Believers, non-believers, and those that will believe anything

Does anyone remember before the Internet and social media how simple and pleasant life was? For the most part there were just two main schools of thought. The religious element that believed in God, and the atheist that did not believe in God.

It always seemed strange to me that politics were always tied to each side with the religious side to the right and the atheist to the left, but that is the way it has always been. Those that did not believe in God were often scholars, academics, and scientists, who say that the existence of a God could not be proved by science or mathematics.  

If one thinks about it, is a belief in science any different from a belief in God? The atheist can be every bit as dogmatic in his unwavering belief in science. And what about the free thinkers, the artists? Do they not have a place in the spectrum? For what is creativity but having an original thought.

The scientist discovers and the artist creates, both spring from an original thought so is there any real difference? The scientist tries to prove his idea by scientific experiment or mathematics, if he cannot it remains a theory to be proved later by other scientists, The artist has an original thought and sets about bringing that idea into fruition as a painting, sculpture, poem, song, literature, or script.

Scientific discovery implies that the science, (Electricity for example) was always there waiting to be discovered. As a songwriter I share a belief held by many other songwriters that the songs are already written, and they just appear, often very quickly in the mind of the songwriter.

Some of us believe the artist is simply a vehicle through which art appears. This is not new thinking, the Native American called it “Hand Magic,” the Great Spirit guiding the hand of the artist as he creates the pottery, or she weaves the blanket. 

In order to hold such a belief, one must realize there is an Intelligence at work way beyond any concept our feeble minds can conceive. If that were not so, then we have reached the end of scientific discovery, there is nothing left to discover.

Or could it be that scientists create the science, and artists simply discover the art, all made possible by an Intelligence that might be God. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful discovery, that we really are all just One, and all on the same side. On the same page so to speak, or we could be if we just make the effort.

People are splitting into groups held together by an ever-increasing amount of strange science and conspiracy theories. It seems people go online not to find answers, but to seek out others with the same point of view. When the answers are there to be found if one keeps on looking with an open mind.

And if one can believe in an Intelligence beyond our own inadequate intelligence, the answer to anything and everything is there for the asking.

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Sheldon Brown and the givers and takers

The world is made up of givers and takers, not everyone of course, and some not all the time.

If someone gets recognized as a giver, the takers will call on that same person time and time again to give, give, give.

I have become reluctant to give to charities, because I have learned that if I give to one charity, my name address and phone number is sold to other charities, and I am called upon to donate over and over.

Givers don’t just give money, some share knowledge they have for the benefit of others. One such man was Sheldon Brown, a bike mechanic and somewhat eccentric character. (Picture above.) He had a vast knowledge of bicycle specifications. He shared these on his website, where anyone could go for free and look up standard thread specs, for different countries, ball-bearing sizes, and spoke lengths, etc., etc. Information necessary if you happen to be restoring an old bicycle.

When Sheldon Brown passed away in 2008 way too early at 63 years of age, the bike shop where he worked sponsored and maintained the website. When I read an article stating that the bike shop hosting Sheldon’s website was closing their doors and the was concern about the future of the site. I thought this was information I should share with others on the Dave Moulton Bike Facebook Group.

Now my timing was not good, it was Saturday evening, my wife was preparing the evening meal, and I needed to shut down the computer, go wash up so we could eat. The first comment back was, “You do it Dave, you would be the ideal person for the job.”

No.... That was not what I was thinking at all, and I wrote back. “I can’t do it, I am 85 years old for Cri-sake and have enough on my plate with my own blog, and bike registry.”

Then someone asks, “Where can we donate money?” I don’t know, why should it be the one to find out? I do a quick Google search; find a Sheldon Brown Facebook page and I post there asking for info on how we can donate to preserve the website.

Meanwhile, my wife is calling me to come eat, as I post the link to the Sheldon Brown FB page. Now I have a response back from the first poster. “85 is no age at all. My mother is 87 and she’s a powerhouse.” I responded to that with a post that basically said, “Fuck you.” When someone else pointed out that the FB page I had linked to was for a young girl named Sheldon Brown. Not Sheldon Brown Bicycle Guru.

