Minimalist

I always took the minimalist approach to frame design and building. Less is more, and why do more than is necessary, especially if it doesn’t improve the end product. My bottom bracket gear cable guides were an example of this. 

On my custom frames I filed two grooves with the corner of a square file, brazed a piece of wire across the groove, and then drilled a hole through. (See picture above.)

When I started production on the John Howard frames in 1983 and the Fuso a year later, I simplified the procedure. I filed two grooves with a small round file, took a short piece of automotive steel brake fluid line and brazed it in the groove, finishing it off by chamfering the edges with a hand held belt sander. Very simple and it did the job. (See below.)

There were always critics who questioned, “Isn’t it a bad idea to have the bare cable touching the paint.” To which I answered:

Unless the frame is chrome plated, cables have always and will always touch paint somewhere.

If I brazed a channel that covered the whole area where the cable went around the bottom bracket shell, it would then be painted and the cable would still run on the paint. It would take longer to produce, look ugly, and not really improve anything.

Throughout the 1970s gear cables were run through cable guides that were brazed to the top of the bottom bracket. These were of course painted along with the rest of the frame, and the cable ran on the paint, which is why I knew it would be okay. The cable runs in one position and the constant movement of the cable prevents it rusting. (See below, a 1972 Italian Masi.)

The cable guides on top of the bottom bracket collected dirt and made it harder to keep the bike clean in that area. By the 1980s framebuilders realized a neater and much simpler idea was to run the cables under the BB. It has been pretty much standard practice ever since.

So fast forward to today, or to be precise the end of last week.

Someone on Facebook questioned the cables running on the paint.

Why didn’t I do it this way? With a picture (Right.) of someone else’s frame. 

As usually happens on the Internet others chime in with comments like, “Oh yea, that always concerned me too.”

Next I find myself writing lengthy explanations, getting really annoyed that I am having to justify something I did 30 years ago. Then I realized people send me pictures of the underside of the Bottom Bracket with the frame number stamped on it. I always save these pictures so I pulled up several from my archives.

Fuso frames numbering from 020 (Above.) to 693, old frames built from 1984 to 1986. All with original paint, some with the bare frame with the cables removed, showing surprising little wear at all. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and it is true in this case. I have about 8,000 or 9,000 worth here.

So if this is something that has concerned you in the past, look at these pictures and realize you are worrying about a problem that doesn’t exist. The latter frames shown had BBs made by the Japanese Takahashi Company. These had the cable guides cast in the shell and I didn’t have to do a thing. The others were finished in the manner described earlier.

I am always willing to answer questions about my framebuilding practices, but please use a little respect and tact when doing so. When someone asks “Why did you not do it this way?” it is a direct insult, and implies I didn’t know what I was doing.  

Footnote: The plastic cable guide (Left.) was not in general use in 1983 and 1984 when I began production of the John Howard and Fuso frames.

In 1985 I used it on the Recherche frames, it saved a lot of time and ended the controversy of cables running on paint.  

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Smaller Wheels

I was recently sent a picture of a Fuso track bike I built around 1990. It is different in that it has smaller 650C wheels. At the time this smaller tire size was becoming popular with triathletes with much talk of them being “Faster.”

People in the know, such as myself and Terry Shaw, owner of Shaw’s Lightweight Cycles in Santa Clara, just south of San Francisco, knew there could be little or no advantage. However, Terry Shaw thought that if there was an advantage, it might be in the initial jump during a sprint race on the track.

Smaller wheels have the effect of lowering the gear ratio, so this would have to be compensated with more teeth on the chainring, or less teeth on the rear sprocket. And so if you have two bikes with the same gear ratio, where is the advantage? Except that smaller wheels and tires have to be marginally lighter.

It interested us both enough that I agreed to build Terry Shaw a track bike that he would ride himself. The only way to test the theory was to actually race on it.

Building a bike with smaller wheels changes the whole design of the frame. The front fork is shorter, so the head tube is longer as you can see in the photo above of a 60 cm frame. It looks larger because one is used to judging frame size by the length of the head tube.

With the wheels being a smaller radius, the angle of the down tube and chainstays has to be altered to in effect raise the bottom bracket. Smaller wheels also means less trail, so to compensate the fork rake or offset was shortened to increase the trail. This was a scant 20 mm or roughly ¾ inch, and is also evident in the above photo.

