mpetry912 

Remember that a larger frame "generally" connotes a larger and heavier rider. I ride frames in the 60-62 range and have one bike that is very easy to scrape the chain on the FD cage. The BB moves a lot.

One of the things a custom builder can do is mix and match the tubing gauges to match rider weight and riding style. My personal preference is for light guage frame tubes, possibly with a heavier guage downtube (19/22) from a standard weight tube set, and a large diameter (1 1/8) top tube for better torsional rigidity. Then the lightest guage forks and stays you can find.

I have 2 bikes built this way and they are very nice performers. Not harsh.

Mark Petry
Bainbridge Island, WA USA

63rickert

O.91/0.61 is 20/23 gauge. Yes, Reynolds made that. There was never any such thing as a "standard down tube". Builders chose what they wanted. If builders did not find what they wanted Reynolds could be very accommodating. No one was told what standard down tubes were.

Have you ever ridden a skinny fork blade?

Kuromori

This is just patently false. I refer you to page 4 of the 1940's catalog, page 2 of the 1950's catalog, (1960 is omitted only because I can't find a 1960s catalog). 70s catalogs would have indicated the same "typical" or standard tubes alongside 1/7/1 tubes, and to most builders it would have been understood that was the heavy duty option. Once tubesets came out, I don't think you could say with a straight face that 531c wasn't the standard 531 double butted tubeset, especially since it carried main tube dimentions over from earlier "typical" specifications, even being called by Reynolds the "mainstream" and "classic" tubeset.

Ordering non-standard Reynolds was subject to minimum order sizes and additional costs. In most cases where a manufacturer felt compelled to order special tubing, they would go out of their way to advertise it, either in marketing materials or decals (S.R. blades, rapid taper stays, cantiflex, etc.). Is it theoretically possible that a manufacturer ordered a special batch of 1000 tubes that were only slightly different and kept it under wraps instead of just ordering the standard stuff? I guess so. I'm sure Reynolds would have made it for them if they fronted the money for the custom tooling.

I don't know what you're trying to get at going from S.R. to "skinny" now.

63rickert

This has become utterly bizarre. Not even going to try to figure out what is being alleged.

I rode Reynolds frames for decades before ever hearing of 531c. The standard. There were named sets long before 531c and they were various.

Micro builders typically bought tubesets from jobbers, not direct from Reynolds

If Reynolds had the high-handed attitude described above it would have been a great boon to other tube makers. Reynolds did make tiny quantities of special tubes without much of an excuse. I have Cantiflex tubes in one of my bikes. They started life as Club Special tubes, just as in my initial post. When Ron Cooper was authorized to continue building with those Reynolds continued to supply them. How many Cantiflex frames would you imagine Cooper made in a year? I would guess one or two, except when it was zero. This would be forty and fifty years past when Bates was ordering them by the thousand.

Kuromori

You asserted that the most common tube gauge for 531 downtubes was 0.81/0.56/0.81. I disagreed saying the standard downtube was 9/6/9 which you apparently took offense to because apparently there's a "most common" tube and "The standard" but there was no "standard" 531 downtube. 0.91/0.61/0.91 is in fact the "typical" butted downtube found in most Reynolds catalogs. Don't ask me what you're trying to get at with the semantics here. The 0.81/0.56/0.81 individual downtubes have no proof of existence (nor can I find the white whale 3/10 mes constructeur top tube) , and only find their way into the catalogs of the late 70's as part of the 531SL tubeset, which was only available as a set, when other tubes were available individually. Funnily enough, the catalog says 531SL has "wall thickness less than standard"

My point was that the downtube that tended showed up in catalogs was 0.91/0.61/0.91, I suspect that's what ended up on most bikes marked 531 that weren't heavy duty bikes, and the gauge differential may contribute to the ride of a vintage Reynolds bike.

I saw the mention of S.R. blades right after the mention of plush stays, and thought you meant that S.R. blades were particularly plush since the rest of the post was about the thinness of 531 tubing. You confirmed this is what you meant, then when I stated that S.R. blades seem to have been made at the behest of Ernest Russ (of English origin, not "froggy") for the purpose of being strong, not plush, then you changed the topic to "skinny" blades.

I think those topics have been addressed, I'm happy to cite the catalogs supporting this understanding, and I suppose you're free to disbelieve it in favor of some other unnamed source. As far as the topics being changed, I am equally at a loss about what exactly you are trying to allege.

I do not know what you are trying to allege with the tubesets thing. What I was stating is that a 0.91/0.61/0.91 tube was "typical" when builders ordered by the tube, apparently what you call "The standard" but I'm apparently not allowed to call "standard." When Reynolds started pushing tubesets instead of individual tubes, 531 competition (531c) was considered normal double butted 531, and the other tube sets were not considered the "mainstream" or "classic" 531, and for the main tubes at least, appeared to have the same specification as what Reynolds considered "typical" before.

If you order custom tubes from a jobber, then the jobber has to get a custom tube from Reynolds, which only indicates that Reynolds wants to deal in larger quantities. I also do not get what is being alleged here. Reynolds was certainly capable of producing tubes not in their catalogs, but there were standard tubes that found their way into the Reynolds catalogs, and almost certainly the ones primarily carried by stockists and ordered by large manufacturers.

Ron Cooper was probably forced to order a minimum quantity and has been sitting on a stock of them for a while, as many frame builders sit on a stock of tubing. If he was able to order in smaller quantities, it was most likely because it was not actually custom specified by him, but simply used pre-existing tooling. Custom tubes need custom tooling, which is where the high cost and minimum order quantities come from. If Bates had tubes drawn for them before, then they already met that minimum order quantity for a custom tube to justify custom tooling. He was not specifying a new tube, he was gaining access to the cantiflex tooling held by Reynolds. According to "Five Top Tandems" kindly posted by SpeedofLite, in 1976, the minimum order quantity was 1,000 for a non-standard tubeset from Reynolds according to Jack Taylor, and those tubesets seem to have also used legacy tooling. That could have changed in some other decade, and is hardly straight from the horses mouth, but it seems more than reasonable to me unless shown otherwise.

63rickert

Total production of Taylor Cycles was about 9000 machines over 60 years. They had the Super Tourist 531 tubeset decal, the Curved Tube 531 tubeset decal etc. etc.
Taylor tandems were made with all sorts of special tubes from one sample to the next.

How much special tooling is required to make a butted bicycle tube? Will it fit in an ordinary aircraft hangar? Perhaps an entire shipyard is required. Could even be the case that the entire Industrial Midlands are needed to create a bicycle tube.

How much work is required to shift production from 21/24 tubes to 20/23 tubes? Can a battalion of combat engineers finish the job in a fortnight?

63rickert

Reviewing my own email files. Not going to reproduce personal correspondence with a third party but will summarize.

When checking the production date of my Bates (May 1950) with the new marque owner we briefly discussed his somewhat hopeful project to re-launch the brand. Was there a problem getting original spec tubes from Reynolds? No, not at all. They would make a batch of Cantiflex even were it only for a handful of show samples. This would be about five years back.

The problem of course was marketing. No one is going to believe how plush a Diadrant fork is. Or how it can be precise and strong and plush at same time. Those who have never been there always know so much more than those who have.

Kuromori

So basically you're saying you've been there and anyone who disagrees with you hasn't? I asked to see what the basis for your assertions are, and you only try to move goalposts and throw insults.

If you have any actual info on 531, I've love to see it, because researching 531 is a pet project of mine, and there is a lot that wasn't well documented. For example, I'm still looking for that 3/10 mes 531 top tube that I've only seen mentioned in semi-official Reynolds literature just once.