On Wednesday, June 21, 2023 at 2:38:16 PM UTC-5 Patrick Moore wrote: I've read that the PX-10 as well as old Raleigh Internationals from about the same period (late '60s and early '70s?) had plush yet nimble rides, I guess a combination of long, narrow-gauge, not-thick-wall tubes and gentle angles? I can't say that my contemporaneous Motobecane (1973, I was told and it looked right for that period) felt superlative, but it had no vices.
Time for a thread split! As some of you may know, my Holdsworth Special, a late-70's British handbuilt 531 standard tube frame with parallel 73d angles, was my "frame" of reference going into the Heron project. Even though we used OS tubes for the Herons, I have always felt my prototype Heron Road has some of the magic. In the 70's I worked in a bike shop that carried Fuji. The shop in the next town over carried Motobecane. It was a bit of a Ford vs Chevy thing for a very (VERY) small group of us. I test rode the Motobecanes and never liked their handling much. My Fujis, on the other hand, always felt perfect to me. Turns out they had super long fork rakes / short trail. Another place in the area carried Raleigh. The guy I rode with the most had a Raleigh GS, and another friend had an International. After crashing my Fuji S10-S into the side of a car, I borrowed the International for our high school's inaugural Earth Day bike race. Despite the frame being way too big for me, I managed to get my one and only win in my career, beating a few of those Motobecane fanboys. Super sweet ride, but handling more like a Motobecane than a Fuji, which was fine for a race around the high school parking lot! The S10-S was replaced by a Fuji America, which also ran into a car. That was replaced by the Holdsworth, and I became a devout believer in 531 voodoo. Reynolds made 531 in a variety of wall thicknesses, so it can be hard to tell what's in a frame with generic labels. Sometimes they'll have labels that are more specific but, well, it's possible the label isn't correct! If you really want to know, find someone with a wall thickness measuring device. In the spring of 1980 I went to France with a music group. In Paris I went to the rooftop of a department store where they were displaying bikes from Tour de France winners. Holy moly, those frames had been through the wars. Dents all over the place, especially the top tubes. My guess is those guys were using _really_ thin walls. Ted Durant Milwaukee, WI USA -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/7146d8dc-f724-43cb-8e08-002bdf43e08en%40googlegroups.com.
