Mystery Bikes

In my last post I mentioned Kent and Kyle Radford, the owners of the Recherche brand name. A few days ago I got the following email from Kyle:

Hey Dave, years ago while visiting your shop I remember two distinct mystery bikes. I wonder where these are today? The first was a Mountain bike you had built.

I remember you letting me ride it around the parking lot. After about 30 seconds, I thought holy cow, this thing rips!!

It made every other mountain bike I had ridden seem like a banana slug. It performed like a crit bike with knobbies. At the time you told me not to tell anyone you had built it.I think it safe now,all these years later!

The second "mystery machine" was a time trial bike. If recollection serves me right you could convert it from 700c to 26 " wheels? I remember something about the rear brake bridge where you could un-bolt and flip it to accommodate the different wheel circumference.

I don't remember what you did with the front fork. Anyway, thought it might be fun to share with your readers and satisfy my curiosity! Thanks, Kyle.

The first bike mentioned is no mystery really, it was the Fuso Mountain Bike, (Above.) and the reason I probably wanted to keep it quiet at the time was because I was about to debut it at the 1987 Interbike Show. I built around 50 of these in the years that followed, and there are still a few around.

The second bike you mention was one of a kind. I have no idea where it is today, and I would love to know. As I have no picture I will do my best to describe it. Around the late 1980s the smaller 600c wheels became popular for a short time.

The thinking behind the smaller wheel was less weight and faster acceleration. I built a few track frames for these wheels and had good reports on their performance. The bike you mention was a Time-Trial/Triathlon bike. It was again built for one of the Interbike shows.

It was an interesting design, in that it used a 600c (26in.) wheel in the front, and had the option of using a 700c (27in.) wheel at the back, or a 600c. There was a special bolt on adapter to lower the rear brake bridge when the smaller wheel was fitted. This adapter was made from aluminum plate, and bolted on to the normal brake bridge and on to two brazed on threaded bosses on the rear seatstays.

The front fork arrangement was also interesting. A smaller wheel means less trail, the head angle was steeper at 74 degrees, also meaning less trail. So to compensate, the fork only had a very slight bend, and a 1 inch (25mm.) offset or rake.

The reason behind this scant fork rake was this. When the bike was set up with two same size 600c wheels the frame was level, and the front fork was set up in the normal way.

When the larger 700c wheel was used in the rear, it lifted the back end and made the frame angles steeper, including the head angle, and it was intended when the larger rear wheel was used, for the front fork to be turned backwards, like a “Stayer” bike.

The front fork was drilled in such a way that the front brake could be bolted on from either direction. This combination of angles and fork rake were chosen to acheive ideal handling with either set up.

As I recall it was a 58cm. frame and so was too big for me to ride. My apprentice Russ Denny rode it and reported that it handled like a dream, with either rear wheel set up. My thinking behind this design was that a rider could choose a different rear wheel set up for different courses. The smaller rear wheel might be better on hilly or more technical courses, for example.

The bike had a lot of lookers at the Show, but it was a little too radical to bring in any orders. As I remember it, after the show the bike was sold to a bike store in Del Mar, on the coast just north of San Diego. I never saw or heard of it again, and have no idea where it is today.

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New Fuso: Back to the future

After my last article about building up vintage Fuso frames with modern components, longtime friend and regular reader of my blog, Steve Farner sent me pictures of his brand new custom Fuso built by Russ Denny.

Russ revived the Fuso brand name two years back and customers can have one built in pretty much any configuration they wish.

Modern oversize tubing, or as Steve chose here, the traditional size tubes with brazed lugs.

Steve also went with the original Fuso seatstay caps, and a level top tube.

A classic style flat fork crown with square shoulders completes the traditional look. (Picture right.)

The steel fork has a 1 inch threadless steerer, with a Thompson 1.125 in. adaptor fitted. It has a Chris King 1" Sotto Voce threadless headset, and the English threaded Bottom Bracket is fitted with Chris King ceramic bearings.

The component group is Scram Red, and with a Mavic Ksyrium wheelset, the bike weighs in at 19 lbs. Who wouldn’t be proud to own and ride such a bike? A frame like this will easily last 50 or more years, the last bike anyone need buy. Here are some more pictures.

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Mixing the old with the new

Last year I managed to find a 49cm. Fuso frame for $350, Shipping cost rounded it up to $400. The frame built in 1985 was in mint condition, at looked like it had hardly been used. I built the bike up for my wife to ride. (Picture above.)

I spread the rear end to 130mm, all frames I built in Southern California were 6 speed 126mm. I bought brand new components, 11 speed Campagnolo Athena Group, new wheels with Mavic rims, Modern bars and stem, fitted using a Deda quil stem adaptor so the original fork was used. (Picture below right.)

I don’t have the exact dollar amount, but the whole bike I think came out around $1.500 or $1,600.

My wife loves the bike, it fits her perfectly.  In recent months other Fuso and Recherché owners have written and sent pictures of bikes built up in a similar fashion.

It is a way to get on a nice riding, top-of-the-line bike, with all the advantages of modern gearing, etc., for not too much money. That is providing you are not obsessed with the weight of your bike. Most people riding for exercise and pleasure, find their bodies to be at least 10 lbs overweight, so what difference will an extra 3 lbs on the bike make?

Fitting a carbon fork would cut the weight considerably, however, it will add to the cost, and you won’t find a carbon fork with the original 35mm rake, so the handling would be compromised slightly. Not enough to be a real issue as such a bike will probably not be used for racing.

