The Generation Blame Game

Me on the right aged 18. circa 1954Did you know the term “Whipper-Snapper” dates back to the late 1600s? It originally referred to a young person who would stand on the street and crack a whip to make noise and draw attention to themselves.

A sure sign a person is old is if they still call someone a “Young Whipper-Snapper,” because in over 300 years they haven’t learned a better term.

Today’s youth would probably holler out of the widow of a limousine on the way to a school prom, and I would think, “You are in a fucking limousine, you didn’t just win the Super-bowl.”

The result is the same for every generation, make a lot of noise, but have nothing of substance to show. Looking back, was I any different? Of course not, how much life can one experience in just ten years from age 15 to 25?

I believe it was Mark Twain who said,

“When I was fifteen, I thought my father was an idiot. By the time I reached thirty, I was amazed how much he had learned in 15 years.”

I was born in the middle of the Great Depression, and I was between 3 and 9 years old during WWII. I became a teen in the 1950s, and we were pleased the world was a better place. We never blamed the previous generation; in fact, they had just fought a war for us. It was the 1960s with the Civil Rights issues, Vietnam, and the threat of nuclear war, that the blame game started.

The blame lies with mankind collectively, not individuals or even whole generations. Each generation would have done better to have listened to the previous generation, rather than to blame them. This generation will fare no better unless the change what previous generations have done. One never gets a different result by making the same mistake over.

The older generation probably looked at me and my peers and thought, “God help us when they are in charge.” By the time I was 25 years-old, I thought I knew it all, and I had the answers to all the world’s problems, when truth be known, we none of us knew Jack-Shit.

Since the Industrial Revolution began about 300 years ago, technology has increased at an ever-increasing rate. I look at the advances made in just my lifetime, and it is alarming. This advancement in technology has gone hand with a population explosion, the worlds population has doubled in the last 50 years. No one seems to be addressing that problem, as the planet is being destroyed.

Technology increases as knowledge is passed on from one generation to the next, but schools still teach the basic reading, writing, and arithmetic, that began in schools 300 years ago. Religion too is a hodge-podge of different religions the world over, and all based on writings hundreds, if not thousands of years old.

Young people leaving college today are attending classes on “How to cope.” Their parents gave then everything, and sent them to college, now they have graduated the parents expect them to leave home and get a job. They don’t have the basic skills needed to cope. I grew up poor, and left home at nineteen years old. Life showed me how to cope.

I am sure when I was young, I spouted my mouth off about all manner of subjects I knew nothing about. But it only reached my immediate friends, and I doubt much of it went any further. Today, technology has given us the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, You-Tube, and Tic-Toc. The list goes on. Someone can have some inane thought and within days that idea has spread around the world.

We no longer have to wait and say, “God help us when they take over?” Because the young generation is taking over now, through Social Medea. Killing free speech, erasing history, when if there is one lesson I have learned in life, it is. “Don’t dwell on the past, let it go and move on, because no matter how hard you try, the past will never improve.”

"True wisdom lies not in what you know, but in knowing that you can never know everything."

And how can anyone learn that in just ten short years.

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Fuso Components

I am often asked, “What was the standard component package on the Fuso?” or John Howard, or Recherché.

The answer: There was no standard component package. The reason, I only sold frames, not complete bikes.

The frames were ordered by bicycle dealers, usually for a specific customer, who then chose the components and the bike shop ordered these in and built the bike.

Often what happened was the customer could not afford an all Campagnolo or Shimano Dura-Ace equipped bike. So the dealer built the bike with lower priced components like Sugino, Sun Tour, or Shimano 600.

The thinking was, (And I agreed.) the frame is what determines how the bike fits, handles, and feels to the rider. Wheels are the next important factor, but after that a Sugino crankset, or cheaper pedals will, for the most part, feel no different than Campagnolo. The main difference is the quality of finish and the durability of the product, not so much in the ride quality.

The theory was, get a newcomer on a quality frame, get them hooked on cycling and they would come back and upgrade to a better quality component later. This was a smart business move for the Bike Dealer, and it sold frames for me.

For about the same price as say a mid range Japanese or European import, a customer could get on one of my frames with lower priced components. And of course when the customer compared the mid range import and my bike on a test ride they could feel the difference.

That was the theory. In reality what happened in many cases, the bike purchase was an impulse thing, and after a short period, the bike ended up sitting in the garage where many still languish to this day. 

