Originally Posted by mtnbke

Okay enough with all the threads for steel boat anchor vintage bikes. Maybe you've got a Cinelli, maybe it is a repainted Windsor, but at the end of the day it is still just a steel lightweight in name only. Okay, sure, there were better framesets and clearly better framebuilders but in reality what you still have is just plain' ol' steel. I'm saying that the master framebuilder badging is for the most part "paint only" on lugged steel bikes. Very rarely were these ever really built by the grandmaster with a torch in one hand and a cappuccino in the other the way so many would envision. I've always wanted to sand blast a bunch of epic vintage steel bikes and have discerning cyclists due "taste tests" after riding 'em. I'm betting that a Raleigh built with proprietary 555 or 555SL tubesets is not discernible to one cyclist in a hundred compared to a Mercyx, Cinelli, Masi, Olmo, Colnago, etc. I really think it would be interesting to have CycleArt paint up a bunch of stovepipe bikes as epic rides and paint down some epic bikes as middling bikes. I'm calling it now half this stuff is "cult" propaganda and wanting to believe.

That's my rant. Feel free to disagree. However, enough about steel. There were actually vintage aluminum bikes being made in the 19th century, let alone the oversized stuff that was USA built at the end of the 20th. I think the epic frames of the era of USA built Cannondale and Klein bicycles are forgotten in the all "steel is real" discussion.

So I've got a question. Now that USA built Cannondale grail bikes like the old 27" ST series touring ones are becoming harder and harder to find...how many people have actually seen the big Klein road bikes that are supposed to have been built?

I keep noticing people selling off their vintage Klein and Cannondales to make room for boat anchor junk like Surly Long Haul Truckers and I'm just aghast. That's like trading in your Porsche 911 for a freakin' Kia, for crying out loud. I mean at least get a "good" steel bike. I digress again...

Back on topic. According to the Klein geometry sheets there were supposed to be some monster Klein road bikes built. I bought one of these once but it turned out to be a run of the mill 63cm Quantum II (I think, it was definitely just a 63cm).

So has anyone ever actually laid eyes on a Klein that was 66cm or larger? The old Klein geometry charts showed that one of the Stage models and at least one other went big (like 68cm and even 72cm big). So I'm curious if anyone has an anecdote of ever laying eyes on a big Klein, or an actual image.

I've never seen one, let alone one for sale. Heck I've seen 70+ cm titanium Zinn bikes sold on eBay but never a single big Klein. So I pose the quesion, did they actually exist or were they something that Gary intended to make, but never did?

Thanks for reading my minority perspective, clearly I get tired of reading the dogma and drivel that Jan spews online and through Bicycle Quarterly, and also what comes out of the cult that Grant built.