Fine Italian Steel

On hearing the term “Fine Italian Steel,” one usually thinks of handcrafted steel frames, but in the early 1950s, Italy having made a quick recovery from the devastation of WWII, were producing some quite beautiful steel bicycle components.

There were no Campagnolo Groupos in the early 1950s, Campagnolo made quick release hubs and derailleur gears, and that was it. Pedals and cranksets were introduced in the late 50s.

The two main brands I remember were Gnutti and Magistroni, between them they made cranksets, bottom bracket bearings, hubs and headsets.

Gnutti made a really elegant cotterless crankset, (Pictured above.) that fitted onto a tapered and splined BB spindle, and was held in place with recessed Alen screws.

They also made a less expensive cottered crank, which was the one I used, pictured left.

Both Gnutti and Magistroni cranks were a three arm pattern with the same standard bolt circle diameter.

They were often used in conjunction with the French made Simplex chainrings.

Simplex had these three simple bolt-on adapter arms. (Picture below.)

 Gnutti’s quick release hubs were a copy of Tulio Campagnolo’s original idea, I’m not sure if the patent had run out, or they were made under license. The hubs had a chromed steel barrel with aluminum flanges pressed and swaged into place. (Pictures below.)

 Finally this Magistroni headset (Pictured below right.) intrigues me, it is quite an engineering masterpiece. How did they get the “Magistroni” name around its circumference?

It would not have been cast, a casting would not work as a bearing surface.

Stamping not possible around the complete circle. It would not have been engraved or pantographed, too costly.

Knowing a little about engineering practices of that era, I believe the lettering was rolled on.

Probably done while the bar stock was in a solid piece, before the headset cup was shaped in a lathe. The bar would be turned slowly and a rotating die with the lettering in reverse pressed into it under great pressure. If anyone else has any alternative theories let me know.

Also note the teeth machined into the top of the bearing cup, with a lock ring with matching teeth. After loosening the top nut, this would allow adjustment by hand, one notch at a time. The lock ring being keyed to the steering tube would prevent the bearing cup from turning as the top nut was re-tightened.

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Rear Dropouts

Have you ever had the misfortune to break an adjuster screw in a rear dropout?

Or worse still a thread tap which is hardened and can’t be drilled out.

The best way to deal with this problem is to seek out an engineering company who have Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) equipment. This machine can burn through steel with precision using very little heat.

I would occasionally break a tap in the dropout of a brand new painted and finished frame. I would take it to a local EDM shop where they would burn out the broken tap and not even touch or mar the paint work, and not charge me too much money. 

On another subject have you ever wondered what those two little threaded holes are for in the right hand side Campagnolo short rear dropout. Mostly seen on frames built through the 1980s. (See the picture above.)

This was for a special chain hanger Campagnolo introduced in 1977. Called a Portacatena, it consisted of a “C” shaped steel plate that attached to the inside of the rear dropout with two screws in the threaded holes I just pointed out.

The idea was in the event of a flat tire, with the aid of a special extra lever on your down tube shift lever, the chain could be shifted onto the Portacatena chain holder where it would stay while the wheel was being changed. 

After the wheel change, the rider got a push start and then shifted the chain onto the rear freewheel in the usual way. The idea never really caught on because it was only suited to a race team with support kind of situation. It was also necessary to use a five-speed freewheel on a six-speed hub spacing (125mm.) 

Soon after its introduction six speed freewheels became commonplace and the idea died a natural death. In spite of this Campagnola continued to produce rear dropouts with these two threaded holes to my knowledge through the early 1990s. Why? I have no idea.

Finally, while on the subject of rear dropouts, I have been selling stainless steel replacement dropout adjuster screws for about three years now.

Recently When I replenished my stock I decided to change over to Allen socket head screws.

These are fiddley little beggars to fit with a flat screwdriver, Allen head screws make the job a whole lot easier.

A long "T" handle Allen wrench would work nicely with these screws, as long as the handle clears the chainstays. The ideal tool is a nut driver, which takes a hex socket for tightening small hexagonal head screws and nuts. (Picture below.)

