Joe Cirone

I was recently contacted by Joe Cirone, (Left.) who lives in Visalia, CA. Joe is now 92 years old and raced bikes, with success back in the late 1940s early 1950s.

Joe Cirone has been corresponding with me since 2006, when he told me about a frame he had built in the winter of 1948. The builder’s name was Mike Moulton, same name as me, but not related as far as I know.

Mike Moulton, from Tujunga, California, was an engineer for the Lockheed Aircraft Company. He built bike frames as a hobby.in a little workshop at the back of his house.

I can imagine back in the late 1940s, early 1950s, cycle racing was somewhat a “Cinderella” sport in America, and one could not easily find a track frame in the US. So, to find someone locally with the necessary skill to build such a frame must have been rare.

More about Mike Moulton later, but getting back to Joe Cirone, he got into bike racing in 1946 and found that he was a pretty good at it when he won the Junior National Championship in 1947.

Joe Cirone leads in a 1000 m. Match Sprint. 1948 US Nat. Championship.Joe tried out for the Olympic Team in 1948 but fell short by a little over one second in the 1000 meter Time Trial, held in Milwaukee Wisconsin. He did however take 2nd in the Nationals Senior Championship that year held in Kenosha Wisc.

It was when Joe Cirone returned home to California in 1948,  he met Mike Moulton at one of the races held in Pasadena and Mike offered to build him a frame. Joe rode that bike to the end of his career, and still owns it to this day.

1948 US Nat. Championships. Joe Cirone center.In 1951 Joe was part of a "Special American Team" that went to Japan on a "Good Will" Tour for one month. He raced against Japanese Teams up and down Japan. The team averaged two races each week, ending in a Special Event in Tokyo Stadium.

Before he left Japan, a large Japanese Bike Manufacturer offered Joe $1,000 for his bike. A great deal of money back then, but Joe turned the offer down a kept his beloved bike. The same bike he holds in the picture at the top of thes article.

Joe Cirone with his collection of Trophies.Some links to previous articles:

I had written about Mike Moulton, first in 2007, when I thought his frames may have dated buck to the 1930s.

Later that same year, (2007) I wrote a follow up.

In 2013 I learned of another Mike Moulton track frame that had been nicely restored.

More pictures of Joe Cirone's buike built by Mike Moulton.

 

Foot note: Don’t confuse Mike Moulton with Mike Melton, another fine American builder.

The Paris Galibier

In 1950 as a 14 year old, I attended Luton Technical School, some 30 miles north of London, England. Adjacent to that school was a Technical College for older engineering students. Many of these students were racing cyclists and would leave their bikes in the bicycle rack in the school yard. 

Lunch time would find me scrutinizing every fine detail of these bikes; it was the beginning of love affair with the bicycle that ultimately shaped my life, and lead to a career as a framebuilder.

One of the most unusual and eye-catching bikes was the Paris “Galibier” model. Paris was the brand name of London framebuilder, Harry “Spanner” Rensch.

His last name sounded like Wrench, hence the nickname “Spanner.” During WWII Rensch was an oxy-acetylene welder in London’s shipyards.

Paris Cycles started during the war in 1943. Harry probably chose the name Paris rather than use his own German sounding name, because of obvious wartime anti-German feeling, especially after the London Blitz.

He used a “Bi-laminated” construction for his frames that is a sleeve brazed over the ends of the tubes, and the actual joint then filet brazed. Referred to as “Bronze Welding” in the Paris literature.

Beside the Galibier model, Harry Rensch also built conventionally designed frames. The most popular of which was the “Tour de France” model.  (Above.)

Paris frames often sported very flashy paint jobs, especially for that time. I remember red, white, and blue fade paint for example. There was a large Eiffel Tower decal on the seat tube, and the Paris name was stenciled on the down tube. 

Ever since the introduction of the Galibier, and to this day, many a fierce argument has been held over this style guru’s dream machine. Is it just a style gimmick or is there real merit in this design? 

I never rode a Galibier, but I will say this, a bicycle frame twists as it is being ridden, about a line from the head tube to the rear dropout. So placing a single large tube along this line, (Or there abouts.) does have merit. The seat tube is also split to form an interesting cantilever design.

One thing cannot be denied is the superb craftsmanship of Harry Rensch. Like many artists before and since, Rensch was not a good businessman. Paris Cycles was always plagued with financial problems, and lasted just 10 years, closing their doors in 1953. Harry Rensch never returned to the bicycle business and died in 1984. The Galibier is his legacy. 

In recent years Condor Cycles in London bought the rights to the Paris name and are reproducing the Galibier model. (Picture above.)


Pictures from Classic Lightweights, UK

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Brass vs. Silver

Joining metal by brazing became the method of choice when the bicycle was invented in the late 1800s. Early bicycle lugs were in fact pipe fittings, but greater strength was needed, so brass was used instead of lead base solder.

Soldering and brazing are pretty much the same process, flux is required to allow the solder or brazing material to flow. The difference is the melting temperature of the different materials.

