It's All About the Bike by Robert Penn

what is called the ‘seat cluster’ — the junction of the seat tube and the top tube. As with lugs, the method of attaching seat stays developed among British and Italian frame-builders during the twentieth century, as a way of distinguishing who built the bike — it was like a signature, and a mark of the pride an artisan took in identifying himself with his work. It is the aesthetic flourish underpinned with practical design that typifies the frame-builder’s artistry.
    The different methods include ‘fastback’, ‘semi-fastback’, ‘Hellenic’ and ‘wishbone’. At Rourke’s, they favour what is widely recognized as the strongest way to attach the seat stays, whereby they are mitred to wrap right around the seat cluster and rejoin above it.
    â€˜The “wrapover” seat stay has been something of a Rourke trademark for the last 30 years,’ Jason said when he’d finished mitring. ‘I’ll be honest: it’s a right headache, but it looks great. At least, we think so.’
    The torch snapped alight again. We flipped our visors down. Jason picked up a fresh filler rod and the flame roared into action on the seat cluster. He worked methodically round the weld, turning the jig, flicking the cable of the torch from beneath his feet, holding the flame steady at the exact distance from the weld. Ten minutes later, the seat stays were on. The torch went out. Jason pulled off his mask and stepped back, inviting me forward with one arm, like a midwife in a maternity ward introducing an overawed father to his child. The frame of my dream bike — the diamond soul — was finished.

2. Drop Bars, Not Bombs

    Steering System
    Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance,
you must keep moving.
    (Albert Einstein)
    In April 1815 the Indonesian volcano Mount Tambora erupted, and continued doing so for three months. An estimated 90,000 people died. It remains the biggest eruption in recorded history. Millions of tons of volcanic ash were blasted into the earth’s upper atmosphere, forming an aerosol veil that shut out solar radiation across Europe and North America. The sun disappeared, rainfall increased and average temperatures fell several degrees. It is probably the most dramatic incident of global cooling the world has ever known.
    The social ramifications were immense. In New England there were blizzards in July. Many farmers were wiped out, prompting both the rapid settlement of New York and expansion into the mid-west. In Ireland, 65,000 starved to death. In England there were food riots and the dramatic colours of the dust-laden sunsets inspired a young landscape artist, J. M. W. Turner. Byron wrote his poem
Darkness.
In Switzerland, the endless winter moved the 18-year-old Mary Shelley to write
Frankenstein.
    In 1816, known as the ‘year without a summer’, the harvestfailed across the Western world. The role of the price of oats was then something like the price of oil today. In southern Germany ‘true famine’ prevailed, according to the historian Carl von Clausewitz. There, farmers who could no longer afford oats to feed their horses, shot them. An eccentric German aristocrat, Baron Karl von Drais de Sauerbronn, a former student of mathematics at Heidelberg University and inventor, witnessed the slaughter. Without horse power, society faced an even graver crisis. Inspired by necessity, Drais realized a dream as old as mankind: he conceived a mechanical horse with wheels.
    The ‘Draisine’ was invented in 1817. It was the first prototype bicycle. Also known as a
‘laufmaschine
(‘running-machine’), it comprised two wooden carriage wheels in line, a wooden bench which the rider straddled, and an elementary steering system. You didn’t pedal. You propelled it by scooting or paddling your feet along the ground: travelling downhill or at speed, you lifted both feet off the ground.

    It was