Santuario KLEIN

Como nos gusta el Egay ehh

 

Ji ji ji ...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Colnag...624?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item3f1f94ced8

 

jajajaja se lo podría cambiar por mi coche

 

Ese si que debe fumar algo fuerte...

 

Ummm buen precio la Colnago...

 

Muy buenas,

Aquí os dejo una entrevista que he encontrado de Gary Klein,

Se ve que tiene gran amor por Trek :evil:

Un saludo.

GARY KLEIN

AFTER YEARS OF INNOVATION, FAME, AND ENFORCED VACATION, THE BIG-TUBE GENIUS FACES UNCERTAIN FREEDOM.

Gary Klein’s long ride in the bike industry is almost over. The iconic bike designer and innovator, who in 1973 developed the concept of the oversized-tube aluminum frame while an engineering student and bike racer at MIT and went on to introduce groundbreaking Klein road and mountain bikes for the next three decades, has come to a fork in the road. After bringing the bike world the tapered headset, road-bike suspension, massive tubes, wild frame shapes and colors, and a stellar reputation for engineering that to this day has rabid fan clubs around the world, Klein is officially out of the bike industry in September when his contract expires with Trek, which bought his company in 1995.
The once-powerful prestige of the Klein brand was summed up well by a famous late-1980s poster featuring an upside-down photo of a red, big-tubed, pre-STI Klein Quantum strapped to the roof rack of a red Porsche 911 with the headline “It Could Change Your Priorities: The Aluminum Klein.” Skinny steel tubes had ruled for 100 years; not after Klein. His mountain bikes, such as the Klein Adroit ridden by Tinker Juarez in his pre-Cannondale days, became lust objects. In 1994, the radical $3,000 Klein Mantra dual-suspension mountain bike, with its rectangular “fuselage” instead of a frame, was hailed by Mountain Bike magazine as “the sexiest, most-attention-getting, and most-requested test bike” at that year’s Interbike. In 2002, in what would be its last—and unexpectedly muted—hurrah, Klein debuted his radical Pave suspension road bike, which had foam-embedded seat stays that flexed on rough roads.
Now 59 and a grandfather, Klein still lives in Chehalis, Washington, south of Seattle, where he ran his Klein Bikes manufacturing plant until it was shuttered a decade ago. Forgotten by his corporate masters and forbidden from resuscitating his brand, he took up astronomy, got involved in local high school science projects, traveled, raised his family, and continued to ride his beloved Pave on the local chip-seal roads whenever it’s not rainy and freezing, a rare occurrence half the year in the northwest.
Klein doesn’t know what he’ll do after September, but he doesn’t seem too worried about it, other than the lack of health insurance. Here’s our Q & A with a friendly, happy guy who laughs frequently when discussing his long, involuntary exile from the industry he loves.

There are no Klein bikes anymore, and it seems strange. The name is so iconic. There are even Klein clubs.

There’s always some nuts out there. [laughs broadly]

Why aren’t there any Klein bikes anymore? [Long pause]

I don’t know the reason. Trek owns the brand, although they stopped making anything Klein. I have some rights of refusal to purchase it back. But I don’t see that happening.

When were Kleins last made?

I don’t know.

You don’t know—really?

Although I’m still employed by Trek at the moment, I don’t do much. I’ve heard some rumors that when they stopped making Kleins in the U.S., they were still supplying Kleins to Japan. So I don’t know when the brand was terminated.
We had some discussion in 2008 when they were discontinuing the Lemond line about possibly restarting Klein and making it a more major line with Trek. I was hoping; that would have been fun.
I think they were making Kleins in the U.S. up until a couple years ago. They made a carbon-framed model that I’ve never seen [laughs]. People told me about it. I think it was a road bike. Like I said, I haven’t seen it. I don’t know what it was called or anything.

What was your intention when you made the deal with Trek in 1995? Did you want to retire?

