from yet another cool thread about the line between inspiration and swiping.
the original link no longer works.
my voice is boldfaced.
the italicized thoughts are mined from the conversation.


Beauty, Truth, Goodness, Love, etc........
Originality? The question still stands; how would you define the
quality of "original", and is "original" even possible?
 
unless i'm mistaking all the big words here, as far as the recent
unpleasantness goes, there is a certain "originalness" that is a
pegoretti, despite the fact that he, too, is the sum total of his
experiences, muses, and inspirations. atmo, a peg is undeniably
a peg because i (read: all of us) know (or think we know) what
some of those experiences, muses, and inspirations of his are.
but at the end of the day, dario pegoretti is the one creating the
assemblage, and 3 decades of doing the assembling, i believe,
allows for him to be considered an original even though, like
others, he once looked around.

and ps that is about the worst constructed stream of consciousness
i can imagine streaming, but it makes sense to me atmo...
 
Yes, but when an idea is truly original, it has value and is treated like
property. And people don't normally share their valuable property
with others. We don’t usually give away our bikes, houses, land, or
original ideas.

i'm using RPS's post to dovetail my thoughts on all this, because it is
very sensitive and extremely personal.

okay. here are my 2 cents...

atmo dario is one of the few originals, despite the fact that - as has
been noted - we're all the sum of our experiences. in the bicycle
industry, going back at least to the early 70s, dario is a one-hander;
the number of folks that have made the impact on the trade that dario
has can be counted on one hand. atmo, dario has earned his stripes.
here's a text i emailed dario last year in the midst of the tubing project
we were collaborating on. note: i had met dario several years prior
when he came to visit chester. whoa. so, there already was some
history between us before the project began. but in the middle of it
i pinched myself because i realized that i was working with an icon.
i wrote this:

hey dario-issimo...

i just wanted to add a note of thanks to all these emails, and the
phone calls too. the thought of us being "pals"fills me with good feelings.
i first heard your name in the early 90s. i believe it was either from
storino or tim maloney (maloney is an old, old pal of mine from new
jersey). regardless, whoever of the two mentioned your name informed
me that in italy, which was then still the bastion of all great framebuilding
ideas, this man "dario" was the next in line to all the famous tailors who
made the great bicycles through the eras.

since i consider myself an armchair student of these "great men", i
watched throughout the decade and into this century as you have
proven true what my pal (which one, i forget!) predicted would happen.
i watched all the frames that georgio imported, first as giordanas,
and later as pegorettis, and knew that mister dario truly is the best
of all builders.

i often wish i had other skills and more of a curiosity about what is
there in addition to steel. i believe it takes a craftsman with no self-
imposed boundaries to really know what the limits are. i have stayed
safely within the cocoon of steel, and you have tried and succeeded
with so many other material combinations.

as you know from some of our exchanges and the posts i make online,
i am not too impressed from within our industry; i haven't had much
inspiration come from bicycles since the 70s, despite still trying to forge
ahead. but you, dario, are one of the true geniuses of the craft, and i
admire you like you cannot believe. it is my pleasure to call you a friend,
and an honor to be making some of these decisions with you regarding
the future of quality steel tubing.

i want to thank you for all your dedication, for being the one at the
vanguard, and for being the leader of an industry that should always
have italian roots. the bicycle is a beautiful object, and often the
americans can complicate its beauty. it's because of geniuses like
you that the beauty remains.

as we say here, "you are the man!"
ciao, bro'.
e-RICHIE©™®

i s'pose my only point in posting this is to support any notions
that dario's body of work stands on its own, despite the jazz, and
the clapton, and the basquiet, and all the other influences some
of you see in it. he has taken all of his racing, and his art, and his
life experiences, and created something from scratch. that should
be respected atmo.

and let me reiterate what i pm-ed to s------- and he pasted in a recent post:

thanks - before 78, mr masi accused derosa of copying him (nervex ref. 32
lugs, fisher fork parts, etc...) and before masi, i guarantee you that someone
accused him similarly. the public has to look past, WAY PAST, the part where
all of us use a finite supply of similar looking parts and materials in order to
make what looks (from 10 paces, at least) like a frame. to me, as a builder,
it's like accusing guitar makers of all copying one another since they all use
wood. i know you feel me on this!

so you wanna know who's copying, or stealing, or rearranging, or
co-opting? well don't look now and opine. that's shallow imo. wait
a generation, or mebbe 30 years atmo. it kinda sorta takes awhile to
distill it all. in the meanwhile, if you're basing your thoughts on a color
scheme, or a lug window, or a font, that is incredibly superficial atmo.

actually, I was thinking of comments that you've made about that whole
issue -- that on one hand, you've chosen to go one-man, one-shop, because
its the choice that was right and fulfilling for you, but that you didn't think
any less of the italian masters -- like colnago or pinarello -- who decided on
the other route. I hope I'm not remembering and re-stating way out of context.
we've been here before, but heck, let's go there again...better to be a design
house that outsources, or to be the artist-craftsman flying solo? we have
both on the board...hampsten and pacenti in one camp, sachs and kirk in
another. discuss....
 
discuss?
that's too civil.
hey only kidding.
as far as all this goes, i'm solo because i don't want the shackles
that come with the alternative. as far as framebuilding goes, it
depends on the definition of the term. ever since the mtb era, bicycles
in general have been such a well manufactured consumer good. the mtb
makers and market really upped the bar wrt what comes on a decent,
price-point type bicycle. heck, the stepchild to all this is that the role
that builders once filled is/was replaced by the so-called factory bike
with ultegra, or some such creature. don't laugh; it was once unthinkable
that you could race on a store-bought bicycle. and man has that changed.
framebuilders didn't/don't exist for the hard-to-fit crowd (although they
are served, too),they were/are laboratories where the time clock is not
the issue, nor is the price. most of the builders i know and admire are
the ones that simply want to keep the bar high, rather than the price
low, or the volume growing. blah blah i gotta go ride soon.

so to concise-a-lize all this, in the 21st century a builder who wants to
forge ahead either has to have a good base to trade on, or else better
glom on to the entrepreneurial train asap atmo. it'd be real tough to make
it as a loner if you're starting now.