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notes : WINTER 2005 Here are three more interesting seat clusters:
1985
(Mongoose) Mangusta In 1985 or thereabouts Mongoose (yes, the BMX company) decided they’d test the market for road bikes, and they were able to convince the venerable French concern MBK (previously Motobecane, bankrupt in 1981 and resurrected in 1984) to produce these bicycles for them. $399.00 brand-new. It was favorably reviewed in the cycling press, but never caught on. The bike at first appears to be Italian, having Campy shifting gear, sidepull brakes, a sloping fork crown and Columbus tubeset, and a green/red branding motif. And the fastbackness of this cluster reminds one of Cinelli... However, the chrome is definitely a French thing-check out vintage randonneuring bikes by Herse, Singer, and others. Italian bikes were often chromed, but more for protection than for appearance; they were also painted. This cluster is also a giveaway – only Motobecane, to my knowledge, ever gave birth to such a whelp, which they also used on at least one of their own models (Jubilee Sport). You can clearly see in the picture what the problem is – some obstinate product manager decided to spec a (French) 25.4 seatpost, so they had to draw the top of the (Italian) seat tube down to size, but didn’t quite draw it enough, so that it turned out to be more like 25.55, and then the fixing bolt bottomed out the seatstay tops against each other before the post was tight. I had to pry the slot back apart a little with a screwdriver, do some careful filing, and use a shim to get a good fit on the post. Even so, you can see how the tubing is deformed outward at the bottom of the keyhole, presenting a nice little funnel to catch whatever crap the rear wheel throws up there. Which then runs down inside the seat tube to corrupt the bottom bracket. Duh. The bike has a big riveted-on headtube medal similar in shape and heft to Motobecane badges I have seen, and a downtube sticker with the (Italian) brand “Mangusta” and an (Italian) red-white-green flag motif. It has all-French parts except for Campy shifters and Weinmann brakes. The tubeset is Columbus “Inexternal,” fillet-brazed and with a 3/4-sloping cast fork crown and English-threaded BB and HS. And the thinnest seatstays in the whole world. Despite all this silliness, the bike is gorgeous and rides just fine. Solid, stable, well-aligned. Maybe a little flippy out of the saddle, but I’m not complaining. One can only wonder what was going through the minds of the MBK workers when these monsters were rolling down the assembly line. A French road bike manufacturer contracted by an American BMX company to build an Italian bike with English dimensions? Sacre bleu!
“Wraparound” or “Full wrap” seat cluster usually associated with British makers. I once saw a Merckx made by Falcon with this cluster. Heavy and labor-intensive, but interesting. This old frame is made from straight-gauge Reynolds 531, and has the most bleached-out banged-up finish I have ever seen. It used to be a candy-red, but now is mostly silver-white, especially the top and down tubes. I pulled it out of a dumpster when I was in school fifteen years ago, and it was my personal commuting bike for a number of winters, when it lived mostly outside. More recently it served as a single-speed cyclocross beater, until one of the fork legs fell off. Literally. It is currently looking for a new home. 24-inch size. Come and get it. Salvage-no warranty. The head tube badge, still mostly intact, is the most beautiful you have ever seen, and it is the only reason it hasn’t been scrapped yet.
ca. 1988 Tommaso All-aluminum frame, “glued and screwed” into aluminum lugs. Standard-diameter tubes throughout and outfitted with a matching aluminum fork, also glued together. These framesets were apparently made by Alan in Italy, then re-branded by Ten Speed Imports when brought to the U.S. Ride quality is superb, but strange. Whippy is an understatement...“noodle” comes to mind. It’s hilarious-you can shake the bars back and forth violently, and the bike just goes straight! The fork is extremely flexible, and it will shimmy at any speed-there just isn’t enough rigidity or damping or something to kill low-frequency resonance, so forget letting go of the bars and riding one-handed, it’s practically unrideable unless you’re hanging on. But when you do have your hands on the bars, it is stable and predictable and very light-feeling. And smooth! Wow! And despite the front-end flexibility, the thing is extremely responsive and efficient-it feels like everything is turned into forward motion, and it’s absolutely quiet, unlike modern large-diameter aluminum. These days we have grown accustomed to aluminum frames being stiff and harsh and rigid and noisy, etc., but this is a reminder that, in the end, engineering is more important than materials. |
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