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  1. #1
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    Default Whording...

    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.
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  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by suspectdevice View Post
    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:
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    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.
    La Cheeserie!
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    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.
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    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.
    Steve Hampsten
    www.hampsten.blogspot.com
    “These are my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others.”
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    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.
    "It's better to not know so much than to know so many things that ain't so." -- Josh Billings, 1885

    A man with any character at all must have enemies and places he is not welcome—in the end we are not only defined by our friends, but also those aligned against us.

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    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.
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    Quote Originally Posted by suspectdevice View Post
    That's a word, right?
    Yes, "whording" means stashing a large number of prostitutes.
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    Quote Originally Posted by dang View Post
    Yes, "whording" means stashing a large number of prostitutes.
    Velocipede Salon?
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    time for new ideas atmo -
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