Soldering takes place at 427 degrees centigrade and below. Brazing between 593 and 895 degrees centigrade. Different sources will give a slightly different range, but as silver and brass will both melt within the range for brazing, that is the correct term. Brass brazing or silver brazing,

Silver is often known as Silver Solder, but strictly speaking it is not soldering because the melting temperature is above 427 degrees. Silver brazing rods come in soft, medium and hard, the soft being at the low end of the temperature range, progressing to a higher melting point for the medium and hard.

Silver is more expensive as it is for the most part silver, alloyed with other materials such as cadmium, or nickel. The price of silver brazing rods, will fluctuate with the price of silver on the Precious Metals Market.

Brass is already an alloy of copper and zinc, other materials will be added to give desired characteristics, like flow properties and workability. Brass melts at the higher end of the brazing range.

Often silver brazing is quoted as being best for lightweight bicycle frames because it melts at lower temperature. However, in the hands of a novice it is just as easy to overheat a joint using either silver or brass. In fact if you overheat a joint using silver, the silver will no longer flow, and the joint will have to be torn apart, thoroughly cleaned and start all over again.

Most framebuilders become proficient in either silver or brass, but my guess is, only a few totally master both. I became proficient with brass, but never built a complete frame using silver. The only time I used silver, was for brazing water bottle bosses, and top tube cable guides. The reason: Using the higher temperature brass would put a slight ripple in the thin un-butted part of the tube that would show after painting.

The traditional front and rear drop-outs, (Campagnolo for example. (picture left.)

The type where the front fork blade, chainstay and seatstay are slotted to take the drop out, have to be brass brazed.

Silver will not fill in the gaps, or fill the hole in the end of the tube. So even a builder who uses silver for the main frame will use brass for this type of drop-out.

Silver requires closer tolerances for example where the tubes fit in the lug. My method of altering the angle of the lug with a small hammer as I brazed, could not have been done with silver. The steel lug had to be at a bright red heat in order to be malleable enough to reshape. This would be too hot for silver.

Brass historically has always been used in Europe, which of course includes the UK where I learned to braze using brass. As a framebuilder becomes proficient at brass brazing, he learns to braze a joint cleanly, and not spill globs of brass over the edges of the lug. If this happens the builder will spend hour’s hand filing the excess brass away. Possibly leaving behind ugly file marks.

Silver on the other hand is softer and the excess can be sand-blasted away, or even scraped away with a small penknife. The fine and intricate, sharp edge lug work carried out by the late Brian Baylis, could not have been achieved using brass. English builder Hetchins did some fine elaborate brass brazed lug work, but on close inspection the corners and edges are not as fine and sharp as one can achieve with silver. (Baylis below left. Hetchins below right.) 

Silver brazing bicycle frames on the scale it is used today is an American development that can be traced all the way back to the Schwinn Paramount. Read the history here. One of the reasons the Schwinn Paramount was built using silver, was the easy clean up.

The intricate Nervex lugs used (Right.) would have been a pain to brass braze cleanly.

Many of the early American builders were influenced by the Schwinn Paramount, and a few even apprenticed there.

Brass or Silver? Both have their own advantages and disadvantages. Both require different skill-sets.

I could never have done what Brian Baylis did, and on the other hand, he could not have built the number of frames I built using the methods he did.

Brass is more suited to production, silver is more suited to the artisan builder, custom building frames one at a time.

In my opinion, brass in many ways is more forgiving from a workability standpoint. For an absolute beginner, don’t be misled into thinking silver is easier.

Try brass brazing a few pieces of scrap metal together. You will have a lot of fun for not too much money. And a lot less heartache, than spending a ton of money by plunging straight in, and trying to silver braze a frame with little or no experience.

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Art and Function

I love when a comment on one of my blog posts gives me food for thought, and better yet subject matter for another article. Steve wrote such a comment on my last tribute to Brian Baylis. He stated:

A bicycle, isn’t a piece of art, but something you ride. Because really, no frame builder builds all the components hung on his frame: wheels, tires, saddles, cables, brakes, derailleurs et al.

It is, in the end, a simple device envisioned hundreds of years ago as a means of moving men (yes, it was envisioned by men for men). So really, how much time should one spend building a frame, when all its components are produced by someone else?

(See the complete comment on my previous post.) 

So is a bicycle art or just something you ride? Well, yes and no. There is pure art, objects that serve no practical purpose other than to be pleasing to the eye. To live a life without art would be a pretty bland existence.

I am not a material person by any means. I do not place much importance on stuff, but I do have pictures on my walls, and a few pieces of handmade pottery around. They bring me pleasure, and my life and my home would be missing something if they weren’t there. That is the only purpose of these art objects.

Everything ‘man-made’ whether handmade or mass produced, is either pure art, completely practical, or mostly what I call ‘Functional Art.”

Because given a choice between two objects of equal performance and price, one will choose the one more pleasing to look at.

Furniture is a good example of functional art. A chair has to be comfortable to sit in, but also needs to be pleasing to look at, because it becomes part of the décor of our homes, along with the pictures on the wall.

There are degrees of function and art in functional art, and when one takes over from the other the product often suffers one way or another. But it all comes down to what the consumer or owner of the object wants, and what he can afford or is willing to pay.