The required size 2.5mm. Allen tool bit then fits into the appropriate size socket and fitting these new screws is a walk ride in the park.

If the threads in your frame happen to be full of rust, or dirt and the screw comes to a grinding halt, don’t force it but rather apply some grease to the screw, and each time you come to a stop, back off (Unscrew) half a turn or so, then go forward again.

Each time you will usually progress a little further before having to back off again.

Patience is the key, rather than trying to force the screw in and end up breaking it.  (Which is where we started today.)

(Picture right.) I sell these new stainless screws on eBay for $9.50 a pair, and postage is free anywhere in the world. They weigh less than an ounce and go in a regular business envelope with a stamp. There is also a permanent ad in the right column of this page.

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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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The Bicycle: Evolution or Intelligent design. Part I

The chain driven bicycle was invented almost 130 years ago. (Picture left, The Rover "Safety" Bicycle 1885.)

To the layman, or the untrained eye, this bicycle is basically the same as today’s bike.

But its geometry was directly influenced by its predecessor, the High-Wheeler. And that would influence frame design for the next 60 years. Indirectly it had an influence on what we ride today.

I have been riding bikes, racing bikes, designing and building bikes, and writing articles about bikes for 65 years, which is half of the period chain driven bikes have existed.

Albert “Pop” Hodge, who was my mentor, and first introduced me to the art of framebuilding, was born in 1877, and therefore witnessed firsthand the invention and early development of the bicycle. Pop Hodge was close to 80 years old when I first met him around 1953. (Picture below right.)

From what he told me, and what I have observed, back then and since, in the 130 years the bicycle has gone through a slow evolution.

During each phase, what happened previously affected the design of the next generation of bicycles.

The title of this piece has religious overtones, because like religion, much is spoken and written about the bicycle because “It is so.”

The center of the knee shall be over the pedal. But why? Because it is written. Wise men have deemed it is so.

When I started racing in 1952, we rode bikes with a seat angle of 70 or 71 degrees. We were taught that the shin of the lower leg, should be vertical. The center of the knee was actually behind the pedal. Wise men taught us that in order to pedal fast, and efficiently, one had to sit back.

In practice I soon found this was not so. When making a maximum effort, and pedaling at maximum revs, I found myself sliding forward on the saddle, which was uncomfortable, distracting, and had the effect of the saddle being much too low.

The term “Riding the Rivet,” is still used today to describe a cyclist making a maximum effort. The term was around when I began racing in the early 1950s when saddles were leather and actually had rivets to hold the leather to the saddle frame.

To understand why seat angles were so shallow back then, one has to go all the way back to the predecessor of the chain driven bicycle, to the “Ordinary” or Penny-Farthing bicycle. (Left,)

This was the first “Enthusiasts” bike. One had to be an enthusiast, as well a young, fit and agile athlete just to mount and ride one of these.

Today’s cyclist might think it a problem to make an emergency stop with their feet clipped in. Imagine making an emergency stop on a High-wheeler, and you are sitting over five feet above the ground. One had to dismount in a hurry, or fall over.

When the chain driven bike was invented in 1885 it was not immediately accepted by the enthusiast. These enthusiasts were the hard core “Roadies” of their day. The high-wheeler or Ordinary was still much faster. It wasn’t until pneumatic tires came into being in 1888 that the chain driven bike became faster and was accepted by the enthusiast.

These enthusiasts were the experts of the day, and what they learned riding the Ordinary influenced them and carried over to the chain driven bike. The Ordinary was limited by its simplicity, as to where the rider could sit, for example.

Imagine if your handlebars were directly above your bottom bracket. There would be no other choice but to sit some considerable distance back behind the pedals. When the first “Safety” or chain driven bike came into being, it was designed so the handle bars and the saddle were positioned in relation to the pedals exactly the same as its predecessor the High-wheeler. Making a seat angle of around 69 degrees. (See picture above.)

