mpetry912 

too bad the "death ride" is no more.

/markp

saulgoldie

I kept mine for the "museum." I replaced it with the Tange chro-mo fork that Viscount paid for so more people wouldn't die. The rest of the bike is another "adventure." Naturally, I replaced all the parts with "real" parts. Those Lanbert/Viscount parts were crap. And the bottom bracket. The sealed, pressed in proprietary sealed BB that had grit in it. Tapped it out to Italian threads and installed a normal BB.

chain_whipped

Go for it.. ha.
Have or had just about everything listed so far on this thread, then just today I was ready to ride and thought about these brake pads. 100% original 1st version Scott-Matthauser Superbrake / finned with bonded pads. Hilarious, bombing descents, inhaling dry gravel paths.
PS. Don't overthink or fear these brakes. Have another set which I peeled the rubber off, scuff sanded the backsides and used a Loctite superglue bonding agent for rubber to metal and can take a decent higher temp.

1st gen Scott-Matth. Superbrake vented shoes / pads

Robvolz 

funny, digging through the junk/bike part drawer I came across some NiB Scott-Matthauser Superbrake pads. I meant to add them to the list. (Those pads just fall off they said)

P!N20

mpetry912 

they were not quite that bad. But over many years, the epoxy that held the pad to the finned backing plate

would sometimes fail. I had one fail, the pad fell off.

I think I am going to build a bike with all the "death" parts - death fork, death stem, death pads.... and then ride the "death ride" route.

Like a black cat walking across a broken mirror under a folding ladder

bring it on

/markp

stoneageyosh

Are you referring to the ride from Henshey’s parking lot in Santa Monica to Trancas Market in Malibu? The one new wannabe’s with inflated perceptions of their cycling abilities were invited on to teach them a little humility?
That was a great ride because of the quality of riders that could show up. Local nobodies to national champions and Olympic and national team members.
The base route to Trancas was 21 miles on Pacific Coast Highway. Average speed for that stretch on a good, not too much headwind, day was about 30 mph with some days even faster. Some riders would continue up the coast or go into the hills to get in some real miles. A lot would take a break and roll back to Santa Monica with a tailwind.
It was a ride where you could find out if you could hang with the big dogs or not. Probably made a lot of guys decide that racing bikes was not in their future.

stoneageyosh

To get this back on track, some parts that would have qualified BITD of real big time steroid, plus other mystery performance boosters, use were some that everyone else had no problem with.
Cinelli steel track bars and stem
Replaced with much heavier steel pieces
Cheerfully replaced by Campagnolo tech support:
Campy Superleggera track pedals
Alloy plates got ripped off and replaced with:
Campy steel track pedals
Rear plates pulled, bent almost broken off

georges1

I still have a raleigh systeme u from 1991 in 753 and no cracks on it. One of my best friends who used to ride in the same group than me many years ago has a Rebiai Reynolds 753 custom made frame that he upgraded with dura ace 7900 components and never had an issue with it.

georges1

The campy delta brakes because they weren't as good as the double pivot brakes. Yet equipped with Kool stop pads they do the job, but I would rather vouch my confidence a to a shimano dura ace BR7403 or the very first gen of campy record dual pivot non skeleton brakes. Campy record and chorus full carbon ergopower, which in case of crash are not fixable, that must be also the case of the sti durace 7900, 9000 and 9100 , sti Ultegra 6700, 6800 and 8000.

georges1

Those were prone to failure indeed.

stoneageyosh

Rattled the cranium and what fell out is the Windsor Professional frames from the early 70’s. Down tube failures at the bottom bracket. Columbus SL that appeared to have been overheated.

stoneageyosh

QUOTE=Chuckk;22927443]
The only cracked frame I have is 753 Reynolds, and I have heard of others doing it too.[/QUOTE]

I have the first and maybe only 753 frame built by Dave Tesch in 1984. Never had any indication of tube problems.
Before he could buy a tubeset, Dave had to braze up a 753 test kit from Reynolds and return it to them to be tested. It was to assure that who they sold 753 tubes could braze them without compromising the strength of the thinner, heat treated tubes.
My suspicion is some builders didn’t want to take the time or care required and that some larger builders might have had one or two people qualify, then had others do some or all of the production work.
Tube failures due to overheating can happen with a variety of high strength steels. Thinner tubes make it more likely.

