Oh, Deer...Or, Qu'est-ce Qu'on Peut Dire?

Around this time every year, two of my uncles took hunting trips.  They and some of their buddies would drive upstate, usually to the Catskills, in pursuit of deer or whatever else they could shoot.  Sometimes they went with bows and arrows; on other trips, they brought rifles.  I would learn that hunting season was delineated not only by the prey (deer, bear, moose) but also weapons (bow or gun).  

On a few occasions, they said they'd "bagged" a "big one" but couldn't bring it home.  (Sounds like a "fish story", doesn't it?)  But I recall one other time they actually brought back a deer carcass and we ate a lot of venison (which I liked) that fall and winter.  Another time, they brought back the antlers.  To this day, I choose to believe that they actually let their buddies take the rest of the animal:  Being the city kid I was (and am), I wouldn't have known whether they bought their "pointers" in some gift shop.

Although it's something I could never do myself, I have always had respect for hunting.  Some of that, of course, ,may simply have been a result of my love for my uncles-- one of whom is my godfather and my only still-living uncle. If nothing else, I came to see that someone who shoots an animal is very, very unlikely to turn his gun on a human being.  Also, I learned that the chase requires self-discipline and a respect for the animal whose trail you are following.  Finally, I have come to realize that a certain amount of hunting is actually necessary, as the animals' natural predators are all but gone in many areas.  Even though the thought of shooting an animal does not appeal to me, I would rather that some animals were shot by sports people than to see many, many more starve and freeze to death during the winter.

Still, I smile on those rare occasions when I see a set of antlers tied to a roof rack.  Honestly, I still couldn't tell you whether they were actually hunted by the vehicle's driver or passengers, or whether they came from some store.

I probably wouldn't care whether or not they were real if they were transported this way:

I mean, really, how can you not respect someone who cycles to the hunting grounds and brings back his or her "trophy" on two wheels?  ;-)

Swords And Ploughshares From Reynolds

Today is Veterans' Day here in the USA.   In other countries, today is Armistice Day.  

While I think veterans, especially those who are disabled, should never want for anything, I think this day--or Memorial Day--should not be a day to celebrate war with chest-thumping displays of nationalistic grandiosity.  (Nor should it be simply another orgy of shopping, as too many other "holidays" have become.)  Rather, I think such days should be occasions to remember who and what we've lost in wars, and ways we can prevent it.

That said, I'm going to talk about the contribution one of the most respected companies in cycling made to a war effort.

I wrote about said company in yesterday's blog post.  Specifically, I wrote about a frame tube set it produced for a few years--and one it made for decades.

That company, Reynolds, still makes some of the most esteemed tubing, which is used by some of the world's best bicycle builders.  My post focused on "708", which it made for a few years and was a descendant of its most iconic product:  531 tubing, which won 24 out of 25 Tours de France after World War II and was used to build high-quality bikes for just about every type of riding and rider for half a century.


As much as it pains me to say this, Reynolds 531 tubing, like many other advances in technology, resulted from military research and development. The company said as much.

Reynolds began manufacturing nails in Birmingham, England in 1841. It thrived in this business but its leaders saw the potential in bicycle fitments, especially after James Starley's "safety" bicycle (with two equally-sized wheels) helped to popularize cycling in the 1880s.  

Its reputation was burnished during the cycling boom of the 1890s, when Reynolds was one of the first companies to make seamless tubing and, not long after, patented the first butted tubing.  The latter development, of course, revolutionized bicycle design because making the ends of the tubes--where most of the stress concentrated--thicker, the walls could be made thinner toward the middle of the tube.  This resulted in frames that were lighter and more resilient than ones that had been made before.  To this day, high-quality frames made from steel, aluminum or titanium have butted tubes.


Reynolds double-butted tubing was such an advancement over other steel tubing available at the time that during World War I, the company was called upon to equip the armed forces.   Its first contracts were for military bicycles and motorcycles, but by 1916, Reynolds tubing was being used for aircraft used in the war.

Aeronautical engineering is, almost by definition, a quest for making things as light and strong as possible.  Those early airplanes had such thin wings and shells because, given the materials of the time, they had to be constructed that way in order for them to be light enough to loft into the air.  Engineers and designers soon realized that they couldn't make those parts thinner without running the risk that they would break apart at the slightest crosswind or impact.  So, the emphasis shifted toward making materials stronger.

That is how Reynolds, and other companies, began to experiment with alloys of steel.   It was known that adding certain elements to the metal strengthened it, which meant that less could be used to achieve the same strength.  By the 1930s, Reynolds upon a particularly good combination consisting of maganese, molybdenum and other elements, in a ratio of approximately five to three to one.  Now you know why it's called Reynolds 531.

During World War II, production of frame tubes was suspended, as Reynolds was once again called upon to make aircraft parts.  After the war ended, 531 production resumed and the "miracle metal" was used in aircraft components, race car chasis and, most famously, bicycles.

