Repack Rider
Senior Retro Guru
Although the Stumpjumper fork crown is cast, and Ritchey's is fabricated from two flat pieces of steel, the casting is designed to look like the fabrication.
An Original Ritchey
- Thread starter Repack Rider
- Start date
silverclaws
Senior Retro Guru
The brakes, I know are good, I am doing a cheapy rebuild on a thirty year old women's bike at the mo, and it has that type of brake, sticky out cantis. Maybe they look naff, but these brakes are excellent, far better than the Shimano XT cantis I used to have. Cantis that I got the guage kit to sort out, they were still crap. A move forward in my mind, is side pull cantis, Shimano's V brake. My Xt cantis moved a foot in the right direction when I got rid of the M-system and returned to a hooked brake cable and cross wire, much as is on this Ritchey machine.
Repack Rider
Senior Retro Guru
EBay auction ended, a set of NOS Mafac tandem cantis without the brake shoes went for $116.50.
Got some in a drawer around here somewhere...
Got some in a drawer around here somewhere...
Repack Rider":17n1ahdf said:
My friend Bjorn still uses that design of fork crown on the bikes he builds for himself. One such pair has racked up 20,000km of heavily laden touring without problems. A very elegent looking solution too- I wonder if it also has a damping effect, is that the idea behind the design?
Si
Repack Rider
Senior Retro Guru
There was no cast crown on the market that wide. So Tom came up with a simple and elegant design he could make easily.
The idea of frame building supplies for bikes with wide tyres hadn't yet arrived, which was why Tom Ritchey (then 22 years old) was so perfectly positioned. He didn't need any.
The idea of frame building supplies for bikes with wide tyres hadn't yet arrived, which was why Tom Ritchey (then 22 years old) was so perfectly positioned. He didn't need any.
mrkawasaki
Retrobike Rider
Content is King
Turning nicely into one of those awesome threads of spun gold... keep it going fella's...!
Mr K
Turning nicely into one of those awesome threads of spun gold... keep it going fella's...!
Mr K
I'm sure CK will be along to correct me if I'm wrong but Mountain Bike was the brand name applied by CK and Gary Fisher to the assembled bike that was built out of Tom's early frames. I'm sure it has been covered somewhere before. It would be interesting to know if Charlie and Gary ever attempted to patent the name?
Also interesting to see Jack Taylors name crop up in that scanned page. There was a facinating thread a few months back that is worth searching out and digesting.
Any chance of a scan of the CK article you mentioned on the last page??
Si
Also interesting to see Jack Taylors name crop up in that scanned page. There was a facinating thread a few months back that is worth searching out and digesting.
Any chance of a scan of the CK article you mentioned on the last page??
Si
Repack Rider
Senior Retro Guru
"MountainBikes" was the name of our company and our product. We spelled it as shown, but it also appeared as two words.
In 1980 I realized it was a great name, and I decided to trademark it. I looked in the local business directory and picked one of the two attorneys specializing in trademarks and copyrights. I contacted him and paid what seemed like a princely sum for him to fill out a two page form.
Some weeks later he received a response from the Commerce Department asking whether these bikes were made specifically to use in the mountains. The answer to that question was the one d***ed thing I paid that guy to know, and the answer should have been, "No, you can ride them anywhere."
Instead he said yes, they were specifically designed for use in the mountains. You can't trademark a description, such as "red car." His answer made our company name a description as far as they were concerned, and the trademark was denied.
For several years we bluffed the entire industry, which assumed that we owned it. Bicycling Magazine even held a contest to decide what to call these new bikes flooding the market, since using the term "mountain bikes" was clearly advertising for Gary and Charlie. And "klunkers" does not really fit when the bike is hand made and costs $1500.
And the winner was..."All-Terrain Bike," a clumsy handle that never did catch on. Eventually someone did a little research, the cat got out of the bag, and the industry took its name from our little shop in a rented firetrap of a garage at 1501 San Anselmo Avenue.
In 1980 I realized it was a great name, and I decided to trademark it. I looked in the local business directory and picked one of the two attorneys specializing in trademarks and copyrights. I contacted him and paid what seemed like a princely sum for him to fill out a two page form.
Some weeks later he received a response from the Commerce Department asking whether these bikes were made specifically to use in the mountains. The answer to that question was the one d***ed thing I paid that guy to know, and the answer should have been, "No, you can ride them anywhere."
Instead he said yes, they were specifically designed for use in the mountains. You can't trademark a description, such as "red car." His answer made our company name a description as far as they were concerned, and the trademark was denied.
For several years we bluffed the entire industry, which assumed that we owned it. Bicycling Magazine even held a contest to decide what to call these new bikes flooding the market, since using the term "mountain bikes" was clearly advertising for Gary and Charlie. And "klunkers" does not really fit when the bike is hand made and costs $1500.
And the winner was..."All-Terrain Bike," a clumsy handle that never did catch on. Eventually someone did a little research, the cat got out of the bag, and the industry took its name from our little shop in a rented firetrap of a garage at 1501 San Anselmo Avenue.
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