cunningham's bikes...

[mikee]

that mantis pic has made my day a lot better

nearly smiling now

charlies alloy bikes
did they crack like other early alloy offerings ?

 

[GoldenEraMTB]

ok, I've got a couple hours of sleep; thanks for noting my obvious mixup, but any comments on the rest of what I wrote? I still stand by my theory of small hand made bike shops coming into a relative boom in this poor economy, due to a small number of independent larger bike manufacturers, with many of the same product offerings, and the internet.
The NAHBS was massive this year; just one of many sites that offered coverage on it; not to mention the nahbs FB page, etc...
http://urbanvelo.org/nahbs/

Also, did't Klein, (is it joe or Gary; I'm so bad with first names?), do the sloping top tubes and large diameter aluminum tubing first, and Mr. Charlie Cunningham, went up to learn from him? Thought I read that somewhere. Then, from the eastcoast, Cannondale (crackandfail?), brought sloping top tubes (not as sloping) and large diameter aluminum tubing to the masses... Anywho, he (CC), definitely took it further, along with all the components, but did not have the marketing of Klein and Cannondale, and perhaps didn't want it???

Experts, chime in, please, or I'll have to call him Richard again

 

[FairfaxPat]

Charlie's bikes were completely hand made, not suitable for mass production, and that's how he wanted it. I doubt that he learned anything from Gary Klein-rather the opposite is more likely to be true. Here's a pic. I took of him in his Retrobike jersey, plus one of CC and me with CC's current ride, which is his old bike with a newer fork and 29er front wheel. Pat

 

[bushpig]

First, there is a bunch of information and magazine scans on cunninghambikes.com. I have a bunch of pics I need to upload there, but there is a lot already.

Charlie was inspired by Klein roadbikes (and had a lot of aero engineering education) and so after some steel bikes, built his first mountain bike from aluminum. It was built in the late 70s so there really weren't any others even close to it. Klein did not make mountainbikes nor do I imagine did they have any plans to.

Charlie did a lot of consulting work, including with Cannondale.

Charlie's bikes don't crack like Yetis or Manitous. His were heavier but were built for a lifetime of use (and also built decades earlier).

There were some ideas at mass building Cunningham designed bikes, but nothing that satisfied Charlie's quality requirements. The Phoenixes, which are really like a steel, Steve Potts built Cunningham, are the closed to a mass built Cunningham.

 

[GoldenEraMTB]

Charlie's bikes were completely hand made, not suitable for mass production, and that's how he wanted it. I doubt that he learned anything from Gary Klein-rather the opposite is more likely to be true. Here's a pic. I took of him in his Retrobike jersey, plus one of CC and me with CC's current ride, which is his old bike with a newer fork and 29er front wheel. Pat

Thanks for the response. I'm just going off what I've read in various places online, but you have first hand information, which is usually better. Cool pics.

So then, I doubt there would've been many built bikes lying around to send to the various mags for test rides/long term demos, though I'm sure they would've loved to have one