Well I have, three daughters. None of them expressed any interest in being in the bike business [laughs a lot]. I’m thinking, ‘What’s the point of going on with this?’ One of the large barriers I constantly had to face was that I was a “tweener” business—too large to be a custom frame builder and too small to be a production bike company. So, being in-between, I struggled with distribution. I had many instances of dealers who wanted to carry our bikes and they put a few on the shelves. We couldn’t offer 120-day terms like Trek, to keep bikes on the floor in winter. We couldn’t do that [laughs]; we didn’t have the kind of financing muscle. We were selling COD to newer dealers and 30 days to ones that were our good dealers. The reps would come in from the big companies, and they would take our products off the shelves and put their own on, more or less.
Us being in this tweener category, it was tough, tough sailing.
I thought that the link-up with Trek would gain us a whole bunch of dealers. We had about 60 international distributors. They took those over, changed some of them. It took a lot of headaches off me.
I thought we would continue to develop and improve the Klein line as we went. My intent was not to shut the business down.

How similar was your deal to that of Gary Fisher (which Trek acquired around the same time)?

Gary had a different orientation with Trek than I did. I was trying to be on the technical side with Trek, doing engineering and design/product development. Gary’s modus operandi was to go out and promote his name, promote bicycling and throw ideas back at Trek on things he’d like to see—like the 29ers.

And you preferred to do engineering?

We would do the details, make the prototypes, and prove it out.
You know, they were making bonded aluminum bikes that were heavy and clunky and didn’t perform all that well. And we were making pretty nice welded aluminum structures and working on better alloys. Just kind of fine-tuning the butting and the processes on them. And we were also doing some nice carbon parts, although they were also doing carbon well in their processes.

It seems like it was the perfect marriage?

Yeah. I merged from the technical side. We were working on the Mantra, and it was a nice collaboration. They ended up making the main tube and we put the rest together.
We really helped them put their aluminum bike up like three notches. They got that from us. Trek made one frame for us, our lowest-end mountain bike frame, which we initially had alignment issues with. We ended up making some of the high-end Trek frames at the Klein plant here in Chehalis.
But I don’t think Trek ever realized how we improved their aluminum—or thought it was important. Today, I think they don’t even make aluminum frames in this country.
One thing I caught in a meeting once was that, ‘We need the bike frame in order to sell the component kit to the customer. The frame is a carrying device for the component set.’ The way Trek look at it is that’s $300 for the component and we sell it for $700. They’re making their profit off the components. We (Klein) were concentrating on the frame.
In my mind, that was what they were getting: the Klein technology, not the brand name. We were a performance-driven product, not a brand like Lemond. But it turns out that Trek management—John Burke—and I had two different views of what the merger was. His view was that he was buying the Klein brand, and my view was that he was buying our technology.

How long did it take to realize that your views about your role differed?

For the first seven years, life for me continued as normal, except for a lot of trips back to Wisconsin [laughs], management meetings and what not. At its largest we had 250 people at the Chehalis plant. Eventually they took over the Aeolus carbon fiber fork, making it in the Trek carbon facility. Then they took away other things. They started wrapping up our plant in 2002, and all Kleins were thereafter made in Wisconsin.
Ultimately, Trek didn’t want another shop on the West Coast doing this work. They wanted it all in-house, under one roof.
I did not know that going in. It sort of just developed after the fact. It was Trek’s decision.

What did you do from that point?

I continued working with them, going to Wisconsin. I developed the Pave, a road bike with some rear suspension. That’s the last product I made that they produced.

Tell me about the Pave.

