Well I have owned a British bike - a hand made lugged Dawes frame and fork with Reynolds tubes. This was a 1988/89 model and was heavy, the geometry was totally wrong, the looks and paint was well some kind of "British" (dull). OK, fair to say I bought it because it was cheap but equipped with a full XT group. I sold the frame and for and bought a Cannondale frame and a Tange fork for the group. I know British frames from my days as a road racer and my mates British produced bikes normally rusted more, lost paint and decals compared to the Italian bikes. My own bike, a 1980 Pinarello Montello (still in the basement) have no rust at all.
Yes there are nice looking and detailed British bikes - like the cars you used to produce. Shand, Brian Rourke, Moss etc. there are many nice frame builders and frame houses, but its something about that "British conservative look" (in Norway we have a general word for it "erkebritisk" ~ True Brit Stiff upper lip) that never can be compared to what they make "over there" (and in the rest of the world). So that make British bikes and frame houses "something of its own" and that I think is ok, - but the "right karma" will they never get.
I know what ever i write will never be compliant or accepted by the "right judge and jury" or "The Self promoting Band of Brothers" - I accept that, and thrust me - really don't care. I note some of the proud specimens of the breed is able to throw shit about me and my testicles, - so adult, but is surely a sign of inability to express themselves.
Respectfully yours,
