Rare Fats?

guzman

New member
shock a bill

Hi guys

Fairly new to this site, hope I'm not in the wrong Thread.

I've had a shock a billy since 95, which I bought off a guy called Casey kinselman. He said it was one of the prototypes made for him to compete in the 95 Vail world championship. Its clearly a one off as some of the brackets are fairly basic. Its also just named shock a bill. The y has always been missing, its not just worn off.

Unfortunately, been sat in the garage being used once or twice a year so is looking a bit sorry for its self!

Guess it could be called rare?
 

IF52

New member
Hi guys

Fairly new to this site, hope I'm not in the wrong Thread.

I've had a shock a billy since 95, which I bought off a guy called Casey kinselman. He said it was one of the prototypes made for him to compete in the 95 Vail world championship. Its clearly a one off as some of the brackets are fairly basic. Its also just named shock a bill. The y has always been missing, its not just worn off.

Unfortunately, been sat in the garage being used once or twice a year so is looking a bit sorry for its self!

Guess it could be called rare?

Casey Kunselman. Serial number on the frame is probably something like PROTO1 or PROTO3. My friend Earl Walker was his team mate, his bike, PROTO2 is now hanging in a collection in Colorado.

http://www.fatcogs.com/forum/showpost.php?p=8537&postcount=2
 
I don't think he made too many of these:




ccredball1.jpg






Steve
 
Do you ever ride that steve?


hey T, glad to see you on the Fat forum.

Yup, it gets ridden, although not as intended (no radball league in my town, lol)...it's a fun "around the blocker" when the kids want to go for an evening tour of the neighborhood. I've been looking for a set of taller bars (for better wheelies), but the clamp diameter rules out most of the ones I find.


cheers,

Steve
 

chainline

Member
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Update on the Radball Bike:


Just posted this up on the MTBR thread, and figured I should update here as well forthose of you who were curious about the history behind it:






Out of nowhere, I got a reply the other day to an e-mail I sent William Jayne two years ago....



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Message flagged Wednesday, May 9, 2012 12:48 AM
I just looked at this email for the first time in several years. Yes, I built the bike in Chris Chance's first shop in 1979 on Mass Ave in Cambridge Mass. I later built several high end bike in my shop in the Chicago area. They were very pricey. The last bike I sold in 1980 went for $1800 for the frame and fork.
If you wouldn't mind sending me a picture I'd appreciate it.

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Sent a reply, and got some more info from Mr. Jayne:



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I built your bike to get others interested in playing bike ball. Chris's shop was in a basement where the adjacent room was large enough to play bike ball. I knew of bike ball because of an old family friend was a Six Days racer in the 20s and 30s. This family friend built the most expensive bicycle ever sold. It is in the Smithsonian. In 1936 it sold for $100,000. His name was Wally Mitchell. Wally introduced me to Oscar Wastyn in Chicago. Oscar taught myself, his son and Albert Eisentraut frame building. Bike ball was concieved to keep riders in shape and to improve their track skills. So I built the bike one night, Chris painted with the paint he had left over from a custom build that day. I stuck some of Chris's decals on it to make it look more official. Modern day bike ball bikes are for the most part synonymous with circus bikes. They use 26" wheels, have the same shortest possible wheel base design but use a top tube that slopes so far down that the seat almost touches the tire. This makes sitting and taking a break impossible. Hence the reason why your bike has a top tube parallel with the ground.

You should hang on to the bike. My last "master frame" fetched $18,000 at auction. While your bike isn't a master frame by any stretch, it will only increase in value.

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Wow!

sent another reply and got back a bit more:


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I just used Chris's frame jig. Chris and Dave Hartranft (sp?) had a well equipped shop in Cambridge. Chris's jig made building it relatively easy. With his jig you could simply cut the tubes and fit them in the jig.

Oh yes, it was a standard out of the box 531 tube set. It's a one of a kind.

I was in Cambridge going to graduate school at Harvard at the time. Chris thought I was going to be his competitor so we had a falling out. After Harvard I took a job doing mergers and acquisitions. Among my accomplishments in those days I helped Symantec get started along with a company that wrote the core routines for Windows that we sold to Microsoft. I tried to look up Chris a year ago and it seems he is still building frames.

Unfortunately, other than the picture you sent I don't have any pictures of my frames. I offered to build each of my three kids a bike and they all told me that they didn't want anything "home made". I took them to a frame builders shop in San Jose to see if they might generate some interest but none of them are into it.

I was taught frame building as an art form by Oscar Wastyn. Okie insisted that everything was absolutely perfect. I only used ASTM 4130 for the master frames. One of their unique signatures was a parabolic bottom bracket shell and a parabolic head tube. All tubing was mirror polished inside and out. The frames and forks were annealed and heat treated to provide maximum performance from the aircraft steel. I doubt that any of the master frames were ever ridden as bikes. Most of them end up in display boxes. Like Joe Breeze's frame many of them are perfectly polished to they need no paint. However, one fingerprint and you have to start all over. So they are kept in their display boxes.

I was and am both an engineer and a tool and die maker. Among some of my bicycle accomplishments include being on the team of engineers who developed the first graphite frame for Aldila in San Diego. I was the bike expert. I was the only guy on the team that was not on the Apollo space craft team. I also invented was is now known as the Tuff Wheel or the first structural injection molded product ever made. It still consumes 60% of the world's production of nylon.

There is and has been for the last century a small group of people who collect frames as art. Hence the reason for their value. The Field Museum in Chicago used to have three on display. If you ever get to Chicago, you should make a trip to see them. They are spectacular. Everything on the bikes is exquisitely crafted. If they are not on display, ask a curator to show them to you in the archives assuming they still have them. It will give you an idea of what a master frame looks like.

Periodically, I run an add looking for a William Jayne master frame and fork. I'd love to have one. Several of my frame building buddies have been encouraging me to to build one more frame. Every time I think about how much work is actually involved I make the effort to go look at Joe Breeze's master frame and it quells the urge.

There was a group of guys who played bike ball in Chicago as well as played bicycle polo. We all built our own bikes. It was an eclectic group. Chicago style polo bikes used 20" wheels (BMX wheels) and were adult size frames. They had 14.5" bottom bracket heights and typically had 13" head tubes. We all had 20" sew ups for them because they made amazing handling street racers. They had relatively long rear chain stays. It made them stable on the grass as well a screamers on the street. There are a few of them around. If you can find one, you should get one. They are the most fun bike I've ever ridden.



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So after all the guessing, now I know who built it, where, and why. Pretty cool as far as I'm concerned, and $320 well spent. Now I just need to find one of those 20" "Chicago-style" bikes
smile5.gif






Steve
 

rmp

New member
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