Response to Buzzbomb,

There is art and there is functional art. This definitely falls into the ‘Art’ category. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. If someone wants to make a fashion statement this would be the bike to ride.

As for being of the future; I’m not so sure. Take a look at the cruiser bike posted by Khuon on page 1 of this thread. I’m not sure of the date but looks like the 1950s to me; the frame is almost the identical design. It is very hard with bicycles to find something that hasn’t been done before.

Anyway welcome to this thread, we needed some new people over here. The ones we have now have been here so long they’re starting to feel like family.

Oh man, that's crazy, ....no I meant jump to flat. Still, I got a chill, seeing those drop bars.

But speaking of art and design, I like buildings that feature few interior walls, exposed structure.
I'm the same way with machines, I don't like the superficial 'decorative' aspect on my bikes.

I design Greco-Romanesque sculpture, but I love deconstructavism and abstract painting.

If I had a beauty bike, it go on cakewalks, not bushwackin'. Racing bikes have no need of decorative frills, they are designed for structural integrity. The beauty in the design is correcty anticipating the harsh stresses put on the frame and transferring the energy to multiple areas of the framework so as it doesn't fail.

Beauty in design, not neccesarily looks.>jef.

The dropped bars were raised a little higher than for the road, and you notice my ass is hanging way off the back of the saddle.


On the subject of Art an Design.
The main beauty of my bikes was in the way they rode. It always irked me a little when people kept them as pure art objects just to look at. They were built to be ridden.

Ha, thats you...you're nuts. Speaking of nuts. In 1977 I bailed off a 6 foot ramp on my friends custom jump mustang,(bad copy of mine) I flattened my rear wheel 'cause I overshot the land ramp.
His front wheel came off @ the top of the ramp and jammed in the fork, I was headslammed into the pavement (no helmet). I still grow no hair where the rocks indented my skull.

This was perhaps 2 years before a real jump (moto-bmx) bike came out. We had to adapt small curve frame bikes 'cause the others broke. Later we took those stupid plastic gastanks off the first motos.

Most of them broke too. Evil Kanevil wasn't a good choice as a sports icon for me.
But they eventually got the bikes that were needed. BMX.

And IMO, bmx developement has little to do with mtbs. Same timeline, but Joe Breeze did Scwinn curve tube bikes, Ritchey did a frame geom based on road bikes.

Wish I had kept biking, my skate career was ended by Osgood Schlatters disease.

Didn't get on a bike again 'till 1987.

Yes that’s me; circa 1976. I rode cyclo-cross for many years. Here’s the whole picture before I cropped it.

After reading your exploits I’m glad you’re still around to tell about it.

Unfortunately. We are having many weakness problems today because we inherited road sizing instead of bmx sizing. I don't know about the history and don't much care really (I am and opposite of a retro grouch...I find most older bikes downright ugly...living in the past keeps things there)...but I do know the 2 biggest problems in mountain biking today are caused by diameter sizing from road bikes.

Sweet pic though. Cyclocross has always intrigued me for xc. For most xc trails I have seen a cyclocross bike would smoke most mountain bikes, and actually recently there was a race on the north shore up fromme where guys showed up on cyclocross bikes. If the course designers hadn't diverted the course into more technical trails they would have beat everyone to the top for sure.

I saw Moulton and was thinking trellis bikes, and I couldn't get your site up. I just realised trellis=Alex, not Dave. Didn't you do a lot of hand filing on your lugs, cutout insets? If thats what I am thinking of, beautiful work

Response to Rev. Chuck
I have always been confused with Alex Moulton of the small wheel bike fame. Sorry you couldn’t get my site up; it’s working fine this end. Please try again: www.ProdigalChild.net

Question: Does Rev. stand for Reverend, Reverse, or Revolutionary?



Response to Maelstrom.
Cyclo-cross bikes built in standard light weight road tubing do not break. When I built the Fuso MTB in 1985 with standard road tubing it broke. Other people experienced the same problem because it was about this time we started seeing oversize tubes and shock absorbers introduced.
I think the problem lies with the wheels; they are too strong and too heavy for the frame. Cyclo-cross bikes use sew-up (tubular) tires. Being tubular when they hit something hard they flex and absorb shock. The rims too are tubular; strong but extremely light and somewhat flexible.
I have put forward this argument earlier in this thread and so do not want to repeat myself, but if you strengthen one part of a bicycle; you weaken it somewhere else. To just keep increasing the size of the tubes may not be the answer.

No I fully understand the argument (its not even an argument...I completely agree). In mountain biking when they developed dual crown forks to stop breaking the single crowns people started destroying the headtubes (ovalizing). When those became re-enforced the headtubes themselves started ripping off.

I was actually speaking about 2 parts of the bike. The bottom bracket has always caused issues for dhillers (obviously the bikes are ugly and not needed but they are still here) and freeriders. The sizing came directly from road bikes, which doesn't allow for big enoguh bearings. If the originators had brought the sizing from bmx...these problems might not exist (not we have outboard bearings which is a decent fix...but doesn't actually eliminate the problem just puts a bandage on it). Headtube is in a similar state....

The Right Reverend Got to the site, nice brazing, I never did much fine stuff my self, mostly multipass inch wide welds on heavy equipment. I have done a couple of brazed steel sculptures, much more organic (and fun). I will see if I can pick up your book at the local indy book shop. I have seen your frames at the used bike shop (North Road Bicycle) Who is, interestingly enough, a (Alex) Moulton dealer.

Hi Dave,

Glad to see you in the forums. I believe my life has been indirectly touched by you. I have been the proud owner a blue Tesch 101 that I found in an Escondido Ca bike shop in 1994. I understand David Tesch built frames for you. I see many similarities in David's and your frames. This is the best bike I have ever owned. Very fast and responsive. I still ride it as my primary bike. I remember when I used to live in San Diego North County in the late '80, all you would see on the road is Moulton,Fuso,Masi, and Tesch. Great Bikes!

Glad to meet a historic figure such as yourself, albeit online. I understand you feel strongly about road bikes but to me there is a simple beauty to cycling and that is the perfect fusion of man and machine. Road bikes are designed for the road and mountain bikes are designed for off road and I believe each should really be used for their intended purpose. Same goes for SUVs, I do not understand the need for a Hummer when you live in the suburbs but perhaps it's better understood when you realize there are high IQ's, average IQ's and of course low IQ's.