georges1

In order to be a Reynolds 753 certified builder you had to silver braze a whole frame and not many builders were Reynolds 753 certified back in the day. But the 753 was also an expensive manganese molybdenium material, reason why it was replaced in 1994 by the 853 which could be brazed, welded and filet brazed without the necessity to get the special certification. Genius tubing was also a problem because if the rider was too heavy or the frame not properly welded, it could break. Since Genius also used Differential Butted Shape butts (DBS) a new features in tubesets in which the shape of the butt actually follows the area of the tube where most of the stress is. It came in a different shape on different places on the tubes. Columbus made butted ends on GENIUS shorter, so the whole set was the first one strictly designed for TiG welding. A wide selection of tube thicknesses and diameters allowed GENIUS tubing to be used in many different types of frame types.

vp1337

Not C&V but Miche Supertype seatposts are a cracking experience.

JohnDThompson 

That was the original requirement, but by the early 80's, when I (and Dave Tesch) were brazing 753, they only required sample lugged joints and bottom bracket.

jetboy 

i have an early 753 frame (look equipe) that was cold set to 130 - which everyone swears should not work... but it does and has no problems.

georges1

Interesting, I didn't know that, thanks for sharing

P!N20

Paging @bulgie for 753 certification anecdotes.

bulgie 

Yes, maybe even as early as 1980, though I could be off on the year. I was at R+E Cycles. Frame shop boss Glenn Erickson brazed the sample, and I could about swear it was only a BB shell with two chainstays, maybe a seat tube brazed into it. OK maybe a DT too, but no dropouts, no head tube or toptube. After Glenn was certified, I built a couple frames with 753 because Reynolds didn't explicitly forbid it. We took the certification to mean the shop was certified. We didn't ask for clarification because we preferred to interpret it the way we liked.

Later (mid '90s), sort of on a whim, I got myself certified. That was when I was working at Ti Cycles, and it may have been owner Dave Levy's idea. Maybe he got some sort of brownie points with Reynolds for having another certified builder on the roster? The reason is now lost, filed in the "unretrievable memories" bin. I seem to remember the test was even more abbreviated than the one Glenn E. did fifteen years earlier. I don't remember the details though. Ironically, I don't think I made any more 753 frames after I got certified, though I did a little work on Rivendells at Match when Riv was using 753 OS. That was mostly Curt Goodrich and Martin Tweedy though, I was transitioning outta there by the time we started making Rivs. Bossman Tim Isaac kindly let me use his frame shop for my own stuff for a while after I was no longer on the payroll — super cool boss. I think it was only a few more months later that Match closed shop completely.

After I exited the bike biz, I collected a few sets of 753 road and off-road tubes whenever they came up for small money, and look forward to turning them into rocketships. I'm-a gonna make that damn certification pay off dammit! At least one for Laurie and one for me anyway. Making for customers would be a whole thing, getting product liability insurance being the big hurdle, might be too expensive. Stay tuned!

Uh, whoops, what was the thread about? Sorry. I wasn't reading this thread but I got the notification that I have been @ mentioned, by P!N20 — thanks for that.

Mark B

Robvolz 

Was the 753 replaced with 853, because it was less finicky to work with?

steelbikeguy

Bicycle Guide did an article about a Hollands frame built with the new 853 tubing back in 1996. It's not a direct answer to your question, but is sort of a fun insight into the thinking at that time.
The short answer is that it had another form of heat treatment (which I don't understand) that wouldn't be affected by typical brazing or welding temperatures.

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Steve in Peoria

bulgie 

Well I'd say the main attraction of 853 is how much stronger it is. Less finicky in some ways but more so in others.

It's so strong that reaming after welding is not practical with normal (HSS) reamers, it dulls them quickly. So we used a 'lesser' Cr-Mo head tube, specifically so it could be reamed, and we honed the seat tube instead of reaming. Not a flex-hone, but a real cylinder hone, a large rigid expensive tool, too expensive even for most small framebuilding shops. Definitely not going to be found in a hobbyist's garage.

Having aligned maybe a thousand frames by hand (often with added leverage — "cheater bars"), I had a finely calibrated feel for how strong a frame was. I can tell ya for sure, 853 is the real deal. Not just a little stronger.

It does still have a weakened (tempered) zone some small distance from the joint, but even its weak spot is stronger than Cr-Mo or 531.

Mark B

gugie 

Whatchootalkin' 'bout Willis? The Death Ride is alive and well.

https://deathride.com/

gugie 

When I read about some super steel being stiffer for any reason or another, I think of my youth growing up on a dairy farm.