GailT

Beautiful work on the paint and chrome. What handlebars are you using? My Impulse is newer, maybe 1989, with a different fork style and I don't think it would fit tires that large.

rccardr 

Drillium Dude 

Chromed head lugs are quite rare on Bill's bikes. Heck, my orange Davidson has a chromed fork plus rear triangle, but I stopped at chrome head lugs. These look terrific! Same bikini lugs and "DD" fork crown as the other Davidson I sold to @Chombi1 last year.

Very nice example - and nice to hear yours has clearance for real-world tire sizes.

DD

RiddleOfSteel

Yeah, another vote for "beautiful" on that tourer. Dual pivot brakes for the win, because stopping reasonably quickly (or better) is a wonderful thing.

kevincgove

rccardr...The chromed lugs are super classy. Haven't seen one like that. Great job on the restoration!

jamesdak 

Ok Davidson Fans, got a question for you. I just landed a brand new R8000 Ultegra groupset for a crazy silly low price. I'm thinking my Impulse is the perfect candidate for the upgrade. I'll be going from a Shimano 600 8 speed setup to this 11 speed. Not that I can fault the 8 speed setup as my fastest rides of the year were on the Davidson. But I'm thinking the new dark group would give some performance advantage and will look good against the pinkish frame. What say you?

kevincgove

My Davidson is my primary road bike so when I upgraded components this late last year, the 11 speed upgrade for me provided my 54 year old body an easier way to find the right gear for my knees. I went from a 9 speed to 11 speed and a compact crank. So you might find the same advantage. I have a white pearl paint job and the dark components is a great contrast.

due ruote 

merziac

Sounds almost all good to me. I would be inclined to see if the crank you have will work with the new group. Maybe not likely, but I can't stand the new 4 arm mongoloids yet and don't plan too.

Maybe it's just me, love this bike.

kevincgove

What I most appreciate about my Davidson is even after 30 years and a lot of miles it still does everything very well....handling, climbing, stability at speed, road feel, Though I've been tempted at points to go to titanium, carbon,etc. I never regret my decision to just keep upgrading my Davidson. My first and last real road bike.

merziac

No way to go wrong with a Davidson, one of the many stellar PNW builders, nobody anywhere has anything on these guys.

Got any better pics of the dark crank?

kevincgove

Hi Merziac. I don't but here is a stock image of the SRAM Red GXP 11 speed crankset.

merziac

Tx, was hoping to see it better on the bike for a big picture look, no worries, great bike and build.

GailT

Does anyone know if Bill still sells Davidson Impulse decals? I sent an email via Bill's web page but have not had a response yet. I need to repair a seat stay crack, and think it might be better to strip and repaint the entire frame if I can get new decal set.

kevincgove

Here you go. A crappy photo. But you can get a better idea how chunkier cranksets look on a thin tubed lugged frame. Everyone has their opinion about what era "looks" best. Having ridden this bike with down tube 8 speed shifters upgrading over the years to this latest iteration I've enjoyed each look.

kevincgove

GailT. I don't know but I had my bike painted in 2016 and the local painter I used didn't have problems finding decals. Wish you the best with the repair.

merziac

I like it!

SurferRosa

No, he doesn't. I had a similar request recently (damaged frame) and went down to talk to him about it. He did return a follow up email, but maybe only because he remembered my visit. He probably gets a lot of mail from secondary market buyers and can't often respond. He's still building bikes, though. He's really into e-assist these days...

RiddleOfSteel

@jamesdak we have a fellow BF member who put R8000 on his super neon colored Serotta and it looks very good! The crank arm is quite beefy, with 6800 Ultegra being more slender. 8000 is much glossier.

I say yes to putting 8000 Ultegra on your Davidson--it would be a stunner! Well, even more stunning than it currently is!
@kevincgove I have the same era Impulse, and in white. Full 7800 Dura-Ace. Such a brilliant bike! Perfect, really.

But....you guys are giving me absolutely horrible ideas in thinking about upgrading to 6800 or 8000. Gahhhhhh, my Impulse 100% does not need it!!! Even if the wheelset is 11-speed compatible. My '15 CAAD10 Black Inc. Disc is 11-speed (6800) and the 52/36 + 11-28 combo is superb. It's also devastatingly good looking. But this is a Davidson thread. Too many pretty bikes and good components to adorn them!

