John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

[Charles Darwin]

Mine's a hardtail MTB.
The frame is hand-made from Columbus Nivacrom OR and the rest is a rather eclectic mix of Mavic, Hope, Pace, DT Swiss and others.
Oddly the only Campy part left is the headset.

 

[DPH]

My bikes are from this millennium, although my dad's mid-80's Schwinn LeTour frame is mine for the building. A paint redo (which it probably needs) would cost more than a newer frame, so I'm torn. The mainstay road bike I ride probably has 65k-70k on the components, albeit its second frame, given the first one died to a car (the rider, me, made it out with minimal bang-up).

Bill--be mindful of the rear triangle differences between your 88 and newer frames. You can *carefully* cold-set to spread the triangle out with a 2x4 (or the equivalent on your side of the pond).

KHM--please do build up that old-school bike. That said, modern components, even mid-grade are just incredibly good and bulletproof.

 

[jneutron]

A paint redo (which it probably needs) would cost more than a newer frame, so I'm torn.

I just popped all the hardware off, painted my frame black.. I think it was Krylon black gloss..maybe rustoleum??
I tried to get the "reynolds 531 double butted forks, tubes, and stays" sticker to replace mine, but the factory wouldn't have any of that..sheesh..

Bill--be mindful of the rear triangle differences between your 88 and newer frames. You can *carefully* cold-set to spread the triangle out with a 2x4 (or the equivalent on your side of the pond).

I used to use a set of campy cup type alignment tool back in the bike shop I worked in. About a foot long each, you lock them into the axle location, the cups have to be parallel and aligned.

My bike had simplex front and rear. The front died when the tube clamp plastic snapped and I had to replace it with a campy front. Newer fronts were the wrong diameter and the bike store owner had a campy in the junk bin..

John

 

[billshurv]

You think the french could braze a frame that accurately. We are only talking 4mm.

When I got the frame it had a 130mm wheel in there. 10 years on and not killed me yet. One day will get to the bottom of whether it has been bent.

Bear in mind that 753 is almost apollo lunar lander thin. Not as bad as 853 which apparently you can dent with your teeth!.

JN: was the bike shop days in your yoof, or did you have a mid life crisis to go into big magnets?

 

[DPH]

I just popped all the hardware off, painted my frame black.. I think it was Krylon black gloss..maybe rustoleum??
I tried to get the "reynolds 531 double butted forks, tubes, and stays" sticker to replace mine, but the factory wouldn't have any of that..sheesh..

Yeah, but like high end audio, the only reason I'd build this bike up over my (better, at least from a utilitarian perspective) other bikes is *for* fashion. And no spraycan hackjob will do there.

I used to use a set of campy cup type alignment tool back in the bike shop I worked in. About a foot long each, you lock them into the axle location, the cups have to be parallel and aligned.

Yes, that works. So does this for those of us without the tools. Bicycle Frame/Hub Spacing

Edit to add -- Bill, yeah, the triangle will wrestle out of your way if you just muscle the wheel in. And 853 isn't *that* delicate by any stretch! Have you never touched a beercan-thin alloy racing bike?

 

[Destroyer OS]

Lastly, I want to know which engineers you feel are stroking their egos--because I see a major language gap that you're projecting in the wrong way.

Us.

The purpose of an audio company is to make money. They do that by providing product that customers will buy. There's only a very weak link between objective performance of the product and sales.

Again, that is for me the reason why audio design isn't going anywhere. I mean, there's advances in how we store, consume and pay for audio. But as far as the quality, however defined, of what is coming out of our amps, have we made any progress at all over the last, say half century? I'm not seeing it.

Jan

Yes, and it seems so easy for us around here to talk trash over the fact someone's making a living and someone's buying a product they want. Imagine how hard it is for them to try and come up with reasons why the new thing is better, or new at all... I don't hate on them as much but do find myself in a huff over some things. It's probably because I'm working towards releasing some stuff. But I'll be bound to some of the same silliness if I want to be able to keep doing what I like, developing audio products.

I saw them in our local B&O centre but declined a listen as had sproglet with me.

Criminal. You could have stopped for 5 minutes or less and had a valid reason to talk trash.

Modern tech would say I should be on a carbon framed bike

I surely don't see that level of requirement for transducer or electronics development from companies like Harman/ JBL.

Steel provides a very nice ride for bikes, and it lasts the longest. You can get scandium but it fails at some point it seems. Carbon, as you say, isn't probably the best for longevity. What I want is a carbon frame made from hemp that you can throw in a natural solvent bath, and it will dissolve after some decent time. Carbon could make some very neat commuter bicycles with storage and such, since it can be shaped so much without packing on the weight. My issue is at the end of their life they're just a nuisance.

