Whording...

[suspectdevice]

That's a word, right?

There are some curmudgeonly types who build bikes and troll these here interwebs.

I've know very few builders who don't have something involved in the production process that they whorde.

For me, personally it's Tange Prestige stays and seattubes. I grew up riding them, and love their shape, their ride and working with them is a pleasure.

I also have a pretty big stash of Easton Tandem boomtubes.
And I'm not sure why, except they actually make a really great road frame if you miter them sideways and use them as tt's and dt's. Why I think I'd every actually build more than one bike that ugly is beyond me.

I also seem to buy every set of TT OXII mtb fork blades I can get my hands on. And I just don't know why. Too short for 29er's, to heavy for xc bikes, and premitered for 1.25" steerer. But I hold one in my hand, and spin it around like a club, and it just feels right. One of these days... One of these days it'll turn into something cool. I just don't know what yet.

[e-RICHIE]

That's a word, right?

There are some curmudgeonly types who build bikes and troll these here interwebs.

I've know very few builders who don't have something involved in the production process that they whorde.

i am long on 70s era framebuilding parts that i either kept or scored
in the 90s when i though the end was near. i expected it would/could
1) sustain me (or until i lost interest in vintage and 1" top tube-ish like
frames), and 2) allow me to do a retro frame and capitalize on the zeal
of the no lug left behind crowd, aka the CR list. alas, with so many other
cool parts coming into our niche industry as well as a feeling that i didn't
really wanna make a market using dead stock or obsolete inventory, well -
i just look at the stuff as stuff. quaint as shit, but that's that. it's a good
time to be a framebuilder who specializes in steel because the parts have
never been better, higher quality, or more available. fifteen years ago i
would have suspected i'd be riding it out using the stash (like a cabinet
maker might do with some old wood...) but who woulda' thunk itmo atmo.

three or four period pieces a season is my limit. after that i wanna get my
head back in the present. sorry for the drift, and i know S.D. is an off-road
cat and mebbe things are different, whord-wise.

hey thanks for reading.

arrange disorder

:D:D
:eek::eek:

[Saab2000]

So my question is this: is the new stuff in the world of frames (tubes, lugs, everything else) better than what was available say 10 or 20 years ago?

I as this as a general question.

Everyone goes gaga over the Max bike that Mike Z is making and I have heard from another respected bike builder that INHO it is the best tubeset ever available.

It's no doubt cool. But it's also nearly a 20-year old tubeset.

Anyway, this is about Whoarding.

I am going to hoard my Nucleons.

Just curious about "Today vs Yesterday" from the viewpoint of the builder. At least in the world of steel.

e-Richie seems to say that today's stuff is better than yesterday's. I believe him but am curious about why.

[suspectdevice]

Off road stuff from even 10 years ago should be in the dumpster. But there seem to be quite a few discountinued or rarer than hen's teeth little nibbles of tubing that folks want.

Hell, I was ready to try to find the way to sign a check on the old Prestige road stuff before it was brought to my attention that the dies had gone missing.

I agree about steel today. You, Richard, were in your prime already 15 years ago, but I was just a little urchin on the floor of a weird ole bike factory. We built lots of straight gauge 4130 for companies like Schwinn, K2, T1, and FBM. Lots of bmx, and lots of 7005 aluminum too. We formed our own 6061 (good bless a quick t-zero quench) tubes, and did plenty of work to make the straight 4130 into something cool.

My attraction to a few certain old steel tubes, like Max and Prestige, I think is mostly a visceral reaction to what cats on those bikes did (me included).

Max has it's merits (it's not air hardening or heat treated, (Low tensile, comparitively)) but it's shaping does really, really neat things to the ride. Same for Prestige, but to a different aim (less manliness, but very distinctive, the WCS variant even more so)), it doesn't build a "better" bike than S3, or OX platinum (the two newer steels I have sufficent experinece with), but all bikes that we would build are certainly "good enough".

"Better" is subjective. If I want to act like Trek or Giant, I can make "better" all day, but lots of people, even me, want a frame sometimes not for the sake of progress, but because it will make us happy, or fill unrealized deep-seated need.

3-4 pounds of metal is almost always cheaper than a year of psychoanalyisis, and invariably, way more fun.

[hampco]

if your framebuilder says that xzy is better, then it must be better. max is a good case in point: it was a good design in its day, and it's still a good design

i'm whoarding a few sets of fluted seat caps courtesy of mario confente (by way of tim neenan). one set will be on my next lugged frame.

[Archibald]

Max is Nivacrom. One of the strongest non-heat treated steels used in bicycle tubes. It's funny because after reading Zank's post, I went and checked my stocks of MAX to see just how many tube & lug sets I had. You don't want to know.

I have some Prestige, it's very well finished, but what is it you specifically like about it? Other than the super thin stuff for flyweights, it always seemed pretty standard fare to me, which ain't to say it's not great, just not unusual.

Another of my favorite tubesets was EL/OS with the baseball bat down tube. Such nice riding bikes.

Here's my confession: I went to great lengths & expense to make a better & lighter steel tubeset. Many, many, $$'s were spent. Lighter was easy, but in the end, it was not better than MAX or even EL/OS for that matter; it was more fragile & looked more contemporary, but it was not better and I don't think it ~rode~ as well.

