As a reminder a long time ago, Jan wanted to know why his UK buiilt Bob Jackson (and maybe another I'm going by memory here) did not have the ride quality he liked in his Paris made Herse or Singer (I don't remember) bicycle. He started by examining frame geometry. You may remember early Vintage Bicycle Quarterlies had little geometry diagrams when describing builders. Of course every builder did things a bit differently. Eventually he realized that the very light weight tubing used in those French frames was the factor that made the ride quality difference. The problem though is that Jan's personify and business practices have some negatives in some people's minds and as a result cast some shade on his light tube findings. Furthermore there was/is a lot of skeptical speculation and comments by people that have never ridden a thin wall frame made specifically for them. As I've said before, most production frames were made with heavier tubing and few light weight custom frames were built because thin wall heat treated tubing takes special care to build properly. And there was a belief at the time that stiffer is better for energy transfer.

Long before Jan from Germany married an American and moved to the states, I was a believer in light tubed frames from my own experiences. It isn't that hard for me to tell the difference. In fact in the late 70's I made a super light frame for myself out of Ishiwata 015 tubing with .6/.3/.6 walls. I was just wanting to make a light weight frame. To my surprise it was not to that flexible for me. It just had a nice feel to its ride. I loaned it to a cat 2 racer quite a bit bigger than me and he went sprinting up a hill with it and declared too flexible. So tubing choices have to be based on each rider. In fact the only reason I don't use that thin tubing on my own frame is because it is too fragile for general use.

In my framebuilding classes I don't let students use heat treated tubing because their brazing skill levels are not good enough yet. .8/.5/.8 is available in non-heated treated versions and a number of students have made their frames out of it with positive results.