For readers who don’t fully understand the concept of “Trail” and how it affects steering, here is a drawing.

Draw and imaginary line through the steering axis and it reaches the ground at a point in front of where the wheel actually contacts the ground. The wheel therefore pivots about that point of contact.

This provides a castor action and the wheel trails along behind the steering axis, Hence “Trail.”

Looking at the drawing you should be able to see why smaller diameter wheels makes for less trail.

A steeper head or steering angle also makes for less trail. More rake or offset means less trail, less rake, more trail. Which is why this frame had a far sorter fork offset.

The drawing is for a road bike, the trail makes for a bike that will hold a straight line, and also gives some self-steering characteristics when cornering. A track bike typically has less trail, because it is designed to be ridden on a banked velodrome, where the banking has the effect of riding in a straight line.

The rider needs a quick handling bike, one that the rider can physically steer and change direction easily. It calls for a bike with a steeper head angle and less trail than a road bike.  

So now I have explained what went into the design of the frame, how did it perform? Terry Shaw raced it for a whole season, but then went back to his conventional track bike with 700C or 27 inch wheels. He reported the bike was faster in the initial jump, but was harder and required more effort to keep it rolling once top speed was attained. So no real advantage.

The one pictured above may or may not be Terry’s actual bike, because I built one other for a customer of Shaw’s Cycles. Soon after this I did design and built a TimeTrial/Triathlon bike for a trade show. I can’t show you a picture because it was later sold to a bike store in Del Mar near San Diego, and I never saw it again. I have no idea where it is now and would love to know.

It was an interesting design concept. It had a 650C front wheel with a fork with even less rake than the track bike above, it also had a steeper head angle. With the rear wheel there was the option to use either a 700C or 650C wheel. There was an aluminum adapter plate that bolted on to special braze-ons on the seatstays to accommodate the different brake heights.

When the larger rear wheel was used it of course raised the rear end making the frame angles steeper, including the head angle. This changed the trail and the handling characteristics. To compensate the front fork brake mount was made so the fork could be turned and the fork blade was curved backwards like a motor-pace or stayer bike.

This increased the trail to compensate for the loss of trail due to the steeper head angle. The head angle and the fork blade offset was designed for optimum handling in either set up. In test runs it handled beautifully, but I only ever built the one.

My thinking was to use the larger wheel for flat and straight courses, and the smaller rear wheel for technical courses with a lot of twists and turns, where faster acceleration out of corners might help.

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Art and Function

I love when a comment on one of my blog posts gives me food for thought, and better yet subject matter for another article. Steve wrote such a comment on my last tribute to Brian Baylis. He stated:

A bicycle, isn’t a piece of art, but something you ride. Because really, no frame builder builds all the components hung on his frame: wheels, tires, saddles, cables, brakes, derailleurs et al.

It is, in the end, a simple device envisioned hundreds of years ago as a means of moving men (yes, it was envisioned by men for men). So really, how much time should one spend building a frame, when all its components are produced by someone else?

(See the complete comment on my previous post.) 

So is a bicycle art or just something you ride? Well, yes and no. There is pure art, objects that serve no practical purpose other than to be pleasing to the eye. To live a life without art would be a pretty bland existence.

I am not a material person by any means. I do not place much importance on stuff, but I do have pictures on my walls, and a few pieces of handmade pottery around. They bring me pleasure, and my life and my home would be missing something if they weren’t there. That is the only purpose of these art objects.

Everything ‘man-made’ whether handmade or mass produced, is either pure art, completely practical, or mostly what I call ‘Functional Art.”

Because given a choice between two objects of equal performance and price, one will choose the one more pleasing to look at.

Furniture is a good example of functional art. A chair has to be comfortable to sit in, but also needs to be pleasing to look at, because it becomes part of the décor of our homes, along with the pictures on the wall.

There are degrees of function and art in functional art, and when one takes over from the other the product often suffers one way or another. But it all comes down to what the consumer or owner of the object wants, and what he can afford or is willing to pay.

When a chair becomes a piece of pure art, it may be uncomfortable to sit in, or too fragile for everyday use, and one might ask, what use is it.