Took me a couplethree years to come to terms with the fact that those Italians at Columbus knew more in the 70's & 80's with drafting paper & some .5mm lead than I did in the double oughts with super strength heat treated steels, state of the art modeling software, FEA, and a bucket full of ego.

Fuckers.

[crumpton]

i have a stash of max tubes, lugs and fork parts for some non-epoxy future. funny, all this talk about max lately. i also stash thoughts and innovations in composite process.

[steve garro]

i bought the entire contents of a small pickup bed 1/2 full of tange prestige for $500.00 and a frame six yrs. ago. the fork blades and the CS's are gone :frown::frown: i have MAYBE four sticks of 36.5 HT, a small box of 1" HT, four quad butted 32mm DT's, a stack of quad butted "helical" DT's, and two boxes of the "ultimate" ST's, the 15 3/8ths and the 16 3/8ths, and one frameset worth of fluted ultrastrong..........that shit gets doled out, yo. it is the cleanest, shiny-est, straightest tubing. the butting transitions are crisp and even, there are no scratches from the mandrel drawing, and the insides look way better then the outsides of most tubing i see nowadays. Ron Sutphin sent me a demo Kaisei tubeset for a cross bike and it was pretty damn sweet, right up there with prestige. i'd use allot more but it is pretty non-MTB orientated. got a road bike on the drawing board right now, though.........steve.

[Tom Kellogg]

with odd stuff. When we brought in our own Ishiwata tubing back in the day, we ended up with a bunch of 019 and 024 1.0" top tubes and 024 seat tubes. Still have them but they really aren't worth much to us. That tubing was as beautiful as it gets. Perfectly straight, round and the insides looked as though a little man got in there and polished it. Wonderful stuff. Just not worth anything now.

A few years ago we did make a real effort to get hold of about 25 sets of mid to late 70s frame materials for our 30th anniversary run. Actually pulled it off. That old stuff still makes wonderful frames. Beyond that though, we don't seem to have any particular nostalgia for the old stuff.

[dave1215]

...That old stuff still makes wonderful frames. Beyond that though, we don't seem to have any particular nostalgia for the old stuff.

"beyond that...?"

what considerations are there other than "makes wonderful frames".

[hampco]

"beyond that...?"

what considerations are there other than "makes wonderful frames".

supply and demand

chasing down old stuff when the new stuff is as good or better becomes an exercise in futility. it's all out there if you spend enough time looking for it - and time is precious.

and if nobody wants it, why bother?

furthermore, i could give a rat's tush for some guy with six sets of rusty vitus tubes in his basement. but i do want hank/kirk/lon/joe/reeshard/et al to continue importing the new stuff and selling it to me so that i can have frames built for my customers. if the new steel away goes away the old shit aint gonna save us.

[Tom Kellogg]

"beyond that...?"

what considerations are there other than "makes wonderful frames".

We don't have nostalgia for frame parts (beyond SC crowns). Wonderfully riding frames are still at the core of what we try to do. However, the old tubing, shells, crowns, drops, etc. do not have any particular monopoly on great ride characteristics. Is that better?

[e-RICHIE]

, the old tubing, shells, crowns, drops, etc. do not have any particular monopoly on great ride characteristics.

should be cached atmo.

[dave1215]

...Is that better?

ah yes, thanks tom (and steve). i guess it's market is as market does?

[Curt Goodrich]

Max never did much for me. Too heavy and you're stuck with poor fitting lugs with very little room for improvement. But I'm funny that way. Nivachrome is/was nice stuff. Reliable, strong enough and easy to work with. I think I'm going to start hoarding Gasflux CO4.

[Archibald]

Max never did much for me. Too heavy and you're stuck with poor fitting lugs with very little room for improvement. But I'm funny that way. Nivachrome is/was nice stuff. Reliable, strong enough and easy to work with. I think I'm going to start hoarding Gasflux CO4.

Who said you have to use lugs? The tubes aren't too heavy, builds a sub 4-pound frame without the lugs. Don't make me come up there and show you my pimp hand, Goodrich. :boy_hug::girl_hug:

[suspectdevice]

I'm glad this is getting heavier. My buddy Frank hoards a particular thoriated tungsten rod... Can't remember what it is off the top of my head. And Vioxx, because he's been building bikes for 35 years.

[Curt Goodrich]

Who said you have to use lugs? The tubes aren't too heavy, builds a sub 4-pound frame without the lugs. Don't make me come up there and show you my pimp hand, Goodrich. :boy_hug::girl_hug:

Sub 4# tigged maybe. Not with lugs though. The lightest max was 8-5-8 on a good day if they hit the spec. Otherwise it wondered north of that. What's the point other than goofy ovals? Hell why don't just bust out some SLX and really get your retro on? Oh yea, welcome back.

[steve garro]

I think I'm going to start hoarding Gasflux CO4.

Gawd, i wish i did.......too late now. steve.

[steve garro]

I'm glad this is getting heavier. My buddy Frank hoards a particular thoriated tungsten rod... Can't remember what it is off the top of my head. And Vioxx, because he's been building bikes for 35 years.

FTW? i just sent my 87' Yeti to my buddie's MTB museum...... steve.