Success and Fate

Looking back on the United States part of my framebuilding career, although some of my success I created, fate also played a large role.

For example in 1980 I went for a job interview with Trek, in Wisconsin; I didn’t get the position, but later that same year I landed a job with Masi in Southern California.

When I eventually started my own business I was definitely in the right place. California, and in particular the southern part of that state, has a climate where one can ride a bike year round. Had I opened my own framebuilding shop in Wisconsin, business would have definitely been seasonal.

Also when Masi laid me off at the end of 1981 it was due to an overstock of unsold frames coinciding with a recession. It was not because of anything I had done, and it was not necessarily Masi’s doing either.

They were only too pleased to rent me space in their shop to build my own frames, as they also had a drop in income. This got me started back in my own business again, and I was able to resume building custom frames; something I had not done since leaving England in 1979.

Then when John Howard, ex-Olympic rider and winner of the first Ironman Triathlon approached me in 1983 to build frames under his own name, it gave me a contract to build five frames a week.

This brought in a steady income to supplement what I was already making from my custom frames. It enabled me to open my own framebuilding facility, along with my own paint shop.

The John Howard frame was a short lived project that only lasted a year; again due to circumstances largely outside of my control, and of which I have outlined in a previous article.

This left me scrambling to find a replacement to fill the void in my production capabilities. Once again fate had played a hand and out of that the Fuso was conceived.

The John Howard frame was always underpriced and profit margins were small. It was competing head on with the Masi and Italian import frames, but was not an established brand at that time, so we had to produce and sell it for less.

With lessons learned from the John Howard frame, the Fuso came into being in 1984. The extreme luxuries like chrome plating were dispensed with, and the Fuso was a well designed, well built product with nice paint and graphics.

No longer having to split profits with a middle man; I now had a frame that was a reasonable price and would compete favorably with the import frames.

The Fuso had a good run for almost ten years, when once again fate took a hand in the form of the Mountain Bike; people stopped buying road bikes. However, this time I did not rise to the challenge and re-invent myself or my business.

Maybe I had been knocked down one too many times; I was thoroughly burned out with the bike business, and no longer wanted to be a part of it.

If someone had offered me a job in the bike business, I would have considered it. But to run my own business again, subject to all the whims of the market and the consumer. No, thank you very much

Looking back I have no regrets, but can't help but wonder what if I had landed that job with Trek back in 1980. Would they have treated me well enough that I stayed?

I might be retired by now with a large pension from some executive position. On the other hand I doubt if it would have been as satisfying as what I did do.

And is money the only consideration when a person looks back on what they have achieved? At some point we die and money has little bearing on anything

                        

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 canlink to my website here and get the approximate date it was built.

The Quest to be the Fastest Cyclist in the World

The picture above is from 1937. It shows Frenchman Albert Marquet setting a motor paced speed record of 85.3 mph. (139.9 kph.) Drafting behind a Cord car that has been rigged with box like structure behind the rear bumper.

A crude fairing made of fabric appears to be tucked into the rear doors; also note the extended exhaust pipe. The event took place in Los Angeles, California; I guess traffic was a lot lighter in 1937.

The quest to be the fastest cyclist in the world began in 1899 when Charles M. Murphy rode his bike behind a train on the Long Island Railroad, at Farmingdale. He covered a measured mile in 57.8 seconds (60 mph.) and from that day became famous Nationwide, known as “Mile a Minute Murphy.”

To achieve this feat, approximately three miles of wooden boards were laid between the railroad tracks to give Murphy a smooth surface to ride on. He was hauled aboard the pace coach by helpers, just before the track ran out, his feet still strapped to the pedals of his bike.

The next picture (Above.) shows Alf Letourner behind his pace car. On May 18th, 1941. Once more in California, near Bakersfield. Letourner set a new bicycle speed record of 108.92 mph. Note the size of his chainring, so large it almost touches the ground.

Forward to July 20th, 1985 when John Howard set a new motor paced bicycle record of 152.2 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats, in Utah. This is the same John Howard who was on the US Olympic team, won the Ironman Triathlon in 1980, and marketed a line of bicycle frames I built under his name in 1983.

Unlike the previous riders mentioned here who, with the exception of the massive required gearing, rode pretty standard track bikes.  John however, rode a purpose built machine, built by Texas framebuilder, Skip Hujsak.

As I remember, John had this bike made for a previous attempt on this record, before 1983 when I first met him. He brought this bike to my shop sometime that year. It had a very long wheelbase for stability, the most noticeable feature was the two stage gearing.

The chainwheel mounted on the left side drove a sprocket on a counter-shaft behind the saddle and above the rear wheel. A chainring on the opposite side drove the rear wheel sprocket. The wheels were, I think, were some high performance BMX wheels, probably the strongest available at the time.

John also wore some serious safety gear, a full length, one piece, leather suit and a motorcycle helmet with a face shield. Unlike the previous record breakers shown here. Apart from a helmet, no other safety gear was used; they wore regular cycling clothes. They would have picked up some very nasty road-rash had they fallen at those speeds.

