Mostly what I remember is the sticker appliers being pissed about how small that sticker was. The stickers were manually applied wet to the frame after color painting and before clear coat; it was quite a difficult thing to do. They pulled me and the vendor down to the factory several times...
I'm about 95% sure the patent was, as others have said, for the oval seat stays.
There was a lot of internal talk at the time (not sure about external marketing efforts) about the side-to-side stiffness it provided. I know there were deflection tests that were done as proof the rear wheel...
I spent about an hour this morning trying to figure out how to do this. I used my phone to take pictures of the pages (the book it too big for my scanner).
There is no copyright page, but there is a bit of an explanation of what it is, but not why it was done. I'm assuming this guy did the...
I got one last week from a book store in Connecticut. I have to find some time to do some scanning. The most surprising thing about the book is how cheaply bound it is, which makes scanning difficult without damaging it.
It has! I immediately went through it page by page looking to see if any of our photos were in it, but came up empty.
There were pictures of some of our old co-workers, but Laura and I struck out. I'm not sure how I can make it available to everyone...it's pretty big. The most surprising thing...
Interestingly, Laura and I had C'dale R&D people caution us against taking C'dales on our trip for this very reason. We did have a C'dale aluminum lowrider frame crack in India and we had it "welded" back together. Somehow it survived the fix and it stayed together for the rest of the trip.
I might be remembering that incorrectly. I've asked the guy who designed the Black Lightening to drop in and shed some light on how it happened. We'll see if he does.
I wanted 36-spoke, 26" wheels for additional strength and reliability. I also wanted wider tires than were available for 27"/700c. We were headed into places where the roads would raise hell with 27"/700c wheels and tires; I was worried about potato-chipping a wheel as well as pinch flats. This...
Hey Kevin,
We decided to consolidate all of C'dale's business with Reynolds Metals, outside of Richmond, VA. It looks like they've been bought by Alcoa. NOTE: Reynolds Metals is not the same company that produces the famous aluminum foil.
Reynolds Metals did all of the tubing and the...
Hey Nico,
The culture at the Georgetown offices in the 80s was pretty amazing. Sales had it's own culture, driven mainly by Ted K, Danno, and Joe. Sales was in the "modern" building filled with cubicles and people on the phone nonstop. It was kind of a generic building and where reception was...