I myself have an EAI barenuckle (Italy) frame with Sugino 75 crank&BB, DuraAce fixed hub w/Phil Wood cog on Velocity DeepV, front is NOS track deep V looking rim very light chrome without brake surface on NOS XTR hub, and some other nice stuff like Thomson seat post. You could say I'm a bike nerd My winter bike I haven't used in a bit is a pre-walmart Mongoose downhill bike turned rigid and fixed. But I've had numerous old frames and they were pretty good, I just wanted fork ends and room for 700x25 tires, since I prefer fixed. My next bike will be a recumbent (probably will share duties with my current).

Harmon has postings all over Indeed.

 

[billshurv]

I could have stopped but the record shop next door was calling my name. Had I realised beforehand would have send wife into the lingerie shop first whilst I listened. Never mind, due back there again.

(its a dangerous row of shops https://goo.gl/maps/CQnmW1Ad8t82 )

 

[DPH]

Yes, and it seems so easy for us around here to talk trash over the fact someone's making a living and someone's buying a product they want. Imagine how hard it is for them to try and come up with reasons why the new thing is better, or new at all... I don't hate on them as much but do find myself in a huff over some things. It's probably because I'm working towards releasing some stuff. But I'll be bound to some of the same silliness if I want to be able to keep doing what I like, developing audio products.

Robert's Morinix's website is relatively free of silly hyperbole, and (at least I hope!) he's building what he likes and believes in. Surely there's a world between reality-eschewing hyperbole and boring spec sheets, no?

I myself have an EAI barenuckle (Italy) frame with Sugino 75 crank&BB, DuraAce fixed hub w/Phil Wood cog on Velocity DeepV, front is NOS track deep V looking rim very light chrome without brake surface on NOS XTR hub, and some other nice stuff like Thomson seat post. You could say I'm a bike nerd My winter bike I haven't used in a bit is a pre-walmart Mongoose downhill bike turned rigid and fixed. But I've had numerous old frames and they were pretty good, I just wanted fork ends and room for 700x25 tires, since I prefer fixed. My next bike will be a recumbent (probably will share duties with my current).

Oh, yeah, I have a track bike, but I save it for the velodrome. Given my riding conditions, I want brakes on the road. Of course, the velodrome was cause for me to add some stainless inside my body (bolt-on clavicle), so that doesn't come recommended without a caveat.

 

[jan.didden]

Yes, and it seems so easy for us around here to talk trash over the fact someone's making a living and someone's buying a product they want. Imagine how hard it is for them to try and come up with reasons why the new thing is better, or new at all... I don't hate on them as much but do find myself in a huff over some things. It's probably because I'm working towards releasing some stuff.

So true. The customer fretting about what would give him the most bang for his buck. The manu fretting over how to distinguish himself from the rest of the flock. A lot of scope for snake oil, adjusting the facts and plain sweet talking.
Just like life

Jan

 

[Bonsai]

But some tech bucks the trend. Look at the lifecycle of the average iphone which goes through at least 2 if not 3 users (often within the same family). Still makes it to the scrapheap within 6-7 years, which is low compared to older tech.

But I am not part of this trend. My oldest amp is 50 this year.

Yes, there are always exceptions and A is very unusual in this respect. Most folks don't aspire to a 2nd hand Galaxy Note 5, but for many a 2nd or 3rd gen iPhone is a big step up.

I've heard business gurus wax lyrical about their superb marketing etc. Its all bs. People just like the stuff because for some reason they think its cool and it was more about the Jobs brand in earlier days anyway - he was like a rock star.

 

[Kindhornman]

DPH,
I remember when my brother got a brand new Pogliagi track bike and decided to try it out in front of the house. The street has a slight downhill slope before going around a bend and getting really steep. Let's just say that by the time he got close to passing in front of the house he was shouting for someone to help him stop that bike! It amazes me when I see these people out on the street with a fixed gear bike and no brakes in traffic, a sure death wish it seems.

 

[Destroyer OS]

I had a lot of fun with my first fixed gear because I had several friends try riding it. Everyone of them got a bit of a surprise when they tried to coast and it bucked them up off the seat. This learning to get muscles to relax is something professional dancers often work a long time at, and go to clinics to help learn it - the fixie learning curve is a little faster if you value your skin and bones however.

And the reality is that if you ride one for long you don't need brakes. Brakes actually often make you a more dangerous rider. The way it works is when you ride a fixie you're forced to understand how traffic works, and make damn sure you don't get yourself into compromising situations. People with brakes just act like they can do whatever they want so their caution level is significantly down. I'm at a point now where I almost never have to apply huge force to slow down because I can read everything pretty good. And I've tried going back to free coasters but I just... I don't like riding them as much hardly ever.

