That's not a robot right there.
Live music is better than recorded music. It’s a given. Having that connection, where you’re sharing the same space as the artist is a unique experience that can’t be replicated on a plastic disc. To receive the gift from the giver personally is a moment of intimacy not possible if it arrives in a package in the mail. To be able to garner instantaneous gratitude, be it by applause, cheers or a smile is the reward that the artist lives for, else they wouldn’t be there. Showing appreciation for the gift returns the favour in kind. The performance feeds the audience, and vice versa.
Vinyl records hold the same sort of appeal that steel bicycles do; both materials revolutionised their respective industries and held the mantle of the best, the only choice, for decades. Then both were usurped by smaller, lighter composite materials and while the convenience and perceived performance they offered took over on a wholesale scale, a handful of purists held on to their Electric Ladyland limited edition LPs along with their Colnago Masters and Merckx Leaders. Vinyl may have been suddenly deemed cumbersome, inconvenient to use and harder to source, but it still offered a timeless sound quality that just had something about it, something that CDs and MP3s would struggle to achieve.
Same with steel bikes. There’s an indisputable and indescribable feeling that comes in the first few pedal strokes on a steel bike, and like pulling out that dog-eared copy of Hunky Dory, you know exactly what you’ll be getting, and you’re gonna like it. Picking up a hand-built bike from the person who made it is like going down to the studio to grab a signed slab of wax that Nick Cave hands to you himself. Straight to you.
Where the vinyl record remains round, grooved and black, the steel bicycle’s tubes remain round, straight and flat. You can’t improve on what’s proven. What’s perfect. Only the touch of the hand of the artist can make each one unique, where things that are really just simple things (a record, a bicycle) can be themselves set apart by the signatures laid upon them by their creators, curating originality (Jagger, Jaegher). To say it’s pretty special to see your own bicycle being made, your name on the tubes as they come together to be joined forever by the heat of the torch and the deft touch of the electrode, would be a modest assessment. To finally ride it, might be impossible to describe.
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@Jaegher
Apologies if my post implied any knock against TIG welding. That was certainly not intended. I am just a very excited devotee to Don Walker's work as I have 4 of his frames. He prefers filet brazing so and all of his frames are constructed as such( although he does do lugged if requested). I have a pair of TIG welded beauties in my fleet currently a matching TI and Steel set of frames made by Seven. I also await another TIG'ed beauty...a Big Leg Emma from Dario Pegoretti
@Jaegher
I sure appreciate that perspective. Thank you. When speaking with the folks at LBS I'd said I wanted to see the frame first before we did anything. The thought of gunking up the frame, even if on inside, kinda permanently ? But I've not seen the stuff applied. My bikes do get wet and muddy and they also get regular TLC. This will be the CX bike for '15 season. I have a 30+ year old CroMoly frame/bike that has never been treated and is in decent shape.
@Teocalli
What collection of tubes will steel#2 be made from? Modern large diameter thin wall? Retro skinny and lugged? I'm interested to hear the fourth data point. I'm betting it will be between the two carbon points if its modern stuff.
@Roger
I just snorted my coffee. Choosing tubing type and thickness is just about the peak of what you can vary on a steel frame, which is nothing compared to the possibilities that engineered composites have. Claiming the opposite is just laughable.
@Oli
To that point, the wheels are the item that impacts the ride more than any other single factor; I had Ksyriums on my TSX and is sucked the life out of the frame. Putting some 3x tubs on there turned it into a butter yet lively ride.
Same for my carbon frames; I have climbing wheels, flying wheels and 3x box sections (Golden Tickets) and all three completely change the nature of the machine.
Is it difficult to keep carbon in good condition?
@Oli
I don't know either Oli, but if I did my apologies.
On the other hand I never said that geometry is the only important thing because it clearly isn't.
All I did is noticed in this thread that steel was somehow given these superior properties that actually cannot be applied to steel, hence my disagreeing posts.
@unversio
Your bet couldn't possibly be more wrong. You should try less betting and more thinking.
@Roger
I hope you're joking.
@DavidB
It's not custom, it's the NOS Pinarello Sestriere that I posted some Pics of a while back under Bikes. So it's lugless and a mix of tube shapes mostly round with a formed downtube. Tubing is Pinerallo's own spec from that era.