From time to time such a bike comes up on eBay, often with a mish-mosh of cheap components.

If you are buying such a bike, realize that you are basically buying it for the frame.

If you strip the components to replace them with, say Campagnolo; these left over parts will have little or no resale value.

On the other hand, many may not want such a bike. If you can buy it at a bargain price, you can ride as originally intended and upgrade the components as they become available.

All frames I built were measured center to top which is approximately 2 cm. more that the center to center measurement. For example frame stamped 58 under the bottom bracket shell, would measure 56 cm. center to center. Also, if it is a Fuso and you ask the seller for the frame number, you can link to my Registry here and get the approximate date it was built.

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My Father and his Imbecile Son

My father was born on December 1910, he died in June 1996.

Fathers are good, bad, or absent, either physically or emotionaly. My father fell into the last category.

This being Fathers' Day, it would be easy for me to write paragraph after paragraph of negativity about father, but the truth is that this man influenced and shaped my life more than any other.

So instead here is a true incident that happened when I was sixteen years old. I had only just left school and started work a few months earlier. 

I was confused. How was a somewhat immature sixteen year old boy supposed to react? My mother had just told me that my father had been severely burned in a work related accident, and my first thought was, I hope the bastard dies.

I had just ridden my bicycle the five miles home from work the way I always did, as fast as possible, a heart pounding, lung bursting flat out sprint. I put my bike away in the in the garden shed, and walked indoors. I was sweating, pumped up with adrenaline, breathing heavily though not out of breath.

Once inside it was immediately clear something was wrong, my mother was still wearing her hat and coat, for one thing.

“David, your father’s been burned at the iron foundry.”

“How?” I asked.

“First thing this morning, he and another man opened the door to the blast furnace, there was an explosion, and all the hot coals came out and completely buried both of them. Other workers pulled them out right away, but they were both burned from head to toe.”

I stood there trying to evaluate the situation, could my father possibly die? The thought had never occurred to me before that moment; my father was this awful entity that was always there. I avoided him as much as I could, but I had to contact him at some point, and it was never good. Now I’m hearing that he has been severely burned. People die from that, don’t they? I was contemplating life without my father being there, I could hardly keep from cracking a smile, what confused me was my mother’s demeanor as she explained what had happened. She was frantic, beside herself with worry.

For the last seven years, since my father came home from the war, whenever I was alone with my mother she would unload on me all her frustrations concerning my father. She would go into detail about the physical abuse, along with the verbal and emotional abuse she endured. This had always fueled my hatred towards my father even more, and I always assumed she hated the man as much as I did, after all I suffered the same abuse, and I could relate what it was like. Now I saw a different side, the obvious concern, and for the first time the realization, My God, she really loves him.

“He’s at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital,” She told me.  “I’ve been there all day. Someone from the foundry came and told me this morning, and gave me a ride there. I just got off the bus not five minutes ago. If you hurry you can catch the same bus when it goes back into Luton.”

“But I don’t want to see him, what can I do?”

“David, you must go and see him, he’s your father, he’ll think you don’t care.”

I wanted to say, That’s right I don’t care, but didn’t. “But I was going to get at least forty miles in on my bike tonight.” I said in a somewhat whining tone.

“How can you think about riding your bike when your father is lying there in so much pain? Anyway, you have to go, he asked me to buy cigarettes, you have to take them to him.”

On the table was a paper bag with several packets of cigarettes inside.

“Alright, but I won’t catch the bus, I’ll ride my bike.  I’ll actually get there quicker than riding two different buses. But I need to eat first.”

“I’ll make you a sandwich.”  My mother said as I went to get out of my work clothes, wash, and change.
Whenever I rode my bike I carried a small canvas bag, called a “Musette.” In it I carried tools, spare batteries for my lights, and my wallet, sometimes food if I was going on a long ride, tonight it would also carry cigarettes.

Riding towards the hospital, not at my usual fast past, but rather slow. I was deep in thought. Not really wanting to do this, and not knowing what to expect when I got there. I left my bike by some railings near the front entrance to the hospital, and made my way up the steps and though the double glass doors. Inside at the reception desk I told them who I was, and asked where I would find my father. I was directed to a ward on the second floor.

