Baum v Cecil Walker? - Page 2

Missed out on the WSD

Thanks for the comments - certainly some food for thought here.

Hi Jotjepoes,

I've been away for a while so I haven't responded sooner. My advise is that you need to find a builder who you can talk to directly. This is really important if you are going to follow my advise on bike fit which starts with getting shorter cranks of no longer than 150 mm length. Greenspeed are in Melbourne and they have in stock short cranks or will shorten them for you as they are popular on recumbents.

Something ALL frame builders will be concerned about in our litigious times is pedal overlap and this has a HUGE impact on frame design. All small frames will currently be designed around a crank length of 165 mm and this places great restrictions on how short the frame can be when pedal overlap is taken into account.

What this means is that a custom builder will not build anything different than what is available off the shelf unless you specify that you want the frame built around short cranks (and small wheels, i.e. 650c).

Anyway I think the first thing you need to do is have some shorter cranks fitted to you current bike, ride them a little while and see what you think. When you do fit shorter cranks you will need to get a rear set seatpost to move the saddle backwards or it won't feel right and you won't generate as much power as you should.

You could talk to Paul Hillbrick who built my frame, http://www.hillbrick.com.au/

You could talk to him about having a frame built using the same concepts as me, Anthony Glynn. the first thing is deciding on crank length. For a frame builder everything will hinge around that.

Regards, Anthony

Ah, yes. That would be one Anthony Cramer at CWC! He has his fingers in a few pies. On CWC frames, it's 26 years since they custom built 2 heavy touring R531 frames to spec for me and the set up and paint job (I specified a painted Cecil Walker, rather than a sticker!) could not be faulted.

They listen carefully to specs, but I suspect are swayed along the line by Paconi on the other end.

__________________

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like."
—Freddie Mercury, 'Bicycle Race'

sorry, but I reckon Cecil Walker decals are a bit fugly.
I prefer Paconi's -- and the bigger ones on oversized tubes look even better

[QUOTE=531Aussie]sorry, but I reckon Cecil Walker decals are a bit fugly.
I prefer Paconi's -- and the bigger ones on oversized tubes look even better


I fully agree; the CW sticker on the red bike is just ugly and so 'yesteryear', but when getting a custom paint job, you can specify any number of artful ways of 'branding' the bike. One of early custom paint jobs on a 531 road frame was black/gold/red, white chamfers on seatpost/seat stays with engraved overlapped CWC. My name was red with gold underlay in 3D form. As was their usual Cecil Walker brand, painted on, not stuck on.

I have not seen a custom CWC paint job for many years, so I assume they no longer do it? It can be expensive and involves a lot of labour, but as an eye catcher, it beats stickers to a pulp!!

Those old doyens of (nearly) all things cycling, Hillman Cycles also did a custom paint job on my first MTB in 1986: sky blue/red/gold/white!)

__________________

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like."
—Freddie Mercury, 'Bicycle Race'

On a slight tangent...that Cecil Walker appears to be built backwards.

Short headtube with a stack of spacers and an extended seat tube with bugger all seatpost.

The most memorable paintjob I've ever seen was on a mid nineties Hillman. Gloss white, but with multi-coloured patches all over it. When you looked at the frame closely it turned out that it had about 6 different coloured coats underneath. The patches were hand-sanded with really fine grit paper and as you went deeper different colours were revealed.

Must've taken bloody ages!

I'm currently getting a frame made by Thylacine. All I can say is that Warwick (Thylo) has been incredibly professional and has actaully listended to what I wanted and is building me a bike based on my requirements rather than tell me what I should have, because "thats's the way we've done it for the last 30 years".

A custom bike was a big decision for me and I was afraid that I'd be paying through the nose for what I could get off the shelf. The truth with Thylo is the exact opposite. I believe I'm going to have a bike for life which will be far more suited to my shape, age, flexibility, strength etc etc, AND he's no more expensive than the off the shelf bikes.

Do yourself a favour and speak to Warwick for 1/2 an hour about his bikes and his philosphies on matching your specific requirements to a frame/set up. It'll be the best 30 minutes you spend researching...I promise you that!!

I'm not sure about the cable ties holding the chain-stay guard on

by today's "trends", that bike is too big for him. It doesn't look cool with the low seat and a million spacers.

This is more like it:

Anything taking "bloody ages" would have been right up their alley in those days: if you wanted "the best" (by their or your own standard), then wait for it! But the gong for elaborate paint jobs was at the time firmly in CWC's court. Hillman a close second, but much more conservative.

__________________

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like."
—Freddie Mercury, 'Bicycle Race'

FWIW the orange and white cecil walker is mine, built by them in 1998 but measured for me by john kennedy. the reason for the tall handlebars was my poor flexibility in the hamstrings which has been rectified (i now have a 5mm spacer below the stem)

compact frames were certainly not as common back then and only the year before 853 was ridden in the tour. 531 aussie i like how you said by todays "trends". I've never been one for trends, hence a steel frame i ride the frame fits me perfectly and being steel its been repaired after my big stack in 2000, try doing that with a carbon frame.

the black "cecil walker" on the seat and down tubes are hand painted on, not decals

this is a pic from the 98 tour....not many compacts there

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Thats how they seemed to build them in the past, my Appolo beater is made much the same, it handles like a dream though. It's probably a Masi copy, the Tailor (Faliero Masi) certainly knew how to build bikes.

ooops!! Sorry if you're pissed off

Incidentally; good effort to get a Cecil Walker on the Campy Only Gallery

We're all obviously right about current "trends". 'Back in my day', everyone used an 11 or 12cm stem, had no more than 5 or 6 inches of seatpost showing, and the bottom of the bars were parallel to the ground

certainly not pissed off 531

i just love how people look at what the pro's ride and assume they can set their bikes up the same if only we were all as flexible. the upper body as a proportion of your height also influences the way a frame is made, thats 1 reason why chris boardman could get so low as he had a quite long torso for his height.

my frames celebrates a decade in existance early next year and i've loved every km on it, it mightn't be the lightest but its the most comfy