Dr Silvbrazen discusses the ‘Ethics of Lugs’: explorations in aesthetics, ethics, value theory, taste, applied arts, craft vs contemporary craft, industrial art, and fine art. with diversions into other stuff.
Lugs look lovely. Let us not overlook this basic truth. Even the crudest lug has character to it, a statement of purpose defining the form and lending a degree of individuality to even the most mass produced joint. What is truth in art? By calling something beautiful rather than as Kant put it, visually agreeable, are we making a mass statement? Should we not post-script such sentiment with ‘to me’? This Nervex lugset is beautiful, to me. Perhaps. However, although a lugset’s individual shore-lines might be a matter of personal taste, the concept of the lug should be amenable to all. From an industrial design stand point, the lug allows custom sizing, repair-ability, and structural reinforcement. From a contemporary craft point, we see the lug as the place for the hand of the craftsman to shine. From a fine art stand point, the embellishment possible with a lug’s shoreline turns the bike into a sublime treasure on wheels. A lug is not a decorative element. It is a structural element that can also serve a decorative aesthetic end.
On the ethics side of the wooden nickle, Carbon bikes can be lugged. Aluminum bikes can be lugged. Aluminum can be bonded to carbon via lugs. If we were DJs, this would be called a mash-up, culling what some might consider the best attributes of various construction techniques into a unified whole, while retaining distinctive parts of said whole. However! We are not DJs, we are serious investigators on a serious path. Thus-for, we must coin a new word. A bike that employes a variety (not a hybrid, we will approach these monsters later, big stick in hand) of construction techniques and materials (must be both) is an example of the mash-fab technique, phrase whose etymology resides in the hands of two artists and a number of rail shots of tequila. Further reading on said etymology found here.
Mash-fab bikes differentiate from bikes where the lug is aesthetically hinted at, or visually aped, the express purpose of such being to (as Walter Benjamin would put it) cull some of the Aura of the lug. Hybrid (Morphologically speaking) bikes generally employ tig welded tube junctures with carbon tubes bonded inside of the tig welded tubes. The most extravagant example of this is the Titus Exogrid.
Faux lug shore lines seek to capitalize on the collective value theory based consciousness, as well as the collective notion of beauty and craft. Lemond perhaps started said trend when he sought to bond carbon OCLV half triangles to Reynolds Steel. The juncture was mildly stylized, resulting in a highly bland lug inspired shore-line. Consumers were very drawn to this brutish juncture, even though it offered none of the advantages of the lug construction method. Nor, as far as I can tell, do the Titus or Jamis versions, to name a few. Indeed, lest we forget: ‘A lug is a socket that forms the junction between two or more frame tubes.’ So speaketh Sheldon Brown, God Rest His Immortal Soul. Ethically we cannot even refer to these designs as lug-like. They are luggish! Joan Miro painted Child-like paintings.
A fourth grader paints childish paintings:
Ergo, lug stylings are not to be regarded on the same ethical plane as lugs. Luggish bikes are an ethical affront to the contemporary lug master. The engraving, tube cutting, and painting of lug inspired graphics cheapens the original work. For example: every commercialized copy of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa erodes the intent of the original.
And now that beaded curtain from that show Dharma and Greg:
Some one’s candle:
And an asinine T-shirt:
What does this do FOR the original work?
Ethical lugs = real lugs. Impostors need a new word to describe their ‘inspired’ erosion of a traditional, yet highly evolved artistic industrial craft socket.
well in the example of La Jaconde, Benjamin would say that the reproduction brings the singular experience of the original to a broader audience who would never have the opportunity to experience the original but can still benefit from a shadow of the authentic.
unfortunately this comparison would only work if you could only buy psuedo painted-on lugged bikes made of hi-ten stick welded together. otherwise the original is most realistically more accessible than the imitation.
as an aside, the true value of the smiler, is her and her author’s perceived mystery and history. I have had the pleasure of seeing her in person on several occasions, and you can rest assured that there is as much more to be learned on the psychology, sociology, and movement of mankind in the Denon wing than on fine small canvases.
1. i love lugs and lugged things.
2. i love simplicity.
as i see it, these two things are in direct opposition to one another. the pureness of form and construction found in a tig welded bike (or anything welded for that matter) is the height of craftsmanship. no mistakes. no re-do’s. if the weld or miter or tube choice is fucked up = the bike is fucked up. i have room in my heart for both approaches, but perhaps the lugged is to art analogy more true than you realize. if lugs are an art, then tig welded bikes are design.
A. this is what i always hoped would come outta this blog.
B. if i had known this would have been earnestly debated, i wouldnt have filled my post with so much fluff.
C. i shoulda done this sooner.
D. full rebuttal later.
James, you blow me away sometimes. Thanks.
coffeeaddict (Dave?), you get it. Thanks to you too.
Lugs can be beautiful. JPW and Dave Ellis make the most beautiful ones IMO. I have yet to see a beautiful lug on a B-Stone or Trek. They’re industrious and unfinished, a product of mass manufacturing whether you want to believe it or not. They’re simply a method of holding tubes together. The “craft” is gone IMO because the soul is gone.
I personally know builders who don’t pay close attention to their miters because “the lug holds it together”. No matter how beautiful the lug, there’s no craft in that either. The instant “the lug holds it together” becomes acceptable, the lug ceases to be about craft and begins to be about marketing. Marketing to people who think lugs are the only way and may not know that what they can’t see can hurt them. The same goes for all other methods for conjoining tubes.
To me (to use your post, or pre script) craft, the pursuit of craft and the pursuit of perfection are the only things that matter. In this context an object of beauty (that is also an element of structure) is irrelevant unless it falls into its proper place along with the rest of the elements of the frame.
i clearly should have re-read art in the age of mechanical reproduction before tossing that benjamin thing out. However! Certain lugged bikes are indeed more accessible than the imitators (used 80s bikes, for starters, Soma’s new frames) but in the case of the true masters, (Sachs, Weigle, Goodrich…) the true form is indeed out of reach, if not monetarily, then from a time stand point. Not unlike the line to see ‘the smiler’.
More later… gotta rewire the headlight on my bike and drink beer.
also, lets get a link of the benjamin article up sometime…
tiz me dizz-y.
word. can you keep a secret? If not, don’t open the email I’m about to send you.