"Could it have been placed there in part to help damp some road vibration?"
That's not a bad suggestion. What I had always heard was that certain European bike manufacturers routinely installed the wooden plugs in case the braze between the steering tube and fork crown failed. I'm not sure how much that would help???
I know of several shops that inserted a piece of wood doweling or old broom handle into the bottom of the steering tubes on all of the frames they built up and pro bikes they assembled.
I recall 3-4 bikes that came into our shop with complaints that "the fork was loose". Sure enough it was. The brazing had failed and the front brake mounting bolt was all that was holding the forks on!
These were all better name European bike boom era bikes (names withheld to protect the guilty).
Chas. Colerich Oakland, CA USA
Jon Spangler wrote:
> Hugh and all,
>
> The word during the 1970s at my LBS and avid Peugeot dealer, Collins' Cycle Shop in Eugene, OR, was that the wooden dowel plug was there to keep water and crud out of the steer tube and head tube. I never heard anything at all about the wood being a reinforcement for the steer tube or the head tube, and do not think it would make that much difference in the strength at all.
> Could it have been placed there in part to help damp some road vibration? This possibility never even occurred to me until I was composing this email, but it makes as much sense as any other rationale I have seen. (Of course it doesn't make any *more* sense than other explanations either...)
> I never imagined that my post about this bike's color would have such "legs," BTW. Life is full of surprises....
>
> Jon Spangler