I could have stopped but the record shop next door was calling my name. Had I realised beforehand would have send wife into the lingerie shop first whilst I listened. Never mind, due back there again.

(its a dangerous row of shops https://goo.gl/maps/CQnmW1Ad8t82 )

Nice. I'm drawn to record stores as well at times, like as if I don't get there fast enough all the good stuff will fly out before I get there. Luckily I like classical so that's usually not the case... it's more like I go in and buy stuff that's been sitting for a year or more. Yard sales are like 99% totally worthless stuff that people want a fortune for... the other day I made an erroneously high offer on a group of music I didn't want but would trade for some classical at a record store. The guy countered at a much higher offer and I had to walk. Everyone thinks their old Chicago LP is an instant sell for $15+ but really it's not in great shape and there's hundreds available at Discogs and record stores (as low as $3 for near mint).

 

[jneutron]

JN: was the bike shop days in your yoof, or did you have a mid life crisis to go into big magnets?

It was in my yoot. Summer job between undergrad semesters.

Oh, yeah, I have a track bike, but I save it for the velodrome. Given my riding conditions, I want brakes on the road. Of course, the velodrome was cause for me to add some stainless inside my body (bolt-on clavicle), so that doesn't come recommended without a caveat.

My training partner in my yoot also rode track, a Whitcomb frame IIRC. We swapped bikes one day for a nice ride, that bike was so stiff compared to my PX. Acceleration on that puppy was not to be believed. He challenged me to a sprint, and stupid me...accepted.

I'm lucky I didn't kill myself. At the end of the sprint, I stopped pushing the legs, but the bike refused to listen.. momentum can be a "beach"...

Velodrome, nah, can't do it... I refuse to shave my legs.

I did however, learn how to jockey, remember in 72 it was cleat and straps. More than once I pulled up to a stop sign and did the "Arty Johnson tricycle thing"..totally embarrasing.

John

 

[Kindhornman]

Destroyer,
If you can predict the jerk turning left in front of you or the driver throwing open their door as you are quickly approaching and there is traffic next to you then good for you. I think anyone who rides a fixed gear bike on the street with no brakes is crazy and here in LA. that is a nice ticket if a cop wants to write you up for operating a dangerous vehicle. Doing a wheel stand at a light or a stop sign is also a ticketable offense as they consider that you have never stopped. I've been riding far to long to believe that you can predict what others in their cars or even pedestrians are going to do, stupidity rules. My only rule is to ride like everyone is trying to kill or main you, keeps you very aware of what is going on around you.

 

[jneutron]

My only rule is to ride like everyone is trying to kill or main you...

That's why I got rid of my Suzy 550. On Longuyland, they actually are trying to kill me.. A four stroke 4 cylinder with quiet pipes is not very good around here. Especially with drivers texting.

John

 

[DPH]

I had a lot of fun with my first fixed gear because I had several friends try riding it. Everyone of them got a bit of a surprise when they tried to coast and it bucked them up off the seat. This learning to get muscles to relax is something professional dancers often work a long time at, and go to clinics to help learn it - the fixie learning curve is a little faster if you value your skin and bones however.

And the reality is that if you ride one for long you don't need brakes. Brakes actually often make you a more dangerous rider. The way it works is when you ride a fixie you're forced to understand how traffic works, and make damn sure you don't get yourself into compromising situations. People with brakes just act like they can do whatever they want so their caution level is significantly down. I'm at a point now where I almost never have to apply huge force to slow down because I can read everything pretty good. And I've tried going back to free coasters but I just... I don't like riding them as much hardly ever.

Without diverting too much away from remotely audio (and I can tie it back if y'all need me to), fixie is a very, very limiting subset of a greater whole. And I summarily disagree that having brakes makes one more dangerous. What happens when you have someone who's both oblivious and without brakes? Double trouble, as you've eliminated at least a modicum of their ability to mitigate the sequelae of the bad situation they've found themselves in.

I bike commute on the order of 8,000 miles a year, and have developed both the awareness of traffic dynamics (and idiosyncrasies of specific intersections along my ride) as to minimize my risk of getting caught in the wrong place at the wrong time (and the subsequent *need* for brakes). But I wouldn't be caught alive (over the long term) without having them on my bike. No amount of awareness is going to compensate for exceptional events (e.g., a car turning across my path while I'm patently visible on an otherwise empty road: brakes, with all that weight shift, allowed me to bleed off a ton of speed before t-boning her car).

