Hetchins
 

absolutely best bike ever made anywhere anytime end of story,agree or disagree ? and why ?

Which one? And best for what?

Weird question, IMO.

I'd love a Hetchins with the curly stays and the ornate lugwork just like this Magnum Opus form 1995. A Hetchins from the 60's is on the top of my most wanted list.

http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x...MagnumOpus.jpg

"best ever made" way to vague of a question. perhaps most ornate production bike ever made but even there i have seen some "one off" bikes with more ornate custom lug work.

hetchins are certainly great eye candy though!

Thers just something about them,its hard to explain but if you have ever seen one "in the flesh" (esp curly,s) then you are hooked,the ultimate "Holy Grail" or maybe just mine !(I would swap my entire collection for the dream Hetchins thats in my head).

Personally, I find them to be a bit gaudy. Just one man's opinion though.

I love my Hetchins and it is my favorite of all the bikes I have ever owned, but it is a big world out there. If it was the best ever, I would have to give up my search, so i will have to say it isn't.

Seen lots. They're nice. There are bikes just as special, and quite a few more special, IMO.

I have a 60th Anniversaru Hetchins, its a beauty and I love it, but BEST?

Man, there are a LOT of great bikes out there.

I guess the BEST one is the one you ride day after day and fits you like a glove!

If they were cars

Hetchins = Excalibur
Masi = Ferrari
Paramount = Cadillac

To each his own, but then I never got the attraction of Excaliburs.

Except, throw Eddy on any of them and he'd still beat the stink out of us! Just ride the dang thing!

Never had a Masi, but have a few Paramounts, they're sweet too, I love em all!

I really enjoy the over the top ornamental styling of a Hetchins. Certainly unique, and harkens back to an ancient age...

Seriously I think they look rather silly with those bent stays, what was the purpose of that anyway?
They are nice bikes otherwise with fine detailing but I would´nt consider them the BEST bike of all time.

Style/marketing/distinctiveness.

Back when amateur really meant amateur, racers weren't allowed to advertise. This included the maker of their bikes. While the curvy stays were originally designed to improve the ride characteristics of the bike, they stuck around as a way to easily identify who was riding a Hetchins.
I would rather have a curvy stay than 10 huge stickers on my bike that say "CERVELO".

Ok, so it does´nt contribute to the bikes performance then. I have never ridden a Hetchins as some of you guys have, do they have a very distinctive character that separates them from other bikes?

They would surely have stuck around anyway. For style/marketing/distinctiveness reasons.

Certainly you have a better photo than this one to show off this headtube!

Right, now I get it, yeah that makes sense. In which way was the curvy (or curly?) stays meant to improve the ride characteristics?
And belive me, even if I probably would´nt buy a curvy Hetchins, you´ll never ever find me on a Cervelo!

I don't! The bike is now 25 miles away in my storage...

I'll admit, a curvy has always been at the top of my Most Wanted list. Very distinctive & cool!

But thanks to several forum members, I now have an even more unique steed.
Still old, still English 531, still black and in my size.

fender1 sent me the frame a couple years back, and the final piece arrived from cudak888 last Friday.

The Merlin is now ready to take flight!:D

and looking at it, I realized I'm past REALLY wanting a Hetchins.
For all the road riding I do these days, I now have a really rare and very killer pigeon hawk path racer!:love:
But if a curvy frame comes my way, I'll certainly not turn it down.

Isn't that old, still English 531, still black and in my size Merlin an early Bob Jackson?

That was my understanding when I was young, but have been told its a myth...

It has to be, as the curly stays predate the rule change - the curly stays are pre-Hetchins, in fact - Jack Denny was already using them. CardiacKid does not seem to be saying they originated because of the rule change, but that they were retained because of it. I think these is extremely unlikely, since Hetchins had taken out a patent and was using it as a marketing hook and means of distinguishing their bikes to consumers (before the fancy lugs, obviously). Hetchins would almost certainly have kept the curly stays even if the rule about advertising hadn't been in place - why wouldn't they have? Certainly it was good fortune for Hetchins that their bikes were easy to pick out in races where their decals were not allowed, but I highly doubt this affected the continuation of the vibrant stays as a Hetchins trait.
Edit: To say the rule about advertising was not a myth - just the part about the vibrant stays having been developed in response to it.

The relevant rule regarding decals was actually enacted by the British RTTC (Road Time Trials Council) in 1938. Hetchins began building bikes with the vibrant rear triangle in 1935 (and as per my post above, Jack Denny developed the design for frames he built prior to giong into business with Hetchins.)