On Wednesday, January 8, 2014 7:03:09 PM UTC-8, Philip Williamson wrote: > > Did all French builders use the TT stays? > > > Peugeot made many women's bikes with a single dropped top tube, but no extra rear stays. In the 1980s, their inexpensive models had the twin diagonal stays, but the more expensive, performance-oriented women's model had the single, dropped top tube. I suspect the single dropped tube was influenced by the fashion for Italian bikes. Many Italian makers offered frames of this type. (In Germany where I grew up, it was very unusual even for a "sporting" woman to ride a "men's frame", so you saw these Italian frames, outfitted with Campagnolo components, on training rides.)
I've often wondered about the ride of these women's bikes. From a basic engineering perspective, I understand the idea that ending a tube in the middle of another tube is a big no-no – you want triangulation. That clearly is what Reyhand was thinking when he developed the model with the extra rear stays, which transmit the loads of the diagonal tube to the rear dropouts. On the other hand, the flexing of the seat tube (on the Italian frames) could provide a little suspension, which might not be bad. Then you have all the issues of frame flex and planing... where a "compact" frame (since that is what the Reyhand style was, if you remove the uppermost set of seat stays) might be stiffer than perhaps ideal for its rider. Jan Heine Editor Bicycle Quarterly www.bikequarterly.com Follow our blog at www.janheine.wordpress.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
