Oakland, CA USA
John wrote:
> After a scare when removing my TA dust caps for the first time, not knowing if the threads or allen key hex was going to let go first, I decided as dust caps they were questionable. They never went back on.
>
> As a mechanic I found them equally useless, and periodically time consuming to remove. Others can use them, but I will not use them on my bikes. I never bothered to remember if the Patent or Brev. Campagnolo caps were the sought after parts.
> Regarding tire valve caps, when riding with a group and the group is kind enough to wait for you to exchange a tire, removing and replacing valve caps is just not polite to their time. I ditched those long ago too.
>
> I do like the chrome versions of crank fixing bolts though, but that is just the SoCal Junior category racer still left in me 35 years later.
>
> John Jorgensen
> Torrance CA USA