If it brings pleasure to its owner just to look at it, that is its purpose. I would not criticize anyone for owning such a chair, or the person who made it.

So is a bicycle frame any different? I got into building frames to build a better bicycle. One that rode better, handled better, and was more comfortable. My customers in the UK were almost 100% racing cyclists. The bike was needed to compete in bike races, it sold because it was functional and the price was right.

When I came to the US I had to up the ante on my finish work because that is what the American consumer demanded. The bikes did not lose any of the ride or handling qualities, but I did reach a point where people began to say, “This is too beautiful to race, I will be afraid to crash it.”

This annoyed the hell out of me. I had been forced to move towards pure art in order to stay competitive, then the bike was no longer practical as a racing bike, because it was too fine and too expensive.

That is why I moved away from the pure custom frame to the limited production model like the Fuso. A Fuso will handle exactly the same as one of my super expensive customs, but the price was reasonable, and the degree of finish was acceptable to the people who wanted a piece of art.

On Steve’s point that the framebuilder only makes the frame, not the complete bike. It has always been that way. Even today, companies like Trek and Cannondale, design and produce a frame only, then assemble it with the same components as everyone else. And the bicycle always takes on the name of the frame builder or manufacturer. It becomes a Trek bicycle, or a Dave Moulton, a Fuso or a Brian Baylis bicycle.

Even lower end bicycles are built this way. The only exception I know to this was Raleigh Industries, in Nottingham, England. They had a huge factory that made everything. They had different thread standards, and even different rim and tire sizes, so if you bought a Raleigh bike, you were forced to buy spare parts and even tires from Raleigh. They went out of business some years ago, and I don’t know of anyone manufacturing the whole bike anymore.

To sum up, I believe there is room for art and room for function, and when you can successfully combine the two you have the best of both worlds. I never spent as much time building a bicycle frame as Brian Baylis, but I did spend a year and a half writing a novel. Was that a waste of time? You tell me, because I often wonder about that myself.

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Designing Bikes for Women

I have this theory regarding functional art, that if an object or piece of equipment is designed to perform its function correctly, it will appear pleasing to the eye from an aesthetic point of view. A piece of furniture like a chair, a bridge, a boat, or indeed a bicycle, all fall into this category of functional art.

Not only does the bicycle need to look right standing alone, but rider and bicycle need to look right together. The bicycle becomes an extension of the rider, a platform if you will for the athlete to launch a physical effort.

As a result of my last article, a story of the above track bike, the bike’s former owner, Maggie Thompson, formally Margaret Gordon Smith, commented on the piece, and sent me the above picture, of her actually racing on the track in the British National Women’s Pursuit Championships.

Rarely do I get to see a perfect side on photo of a rider and bike, where the rider is at maximum speed and one can see how well rider and bike fit together. For those who don’t know what Pursuit Racing is about? Two riders start on opposite sides of a banked track or Velodrome, and they chase each other. Hence the name Pursuit.

It is a race of truth, like a time trial, there is no pacing. The winner is the rider ahead at the end of a set distance. The women’s pursuit is 3,000 meters, which is 3 kilometers, or 1.863 miles. Not a huge distance, but one starts out about half a lap out of the saddle to reach maximum speed, then sit down and try to maintain that speed to the end. It is a race that will leave you gasping for breath for an agonizing 4 minutes.

Maggie describing this bike said, “I found I could breath.” That was because the rule of frame design back in the mid-1970s and before, was a 73 degree seat angle for everyone no matter how tall or how short. Maggie is slightly over 5’ 3” tall, which is not unusual. Many women are in the 5 foot to 5 foot 4 inch range.

This frame had a 77 degree seat angle which was unheard of at the time. But while 73 degrees is fine for a tall person with long legs, for the shorter rider it means the thighs are pressing tight into the upper torso thus restricting breathing. Of course it is essential the back be horizontal for maximum aerodynamic efficiency, and the steeper seat angle cuts down the angle of torso bent at the pelvis. It also allows for a shorter top tube meaning the rider is not stretched out, and the arms are working in opposition the legs.

Right: Maggie on her road bike I also bult for her. This frame had a 76 degree seat angle.