It's a choice, for sure, but it's negligent. It's an aesthetic. Awareness plays in concert with hardware, deliberately releasing products into the wild that don't play nice with others is a study in bad design. (There's your audio tie-in)

Velodrome, nah, can't do it... I refuse to shave my legs.

I only shave for major racing events (Ph.D thesis = haven't been racing), and my GF likes the effect, so it's not ALL bad. Plus I'm in Socal, where a leg-shaving male doesn't even register on the social stigma scale. (It's still a PITA to do, but leg hair = drag!)

Doing a wheel stand at a light or a stop sign is also a ticketable offense as they consider that you have never stopped.

One of those arbitrary rules that annoys the crap out of me. But I've never been bothered by cops doing track stands (pretty much all the time, sometimes beside a cop car), so I imagine it's more something used as a citation for other bad-behavior. As far as mentality, I don't assume all cars are out to kill me, but simply that I'm invisible and no one is looking out for my well being. Identical end result without condemning others.

 

[Markw4]

But I've never been bothered by cops doing track stands (pretty much all the time, sometimes beside a cop car), so I imagine it's more something used as a citation for other bad-behavior.

Why imagine any reason? If you do, it's more likely wrong than right. Just statistically, there are many more possible reasons, so why the one that happens to most easily come to mind? Maybe a cop is lazy, has already written enough tickets for today, happens like like riding himself, and so on.

 

[Destroyer OS]

That's basically how I ride. And often I don't find people with brakes stop faster than fixed gear riders. One reason is their brakes are never tuned up well, and they pay a lot less attention. A lot of old bikes had terrible brakes too. Are you safer to have them? Probably, how much, probably not nearly as much as people think. It's like arguing motorcycles should have ABS, it's not required, it's better, but the world goes on with the vast majority lacking them. It's not like anyone gets on a bicycle or motorcycle because they believe it's the safest thing they could do. And an idiot on a bicycle, motorcycle, or behind a wheel, is still an idiot. Why would we make laws for people unfit to survive in the modern world with bicycles, but we don't when it comes to cars? Because cars are more important, people in them are going to work and such? Condescending and inaccurate. This is equivalent to say making it impossible to shock yourself when you plug in something to the wall. We accept the risk even though it's possible to make something "safer" that may also impede everything we're doing.

It's true you can't predict 100% of anything, but the way you stop isn't really going to change this enough to make as much of a significance as people want to believe. One time a teenager headed the opposite way made a right hand turn straight into me once. Brakes can't help you in that situation even if you stopped instantly, because they're coming to you. We then went to his bank so he could surrender his paycheck to me. I wasn't hurt, except I have a memory of him asking if I'm ok over and over while I was trying to catch my breath from having the wind knocked out of me.... I wanted to get up and knock his lights out not because he hit me but because he wouldn't shut the f*** up.

Those laws, and anyone that enforce them strike a horrible cord in me. As far as I'm concerned anyone that deals with them can eat a diarrhoea sandwich on the bus to hell. The only reason they make such laws is to cater to the egos of lazy car drivers that don't want to have to consider bicycles as part of traffic. I mean, if my wheels stop, I'm stopped... No one makes a person in a car put it into Park or step out of the vehicle... Technically I'm safer doing a track stand because my field of vision is 1ft higher, and I'm able to re-enter traffic with less time so that for example turning right cars aren't waiting as long etc. "Nanny" laws are pathetic and should be shunned. I was told once by a cop "one hand on the handle bar please" which pissed me off. People in cars do stuff like drive with their knees. And no one in a car is required to keep a foot on the brake (it's discouraged in all Driver Ed classes). From my point of view it's just condescension from people trying to bully bicycle riders purely because they wish they weren't on the road at all. Now if someone doesn't like bicycle riders that bomb across busy intersections through red lights, that I can get behind.

 

[Markw4]

My first bike as a kid was a fixed drive with no brakes. I hated that thing. I liked to go fast around corners and you have to be very careful about not leaning over too much and touching down a pedal. Later discovered motorcycles. Got way leaned over on those, including at tracks. Had some riding buddies who taught race track riding for Keith Code School, etc. Fun times.

 

[Kindhornman]

DPH,
Yes very correct even wearing high visibility colors like green or safety red doesn't seem to make drivers aware of you. They can be looking in your direction and never see you, they are looking for larger objects and we just disappear into the background. Not really different than a motorcycle really in that regard, just something for some reason drivers don't seem to notice.

Then again I'm still riding on sew up tires, some things never change. Can't ride on clinchers, just can't stand the handling or the ride. Tried more than once and will just pay the price for flats, always carry at least one if not two spares. Always in clipless pedals, so timing is everything so you don't stop anymore than absolutely necessary.