I was wearing a regular pair of trousers, and several layers of assorted old shirts and sweaters, topped off with a heavy sweater that my mother had knitted in my cycling club colors. I was rather proud of this “Badge” of a cyclist, along with my white socks and cycling shoes. I wore spring steel trouser clips to keep the bottoms from fouling the bike chain. I left these in place, a further symbol, along with the rest of my “kit,” that I was a real cyclist and had a real racing bike outside, not just some bloke who had arrived on some old sit-up-and-beg roadster bike. The metal cleats on the bottom of my cycling shoes made a clip-clop sound on the stone floors as I walked along the corridor towards the ward.

Inside the long narrow hospital ward with beds on either side, I looked for my father. Suddenly, I heard his voice call my name. From that moment it became a surreal experience as I walked towards this unrecognizable figure, with my father’s recognizable voice coming from it. Dressed in a loose fitting hospital gown, a blackened and red raw lump of meat sat where a head should be. As I came closer I next recognized my father’s eyes. Every trace of hair was gone; from the head, eyebrows, even the eyelashes were missing. 

“Did you bring cigarettes?” I opened my musette bag and handed him the paper bag. He immediately opened a packet and lit one up. Now the vision before me was even more bizarre, as a white cigarette by stark contrast, stuck out from this blackened piece of meat that was now my father's face. His right forearm and hand had miraculously been spared from the fire, but the rest of his body was terribly burned.

One thing was certain, he was not going to die, and for whatever reason I was now okay with that. As much as I hated him, I had never wished him dead. It was only when the probability had presented itself, I had contemplated what it would be like if he were no longer there.

This was now an awkward situation however, he and I never sat and held a conversation, now I didn’t know how to react. He just chit-chatted about this and that, and one thing became clear to me. He must have been in terrible pain, but he would never show it. To do so, in his eyes, would be to show weakness and he would never do that, least of all to me.

A nurse came to the bed side to check on my father. “This is my imbecile son.” He said, waving his good arm towards me. It was the way he always introduced me to strangers. The young nurse smiled awkwardly in my direction.

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The constantly changing normal

Giuseppe Martano 1934 Tour de France

Life is a constant change, new ideas, and new technology. People often hate change, they fight against it, but it is futile. Change will come for better or worse. In time we accept change, (Often we have no choice.) and a new “Normal” is established.

In the mid-1970s I wrote a series of articles on frame design for the British “Cycling” magazine. There was no Internet back then, no email, and no comments section where you could debate any ideas put forward. However, one older gentleman took the trouble to write and mail me a long hand-written letter, explaining my theories on “Trail” were wrong, and he enclosed a photocopy of an article from ‘Cycling’ dated 1946 to prove it.

Back in the 1930s, 1940s, and even into the 1950s, there was a thinking that trail was a bad thing.

It was thought that it made the steering of the bike sluggish.

Front forks had a rake (Offset.) of 3 to 3.5 inches. (76mm. to 90mm.) See the photo at the top, from the 1934 Tour de France, and the drawing, left.

I can even see where this idea gained traction.

At first glance it seems logical that the steering axis should reach the ground at the exact point the wheel makes contact and therefore turns at that point. Or it would make sense if a cyclist steered his bike by turning the handlebars, and the frame remained upright.

However, we steer a bicycle by leaning in the direction we wish to turn, and the steering axis ahead of the wheel’s point of contact, is one of the forces causing the wheel to turn in the direction of the lean. (See drawing below right.)

As far back as the late 1950s, early 1960s, I had realized that trail was a good thing, as had almost every other framebuilder. It provides a caster action, and gives the bike stability when going straight, and certain ‘self-steering’ characteristics into the corners.

However, trail goes hand in hand with the head angle. Steeper angles are more sensitive and need less trail to achieve the same self-steering qualities. As many framebuilders in the 1970s were building frames with 75 and even 76-degree head angles, their trail would have been a lot less than mine.

As well as staying with a 73 head angle with less rake, my overall geometry placed the rider’s weight more forward, which also affected the ‘feel’ of the steering. The point I am making, you cannot simply say fork rake should be this much, and trail should be this, without considering the whole frame’s geometry.

Whenever I write one of these type of articles the comments that follow remind me of the old gentleman that took the time to write me in the mid-1970s. He was quoting from an article written 30 years earlier in the mid-1940s.