Perhaps I am being overly pessimistic in highlighting the fact that Reynolds' technologies had their root in war efforts.  I guess I could see it as an example of "beating swords into ploughshares." That makes it easier to enjoy the ride of my Mercians! 

What Happened To 708?

How can you tell the best bikes from the rest?

For about half a century, the answer was simple:  Look for Reynolds 531 stickers on the frame and fork.  Just about everyone who built frames by hand in the English-speaking world used it. So did the top bikes from the leading manufacturers in those countries, as well as in Continental Europe and Japan.  Even some Cinellis were made from "five-three-one" in the main triangle (and Columbus SP forks and stays) until the mid-1960s.

The reason for this was simple:   Reynolds 531 offered, by far, the best weight-to-strength ratio of any bicycle building material available. Its strength, said to be the result of its composition (made with maganese and molybdenum) allowed it to be drawn paper-thin midway through the length of the tube. That made significantly lighter bikes possible, and the fact that it was "butted" at the ends and seamless meant that it didn't compromise strength.  While other companies made seamless double-butted tubing (which Reynolds first developed), none seemed to achieve quite the balance of responsiveness and comfort of Reynolds 531. Also, it was offered in a dizzying array of configurations to suit just about every kind of rider and riding.

While nearly all of the British builders and manufacturers, and some in France, continued to build mainly or exclusively with Reynolds 531, some in other European countries, as well as the US, shifted to Columbus tubing--or offered bikes made from each brand.  While some claimed that Columbus made for a "stiffer" bike, I think that perception came from the fact it was used mainly to build criterium and track frames, which were the mainstays of high-end Italian bike production.  In contrast, Reynolds 531 was used on a wider variety of bikes, including the touring, audax and randonneuring machines made mainly by British and French builders, but far less often by their Italian counterparts.

In part to compete with Columbus and other tubing companies, and in part as a response to changes in bike-building techniques, Reynolds created new tubing sets, starting with their "753", introduced in 1975.  (See Retrogrouch's excellent article about it.)  Other tube sets followed.  Some, such as the 631 (said to be the successor of 531) and 853, have become mainstays (pun intended) of the bike world.  Others, like the 501, a seamed chrome-molybdenum tubing, were widely used for a number of years on mid- to upper-mid level bikes, including some from Peugeot, Motobecane and Trek as well as British makers like Raleigh and Dawes.  

Then there were other Reynolds products that seemed to come and go pretty quickly.  One example is their "708".

  

I could find very little information about it.  Apparently, it was made for a few years during the 1980s, and it seems not to have been used much, if at all, outside of England.  I could find no reference to it in any American frame builder's or bike manufacturer's literature of that period, and I saw references to just two French bikes--one from Peugeot, the other from Motobecane.  Neither of them, nor any of the British models made from 708, seems to have been exported to the US.  

This tubing differed from others made by Reynolds, as well as other high-quality tube sets from Columbus, Tange, Ishiwata and Vitus, in that it wasn't internally butted at the ends.  Instead, the tubes were made with eight internal ribs running lengthwise inside the tubes, rather like the rifling in a gun barrel. (I know, that's not the most politically-correct analogy to use, especially after the latest election, but it will be useful later.) This was supposed to increase strength and lateral stiffness over butted or straight-gauge tubes.  Reynolds intended for it to be used on touring and other heavy-use bikes,  and the few bikes made from it were of those types.  

Raleigh Randonneur, a bike made from Reynolds 708 tubing. From Retrobike UK.

The few testimonies I've found about bikes made from Reynolds 708 were positive. So why did it come and go as quickly as it did?  One the reasons was brand loyalty--or, more specifically, a product loyalty.  At that time, it seemed, dyed-in-the-wool 531 riders didn't want to try anything else, whether or not it came from Reynolds.  And those who were inclined to try something new were switching over to Columbus or the then-new aluminum bikes.

I can think of one other possible reason why, not only did so few people buy bikes made from 708, but why, apparently, so few (comparatively, anyway) bikes were made from it.  A butted frame tube has the same thickness through the circumference of the tube.  This means that whether the builder or manufacturer brazes or welds the frame tubes together, and whether or not lugs are used, a consistent level of heat can be maintained around the circumference. In contrast, ribbed frame tubes have thick and thin sections, which makes it more difficult to maintain consistent heat levels.  An area that is heated more loses more strength that is heated less.  Thus, I imagine that it would be more difficult to make a strong joint with ribbed than with butted tubes.

Then again, I didn't see any references to collapses or other failures of 708 frames.  That may be a result of the relatively small number that were produced, or of that those few tended to be relatively high-level bikes which were made by more skilled hands than mass-market bikes.

Whether or not 708 had the possible problems I mentioned, it didn't seem to influence bike-making very much.  The only other internally-ribbed frame tubes of which I'm aware were Columbus SLX and the tubing that Miyata made for some of their own bikes. Both were manufactured around the same time as 708 was produced.  I don't know whether either was inspired by 708.  Miyata, though, may have had the idea stored in their institutional memory, if you will:  Before they started making bikes, they made rifles.