Hello from a 80's C'dale Employee

[roddesu]

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 extrusions for C'dale while I was at the company. I have no idea what happened after that. In the late 80s, C'dale was the largest 6061-T4 seamless tubing contract in the US (at least that's what all the aluminum vendors told me). By consolidating not only the tubing, but the extrusions as well, to one supplier, C'dale's bulk buying brought costs down considerably.

 

[black lightning 1987]

Thanks Rod, for all the great stories. How did you happen to choose the Town and Country rather than one of the touring frames?

 

[roddesu]

Thanks Rod, for all the great stories. How did you happen to choose the Town and Country rather than one of the touring frames?

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 was something I learned from reading Miles from Nowhere. They had touring bikes and had a ton of wheel problems and pinch flats in places like Nepal where the roads were more deep jagged holes than not. (The roads had not improved when we arrived 9 years after the Savages were there.) We used high-pressure, folding 26" road tires from Michelin and Mr. Tuffies. In 2.5 years on the road, we had two flats between us.

The Town and Country frame was the perfect solution: a 26"-wheel touring frame.

However, I can't take credit for figuring this out. If I remember correctly, David C. (Not David Graham...there were a lot of Davids at C'dale at the time) steered me toward the Town and Country. David was C'dale's liaison with the component OEMs and knew more about bikes than anyone I'd ever met. He was also a touring cyclist, not a racer, so I trusted his judgement.

We did meet and rode for quite a while with a British couple that 700c wheels that were bomb proof. We rode with them in Nepal and they had no problems where other travelers with not-high-end mountain bikes were having their wheels fail. Their 700c wheels had custom large-flange hubs and 40 spokes. They were the only 700c wheels I'd seen up until that point that could endure those roads. However, they did have pinch-flat problems occasionally.

 

[black lightning 1987]

I guessed that wider tires were part of the answer. I'm not sure what widths were available for 700c in 1985. The oldest mail order catalogs I have are from the early 90s and there's nothing listed wider than 28 mm.

 

[black lightning 1987]

It was interesting to hear that SunTour came up with the idea for the Black Lightning. In a thread about the model on the Paceline forum, someone posted that in Japan the black/gold combination is associated with hearses. So perhaps SunTour decided they needed to sell the Sprint components outside the home market.
You may have seen my Black Lightning. It came from Chicago and has a gold plated fork and gold plating on many of the components. I bought it from a bike shop employee who lives somewhere in the Peotone area but works at a shop in the city (can't remember which one now). He said the original owner liked to take it to the lakefront and sit on a bench where folks would stop and ask him about it.

 

[roddesu]

It was interesting to hear that SunTour came up with the idea for the Black Lightning. In a thread about the model on the Paceline forum, someone posted that in Japan the black/gold combination is associated with hearses. So perhaps SunTour decided they needed to sell the Sprint components outside the home market.
You may have seen my Black Lightning. It came from Chicago and has a gold plated fork and gold plating on many of the components. I bought it from a bike shop employee who lives somewhere in the Peotone area but works at a shop in the city (can't remember which one now). He said the original owner liked to take it to the lakefront and sit on a bench where folks would stop and ask him about it.

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.

 

[Nico]

I guessed that wider tires were part of the answer. I'm not sure what widths were available for 700c in 1985. The oldest mail order catalogs I have are from the early 90s and there's nothing listed wider than 28 mm.

In did three trips overseas in the period of 90-92.
My first bike, a hand build Raleigh 1989 randonneur had 28 mm Michelin's which only lasted 2300 km on the rear wheel. For my next trip I bought a hand build 1991 Dutch randonneur. This had 28-32 mm Continental tires. Tires lasted 2800-3200 km depending on the type of tire.