With the Pave we pre-stressed the chain stays—basically pushed them down—and stuck a very high-energy foam material in the seat stays with a couple linear bearings to guide it. And then when you put your weight on it, the chain stays go back to about the neutral point, the foam is compressed and it’s working a little bit as you ride. It gives you enough suspension to really take the edge off a fine, rough surface.
I have issues with the design. I lost lateral stiffness—it just isn’t as stiff side-to-side, which of course I’m not thrilled about. And if you’re racing a criterium on a smooth road, there’s no benefit to it. But on the positive side, if you ride on chip seal, which most of our roads around here are, you gain about one gear. That’s because your feet are suspended now, so you’re not getting all that vibration up through the pedals, and your traction is better on the wheel. On a rigid frame, when you hit a bump at speed, your weight is rigid on that bump; the whole bike has to accelerate up it and come back down. And that energy comes out of your forward momentum. You lose a lot of energy if your suspension is rigid.
Another issue is that the foam is much stiffer when it’s 20 degrees out, like here, than when it’s 80 degrees [laughs]. There are different grades of foam you could stick in for different riding conditions.

How was the Pave received?

I don’t remember any reviews. And I don’t know how it sold. I wanted to market the Pave for the racing crowd. To me, it’s a specific-purpose bike that’s perfect for rough courses. Not Paris-Roubaix—that’s almost too rough, not that much travel—but a lots of road races are held on not-smooth roads. And this thing’s an advantage. Besides the comfort factor, you just go faster.
But Trek didn’t want to sell it as a racing bike. They downspeced it a little bit and sold it as a touring bike, which was fine; it wasn’t a bad idea. I’m still riding on my prototype of it. I liked it. It’s really nice on the chip-seal roads we have around here.
Trek didn’t promote the Pave much. The feeling was that the dealers of Klein would market it. So Trek didn’t need to. One of the thoughts within Trek is, ‘If we’re going to spend $10 promoting something, it better be the Trek brand. Put all our efforts behind the one marketing campaign—instead of splitting it between LeMond and Fisher and who knows what else.’

What’s been your relationship with Trek since they closed the Klein plant?

The current contract I’m on , a 10-year deal signed in 2002, they switched gears from my being the president of Klein and controlling the products to being a consultant and doing marketing for them if they requested it. And they basically haven’t been requesting.

They just ignored you?

Well, they own the business. It was their right not to call me up. If they don’t want to sell a product, that’s it. I don’t have any issue with that. They own me for 10 years—until September, I think.


So what have you been doing for the last decade? Been having fun?

Oh, yeah. I’ve being playing with telescopes and fixing up the house, I have tree farms, and been doing other things. I was involved with the first robotics contest at the high school—making robots that play basketball. They carry up to three balls at a time. And I play tennis several times a week. We have indoor courts here; have to—it’s 35 and raining now. We’ve also done quite a bit of diving. Cave diving in southern Mexico. Wreck diving in different places—South Pacific, Caribbean. Haven’t done the Red Sea yet. Of course, bikes are one of my major hobbies.

I read about the telescopes in a Gary Fisher interview. Seems like you’re really into it.

I started in astronomy about 2000 or so. Living here isn’t ideal for observing—always rainy, cloudy. Even when it’s clear and the stars are twinkling, the jet stream makes anything under a high-power lens wobble all over the page—just a blur. So I like to go to other places to observe—southern Utah and Arizona, where we have homes. Also been observing in Argentina, too.
We got a tour of the observatory on Mt. Graham in southern Arizona. Fantastic equipment. Optical assemblies are quite rigid, very well designed, finite element analysis. I begged them to hang me in front of the focus with an eyepiece, but they wouldn’t do it. No one has ever looked through it; it’s set up just for cameras and video [laughs uproariously]. The photography mode of astronomy is growing faster than other areas. It’s interesting, but it’s the difference between looking at a picture and looking at stuff with my own eyes.

Would you like to manufacture telescopes?

Maybe. I don’t like most of what’s out there now. I bought a vacuum chamber and some grinding equipment. Haven’t done anything with it yet.
I’m looking at making larger telescopes, because that’s what I like. I like to see more detail. You have to gather as much light as you can. You’re talking larger diameter, higher-end stuff. I want to see if there’s a market for them—it’s much, much smaller than bikes.

