"Marc Rosenbaum" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:"Jay Beattie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:Quoted message said:"Phil Brown" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:>
>I'm looking for a recommendation of a person who can appraise the bicycle I built for my
>Bachelor's thesis at MIT in 1974. It's a one-off - the first large diameter aluminum tube
>frame, and
one-off
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Quoted message said:>pedals, hubs, and BB.
Is this the same material science class that Gary Klein was in?
Hard to believe that this guy beat Gary, at the same school, and
that he
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:was not mentioned in Klein v. Cannondale. Also, Bill Shook of
American
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Classic was riding his OS aluminum bike in May of 1974. So, to be
the
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:supposed "first" OS aluminum frame, it would have had to be built
before
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:then. If the OPs dates are right, however, it is interesting that
Gary
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:conceived of his OS aluminum frame in October 1974 and built it in February 1975 -- all of this
after the end of the school year in
'74.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Hmmmm. -- Jay Beattie.
Hmmmm yourself, Mr. Beattie. Just for the record, not because it relates to the question I asked,
which was about finding an appraiser, not asking for an appraisal:
I was Hmmming, because Gary claimed that his oversized aluminum tubed bike was the first, which
seems like quite an outrageous claim if yours was already built -- and at the same school.
Quoted message said:
My SB thesis in Mechanical Eng'g at MIT was submitted in May 1974 and is a matter of public
record. The bike was designed and built over the previous winter and spring. It was the first
frame that came out of the project that Prof. Shawn Buckley put together with students to
construct aluminum frames, but it was far more optimized and included custom components that I
designed and made also. The frame tubes are larger diameter than those frames (and the one that
Gary built later) and much lighter. My project was inspired by Eddy Merckx's one hour record bike
- and it was lighter and much stiffer than that bike - it would have weighed about 11 pounds with
Merckx's wheels and tires, vs. the 13.2 pounds of the record bike.
There were articles about the bike in Bicycling and Bike world in early 1975.
I don't know about the Klein vs. Cannondale court case records cited in this thread. I do know I
was subpoenaed in this case and spent 7 hours in a videotaped deposition. The patent discovery
documents were full of references to my thesis bike. It took over 7 years for Klein to get his
patent - in my opinion that was because there was nothing novel about his bike.
I'm a newbie to news groups. Is it typical for the discussion to immediately veer into off-topic
speculation rather than address the question asked?
This is not off topic. You claimed to have a first-of-its-kind, one-off bike. The provenance of your
bike is what makes it valuable, if it is valuable at all. Otherwise, it is just another home-built
bike -- and those have a very low resale value, especially if they have non-standard parts and a
five or six speed drive train. First bikes are also known to break due to over-cooking the joints
and other beginner's errors. Your bike may have collector's value, but I doubt anyone would buy it
for reliability or rideability.
Some of the posts remind me of an expression from my
Quoted message said:days at MIT - Often Mistaken But Never In Doubt :-)
My information comes from the affidavits filed in Klein v. Cannondale, being that I was not at MIT
in the '70s. Those records are accurate for what they are, which is limited. I did race for the San
Jose team in the late '70s, and we were sponsored by Klein -- but Gary never talked to me about
whether he built the first OS aluminum frame, or about anything for that matter. We mostly laughed
at the fat-tubed Klein bikes back then and thought that anyone with boron in their stays was a
sissy. But then, we also were not quite clear on what boron was -- except that Superman did not like
it, and that it might cause birth defects.
Quoted message said:
If anyone can suggest where I can find a bicycle appraiser I'd be grateful of the assistance.
The absolute appraiser: E-bay. Frankly, you should see if there is a museum of science and industry
somewhere that would be interested in it. They will appraise it and give you an appropriate tax
deduction for the donation. Unless your bike was ridden by someone famous, or you are famous, or
some component on the bike went into production and is now famous, I doubt that it has any value
from a collector's standpoint -- certainly not as much value as the steel frame I helped build in
'76 with custom drill-holes in the lugs. I designed those -- O.K., I ripped them off from Cinelli,
but mine were cooler than Cinelli's. Drill-holes were as technical as I got, being that I was an
English major at a crummy state school -- a few classes behind Jim Blackburn, and in a different
department. But I thought of that rack! -- Jay Beattie.
