blinkered wrote:I know ... not sure how I am going to cope! It might give me time to get components together and find blue cabling.
You could always buy an OTP frameset and be riding it within a couple of weeks
I think they are trying to recruit but there can't be many people about with the right skills.
Their problem,they should have the staff to cope with work load,in these recessionary times. When I phoned them some years ago about a frame they had a 3month waiting list,I couldn't cope with that kind of wait,the cost was bordering unreasonable then,I shudder to think what it is now .
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"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Local FE colleges used to train people for jobs like these, but successive governments have turned FE into an undefunded place that only teaches things like hairdressing, tourism or A levels. Things like welding, and engineering in general, have been cut. Brompton were on the radio only the other week explaining that they could no longer get staff from their local colleges (as they had previously done) for exactly that reason.
Brucey wrote:My understanding is that (unless otherwise stated) a (say) 23" frame is implicitly a Centre to Top (CT) measurement whereas a (say) 57cm frame would be a Centre to Centre (CC) measurement. Which probably means your frame is 55.7cm or 22.5", or 57cm CT (or even 22" CC, but you don't often see that one). ..... .....
Many thanks for all this information, it will certainly be useful if I ever consider replacing my Bianchi (not for a Mercian, alas! way beyond my budget). I hadn't considered the impact of head tube length, but I would certainly agree that a very short head tube looks ugly and the ride quality would not be to my liking I reckon (mine measures 15cm end to end, 8cm approx centre top tube to centre down tube, I wouldn't like it any shorter). So perhaps the sloping top tube (on my other road bike, in France) confers an advantage. I must take measurements on that when I'm over there later this week.
Suppose that this room is a lift. The support breaks and down we go with ever-increasing velocity. Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments... --- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
Flinders wrote:Local FE colleges used to train people for jobs like these, but successive governments have turned FE into an undefunded place that only teaches things like hairdressing, tourism or A levels. Things like welding, and engineering in general, have been cut. Brompton were on the radio only the other week explaining that they could no longer get staff from their local colleges (as they had previously done) for exactly that reason.
Forgive me if I sound a little heartless. I've no idea about teaching/colleges etc ,though TBH with the present state of government nothing surprises .
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"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
I like it, I raced on a gun metal Grey, Geoff Clarke back in the 70's. And my current although offthe peg, Tifosi was chosen for its grey colour, think the other choices were green blue or pink.
Geoff Clark! Now there's a name to stir up the memory cells. I remember the man himself, back in the early 1970s, when he used to keep a shop in Bradford, quite near the university: I often used to pop in for the odd spare part. When I decided to splurge out on a custom-built frame, it was a toss-up between Geoff Clark and Johnny Mapplebeck's 'Pennine' range (his shop was also nearby). In the end I went for the Pennine - a frame which I still have in the garage, though it's rusted through and unusable now .
Anyone know if either of these guys are still alive?
Suppose that this room is a lift. The support breaks and down we go with ever-increasing velocity. Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments... --- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
I guess you will nearly always have black and silver in there, because otherwise getting components becomes a bit of a ball-ache. Whilst Bluemels used to do coloured mudguards, such things seem now to be a rarity, so it is basically black or silver for those (although NB some folk have sprayed an accent colour on the underside; this shows through the clear bits in chromoplastics).
I used to think that some bikes looked smart with mudguards that matched the panels in the paint job; Bluemels used to do some in powder blue that would match 'blinkered's panel choice quite well.
Some otherwise plain bikes look good with an accent colour, eg red lug lining, red lever hoods, red toe straps, red bar end plugs, that kind of thing.
So anyway I think you can go with a two-colour theme, plus accent colour, or a three colour theme, plus accent colour. Four colours plus an accent is too many, I'd have said, but hey, each to his own!
An easy approach is to use white for the panels on the frame; this can then easily match the bar tape. Matching other bar tapes to the panels requires forethought; if there is the slightest colour mismatch the effect is (IMHO) quite revolting. If you do this and you do get a good match, you are probably stuck with that bar tape for ever. Similarly saddles and lever hoods; a good match or no match please.
If you go with white bar tape, white panels, black lever hoods, black saddle, I think you can use almost any components and almost any main frame colour, provided it is either bright in colour or at least fairly dark in shade.
I quite like the barber's pole on some bikes. However the colour choice is crucial. I have a Holdsworth I painted myself and on whim I did a barber's pole using old English white and a contrasting colour, on an otherwise black frame (with chrome ends). Subconsciously (or maybe it was just the paint I had to hand) I chose my old college colours for the barber's pole! Eventually I worked out that the same colours on the head tube might look good, so I painted the head tube in the contrast colour and then picked out the head lugs in Old English white. FWIW I've liked the look of many barber's poles that included white and a bright colour to contrast a plain colour on the main frame, but I've seen very few BPs I liked which comprised two bright colours on a frame that is also brightly coloured; it is just all too much for me!