When a chair becomes a piece of pure art, it may be uncomfortable to sit in, or too fragile for everyday use, and one might ask, what use is it.

If it brings pleasure to its owner just to look at it, that is its purpose. I would not criticize anyone for owning such a chair, or the person who made it.

So is a bicycle frame any different? I got into building frames to build a better bicycle. One that rode better, handled better, and was more comfortable. My customers in the UK were almost 100% racing cyclists. The bike was needed to compete in bike races, it sold because it was functional and the price was right.

When I came to the US I had to up the ante on my finish work because that is what the American consumer demanded. The bikes did not lose any of the ride or handling qualities, but I did reach a point where people began to say, “This is too beautiful to race, I will be afraid to crash it.”

This annoyed the hell out of me. I had been forced to move towards pure art in order to stay competitive, then the bike was no longer practical as a racing bike, because it was too fine and too expensive.

That is why I moved away from the pure custom frame to the limited production model like the Fuso. A Fuso will handle exactly the same as one of my super expensive customs, but the price was reasonable, and the degree of finish was acceptable to the people who wanted a piece of art.

On Steve’s point that the framebuilder only makes the frame, not the complete bike. It has always been that way. Even today, companies like Trek and Cannondale, design and produce a frame only, then assemble it with the same components as everyone else. And the bicycle always takes on the name of the frame builder or manufacturer. It becomes a Trek bicycle, or a Dave Moulton, a Fuso or a Brian Baylis bicycle.

Even lower end bicycles are built this way. The only exception I know to this was Raleigh Industries, in Nottingham, England. They had a huge factory that made everything. They had different thread standards, and even different rim and tire sizes, so if you bought a Raleigh bike, you were forced to buy spare parts and even tires from Raleigh. They went out of business some years ago, and I don’t know of anyone manufacturing the whole bike anymore.

To sum up, I believe there is room for art and room for function, and when you can successfully combine the two you have the best of both worlds. I never spent as much time building a bicycle frame as Brian Baylis, but I did spend a year and a half writing a novel. Was that a waste of time? You tell me, because I often wonder about that myself.

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R. Brian Baylis 1953 – 2016

It was a sad moment this morning when I learned that framebuilder and painter Brian Baylis had died the previous evening. I felt I definitely needed to write some sort of tribute, as Brian was one of the first people I met and worked along-side when I came to San Marcos, California in the early 1980s.

But what to say in writing such a piece, that is the problem. Brian Baylis was such a complex character, even when you knew him, you didn’t really understand exactly where he was coming from, so how does a person begin to explain that personality to others who never knew him. I’ll just have to start at the beginning and do the best I can.

October 1980 I arrived in San Marcos, San Diego County. Having come over from England just the previous year and landed in New Jersey. And if I found that strange, I may as well have landed on a different planet when I arrived in California. I had come to work for Ted Kirkbride, who was sub-contracted to build the Masi frames.

Ted had a frameshop and paint facility, and to defray some of the operating cost he rented space out as a co-op type of situation, to different framebuilders and painters who then shared the space and equipment. Brian was one of the builders who also painted his own frames.

Brian and I were worlds apart when it came to our approach to framebuilding. I set myself a certain high standard, and did my best to maintain that same standard over the years. I didn’t want my customers feeling I had built a better frame for someone else than I had for them. I tried to be consistent.

This is where explaining Brian Baylis is difficult, because I am not suggesting for one moment that he had inconsistent standards or ever turned out shoddy work. It was the exact opposite. He seemed to set some standard beyond even his own capabilities and strove towards that, until he thought he had reached it. Never caring for how long it was taking him to achieve this level of workmanship.

On hearing of his passing, for some reason I thought of a story I once heard of an old wood carver, working on a huge pair of double oak doors. The design was an intricate one with oak leaves and acorns, scrolls and winged cherubs in each corner. Someone asked him, “How do you know when it is finished?” He replied, “It is never finished, they just come and take it away from me.”

For some reason I feel that Brian was like that except there was no one to take it away from him. But he probably kept filing until the desire to paint it took over. Brian’s intricate lug work and filing, was only surpassed by his painting.

I owe a lot of my success to Brian Baylis and indeed the other painters, Jim Allen and Jim Cunningham who were there at that time. I had painted my own frames in the UK, but after arriving at the San Marcos shop, I realized the American market demanded paintwork that was at a whole different level.

Talking to a mutual friend, David Ball, this morning, I mentioned about the little painting tricks I had learned (or stolen.) from Brian. David said, “Brian learned a few tricks from you, in particular frame alignment tricks.”

Looking back, Brian Baylis was the only person who never gave me any grief, at that crazy San Marcs co-op. There was always conflict over the schedule for using the paint booth and other equipment. Brian took two weeks to build one frame so he was never tying up the paint booth or the frame jig.

When I left San Marcos I saw very little of Brian, but always heard how he was doing from our mutual friend. I would see him occasionally at cycling events and shows. It was from David Ball I heard of Brian’s passing this morning.

It is an understement to say Brian Baylis was a colorful character. If my writing here has not done him justice, I have no worries, because I know the body of work he leaves behind always will. I will miss you, Brian, rest in peace my friend.

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