Back in my LBS days, even the cheapest of Gitanes had a "hand made" sticker on them, meaning some French hands were at least partly responsible for the deplorable workmanship. On the other hand, my Nishiki International had a machine made frame and appeared to be of better quality.

Ah, but the French were not huge on aesthetics as is well documented in the The Custom Bicycle by Kolin and de la Rosa (1979).

Do machines have a soul? Does it really matter? You decide . . .

Edit: I had a Gitane Tour de France back in the mid-1970s. It was my first "good bike" and a sweet ride.

Up until about 1983, Trek frames were individually hand brazed. After that, the lower end models (400/500/600) were brazed with automatic wire feed machines and touched up by hand later if necessary. The higher end models (700/900/170) were fully hand brazed at least until 1986 when I left Trek.

Jeez, atta boy Chuckk. Most impressive site and terrific pile-o-bikes!

I'm at a point where I'm not looking for quantity but would like to heavily emphasize quality. Again, pretty doesn't mean high quality nor does ugly mean shoddy work i.e. an ugly frame designed specifically for speed. Also, I'm not specifically referring to lugs in particular but the overall craftsmanship of the frame. I appreciate the wealth of the information and advice presented especially on the American and small house Italian builders. Sometimes it's tough to mentally situate myself that a small no-name frame can be of comparable quality to a De Rosa and company and it's equally tough to have enough resources to confirm it.

Still, would I be depriving myself of the Italian experience if I forgo the less intimate, more mass produced models or could someone argue by that point in time, all bikes would be considered more or less the same. I'd rather the quality of the frame speak for itself rather than let my misconceptions guide me to overestimate a mediocre frame but since I can't ride every frame, if anyone has more experience within this area, I'd be interested to listen.

A proper handbuilt bike that reflects the vision of its builder on how a good performing bike has to look like. You don't have to go all the way to Italy ;)

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...2#post12790632

Personally I appreciate sincere dedication to making something very nice. That could also be mass production.

Varsities, like 95% of Schwinn's production were "electro-forged"....plasma welded on automated machinery. The fillet-brazed Schwinns, along with the Paramounts were hand made.

But hardly an example of high-quality hand work. And they don't necessarily warrant lumping in with the Paramount, quality-wise. They were indeed built by hand, like a lot of other uninspiring 60's-70's bikes. I like them, and have owned several. They're just not examples of real craftsmanship.

This qualifies for handbuilt >>

movie: building a RIH