When it comes to designing and building bikes for women, it is not that women are drastically different proportionally than men, it is that they are generally a lot smaller.

It is a myth that all women have longer legs and shorter bodies.

Women come in all shapes and sizes the same as men, long legs short torso, short legs long torso.

The main difference being, shorter overall height and much smaller feet than men.

The length of the foot comes into play because when pedaling the toe is pointing down at the bottom of the pedal stroke, so the foot becomes an extension of the leg. A man and a woman of the same height and leg length could both use an identical frame, but the female rider would have her saddle set lower because of her smaller feet.

The problem frame designers and builders have always faced when it comes to building bikes for women, is in making bikes small enough. There is a limitation caused by the wheel size. In the last 60 or more years I have been involved with racing bikes, (And before.) they have had 27 inch wheels, the wheel diameter to the outside of the tire is 27 inch diameter, or slightly less depending on the tire cross section.

700C wheels are the same, 27 inch diameter or slightly less. I always thought the “C” was for Clincher, but I have noticed tubular tires are now also called 700C. A front fork has fork blades that are the same length no matter how large or small a frame is, because the front wheel is the same 27 inch diameter for all sizes.

Throughout the range of frame sizes, the fork crown stays in the same place. So does the bottom headset bearing, and in the days of lugged steel frames the bottom head lug was always in a constant position.

Everything above this point varies with the frame size. The length of the fork steering tube, the frame head tube, the top tube is higher, etc., etc. In the days when top tubes were always level, the framebuilder could only lower the top tube until the top head lug met the bottom head lug.

Metal could be removed from the top and bottom lugs but for all practical purposes the smallest frame one could build with a level top tube was 48 cm. (19 in. C to T) with a standard bottom bracket height. After that one could raise the bottom bracket to make the seat tube shorter, but the last thing a rider with short legs needs is to be higher from the ground.

Incidentally in the top picture, Maggie’s track frame is 19” but the head lugs are not touching. That is because track bikes have a higher bottom bracket to clear the angle of the track banking. Also the steeper than normal seat tube pushed the seat lug higher, and therefore the top tube.

Today’s frame design with the sloping top tube does make it possible to make much shorter seat tubes. However, the front end stays exactly where it has always been, because the front wheel is still the same diameter. The good news is, shorter riders do not need a huge difference in saddle to handlebar height. See how little difference there is in the top picture of Maggie on her bike.

My advice to a female cyclist who wishes to engage in serious competition. If you are 5’ 6” in height, or taller you can ride a men’s frame, bearing in mind what I said earlier about your saddle being lower because of your smaller feet. If you are shorter than 5‘ 6” and especially if you are in the 5 foot to 5’ 4” height range, get the smallest frame with the shortest top tube you can.

There are frames out there that are advertised as being Female Specific. These have a longer head tube resulting in a higher front end. There is less drop down from the saddle to the top of the handlebars, making for a more relaxed position. These are great if you just want to ride for exercise or engage in ultra-long distance rides. There are similar frames for men with names like “Endurance.”

Whether male or female, choose a bike or frame that suits your purpose. If you want to race seriously get a race bike and set it up in an efficient aerodynamic position. If your goal is exercise and more leisurely riding, don’t buy a race frame, buy one of the bikes offered for that purpose.

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The Bicycle: Evolution or Intelligent Design. Part III

 

This is the final part of a three part series. If you haven’t already done so, I suggest you read Part I, and Part II first.

The slump in bicycle sales that lasted through the 1960s, ended during the 1970s spurred on by a bicycle boom in the United States. In America people were realizing that exercise was an important part of a healthy lifestyle. In Europe those who had given up on cycling in the late 1950s, were coming back to the sport after the initial love affair with the motor car had subdued.

If you remember from part one of this series, the standard racing frame of the early 1950s had a 71 degree seat angle, and 73 head angle. If you also remember that 2 degree difference, with the seat tube leaning back slightly from the head angle, benefited the framebuilder because when building larger (Taller.) frames, the top tube automatically became longer.

This old framebuilding design philosophy had not been forgotten among the older established framebuilders that had been around for years. However, no one was prepared to go back to 71 degree seat angles, so 73 seat, 75 head angle became the new norm.

