The Great Braze Off Conspiracy
 

I see so many posts about cutting off braze ons/RD hangers that I am about to lose it. I'm putting out a call for photographic evidence of rare and or high end roadies that have gotten this treatment. I know people do this, I just have a hard time believing it's all that common.More than likely it's become an urban legend or BF conspiracy theory type thing. So, lets see all these awesome bikes that have been ***** of their metal bits, I dare you.

My request was for photos, not questions. Thank you for your understanding.

None. but it sure as **** beats another thread about Sugino bottom bracket choices.

Look, before this gets much further, I'm not advocating this practice, nor am I discouraging folks from doing whatever the hell they want to their bikes. I just hear a lot of people making bold statements without photographic documentation. You know how BFers are about photos, and I quote "No pics, didn't happen", so I'm just curious why this rampant classic bicycle destroying talk is never accompanied by a photo. So please, let's not turn this into another "debate" thread, just come with some pictures or don't post. Again, thanks for your understanding.

http://i7.ebayimg.com/01/i/001/29/07/c0ef_1.JPG
Size 58: Vintage Italian - ALAN Super Record Aluminum Frame & Fork
Gipiemme Headset & Mavic Bottom Bracket Included
There are no dings on the frame or fork, only minor scratches & the anodizing has worn off in areas (see pics).
The frame has had all of the braze-ons and derailer hangers removed so it can be set up as a fixed gear or single speed.

The anodizing was removed by sandpaper. ALAN stands for ALuminum ANodized French lugged aluminum frame.

This thread has some evidence your looking for.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=408779

first one i looked at on ebay. if you live and ride in a city, this thread is pointless. they are everywhere.

this one

Neither that ALAN or the Peugeot are particularly high-end bikes. Fortunately people rarely butcher high-end bikes, because people rarely have high-end bikes.

A quick search for "dremel OR hanger" on fixedgeargallery turns up a De Bernardi Cromor, a Colnago Master, and Serotta Colorado within the first 20 hits.

But really, if people want to mess up a bike, it's theirs to do with as they please.

that is sad.
there are certainly more too.
a nice italian looking frame was on the austin craigslist with the braze-on's gone include the der. hanger. guy was probably upgrading to a soma rush or something because his conversion wasn't as cool for that ride to beauty bar.
also saw a cool older cinelli on ebay, my size. but the hanger was gone...

When I converted my '77 MASI to fixed gear, I thought about grinding off the shift lever bosses, rear derailluer hanger, etc. But I couldn't bring myself to do it.

When I was riding it as my main road bike ('82 - '96) I never imagined that I'd make it a fixed gear (that happened in '05). Now, I can't imagine turning it back into a road bike, but all those braze-on bits are staying on . . . just in case there's a bit of future out there that I can't imagine!

Rick / OCRR

If you had brought a grinder to that Masi, a thousand kittens would've died.

Classic and Vintage has a "Numbskull....." thread where people list hilarious, sad, or just plain wrong eBay and CL ads. It's not just grinders that can ruin bikes.

On a similar note... I saw this in the link tradtimbo posted and puked a bit.

Poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor Hetchins

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3178/...86763b18_o.jpg

what one should look like (if you haven't seen one):

http://www.cyclart.com/hetchinsgreenHT.jpg

Not sure about the kittens part bbattle :roflmao2: Still, I'm glad I didn't grind those bits off!

Rick / OCRR

It's true; 500 cat-juggling hipsters would've swarmed into your house and stayed until the deed was done.

http://steelturman.typepad.com/photo...ng_*******.JPG

The proper way to carry your cat:

http://www.josepino.com/humor/catcarrier.jpg

Okay bbattle, You're right :thumb:. The cat-juggling hipsters would have been scary :eek:.

