An American Constructeur And The Champion He Married

When I first became aware of custom frame builders, I thought constructeur was just a French term for "builder", just as gruppo is Italian for "group."

In time, I would learn just what a fine art translation is.  "Gruppo" might indeed look like "group", but its real meaning, I believe, is more like like "ensemble".  Likewise, although we may talk about the "construction" of a frame made by a "builder", and we may talk about the "build" of something made by a constructeur, builders and constructeurs are not always the same folks.  Or, to be more exact, a constructeur is a builder but a builder may or may not be a constructeur. 

So what is the difference?  Usually, frame builders (such as the classic British builders like Bob Jackson, Jack Taylor, Mercian and Ephgraves) built just the frame and perhaps one or two components, such as an integrated headset.  As often as not, people buy just the frame from the builder and build (or have a local shop build) the bike from it.  Some builders don't offer complete bikes; those that do will use high-quality components from manufacturers like Campagnolo, Mavic and Shimano to complete the bike.

On the other hand, a constructeur usually offers only complete bikes made to the customer's order.  While the constructeur might use, for example, Mavic rims and DT spokes, he might lace them to a hub he makes (or at least designs) himself.  And if he doesn't make or design those components, he may modify or treat them (as Herse famously did with Brooks saddles) to his specifications.

The term is French for a reason:  The idea of a frame-builder building the whole (or most of) the bicycle has had the most currency in France.  So, not surprisingly, most constructeurs are/were indeed French, or at least worked in France. 

Most, but not all.  A few British builders emulated the practices of French constructeurs.  Jack Taylor might be the most notable example:  He was often called "the most French" of English builders, in part because of his style of building frames, but also because he usually built the complete bike for the customer.  Part of the reason why he may have worked as he did was that many of his bikes (and, perhaps, the ones for which he was most noted) were touring and racing tandems, for which most commercially-available parts were not well-suited.

Believe it or not, at least one American bike-builder might be regarded as a constructeur in the manner of Herse or Singer.  Actually, the Yank in question could have put his French counterparts to shame in at least one way:  He actually made the tubing he used to build his bikes.  Herse, Singer and  other constructeurs usually worked with Reynolds or other high-quality tubing available from manufacturers.

So who is this master designer/craftsman/artisan?  Unless you are of a certain age and, unlike your peers, were a cyclist or bike enthusiast in your youth, you probably don't know about him.  I'll admit that I didn't, until recently.

George Omelenchuk (1920-1994) was a skilled machinist, tool and die maker and watch maker.  He was also a photographer who, while on active duty during World War II, developed his pictures in a small tent, using his helmet for a developer and stop bath.  (Would you try that at home?)  It was during the War that he started to build bicycles--for the US Army cycling team. 

Upon returning to civilian life, he continued to build bikes.  Some would say he was not a very prolific builder, having made only about 50 bikes during his lifetime.  But when you realize that in his shop, he used a proprietary extrusion process to  make his own frame tubing, spokes and rims--and that he cast and forged stems, fork crowns, dropouts, pedals hubs and bearing races, and even did his own chrome-plating--it almost seems a miracle that he made as many bikes as he did, while never abandoning his machining or tool-and-die- and watch-making work.

He made some of his bikes--like the 1960 track machine in the photos--for his wife Jeanne (nee Robinson, 1931-2008), the first woman to win national championships in two major sports:  cycling and speed skating.  She won her first cycling championship as a 20-year-old in 1952 and her final one twenty-eight years later, with three other national championships during that span.  In the meantime, she also skated on the first women's Olympic speed-skating team in 1960 and returned in 1968 and 1972, making her, to this day, the only woman to participate in three Olympiads as a speed skater. 

Jeanne (Robinson) Omelenchuk, (on left), 1951

She raced and skated at a time when female athletes, especially in the sports in which she competed, had far fewer opportunities and received much less recognition than their male counterparts.  Her husband was, in essence, a constructeur during a time and in a place when few adults rode bicycles and even fewer rode, let alone built, bikes like his.  In this sense, they might be seen as a pioneering couple in American cycling.

George and Jeanne, circa 1964.

Oh, and they lived and worked in Detroit.  Although it's still thought of as "Motor City", the "D" has long been one of America's cycling centers, with a disproportionate share of the nation's cycle industry as well as cyclists.  In fact, local racers such the Simeses  and Gene Porteusi did much to keep the cycling torch flickering, if not burning, during the Dark Ages of the 1950s.

