BoTM July '13 - Muddy Fox vs Orange vs Saracen - Vote Now

[quote="We_are_Stevo"]...does it really matter if a frame was hand rolled on the thigh of some dusky maiden in the Equatorial Americas or some little guy in a sweat stained t-shirt and forage cap in the middle of an Asian rain forest?

/quote]

Yes.
Bikes are a passion. I like them all. Some I like more.

I could care less what car I drive as long as it starts cold and bakes the balonies. No doubt car enthusiasts would look at my little 4 cylinder station wagon and be indifferent. That is ok by me though because cars are not something I care too much about.

Bloomin Engineers! Lack of understanding of basic human physiology

Nice thought though

Whilst I enjoy 'craftsman' produced products as much as the next man, the handful of 'names' past and present only ever turned out a tiny percentage of the lines to bear their name; as soon as the 'hobby' industry grew wings and took flight they were all hawking their wares around the Far Eastern manufacturers to get the best reproduction at the cheapest unit rates to maximise their returns...

...and why not?

We are that small percentage willing to go for that extra little bit! Thats wy we hang out on geeky bicycle forums.

BITD my first three frames were mass produced in Asia. It's number four I fondly remember though. There were no big gains with the extra cash spent, but it was pure bliss.

I thought that once the initial link up with F W Evans was dropped all Saracens were fabricated in the Far East and then assembled (hand built) in the uk - clever marketing long Orange and MF!

In this way Saracen was actually similar to Orange in that they were a uk brand, designed and assembled in the UK.

I was going to say 'tube set' hence the rolling (don't start on extruding, it's far too late for those kind of euphemisms!) but I was typing on my phone and just couldn't be *rsed with the aggro of trying to get the jumpy little edit window to actually go where I wanted it!

Plus which I rather foolishly sliced off the tip of my left thumb the other day whilst removing a recalcitrant bar end plug so my dexterity is currently not what it was!

As for the 'resto' aspect towards old tat we were glad to see the back off (much like the 70's as a whole...) at the time; I do like old cars, particularly Morris Minors, but I wouldn't want one restored to just off the production line condition!

My last Moggy had a Ford 2 litre V4 under the bonnet and Wolfrace Slotmags and was Fun with a capital 'F'

I'm afraid I have the same attitude/approach to bikes, hence why you will never see any Deerhead kit on any of my bikes; it may have been brilliant at the time but so was the 'Hobby Horse...'

...and I don't want one o' them either!

Yup, they were all made in the Far East and, to quote the Saracen catalogue, hand assembled in Saracen's Warwickshire workshop. No British craftsmen were harmed in the making of a Saracen.

Haha glad I started something! (he says, overflowing with pride)

Realistically I know hand crafted shit means something but back in the day I didn't know what was hand crafted and what was made on a production line. And if it weren't for back in the day none of those would mean shit right??

Thing is, if it were not for mass production (which in those days still meant 'hand made' don't forget, just sheer weight of numbers in the form of cheap labour...) the majority of us would still be riding around on lugged steel frames!

3 cheers for the mediocre, without them we'd all still be riding mediocre bikes!!


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