A 52cm. 1st. Generation Fuso recently built up with Campagnolo Athena. Owned by Martin Worsdall.

Fuso and Recherché frames were built with shorter top tubes than other frames of the era. My theory was, use a longer stem, get the weight over the front wheel, and the bike will handle better.

Today it means if someone is building a bike with a more upright, relaxed position, they could use a slightly bigger frame, which would bring the handlebars higher in relation to the saddle. The shorter top tube might be nearer the smaller frame that person rode “back in the day.”

Another consideration: Instead of raising the handlebars level or even above the saddle height, use a shorter stem, set just below the saddle height. This means the same relaxed back and neck angle, but better weight distribution, with some weight on the arms, and less on the saddle.

A Fuso FR1 circa 1989, with modern equipment. Owned by Elijah Lyons. This bike has the tire clearance issue mentioned below.

One small issue has been brought to my attention. The wider 25mm. and 28mm. tires that are popular now, were not in general use back in the 1980s when these frames were built. The chainstays were a standard length across the range of all size frames.

On the larger frames that have a 73 degree seat angle if the larger size tires are fitted, the tire hits the seat tube when removing the rear wheel.

This is a fairly easy fix. (See the picture on the left.) Use a hacksaw and a flat file, and remove the bottom tip of the rear dropout on both the left and right sides.

This will not compromise the frame structurally, and will give as much as a quarter inch of extra clearance when fitting and removing the rear wheel.

This is not an issue with the smaller and mid-size frames as these have slightly steeper seat angles, resulting in more clearance.

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Ridiculous

I have seen some crazy bike set-ups in my time, but this one I think beats all.

Looking at the amount of seat post showing it must be above its limit with barely half an inch in the frame. This 52cm. First Generation Fuso was obviously too small for its owner, and WTF is that handlebar stem extension?

Luckily it has been bought by a collector who already owns a custom ‘dave moulton’ and a Recherché, and I am sure will restore this to some measure of sanity.

It is okay to dress your own children funny, but please, not mine.

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Prices then and now

Above is a retail price list for my bikes in 1990. The most expensive is the Fuso Lux which was custom built to order, with chrome plating, and retailed at $3,150 equipped with Campagnolo C Record components. This was probably the most you would pay for any top of the line racing bicycle.

I say this because my competition back then were the Italian imports like Colnago and Pinerello. You would pay a something over $3,000 for one of these lugged steel Italian bikes equipped with the same Campagnolo C Record group.

My production was only a fraction of these much larger companies, they probably each produced far more frames in a month than I did in a year. But I was able to compete because I had a much lower overhead, and I did not need a distributor to sell my frames in the US. It was the shipping and middle man cost that the Italian companies had to deal with that allowed me to compete.

I attended the big bicycle trade shows each year, and gradually built up a network of bicycle dealers all over the US. I could then sell and ship direct to them. My competition, the Italian bike builders, could not do this. The shipping costs alone on individual bikes or frames would have been prohibitive.

They had to ship frames over by the container load to a distributor, who would then market and sell to the individual American bike dealers just as I did. The Italian import frames were mostly built on a system made by a company called “Marchetti and Lange.” This was a conveyer track system, where the frames were completely assembled, front and rear triangle, and “Pinned” together, then placed on the conveyer.

Gas jets pre-heated first the bottom bracket area, the conveyer then moved on, with the bottom bracket and tubes glowing red hot from the pre-heating, and an operator quickly hand brazed the bottom bracket. While this was happening, gas jets were pre-heating the head lugs. Then the conveyor moved on to a second operator who would then braze the already pre-heated head lugs, and so on until a completed frame came off the other end.

By comparison I brazed together batches of 5 frames at a time, using a hand held oxy-acetylene torch with no pre-heating. This meant less heat went into the tubes, so the Columbus tubing retained more of its inherent strength. I don’t mean that the Italian frames were over-heated, but just a larger area of the tube beyond the lugs was heated, due to the use of pre-heaters.

The Italian frames came off the Marchetti and Lange track, were cleaned up and went to be chromed and painted. They mostly left the factory, with the bottom bracket threads not cleaned out, the BB and head tube were un-faced, and the frames were unchecked for alignment.

This work was done after the frames arrived in the US, either by the distributor, but most often by the bicycle shop. Any top of the line bike shop in the 1980s or 1990s had a full Campagnolo tool kit in a wooden case.

By comparison, I would braze 5 bottom brackets, check for alignment. Braze 5 head tubes, check the alignment, and so on. Every frame had the BB thread tapped and faced, and the head tube was reamed and faced ready to accept the head bearings. The seat tube was reamed, so the seat post would slide right in. All this was done before painting, along with a final check for alignment. When a dealer got the frame it was ready for assembly.

What I find interesting is the price comparison from 1990 to now. The most you would pay for a top of the line race bike was a little over $3,000. You might go to $4,000 for something special like Columbus Max tubing. (Picture above.) However, this would be an excaption. Today a top of the line carbon fiber Colnago or Pinerello will set you back $14,000 and up.

The average income in 1990 was $29,000, today it is around $44,300, a 52% increase. A Ford Mustang convertible cost $14,250 in 1990, today it would be not quite twice as much at $27,500. So the cost of a CF bicycle today would buy you a Ford Mustang in 1990.

Back when I built frames, as a small individual builder, I could compete with the larger import companies and still make a fair profit. Today, top of the line bikes are made by large corporations, and prices are not based on what it costs to produce, but rather by what the market will stand. With a consumer, it seems, who would rather pay more, if only for the bragging rights.

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