merziac

I strongly believe Richard and Co. did an amazing job.

Cranked out a fantastic amount of great work.

Payed what it should have paid for getting it done.

Despite his commentary to the contrary, furthered a storied legacy that very much still deserved to be and made his own indelible mark as well.

Many, many have failed miserably in this kind of endeavor, Richard will not have been one of them.

I applaud him and am very glad he stayed the course.

Rocket-Sauce 

"Gravitationally attractive"

TenGrainBread 

Sounds like the same "back in my day" ramblings said by every generation of their successor, with no data or real evidence to back it up. Many hardworking and curious young people out there wouldn't appreciate your blanket statement.
Assuming an average birth date on this forum of ~1950-60, the graduation rates for that generation were ~13% for high school and ~65% for college. Today the rates are ~38% and ~91% respectively. The younger generation is smarter and more diligent than ever.
There are also more custom framebuilders currently than in the history of this country. So let's not attribute Waterford's closing to the work ethic of the current generation.

John E

I'll buy your argument. It is always dangerous to dwell in generalizations and one-size-fits-all "solutions" to anything. I am pleased that my sons got good university educations and have gone on to successful careers and great family values. I am equally pleased that my elder son's two boys are doing well in gradeschool and appear to have a genuine love of learning. I try to instill the same work ethic and love of learning among my students.

merziac

Yeah, I know its a broken record type of statement and I really only have my own experience to go on.

After 10 years working in Environmental services at a major hospital and 25 years before that as an ASE and fomoco Senior Master technician and having trained and watched plenty of onboarding that many don't truly want to dig in and learn the harder more challenging aspects of either vocation.

I will say this is not exclusive to the younger generations but it seems to be more prevalent with them now days and increasing.

The hard part of any job is the most important as it is the part that solves the challenge.

Trakhak

Also, graduation rates might not be as reliable an indication of the willingness of students to work hard as they appear. Many localities put pressure on school systems, threatening to cut budgets unless they show improving student statistics. As a consequence, some school districts index teacher pay and advancement to student grades, which in turn puts great pressure on teachers to inflate those grades.

Atlas Shrugged

C&V is a safe place to denigrate modern bikes and technologies but sometimes it bleeds out to a generalized good old-days narrative not based on any sense of reality.

iab

The old trope you bring certainly does not elevate the conversation.

But I really doubt you see the irony. Carryon.

bikingshearer 

I agree with about 95% of what you say. Every generation thinks the one ahead of it is full of old fuddy-duddies and the generation behind them is full of slackers who don't understand the value of hard work and are making the world go to hell in a hand basket. (Every generation also thinks it invented sex.) And every generation is wrong. Every generation has its own set of challenges, some that mirror prior generations' challenges and some that are brand new.

The one thing I will disagree with is that the "younger generations is smarter . . . than ever." Today's youth are every bit as dumb as we were at their age. They have immediate access to waaaaay more information, but knowing a lot of information is not the same thing as intelligence. Their CPUs are do not fully mature any faster than ours or any other generation's did. Today's average 18 year old is every bit as capable of doing amazingly stupid things as we were, and every 22 year old is only marginally better just as was the case with us. That does not make them better or worse, lazier or harder working, or smarter or dumber than us, it makes them pretty much the same as us, but with some different challenges

Atlas Shrugged

You must be new around here. Worn out tropes is what these forums are all about. I mean there is a BF language that has developed around them, crabon and assplode is just a start.

merziac

I didn't, you did so lets not put words in my mouth, I was simply piggy backing off Johns comment as I'm a big fan of that quote, it wasn't directly meant the way you saw it.

TenGrainBread 

Fair enough!

nomadmax 

As always, great video JJ !

jjhabbs 

Gosh,
I go on vacation and check in to find this conversation! LOL.

It's all good

John

bikingshearer 

Yes, a good interview. Based on my limited exposure to him, however, I would expect Richard Schwinn to be a pretty easy interview. He's gregarious and loves to talk about bikes, especially Schwinns and Waterfords. You just put the quarter in him and let him go.

And I mean all of that in a good way and I in no way mean to denigrate the good job you did with him. Just saying that Richard Schwinn is an easier interview than, say, Bruce Gordon would have been..

P.S. Love the t-shirt, John. I have one exactly like it. One of the very few French bike-related things I own.

jjhabbs 

I would agree with your assessment. Richard is easy to talk to. Great guy. However I didn't have to put a quarter in.

John Haboush