How’s your riding going?

I’m still riding the prototype of the Pave road bike. And the Mantra is my favorite mountain bike. I ride every time it’s nice. I do day rides. I’ll probably do Seattle-to-Portland again this year, because I’ve got some friends doing it. We usually have people staying at our house, because we’re halfway. We live in an area with a lot of country roads.

See anything in the bike industry that excites you?

I haven’t been going to the bike shows. But one thing I always wanted to do that I never got around to is make a mountain bike with one of those monster internally-geared hubs with 10 or 12 speeds—Rohloff, is that the right name? I would love to put some bikes together with those. We do a lot of winter riding, and we have so much trouble with mud in our drivetrain that we end up walking. With that system I think I could make a sealed driveline.
The trouble is that the frame has to be made for it. Not a regular retrofit. I’m willing to take a little more for a weight penalty in order not to pick up dirt and rocks.

Would you like to get back into the bike industry when your Trek contract is up in September. Would you like to resuscitate the Pave?

It would be an interesting one to try to develop. But making anything wouldn’t be easy. Everyone has a 14-pound carbon bike now. It’s like, what are you going to do that’s different? I don’t want to make the same stuff everyone else does. I could see doing something on a small scale, a niche area. It wouldn’t be $8,000, it’d be reasonable.

After September, do you have the Gary Klein name back?

Under the consulting contract, Trek still owns the Klein brand. I do get my name back. I can’t use my name for anything they don’t want me to. That’s normal for contracts like that.
I’m not sure I’d want to have Klein bikes again, anyway. I certainly have some former customers who’d like to see me get back into the business, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen. I’d have to talk about it with my family. I have grandkids now.

Are you going to celebrate or cry when your contract is up? Do you have any regrets you sold the company?

Well, I’m hoping for a good health plan to replace the one I’ve been on [laughs]. But I can’t complain about the deal with Trek. I’ve enjoyed the ride.
A lot of the bike companies out there I would not want to deal with. But the folks at Trek are honest.
Trek added a lot of stability to my life. When you’re running your own business, it’s kind of feast or famine. You’re always putting out a fire over here, over there. With a larger company you’ve got staff, support. Obviously, there are trade-offs. It was nice to have some of the headaches relieved.
I’ve enjoyed working with Trek. I was excited about revamping the Klein line. Of course, I’d have loved to have done a lot more models.

Are you sad that the Klein name is gone from the bike world—and that Fisher has apparently joined you?

I was surprised that they shut down the Fisher brand. I thought it was really nice to have that choice.
I have a theory: as long as the parts are on and everything works, somebody will buy a unique frame—even if the difference is just the paint. So it pays to have different brands.
After all, not everybody wants a Chevy. But they might buy a Maserati that looks like it. S

 

Muy buenas,

¿Alguien tiene experiencia en montar los rodamientos de la dirección de una Quantum Pro?

Un saludo.

 

Porque no me gusta el color, si no me lo compraba.

 

Me suena ese poster del Porsche que comenta.

 

Enviado desde mi GT-I9000 usando Tapatalk 2

 

***** no dejais escapar una oportunidad para colocar vuestra venta eh.... para eso no hay otro apartado...?

 

este no es el lugar adecuado para hacer una venta,no eres un novato y las normas hay que leerlas haber si las respetamos de una vez

 

mensaje editado, disculpas por lo que a mi respecta

 

Disculpas aceptadas. No hay ningún problema. A seguir disfrutando con vuestras Kleins. Salu2 a todos

 

Al final la voy a pintá asi, a quien le gusta?

 

La verdad es que *****, las quantum tienen colores preciosos, ese es un poco sosillo...no? Vamos, si trabajas en correos será la ****** pero...

 

jaja, que uñetero... a mi la verdad es que ese amarillo no me va mucho... lo siento.

ando mirando colores tambien para pintar otro q pro y no me termino de decidir...

 

Mi salida de hoy...