There were many more sucessful record breakers over the years, I have only touched briefly on four of them.

The first two historical photos are from the wonderful collection by Aldo Ross, you can view larger versions of the pictures here and here.

There is also a short video of John Howard's record breaking ride on YouTube.

Addendum Aug 11th, 2008

A commenter pointed out the current record holder Fred Rompelburg, who in 1995 reached a speed of 166.944 mph. (268 kph.) on the Bonneville Salt Flats. I was out of the bike business by 1995 and completely out of touch, which is why I didn't know this. The bike was built by the late Dave Tesch.

An old friend comes home

In 1982, soon after I started building my own custom frames, I built a 58cm. frame that was somewhat of a showpiece. It was dark blue with lots of chrome.

I am pretty sure this was the frame I posed with in the Masi shop, and was used in one of my early ads. (Left.)

The frame was eventually sold to Bud’s Bike Store, in Claremont, California, and built up as a display model. This bike brought in many other orders, including this one built in 1983.

Then around 1984 this display model was sold, and bought by Lorin Youde. In his own words he told me, “I rode the heck out of it, then for some unknown reason, sold it in 1994.” He added, “Even my wife told me not to sell it, and it was not long after I realized I had made a big mistake.”

Lorin tried to fill the void with other bikes I had also built; he bought this John Howard two years ago.

Then he bought this Recherché in near new condition; it was the one I featured in this post.

Last year Lorin decided to track down the bike he sold. The person he sold it to had resold it, and the bike was in now Spokane, Washington. The new owner had just had knee surgery and so was willing to sell.

A price was negotiated, and the bike returned to it’s original owner at the end of last year. Lorin just sent me pictures. In an email he told me, “I replaced the 8 speed Dura Ace components with period correct Super Record and while not quite in pristine a condition as Chuck Schmidts' it still looks pretty good and is a pleasure to ride.”






Actually, I think the original paint looks pretty darn good for a bike that has “Had the heck ridden out of it.” There are more pictures here.

John Howard frame: Dave M or Dave T?

A John Howard frame, built by Dave Tesch (Above.) recently came up for auction on eBay. The seller made no mention of who built it and as a result, I received several emails asking if it was one of mine.

I built the John Howard frame 1983 to 1984; I built just over 300. David Tesch took over in 1984. I’m not sure how long he produced the frame, or how many came out of his shop, but I think less than I built.


When Tesch took over he used the same lugs and seat stay caps. (Engraved with the “H” logo.)

The difference between the two builders is not immediately apparent at first glance, especially if a seller on eBay does not post many detail shots of the frame.

This particular frame has a silver to purple fade paint job, with no chrome plating, This is the first clue, as all the frames I built were a single color with chrome drop-out faces and chrome right chainstay. A completely chromed front fork was offered as an option on my frames. 


Dave Tesch put his signature decal on the left chainstay. (Some of his early JH frames did not have this.)

My frames had the “From the frameshop of dave moulton” decal. Tesch used teardrop shaped chainstay bridge reinforces; I used round ones.



The frames I made were built to my design geometry, the same as the Fuso, and the Recherche that would follow. Dave Tesch had his own philosophy on frame design, and built frames with steeper angles.

Tesch stamped his initials DT before the frame size, and stamped the number across the bottom bracket shell; I stamped mine parallel with the BB faces. (See picture below.)

All the John Howard’s I produced had a yellow down tube decal. Dave Tesch used black, white, or yellow lettering.

I stopped building the John Howard frames because it was no longer a viable proposition to build less than five frames at one setting. Dave Tesch took over building the frames essentially as one off custom frames. He had a smaller shop with less overhead, was at the time anxious to get his business off the ground, and was hungry for work.

However, I think after a short while he found the arrangement was not financially viable. Framebuilding is such a labor-intensive business, and profits are tight. If someone produces a reasonable quantity of frames, and sells directly to bicycle dealers, as I did; then you have a viable business. With John Howard as the middle man, there was less profit to go round for everyone.

When I started producing the John Howard frames, and when Dave Tesch took over, the quality of the frames was equal to the Masi frames. 

However, the product did not have the Masi name, and sold for less. The John Howard frame, in my opinion, was always under priced; one of the reasons it was short lived.

After Dave Tesch stopped producing the frames, John Howard approached the KHS Company, and the bike was produced in Taiwan. KHS is a reputable company and have high quality control standards. The KHS John Howard is a good product.

However, it cannot compare with the hand built frames that Dave Tesch and I built. So if the JH frame does not have the engraved seatstay caps and the other features mentioned above, it is a KHS Taiwan produced frame and its price should reflect this.

My thanks to Bill Battle for the pictures of the Dave Tesch frame; More photos can be seen here and here.

Thanks also to Bryan Graham for the pictures of the Dave Moulton John Howard.