It's been 20 years (give a rotation around the sun) since I, Euro Freddie, first put pen to the Eagle's Cycling Club newsletter. Within the autumn of my cycling career, I have decided to return to the club's literary monthly, discovering that there are still a few more crumbs left in my musette bag.
I realize it's poor form to start with politics in my resurrected column, but with the modern global economy - and its marketing forces dictating standardization throughout the world - I feel it high time to reexamine these mainstreaming practices. What with the recent passing of the UK political referendum, known as Brexit, effectively removing the UK from the EU economy, and with Donald Trump's vitriolic, closed border xenophobia, winning him the US presidential election, I, for one, believe we should reintroduce nationalism back into the frame builder's toolbox - with the celebrated return of French, Italian, and Swiss threads!
Now let’s be perfectly honest here, the French have always claimed their cultural superiority, and no less so than with regards to the fashionable metric pitch of their threads. Yes, French ISO threads will initially thread into English BSC threads, however, about half way in they tend to seize up, leading one prominent conspiracy theorist to believe that the French may have covertly introduced these metric machinations somewhere deep within the English Chunnel, thereby creating devilish traffic jams for UK holidaymakers returning home from vacationing on the continent (and somewhere the French underground sings, "La Marseillaise"…).
Of course Italy wouldn't be Italy without plenty of, shall we say, “screwing gestures”, and impassioned poetics on the boundless virtues of a large bottom (bracket thread diameter). And who in their right mind could resist such gorgeous Mediterranean measurements when it comes to taps and dies? For by and large, Italian threads are considered very agreeable, harmonizing nicely with most English sensibilities. Pedals, headsets, and freewheels swap out with little to no drama. The exception to the rule being, however, the voluptuous but dyslexicly challenged right bottom bracket thread - for when that fat baby strips, the show is truly over!
Then there's the Swiss. Let's just say their historical isolationist philosophy has produced a helical interface incompatible with any other nationality, and, along with alpine yodeling and hikes in lederhosen, should be viewed as simply "quaint". Nice threads Che - Euro Freddie.
Criterium Corner with Euro Freddie