GailT

Thanks - that's good to know. I wouldn't want to lose the the original decals - especially the space needle. I might try to match the original paint around the repair area.

nlerner

Thought I'd bump this thread with pics of a new build for me: a 1978 Davidson Custom. I posted this in the "where did you ride today" thread but am adding a few more pics here:

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I bought this as a complete bike from rccardr , who bought it from the original owner in WI. I shared these pics with Bob Freeman, who reported that it was likely repainted at the Elliot Bay shop in the mid 80s (late 70s decal style was different than what appears here). I can report that the ride was terrific: good climber, particularly out of the saddle, and stable descender. Definitely a keeper!

jamesdak 

Just thought I'd update my comments on mine a bit. I decided to leave this groupset on it. I looked my logs for this bike and realized it was already given me more top speed paced rides consistently more than anything else I have. So why mess with a good thing? Turned it over to the LBS this fall to redo the gunky cables and housings, switching them to white. The real reason I took it to them though was because I didn't have the tool for that BB. Wanted to get it out as it had seen some water down the seat tube. So that was taken care of as well. Had them hold off on rewrapping the bars as I still haven't decided on if I'm sticking to the same pink, going white, or maybe red. I am leaning towards the pink again. Anyway, here's a later picture from when I threw on some newer wheels and changed out those bottle cages that I just wasn't feeling.



Easily one of my best riding bikes.

RiddleOfSteel

Ultegra 6770 10-speed Di2 update. Best (race) bike gets the best shifting.

bulgie 

I was the main builder of custom Davidsons from '84 to '94. I assisted in making the Impulse, Discovery, Challenge, Double Century, Trackster and Dirt models, but mostly by working out tools, fixtures and methods, and teaching/supervising the other members of the crew. Bill D was not absent -- he did all those things too. It was a collaboration. But he didn't wield the torch much if at all during those years, leaving the actual framebuilding to me and the crew. Most of my time was spent on the customs, which we called the "Signature" model.

Here's the superlight frame I made for wife Laurie in the early '90s, using Tange's crazy-light 0.6/0.3 mm Prestige tubing. As far as I know, the lightest steel tubeset ever made, still to this day. I also trimmed and thinned all the other parts like lugs, BB, crown and dropouts down to the minimum. I made the stays and forkblades lighter by grinding the wall thinner from the outside (on the lathe), in the areas between the ends that get a heat-affected zone, essentially making them double-butted. Got the frame weight down to 1,111 g (under 2.5 lb) and the fork down to 450 g (under 1 lb).

Laurie wasn't racing anymore when I built it, but still rode with racers and hammered it, for about 15 years. She tended to ride it in the rain and then come home and hang it by the front wheel, so any water that got in (like at the slit in the seat lug) drained down to the chainstay at the dropout. Eventually it rusted through there, completely perforated, and the chainstays needed to be replaced. (Ironically it rusted through where I left them full-thickness, not where I thinned them.) That's why in the last picture it doesn't have the two-color paint with contrasting lugs anymore, and the bike is set up with touring gears in that pic. Sorry we never took pix when it was new, all these are when it was "well loved".


See how the brake nut is not counterbored down in flush like most racing bikes? That's because the crown is so thin that you can't put a counterbore there, it would break.
You can just sorta see the custom superlight stem I made for it, in the above picture. Later replaced with a Technomic (sigh) after she turned 60 and didn't want to bend over so much. (Don't laugh, it'll happen to you too some day!



Shimano UF semi-verticals, filed down thinner.


Not bad looking for such an old... bike!

Mark Bulgier
Irony Cycles
Seattle

Chombi1 

Hi Mark,
Looks Gorgeous!!................and the bike too!
I'm the proud owner if a Davidson Signature, I acquired about a year and a half ago from BF member, "Drillium Dude". In fact it's the same bike posted at the start of this thread, by DD.
DD thinks it's an 83, so it could have been built, right before you started working with Bill.
I had come to really appreciate Americsn built bikes from the 70's and 80's like the Davidson as when one looks close at these bikes, they can give even the best bikes from Europe at that time a good run for their money and many times are even better quality. Real but tastefully understated quality, without the "'in your face" graphics, chrome and paint jobs most European bikes had.
The Signature I have sure stood the realest if time with it's ox blood paintjob still looking like it was done yesterday (Imron?)
The short point lugwork was exquisitely done. Scaled so right around the tubes and so delicate looking. I find them refreshing, compared to the usual long point lugwork that was usually the marque of quality hand built frames of the time.
And the ride is just sublime........

Thank you Bill, you and the crew at Davidson Bicycles for creating such excellent bicycles!