(Above.) Two different bicycles, but the exact same rider position. Note the rider's shin is vertical, a positioning "Guide" that would last another 60 years into the 1950s.

Below is a typical racing bike of the 1950s. Louison Bobet's 1954 Tour de France bike. Its shallow seat angle can be traced back to the High Wheeler of the 1800s.

A generation of “Experts” who had learned to pedal on the High-wheeler, then taught the next generation who became the following generation’s experts, and so on for the next 60 years and into the 1950s when I came along.

There was another factor that maintained this notion that seat angles shall be shallow, and an important one. This I would learn from framebuilder Pop Hodge. Frame lugs were heavy steel castings, and they were limited in the angles that were available.

It suited lug manufacturers to make their product in a limited number of angles. In later years thinner pressed steel lugs became available and it was then possible to alter an angle slightly. But not so prior to the 1950s.

73 degrees was established as an ideal head angle sometime in the 1920s or 1930s. This is still the norm today, and in the past when I have experimented with steeper or shallower head angles, I found no improvement.

Building frames with a head angle of 73 degrees, and a seat angle 2 or 3 degrees shallower, suited the framebuilder. With the head tube steeper and the seat tube leaning back away from that angle, as the framebuilder built a taller, or larger frame the top tube automatically became longer, which made the framebuilder’s job easier, and suited the taller rider.

This article is based on a talk I recently gave at the Philly Bike Expo, and will have to be written in two parts. In the next piece I will explain what happened after the 1950s. How the 73 degree paralell frame, still a popular design today, came about. The reason may surprise you. 

Two main factors determine frame design, throughout history and even to this day. Experts who simply re-cycle information that was written by previous generations of experts. And framebuilders and manufacturers doing what is easiest and most profitable for them.

Read Part II.

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Everything Clamp-on

The pictures here are of a 1968 Pugliaghi. Everything clamp on even the bottom bracket gear cable guides. Pictures from TheRacingBicycle.com

In the late 1950s through the early 1970s there was a slump in bicycle sales in Europe. In the 1960s the economy was booming and although in many places the bicycle had always been the mode of transport for the working classes; many were now buying cars for the first time. At the same time the fitness craze of the 1970s had not yet begun.

Racing bicycles and framebuilders were also hit by this slump and the price of a frame rose very little in that decade even though inflation did. Framebuilders had to look for ways to cut costs and one of them was to leave off all braze-ons.

Building a frame without braze-ons does save a considerable amount of time and therefore labor costs. The only braze-ons seen in this era was a chainstay stop and sometimes a little stop under the down tube to prevent the gear lever clamp from sliding down the tube. 

Having done that framebuilders could not tell their customers they were doing this to cut costs, hence the story that braze-ons weaken the frame. I think Cinelli started it; framebuilding was never their main source of income (Handlebars and stems were.) so the price of a Cinelli frame was always high. Everyone’s thinking was if Cinelli can get away with it so can we, and most framebuilders followed suit.

Do braze-ons weaken the frame? Maybe very marginally but it is part of the framebuilding process. I have seen down tubes break right at the clamp on gear lever. Imagine a shock wave from hitting a bump in the road, or the twisting forces on a down tube.

Normally these stresses would be dispersed around the frame, but instead are stopped rather abruptly by a solid clamp around the tube. Clamps require more maintenance they collect moisture under them and if over tightened can dig into the tube and start a stress riser.

Prior to the “No Braze-ons” craze, all the various derailleur manufacturers provided clamp-on fittings because there was no standardization in gear lever design, for example, and clamp-on gear lever had already been standard practice for the most part.

By the 1970s, when braze-ons made a return, Campagnolo so dominated the market that most frames (Especially Italian.) came with a Campagnolo brazed on lever boss. Other manufacturers (Shimano for example.) were forced to design their gear levers to fit the Campagnolo lever boss. 

I do feel if anyone is restoring a bike with a “No braze-ons frame” from this era should keep the cable clamps because they are authentic for that period.

Footnote: Re-posted from March 2006 with aditional content added.