Information here is just my opinion, if you read another article with a different point of view, it does not mean I am right and they are wrong, or vice-versa, it is simply two differing opinions. One must weigh the qualifications of the writers, and from the information, the reader forms his own opinion.

The problem is today there is an overload of information, couple this with a lot of poor quality and miss-information, and one often searches until they find an article that aligns with their own established viewpoint. This approach leaves little room for growth, instead of keeping an open mind and leaving room for new ideas.

There were more changes made in the 30 years that were the 60s, 70s, and 80s. than there were in the previous 60 or more years. Changes in actual frame geometry that is. Angles, tube lengths, and fork offset, etc. Closer wheel clearances, shorter wheelbases, and higher bottom brackets too.

Some changes brought about by economic factors, others by framebuilders trying to make something better. It once again made me realize how fortunate I was to have been around in that period. Those times will never happen again. There was so much experimentation going on amongst so many individual craftsmen. There will never be that many individual craftsmen at the same time again. 

We have also seen many changes in the last 30 or more years since the end of the 1980s. The whole appearance of the bicycle has changed. We have seen clipless pedals, index shifting, leading to 11 (Or more.) gears. Thread-less headsets. Oversize tubes and carbon fiber have changed to look of the frame, along with sloping top tubes and tee-shirt sizing.

But actual frame geometry has not changed that much, 73/73 angles came out in the 1960s. My road bike fork rake was 35mm. I don’t think other steel framebuilders were too far away from that. Probably around 38mm. was an average. Fork rakes (Offset.) have increased but I feel this has more to do with avoiding toe overlap with the front wheel, than to affect the actual handling. I guess for the time being somewhat of a new norm has been established.  

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Reflections on this Memorial Day

In the early part of 1944 I lived in rural Hampshire, in the middle-south of England. We were not far from Portsmouth where most of the invasion fleet set out on June 6th. that year. I was eight years old, not old enough to fully understand what was going on, but old enough to have clear memories of the events of that time.

I remember the American soldiers coming over to England in the months prior to D-Day. Suddenly appearing one afternoon as I walked home from school, arriving in what seemed to be an endless convoy of army trucks, each full of young men, smiling, waving to us as we waved back.

In the weeks and months that followed that is how I remember the Americans, always smiling, laughing, goofing off, a lot of horseplay and kidding around with each other. At the time they seemed like adults to me, but I now know that most were only 10 or 15 years older than I was.

They were teens or early twenties, goofing around as teens will do. To get it in perspective, if this were today an eight-year-old would have been born in 2013, many of these young soldiers would have been born since 2000. No age at all, really.

Prior to the arrival of the American Army, roads were pretty much devoid of all motor traffic because of petrol rationing. When the Americans came, there was a constant flow of army trucks, Jeeps, and even Sherman Tanks going up and down the roads.

Soldiers were training, playing war games, in the local fields and woodlands. I saw paratroopers jump from airplanes, and I can still visualize the sky filled with hundreds of descending parachutes. They fired blank rounds during these exercises, and after we would go out colleting brass shell casings. 

There was a large US Army camp close by, and we would go hang out there at the weekends. The soldiers would give us chewing gum and candy. This was a big deal because sugar was rationed during the war, and we had to make do with 2 oz. of candy a month. I had never seen chewing gum until the Americans came.

Just as suddenly as the Americans appeared, they all disappeared. I came home from school one day around the first week in June 1944 and they were all gone. I went to the army camp that weekend and it was completely empty. It was a surreal experience that I did not understand, any more than I understood anything else that went on during that period of my life.

It wasn’t until ten or so years later when I became a young adult myself, I realized what had happened. To an eight-year-old it was all a game, an experience, and those young men with their happy, smiling faces never led me to believe it was anything else. But after they left and things got serious, they died in their thousands on the Beaches of Normandy, and others in the months that followed.

It had a profound effect on me. Because today I still see the happy faces of those young American soldiers. I will never forget the sacrifice they made. A sacrifice not of their choosing. But one they made none the less so I would never have to do the same.

Today is a day for humility, to realize it is no longer about ME. It is not even about the veterans of those wars, it is remembering those who died in those wars, gave the ultimate sacrifice.

WWII was a fight against Fascism, the Korean war and Vietnam were fought against Communism. Both are Dictatorships, or Totalitarian form of government.

Time to reflect and ask, is this where we are headed? Is this what I really want? And if it is, then what did all these young men die for? What was the purpose?

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