The next bike I ordered was form the same Dutch frame builder and would be a 1992 custom hand build.
Because I heard continental was about to launch a 42 mm tire, I asked them if they could make the bike ready for to fit a 42 mm tires.
Most of these frame builders are quite conservative (for good reason) and they said they would try but they felt more comfortable with not bending the tubes that much.
On this bike I used 32-37 mm Continental's.
42 mm was available, in hind sight, I was happy with the 32-27 combination.

Fyi
The custom build steel bike weighed 18 kg or 40 lbs.
Including all the gear and food, the bike weight around 45 kg or 100 lbs.

At that time the idea was that a steel bike could be repaired anywhere, aluminum not so much.
10 years later with all these delivery services being able to deliver globally within 24-48 hrs, the need for using steel in case of needing repairs was no longer there.

@roddesu I will get back to you on how it was working in Oldenzaal.

 

[roddesu]

At that time the idea was that a steel bike could be repaired anywhere, aluminum not so much.

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.

 

[letsbike]

Did "TheBook" arrive yet?

 

[roddesu]

Did "TheBook" arrive yet?

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 is how flimsy the cover and binding is. Anyway, I'll try to get some or all of it scanned.

Missy Elliot and Mario Cipollini were clearly favorites of whoever put it together. Combined, they are probably maybe 10% of the book. If you add in Tinker Juarez it'd be even more. I think Missy is seen in it more than Joe!

Let me know if anyone has any ideas on how to scan it at a reasonable price.

 

[roddesu]

The law in Japan is two people cannot ride one bicycle...and of course it doesn't matter that the bicycle was expressly built to safely carry two people! Our good friends in Tokyo had a pink tandem recumbent they rode all over Tokyo and were never stopped.

My friend with the pink recumbent tandem just sent me this link: tandems are now legal in all of Japan.

 

[black lightning 1987]

I'm guessing the book is hard bound and won't lay completely flat to scan. I would try a few pages and see if the scans come out mostly legible.

 

[roddesu]

I'm guessing the book is hard bound and won't lay completely flat to scan. I would try a few pages and see if the scans come out mostly legible.

It's very cheaply bound and I'm concerned mostly about breaking the spine. I also don't think my scanner is big enough. TBD.

 

[Nico]

It's very cheaply bound and I'm concerned mostly about breaking the spine. I also don't think my scanner is big enough. TBD.

Some copy shops have a special setup for scanning books.
This setup allows you to scan pages without having to open the book completely.
If you can find a shop that has this kind of system you can ask for a quote to get it scanned.
Maybe some of us can pitch in to cover a part of the cost to get it scanned.

 

[Flat tyre bikes]

Rod, regarding US patent number on the seat stay. Can you explain what this covers? Was it the tubing or geometry or manufacture process? Others here may know also. I repainted a 86 frame and want to put patent # back on. Seems like it may be a decal.

 

[Nico]

Rod, regarding US patent number on the seat stay. Can you explain what this covers? Was it the tubing or geometry or manufacture process? Others here may know also. I repainted a 86 frame and want to put patent # back on. Seems like it may be a decal.

If you have the US patent number it should be possible to find it in the patent database.

Espacenet #Cannondale

 

[black lightning 1987]

Rod, regarding US patent number on the seat stay. Can you explain what this covers? Was it the tubing or geometry or manufacture process? Others here may know also. I repainted a 86 frame and want to put patent # back on. Seems like it may be a decal.

My impression was that it was for the ovalized seat stays, though I'm surprised that could be patented.

 

[Flat tyre bikes]

If you have the US patent number it should be possible to find it in the patent database.

Espacenet #Cannondale

Thanks Nico. So cool to see the drawings. Yes Black lightning 1987, ovalized seat stays. Now to figure out small decal to put # on bike

 

[Flat tyre bikes]

Thanks Nico. So cool to see the drawings. Yes Black lightning 1987, ovalized seat stays. Now to figure out small decal to put # on bike

 

[black lightning 1987]

At least it's a pretty generic font. A facsimile shouldn't be too hard to reproduce. If you do it you should make a bunch of them.