Now as well as being thoroughly pissed off, I am embarrassed that In my haste I had made such a stupid mistake. I went back to the FB page and deleted my post there. Then with my wife still calling me to come and eat, I said, “Fuck it, I’m done.” And deleted the whole original post on the Dave Moulton Bike page. Shut down and went to eat. It did not ruin my whole evening, but did leave me to wonder, “Why do I even bother?”

I think it is safe to say, “I am a giver.” I have left a legacy of several thousand bikes, that will still be here long after I’m gone. These bikes will continue to be bought and sold, collected, ridden, and enjoyed for many years to come.

This leaves me with a warm, fuzzy feeling, and little else. A feeling of pride, but not so proud that I am going to fall for a line like, “You do it Dave, you would be ideal for the job.” Then when that failed, he came back with, “85 is nothing, my mother is a powerhouse at 87.” This is how people try to manipulate givers, flattery first, and if that does not work, try shaming them.

It has been a while since I had a good old rant, feels good to sometimes get it out. It would be a pity if Sheldon Brown’s site were to disappear, but I doubt that will happen. Someone with a giving nature will donate time and money to keep it up and running. But it ain’t me, I have enough on my plate.

I have simply drawn attention to the issue, now I am done.

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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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Is the beauty of a bicycle in the way it rides, or the way it looks?

When I built my first frames in England in the late 1950s, early 1960s, I was trying to build myself a better frame. A typical frame of that era had a very shallow, 71-degree seat angle and a long top tube. This did not suit my small stature of 5’ 6”. (167.64 cm.)

When making a maximum effort, I found myself sliding forward and consequently sitting on the narrow nose of the saddle. The result was it was extremely uncomfortable and had the effect of the saddle being too low.

The answer seemed obvious to me, if this was the natural position my body wanted to adopt, put the saddle where it needed to be to accommodate it. I also looked at the way the bike handled at speed, there was a tendency to wobble on fast descents. Also, the bike tended to feel sluggish when getting out of the saddle sprint, or to climb.

Over the next 10 or 15 years I built several different frames with varying angles, and each frame had extra front forks of various rakes, (Offset.) Some of these experiments improved the bike’s performance, and others made things worse. It was a long, slow learning process.

By the early 1970s I had pretty much got my own frame geometry figured out. But now I was being asked to build frames for other local cyclists. By now the trend in Italy and in England was the build road frames with 75 or even 76-degree head angles. I went against this trend as I had experimented with these angles years before and found it did not work too well. The handling was skittish or squirrely.

73-degree head had been established as the ideal head angle as far back as the 1930s, and it still worked. However, the old idea was to have a very long fork off-set, and zero trail. This is what lead to the speed wobbles of those old bikes. I had found that I ¼ inches (32 mm.) fork rake worked better and finally settled at 1 3/8 inches. (35 mm.)

With feedback from other riders, I found that a 73-seat angle worked fine for the taller riders, but I would gradually steepen the seat angle as the frame got smaller. The top tube was lengthened as the frame got taller, but at a lesser amount than the seat tube. This was offset by a longer handlebar stem on the larger frames. The idea was to always have the front part of the handlebars directly over the front hub. This meant the handling was consistent throughout the range of sizes.

Having spent many years designing and building a better bike, it became my main selling point.

Here was a frame that would fit better and handle better. (See the advert (Left.) from the British Cycling Magazine from 1975.)

Strangely, I have seen few framebuilders or manufacturers advertising their product on the premise that it rides and handles better than their competitors.

I feel proof that my frame design is valid, is the fact that I still have a following 28 years after I built my last frame. Many owners are original owners and will not part with their bike. I regularly receive emails from owners saying their FUSO or other bike I built is their favorite ride.

I was recently asked, “What do I think of the current American builders?” I don’t really know enough to answer that. I only know what I see at NAHBS each year. I see beautiful pieces of art, outstanding paint and metal work, but how do they ride? Or does anyone even care? No one will ever go out and race on such a machine anyway. Race bikes are no longer made of steel.

As far as I can see, the corporations who today build the carbon fiber bikes that are raced, are doing little that is innovative as far as geometry. They still build the basic 73-degree parallel frame that dates to the days when it was easier for a builder to build a lugged steel frame that way.

It is difficult to find a CF fork with a 35 mm. rake anymore. Today frames come out of a mold, angles and geometry could be unlimited. Within UCI rules of course, but even within those rules there is room for change. The UCI will also follow what the manufactures want. Disc brakes was an example of that.

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