17 October, 2006

Frame Geometry and Goeland

Two web sites have caught my eye recently and are well worth sharing.

The first is Dave Mann's Bike Geometry Project. Dave says: "The goal of my bike geometry project is to collect as many road bike geometries as is practically possible and to make them available to others who might be interested. This project is being driven by a) my own curiosity on the subject and b) my hunch that most bike frames made today are variations of older designs."

He puts all frames into eight basic classes and aims to show how most bikes are simply variations on these designs. It's worth downloading Dave's spread sheet which is fascinating to study. And you can help the project by providing the geometries of your bikes.



I've always enjoyed EBykr's Bicycle Artistry site, but the current article on Goeland bikes really caught my attention. I was struck that Louis Moire, the man behind Goeland, had a vision for the company that is much like my vision for Velo Orange. Goeland bikes were often alternatives to the super expensive Herse and Singer bikes. By using outside builders and compromising on fancy details and some components, Louis Moire was able to build construteur bikes for, if not the masses, at least for a wider audience.

Be sure to read EByker's previous articles. Also look through the photographs; there are some wonderful details there. For example, notice how the old French bag in the photo on the right opens from the front, just like an Ostrich bag.

6 comments:

crawley said...

I started following ebyker's blog recently and was very impressed. Alot of interesting information and beautiful photography.

As far as using less expensive gruppos and stuff to achieve a lower selling price goes, all those Goelands he offers pictures of are still really tricked out.

On another(lower) level of course are the bikes Ben Lawee imported. He used the same philosophy of using mid-priced gruppos on his imports to have a lower price.

Don't get me wrong. I'm certainly not comparing Goelands to Univegas. I'm comparing the ideals.
Very smart ones.

Anonymous said...

I think you mean Ben Olken, owner of Lawee Inc and owner of The Bicycle Exchange, a retail shop on Harvard Square.

Ben was my hero in the industry.

I found his son recently and we've been talking about Ben and Lawee.

I've got a little Univega SIG going if anyone is interested.

crawley said...

SIG? im interested, what's an SIG?
contact me through my "crawley said" link.

Unknown said...

I'm having issues acessing Dave Mann's page. Would you have a backup of his spreadsheet?

VeloOrange said...

Nope.

Eric said...

Assuming you meant Dave Mann's "Spocalc.xls" spreadsheet, here is a copy available online:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1u7Aink9_jztYHv9o0mJx-SCbGa5GAVYerTyZu4-53N8/

Happy tailwinds,
Eric from Ebykr