- Published on
Imagine a world where everyone wears Khaki Dockers, is Gluten-Free, Keto, Drinks a 6-dollar Starbucks with butter, watches the same Netflix series, rides matching Pelotons and posts midday travails about their nail technician.
Someone shows up like David Bowie, glittered in a sleek silver skin-suit, eating ice-cream, listening to LCD and reading Proust.
I thought so... Who is Proust? Well in France in 1934, clever people were gathering to ogle one of the sleekest
most innovative and perhaps technically sophisticated two-wheelers imagined.
I've heard it all before, when we talk about Tesla, and credit the 'Genius Electric Car' to a single man.
As if Weezer wrote the catchy new song called "Africa". Hey!, by the way the electric car came out well prior to the 70's Gas Crisis, and not when your uncle bought his P75. Innovation sleeps when we all subscribe to the same playlist. P.S. if you've never been to "Africa" (the country) then please sit on your hands, when next you imagine writing a song about it.
Thank you to Classic Cycle in Washington for your passion and dedication to the Artform that is the Bicycle; Especially in your graceful synopses of your museum collection; (as well as the above, and some other awesome images which we abscond for this discussion).
When it comes to Bike Porn, there are many repositories for reflection, and for flat-out lust, but for me -- this bike smokes them all. Being a Chicago native, may shape one's perspective of a proper bike as one which is pure of form, simply executed, and elegant, such as those produced by Schwinn, and Paramount (it's top tier). When it comes to innovation, the Giant Schwinn Brand appeared rather common, although massive, preferring to make Quality their hallmark. This said, We duly recognize the many innovative breakthroughs by Schwinn, Watsyn, and others who pressed technical boundaries in steel.
Being one who travels, and has a lust for good design, I am reminded of my friends '89 Vitus, and later Raleigh "Technium" aluminum bikes from the 90's, who resolved to build bikes with glue. Without even imagining Glue as a solution, the above innovation could not have come soon enough. The resulting, Carbon revolution was poised to occur when demilitarization left a ramped-up supply chain, without buyers. Thanks to the Military, we have Carbon tennis rackets, and cell phones. But what of the sea change that comes when someone says, "Aluminum is lighter than Steel, why don't we use that"?
Someone shows up like David Bowie, glittered in a sleek silver skin-suit, eating ice-cream, listening to LCD and reading Proust.
I thought so... Who is Proust? Well in France in 1934, clever people were gathering to ogle one of the sleekest
most innovative and perhaps technically sophisticated two-wheelers imagined.
I've heard it all before, when we talk about Tesla, and credit the 'Genius Electric Car' to a single man.
As if Weezer wrote the catchy new song called "Africa". Hey!, by the way the electric car came out well prior to the 70's Gas Crisis, and not when your uncle bought his P75. Innovation sleeps when we all subscribe to the same playlist. P.S. if you've never been to "Africa" (the country) then please sit on your hands, when next you imagine writing a song about it.
Thank you to Classic Cycle in Washington for your passion and dedication to the Artform that is the Bicycle; Especially in your graceful synopses of your museum collection; (as well as the above, and some other awesome images which we abscond for this discussion).
When it comes to Bike Porn, there are many repositories for reflection, and for flat-out lust, but for me -- this bike smokes them all. Being a Chicago native, may shape one's perspective of a proper bike as one which is pure of form, simply executed, and elegant, such as those produced by Schwinn, and Paramount (it's top tier). When it comes to innovation, the Giant Schwinn Brand appeared rather common, although massive, preferring to make Quality their hallmark. This said, We duly recognize the many innovative breakthroughs by Schwinn, Watsyn, and others who pressed technical boundaries in steel.
Being one who travels, and has a lust for good design, I am reminded of my friends '89 Vitus, and later Raleigh "Technium" aluminum bikes from the 90's, who resolved to build bikes with glue. Without even imagining Glue as a solution, the above innovation could not have come soon enough. The resulting, Carbon revolution was poised to occur when demilitarization left a ramped-up supply chain, without buyers. Thanks to the Military, we have Carbon tennis rackets, and cell phones. But what of the sea change that comes when someone says, "Aluminum is lighter than Steel, why don't we use that"?
Caminade of France made the same innovation in 1934, nearly 50 years prior, gluing and pinning impeccably etched and drilled heptagonal Tubing. This 15 pound marvel of innovation is perhaps the most glorious NASA (esque) innovation in cycling until Carbon Lugs, Gary Klein, and Monocoque. It has been more than 70 years since this Index-shifting wonder was crafted, and I'm still in awe of it's brilliance. If your whole world were khaki, and you saw one of these silver bikes, you'd lust them like me. Truth be told, I'm a city kid and Black is the new Beige of my sect. Still... If whilst wearing Black this Polished Aluminum dream Machine shows up at the club-ride, at a quarter the weight of yours, has Three Speeds, brakes that actually stop, and matching cupholders, Be VERY Afraid. This reminds me of the Bowden Spacelander, as it is the Gas Go-cart to your Red Wagon. When the status-quo will not do, let's break some rules. Here lands before us, as with Bowie, the 1934 Caminade Caminargent. Adorned with the innovative indexed Osgear Super Champion (Constrictor) Deraileur. A looped Pulley Chain Tensioner, Side Pull Brakes, Cast Brass drop-outs, High Flange cheese-grater Hubs, and No Paint. This is one sweet machine. My hat's off to the French Firm for finding not just a work-around for Tig-welding, but for making something innovative that actually worked as well as it looked.
My Bias toward good design aside, there is something wholly fresh about this innovative ride. In most eras, we are accustomed to finding unfinished ideas; That is -- when an idea comes before it's time, and the means to wholly realize the resulting product does not fully form around it.
We all have a drawer full of crap that we bought before it was baked. We loved the idea, and the innovation, but then came to realize that it was useless shit. I recall glued-on Shift bosses popping off of Carbon Trek's, and their field service resolution was more glue and a pop-rivet. The answer to a problem you should not have had in the first place, is like taking an upper for your downer. If the red pill makes you this way, then you correct for it with the Blue one.
So Trek sent-out hundreds of epoxy kits and Rivets to dealers, and had them sand down the tube, mechanically fasten a glued-on boss to the down-tube. Funny that the solution was fully formed in 1934, with a "glued-and-screwed" approach. Brass Lugs mechanically and chemically attached to Aluminum tubing with pins and screws. Today of course we think plastic, and all sorts of chemicals are lovely, but in a period before ply-wood, it's darn imaginative to begin gluing different metals together. Tig Welding wouldn't come until Russell Meredith of Northrop Aircraft perfected the process in 1941.[7] Meredith named the process Heliarc because it used a tungsten electrode arc and helium as a shielding gas, but it is often referred to as tungsten inert gas welding (TIG). Until that time, Aluminum was abundantly used, but it was most often used in aerospace, and mechanically structured like any bridge or Auto; with Rivets.
Unfortunately something like the bicycle would need another 40 plus years to perfect this process and the subsequent heat-treatment needed to strengthen the joint. The process called Precipitation hardening, (common today), also needed to be perfected by innovators such as Gary Klein, Cannondale, and later Specialized, with M2 Metal Matrix Composite. In light of the fact that this Bike seems to pre-date it's own technology supply-chain, it is a vastly innovative breakthrough without a single pop-rivet.
Swoon.