I would love to see an Omelenchuk bike in person  .Better yet, I'd love to ride one!

(N.B.:  The bike photos were taken by Ken Denny, who now owns the bike, and are found on Fixed Gear Gallery.)

Given The Choice, I Would Ride...

Having spent four decades as a devoted cyclist, and having worked in bike shops, I've seen lots of bikes come and go.  I have worked on bikes, parts and accessories made by companies that no longer exist (or, in some cases, by people long dead or who stopped for whatever reasons).  Some richly deserved to be tossed into the dust pail of history; others should have been put in the recycle bin or, at least, the parts box.  

Of course, I took a few "test" rides on interesting bikes I repaired, maintained and assembled.  But there are many more that I never got to ride.  If someone asked me what bike, no longer made, I would ride if given the chance, I'd have to spend a lot of time thinking about it.  A classic velo from a constructeur like Rene Herse or Jo Routens would be high on my list.  So would something from Jack Taylor, especially a tandem.  (Of course, I might not be in a position to truly appreciate it, as I haven't ridden tandems very much!) I'd also be curious to try an early Schwinn Paramount or Colnago as well as some bikes from Americans who built bikes for the six-day racers.  Finally, I'd like to ride some very early Mercians (they started building in 1946) and compare them to more recent ones and, of course, my own.

But if someone were to ask me what part or component I'd like to try, the answer would be much easier:  a Nivex derailleur.  I have grown especially curious about it since "The Retrogrouch" wrote a post on his blog about it and in the most recent Bicycle Quarterly, Jan Heine described the one he installed on his "Rene Herse", built in 2011.  Even he admits that its advantages weren't worth the time and effort he had to put into finding parts for, and rebuilding, the mechanism.  Still, his and "Retrogrouch"'s description of it have fascinated me.

Classic Nivex rear derailleur on Alex Singer bike.  From the Bicycle Quarterly Press

I actually saw one or two--or, at least, derailleurs that closely resembled it--when I worked in shops and the first two times I toured in France.  It makes sense:  Those tours were in 1980 and 1984, and I started working in bike shops in 1975.  Dedicated cyclists, especially in Europe, have tended to keep bikes they like for longer than people keep cars and other items.  So it makes sense that there were still cyclists--mostly of a certain age--riding on bikes from the 1930's, '40's and '50's, when the Nivex was produced.  And, because of its rugged construction (mostly from steel) and design (mounted under the chainstay), it tends to last a long time.  

I think there are several reasons why they fell into disuse.  One, of course, is that the supply dried up.  But more important, once Campagnolo introduced its Gran Sport derailleur--one of the first parallelogram derailleurs made to mount on the rear dropout--bike builders made their frames with dropouts for derailleurs like it rather than the bracket brazed on the chainstay that Nivex and derailleurs like it required.  And other derailleur makers, most notably Huret and Simplex, followed Campagnolo's lead.  Also, as more bikes were spec'd with derailleurs that mounted on the dropout, and more cyclists rode with them, people--including mechanics--forgot how to use, maintain and repair the Nivex.  Finally, as production of Nivex derailleurs and others like it ceased and it fell into disuse, parts for it--and, just as important, the hubs, freewheels and companion components that maximized the advantages of the derailleur--became more difficult to find, especially in the days before eBay.  

(These days, you can go to eBay.  But if you do, be prepared to pay for Nivex and other classic French parts, as they are prized by Japanese collectors!)

From what Jan Heine and "The Retrogrouch" have said, the Nivex derailleur offered all of the advantages other derailleur makers would later try to achieve with spring-loaded top pivot bolts, dropped parallelograms, slant parallelograms and indexing.  That is the reason I'd love to try one.  But I don't think I'd order a bike, as Jan did, that's made for it simply because of the difficulties I mentioned earlier.  