The sales pitch made for this steeper head angle trend was that it made the bike feel livelier when sprinting. It also made a bike that was squirrely and sometimes difficult to handle. The other gradual trend that had happened in the period from the 1950s through to the 1970s was that racing cyclists were riding smaller frames. Frame sizes had shrunk as much as 5cm. or 2 inches.

Smaller frames were lighter, and stiffer. Improvements to aluminum alloys meant that longer seat posts and handlebar stems could be used, and of course this was necessary when using a smaller frame.

I initially got into framebuilding trying to build a frame that suited me. I am short in stature, 5’ 6”, I found that even with a 73 degree seat angle, I still found myself sliding forward in the saddle when sprinting or anytime I was making maximum effort. I came to the conclusion that a body will always find a natural position for any physical task. One where it can perform at maximum efficiency.

When you teach a child to ride a bicycle, you teach them to balance, and that is about it. They are seldom taught how to ride out of the saddle, and yet once they have mastered the balance part, you will see them standing on the pedals when the going gets tough, or extra speed is needed. It is the human body finding the best way to do the job efficiently.

The Ordinary or High Wheeler bicycle, had a simple efficient riding position. Not aerodynamically of course, but in terms of getting power to the pedals, the arms worked in direct opposition the legs. Over the years that followed in an effort to get the rider’s back horizontal to be aerodynamically efficient, the handlebars were moved further and further forward without lowering them a significant amount, and without changing where the rider was sitting.

It wasn’t until the trend went to smaller frames, that handlebars could be placed lower in relation the saddle. Today saddle to handlebar height difference is probably greater than ever, and I believe the riding position of today’s racing cyclist is the most efficient it has ever been.

The only time I see a lot of sliding forward in the saddle is on time-trial bikes, where the arms are once again stretched forward in an effort to gain the most aerodynamic advantage. It would seem to me that the saddles on these bikes should go even further forward. Although UCI regulations might prevent that happening.

Incidentally, the leisure cyclist who has neither the ability or desire to ride in an extreme racing position, often set their bike up with the handlebars high and forward, when lower but closer (Shorter stem.) might be just as comfortable and a more efficient position.

Getting back to the steep head angle trend of the 1970s. It was just that, a trend that really served no useful purpose other than to make something different as the racing bicycle was reborn after a long slump. The other reason was old established framebuilders clinging to this notion that, “The seat angle must be shallower than the head angle.” Because that is the way it has always been.

I never followed that trend though the 1970s. In fact I went the exact opposite, staying with the 73 head angle on most road frames, and on small frames especially, I made the seat tube steeper than the head angle. My customers in the UK were exclusively racing cyclists, and rarely questioned the geometry, all they cared about was, “How did it ride?”

Evolution has been happening in the bicycle business since its invention, and is still happening. Look at what happened in the last thirty or so years. The Mountain Bike began with a handful of enthusiasts downhill racing on trails in Northern California. When it went mainstream in the late 1980s, it appealed to mainly young adults who had grown up riding BMX bikes in the 1970s.

When I built road frames in the 1980s, the technology was there that I could have built welded frames. However, racing frames were traditionally lugged steel, hand brazed. A welded road frame was not acceptable to my customers. Sloping top tubes also were not acceptable to me, or my customers.

The Mountain Bike was a different animal altogether, not bound by any framebuilding traditions of the last 100 years. The welded frame was accepted, and lent itself to mass production in aluminum as well as steel. The BMX bike had been a basically a “One size fits all,” frame. The mountain bike became available in Small, Medium, and Large sizes.

The old school framebuilders like myself disappeared and the corporations took over. It was not surprising when the road bike made a comeback it would look similar to the Mountain Bike and be available in S, M, and L sizes.

The level top tube started out as a point of reference for the frame builder, but it also became a point of reference for the customer. If a person always rode a 56cm. frame, he knew what a 56 frame would look like, and you couldn’t sell him a 54 with a longer seat post, and different stem.

By radically changing the look of the road frame, it left the door open for limited sizes to become acceptable. Once again something that suits the manufacturer, not necessarily the customer.

In the 1980s, even with my knowledge of bikes, I could not have sat down and designed a road bike like today's machine. Even if I did, would it have been accepted? It had to evolve, and that is the way it has always been.

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