Fashion

As the only child of older parents whose teenage heyday was in the War (and don't let me forget it), the fantastic years of '70s passed me by almost completely, fashionwise.  Even at that age I had imposed upon me an almost-unrelenting diet of corduroy and tweed - in my parents' view nourishing and reliable clothing.  (The amazing thing is that I did manage to have some friends!).  And my hair has always been the same length (apart from being a bit thinner now, the only thing that is...)

I did get away with three things : a fantastic pair of blue, red, yellow and black diagonally-striped jeans; a pair of Wranglers; and a Parka sneaked in from the army surplus stall of Ipswich Market (next door to where we lived), worn with my black school suit (uniform) and white shirt, a friend's dad's '60s original Austin Reed thin black knitted tie, oh and a pair of tasselled loafers I remember my mum buying me when my dad wasn't looking.

How I ever got away with it at Rory Gallagher let alone Motorhead, I'll never know...

I hate fashion, especially when it comes to haunt me such as the current vogue for flat caps. No better headware for work and non-posh getting about, or sporting persuits has been invented for British conditions, and though I have been wearing them for more than have a normal life-span, most of the time it was something people would laugh at. Now you see the youth culture producing the extra-ordinary phenomenon of a man wearing pre-aged jeans half way down his buttocks in spite of them being affixed with a more than adequate belt, wearing some terrible sweatshirt, and topping off with a flat cap! My goodness, I think I'll have to get a trilby or homberg till the fashion changes!

One paritcular hobby of mine is building up, maintaining and using old-style English cycles. If one considers the high performance and high speed road bike, often called a racer, then of course the new technologies of carbon fibre frames and indexed multiple gears do offer a degree of lightness and convenience not matched by the very fine [and incredibly durable] lugged steel frames, but at the other end of the market, designed for urban use with no particular aim at speed or high energy conversion efficiency why would anyone need a multi speed index geared bike when the three speed Sturmey Archey hub is more than sufficient, easy to maintain, and bomb proof if you do not insist on standing on the pedals to make progess. It is not as if you cannot loose a chain with the most advanced indexed derailleurs systems. The rohloff hubs is probaly the real solution of at nearer to £1000 than anything else.

My guess that this sort of classic English bike [of which I have just obtained an example - a rebuilt Elswick Hopper - see picture below] is highly unlikely to return to temporary vogue! Yet it is clearly more suited to the task that many mountain bikes or even modern and over-weight modern town-bikes are!

Today I gave it a good service, having bought it on Tuesday for the pricely sum of £70. Not enough to take seriously, even as an anti-fashion statement. It is a delightfully simple machine that does what it says on the tin with no fuss, or pretentions to performance it does not have!

Another fad that has faded, fortunately for me, who uses two truly historic ones, is the tendency of fashionable young bucks to wear a pocket watch! Fortunately for me the tell tale chain is no longer fashionable!

ATB from George

I reckon that young man should get a proper hair cut!

ATB from George

Char are you related to George? He can keep a thread going on his own too. 

Dear Howard,

One facility lost with the new forum format is the views count that was displayed formerly. At least when I kept a thread going, even if there were few additional posts from others, I could at least see whether what I had posted was of interest to people. Now I have no clue. Not that it makes a huge difference. Once the Carlton is finally built up that thread will fade out, as the Polish thread has. Only one thread to make - here in the Cell - now when I build my single driver speakers. As far as the forum goes, I'll keep an eye on it from time to time, but I have next to no interest in discussing serious issues in world or personal events on the forum now given that anything remotely contentious is prone to what I would call off-colour and trolling-style posts, all too often these days. Just the way things go, and a sign that I am getting less tolerant as I have entered my fifth decade. Time for younger blood to set a new style, and it's happening before our very eyes ...

Best wishes from George

And there was I thinking that posting about ancient [classical Italian cycle component] NOS Regina "America" [ISO] freewheels of 13-14-15-17-19-21 versus the 13-14-15-16-17-18 tooth-sprockets and a Campagnolo New Record [144 BCD] low front chainwheel of 41 teeth compared to the standard of 42 was far too esoteric for my solo Carlton [classical British cycle] thread! Mr Wallah, you give me confidence yet.

Clearly in old cycle running gear what you have to avoid is mixing Anglo/Italian ISO with Japanes JIS parts, because even though JIS is based on BS, and so is ISO, JIS invariably makes enough tollerance differences for them not to fit for a durable connection with ISO or BS ...JIS means Japanese Industry Standard ... Strangely BS is often called English by the Italians, though Italian ISO is identical to BS ... Hence the ease of fitting Italian ISO or Italian made BS [often called English] on British made cycles,. Only Italian Bottom Bracket don't follow the rule! Their threads run backwards, and come loose - see Sheldon Brown on the madness of the backward threads on Italian Bottom Brackets ...

ATB from George

[Clearly what I was thinking of is hardly fashionable, however!]

A watch that was grand in 1905 - a British Army Eterna [Swiss made 15 jewel in a strong nickel case] - in a photo taken in October 2010 on holiday in Poland. Everything I do is fashionable! If fashionable when made if it still works well how can become out of fashion?

ATB from George

Dear Mr Wallah,

From time to time I'll post something out of the way here!

Have look through three pages of the "New Carlton Thread," though it has to be admitted that the Carlton is by no means new, but the thread is the second or third about the gradual rescue of a great old English 'cycle.

For some best period Italian bicycle running gear on a more than just fine old style English racing frame - you may enjoy photographs and commentary ...

The Carlton Cycle Company offered the very first handle bar operated [Campagnolo] gear shifting system on their top bikes in the early 1960s, and before the decline in the 1980s regularly offered their cycles with the best Italian running gear, as did Holdsworth. English geometry for frames is easier than Italian as a rule, but the Englsih frames had the benefit of Reynolds tubing on their side and this is not actually underestimated today, even if it is no longer fashionable.

My Carlton frame is in Reynolds 501 tubing, which was slightly heavier than the best 531 tubing but so robust that the slight weight gain is arguably more than accounted for in service and ability to survive accidents. When I took the frame for restoration at Argos Racing Cycles in Bristol, they were delighted to see a 501 frame given another 25 years life. People throw them out as 531 is the fashion! But 501 can be repaired in the field as it were. Ride across India, and if [and it is very rare] a brased joint starts to fail, then it can be repaired by a village blacksmith with nothing more than a blow touch, skill, and some silver brasing solder ... And they do repair bikes this way in the less fashionable parts of the world.

531 is a bit lighter, but so easy to ruin in a repair ...

ATB from George

PS: Here she is looking quite fine last autumn:

I think we have to address the question of how much "Joe-public, Mr. and Mrs. Tax-payer" should subsidise the transport of people who want to live in a place that they cannot afford to from the transportation cost point of view if the expenses were not subbventioned from the public purse ...

I see no reason for the general taxpayer to subsidise transport at all; in the same way I see no reason for the state subventioned "Arts Council" to exist. People should plan their transport costs, and expect no help, and no art, or music lover should expect low paid hard working people to fund live music making in the provinces so that they can get cheap seats for minority interest music and so forth ...

I would be as appalled if professional football were to be state supported ...

Given that [correctly state provided] health care is already rationed over the price of treatment, and also educational for all is certainly finance limited and in some cases well below acceptable minimum standards, to support frippery is a disordering of logic ...

ATB from George

The government will do anything to make things a catch 22 for the not so well off and then lecture them about going green....and saving their planet