Rick / OCRR

I scoured all these links and threads before making this post(yes, all 14 pages og the C&V posts, which by the way had over 90% photos of intact bikes).
Okay, I let this fester all day and really only saw about half a dozen even remotely decent bikes that got the grinder treatment. The whole internet and less than a dozen examples? I'm pretty confident that this qualifies as an overly exaggerated practice, which in reality is not that prevalent. I'm not trying to be an ***hole, I'm just saying this is not as common as some alarmists would lead us to believe. I'm not counting the repaints as that is something commonly done in the process of C&V restorations. You can't post a photo of a pristine example and assume that the repaint was in similar condition, I don't think anyone is powdercoating a mint condition Hetchins....RD hangers are routinely replaced, as are cable guides and shifter bosses when they are damaged. I must admit the Cyclart link was kind of sad, but nobody hacked off any part of the frame, they just wanted it black, one bike...one bike. I'll reveal my personal thoughts at this point:I choose frames that are old enough to have clamp on cable guides, no bottle bosses and I leave the RD hanger on because I don't think it really detracts from a clean look. I choose frames with battered paintjobs, small dents and such because I don't bomb around on my dress bike, I go fixed wheel for my 7 mile commute and errands. I have only ground on one frame, a 1968 Atala Giro, crappy frame with stamped dropouts and crappy workmanship. I hacked the rack mounts(it had a claw so no RD hanger, probably would chopped it) and cleaned up the globs of brass obscuring the decent looking lugs, painted it flat black and sold it for $250 on CL to finance some of my other projects. IMO, no loss, and it got into the hands of a guy I see riding around town.

I'm happy to see that the world really isn't losing a whole lotta high end Vintage steel to Dremel cut off wheels. If y'all find more pics, I'd be happy to revise my opinion, but as of now I feel safe saying that this "bike ****" more myth than reality. Sorry if this angers you, again this is just my opinion.

You asked for nice bikes that had fallen under the knife, and you got some. Nobody searched the entirety of the internet for you. So now that's not enough examples, and you point out that these ground off items can be replaced, which is certainly true, but unrelated to your initial request.

Sounds to me like you already made up your mind beforehand. If you're really willing to change your position, perhaps you can set the bar in advance rather than after the fact. How many of these bikes would you need to see?

You people need to learn to just let it go. These frames don't last forever anyway. Most people riding conversions end up trashing the frame anyway so who cares how they get modified. There are better frames to build a road bike out of nowadays and most conversion frames stand no chance of getting reconverted to a roadbike anyway. Leave a few for the museums, but the rest can be cut, hacked, modded, 'til there are none left. There are more important things to worry about in life. For god's sake, just let it die.

Are you on drugs?

Okay, it's not as prevalent as some people making it out to be, does that make it a myth? No. It happens. It doesn't happen as often as some people say, but it happens. Myth not busted. Send a letter to Adam and Jamie if you've got a problem with that.

And who are these "alarmists" you speak of? Are there activist groups I don't know about, going around protesting for the preservation of vintage frames from the cruel hands of the mindless fixie masses?

I urge anyone posting top take the time you were going to spend insulting me and search out one picture, a different picture(the same ones keep cropping up again and again), of a hack job. I don't have a real opinion on this matter, I'm for bike love in any form, I never said it doesn't happen. This thread can spiral downward into a bunch of rants, or we can keep it respectful and provide a resource for people to inform themselves before they decide what to do with their bike. Alarmist isn't an insult, it's a description for people who make a big deal out of a small deal. Yes, I'm on drugs, me and Michael Phelps just did some bong rips and swam some laps...

Butchered bikes? Go to C&V. Search on "Drew."

no one has searched "the entirety of the internet" after you posted this less than 24 hours ago. you asked for examples and got 6. not every instance is going to be photographed and posted on the internet, and not every internet posting is going to be found in a basic search for "braze-on removal"

also, "rare" is a subjective term. at what point does a bike become "rare" or "valuable?" if there were 500 made? 5000? how nice does it have to be? what if it's just a nice centurion but it's in great condition because it was sitting in dad's garage for 30 years? if you are expecting 80 examples of colnogos and pinarellos under the knife, you aren't going to find it, but there are many, many NICE bikes that have been stripped of their hangers and braze-ons

i would also say that while the action itself may not be widespread, the THOUGHT of it is more commonly brought up than the action itself. i see WAAAAAAY more posts that say "i'm thinking of stripping the braze-ons off of this frame" and then people tell them not to than posts saying "i just stripped the braze-ons off of this frame" if you tell anyone who constantly stands in defense of something "i don't understand what you are so up in arms for, i don't see many examples of ____" they will probably reply "yeah, because we're doing our job"

Please don't tell me to search here or there, I have, that's why I started this thread, because all the posts about this are filled with the same 5 or 6 photos of grinder fodder, and a whole bunch of "look how good my bike looks with braze ons" responses. It is widely accepted in BF that posts without pictures don't mean ****. Post some pictures if you know they are there. Please don't post unless you're including an image.