SunTour S-1

One of the few recent attempts to make a derailleur that, in any way, mimicked the Nivex is the SunTour  S-1 of the early 1990's.  "Retrogrouch" said that, to his knowledge, the only bike to come equipped with it was the 1993 Schwinn Criss Cross.  (My Criss Cross, from a year earlier, had SunTour "Accushift" derailleurs and indexed levers mounted on the handlebars.)  Even though, from all accounts, it worked well enough, shop owners and mechanics complained about it and customers didn't want it because it differed from the standards of the time.  Plus, Shimano so thoroughly dominated the market by that time that any other company--especially one that was on the ropes, as SunTour clearly was by that time--would have had a difficult time introducing a "new" concept.  (Most people at that time didn't know about Nivex.)  As far as I know, nobody bought the S-1 as a replacement part because it couldn't be retrofitted to most bikes, which lacked the necessary brazed-on chainstay boss. Perhaps one could improvise a mounting bracket, but who would have taken the time to do that?

Anyway, I would like to ride a Nivex one day.  Jan, if I'm ever out your way, could I borrow your bike for a while?  I may even give you my PMP crank for the privilege! ;-)

The End Of A Legend: R.I.P. Jack Taylor

Last week, I wrote a post about a Jack Taylor "Rough Stuff" bicycle designed in the 1950s and built, apparently, during the 1970s.

Jack Taylor (l) with brothers Ken and Norman

Well, the man whose name that bike bore died on Sunday.  Jack Taylor, who started building bicycles as a teenager in 1936.  At the time, he raced in the then-vibrant club racing scene in his native England.  According to legend (who started it, I don't know), he admired some high-end equipment but couldn't afford it.  So he set out to making it himself.

In the beginning, his friends Lance Bell and Jack Hood helped him.  At the end of the war, in 1945, his brothers Ken and Norman joined him to form Jack  Taylor Cycles.  Interestingly, Norman would come to be the actual frame-builder and Ken would build wheels, assemble the bikes and box them for shipping.  On each of those boxes--many of which went to the USA--Ken wrote, "Have a nice ride".  If I were a collector, I'd probably want one of those boxes almost as much as I'd want one of their bikes!

Jack, however, was the one who ensured you could tell a Jack Taylor--whether a racing, touring or "rough stuff" bike, or a tandem--from any other.  He's the one who gave the bikes their beautiful paint finishes and the box pinstriping that became his "signature", if you will.

That Jack Taylor stood out in a time and country with so many first-rate bike builders is a testament to, not only his (and his brothers') workmanship, but the ride and designs of their bikes.  They used geometries and configurations (such as curved seat tubes) that were previously all but unknown.  Among those configurations is the "Rough Stuff" frame I showed in my earlier post:  It has most of the major design elements of a modern mountain bike (high bottom bracket, sloping top tube, smaller-than-700C wheels) but was designed two decades before Gary Fisher, Joe Breeze, Keith Bontrager and the mountain-bike pioneers started barreling down Marin County fire trails on old Schwinn balloon-tired bombers.

Perhaps the most interesting Jack Taylor bikes--and the ones for which he is most renowned--are his touring bikes and tandems.  Those bikes are also the reason why JT was often called "the most French" of English bike builders.  The features that made them so well-suited to their purposes were adapted from constructeurs like Rene Herse, Alex Singer and Goeland:  frame geometries, integrated racks and fenders, oversized headsets and down tubes and brazed-on cantilever brakes, which hadn't been used much in England before JT started using them.

Many Taylor bikes (of all kinds) were also built without lugs in a technique called "filet brazing" or "bronze welding" which made the frames look as if they were sculpted from one piece of metal and polished.  (My  old Land Shark was constructed that way.)  Jack admitted that, as much as it made some of his bikes look as if they were built by one of the constructeurs, he did it because lugs and some other materials were scarce during the years just after the war.  However, even after he had an easier time finding the lugs he liked, he continued to make many of his bikes without them. Sometimes customers preferred them that way. But, more important, it allowed for greater flexibility in design:  an especially important point when building tandems.

Just about all Jack Taylors were built from Reynolds 531 tubing.  Jack developed a close relationship with the company.  For one thing, it guaranteed his supply.  But more important, it meant that Reynolds would make variations on their tubing--such as the curved and oversized tubes--to suit Taylors' unique designs.  In fact, Reynolds made some configurations of their tubing for Jack Taylor an no one else.

Jack retired in 1990, but Norman--who died six years ago at the age of 84--continued to build frames for another decade or so.  They had the same build quality as the older bikes, but because the paint and finish work was outsourced, they did not have the unique, distinctive beauty of the earlier bikes.

So goes another legend of the cycling world.  You can read another tribute (possibly better than mine) on a favorite blog of mine:  The Retrogrouch.