On Tue, 5 Jan 2010 at 09:10:26-0800, Jan Heine wrote:
"I believe that in Britain, the "ultimate" form of the bike revealed
itself when fenders, rack and lights were removed for a time trial. As
a result, there was more focus on quick removal of these parts than on
careful integration. So your hypothesis (1) "They didn't have to" does
apply, but for different reasons. The British builders didn't have to
make superb custom racks, stems and lighting solutions, because their
customers didn't consider these parts very important."
>From what I understand of british cycling (and books such as 'Flying
Scotsman', and diatribes on this list from our friends across the
pond), in England most cyclists had one machine that was in a
perpetual state of upgrade, and there was no "wealthy elite" buying
bicycles, so the customer in England was not interested in a turnkey
solution with constructeur personalization, which represents the
constructeur's opinions about cycling, rather, the customer in England
was interested in expressing their own opinions about cycling in the
outfitting and modifications to their own 'sport' bicycle, which
served a wealth of purposes - from camping to time trialing to
commuting.
- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA, USA