A Nervex Ref 32 lug. This time, for the top tube/head tube confluence.
See yesterday’s post for some flowery verbiage about these.
I’ve exhausted my adjective batch and my subjectivity has become suspect.
But I’ll try.
These parts, produced through maybe 1976 at the latest, were the apotheosis (I fucking LOVE that word) of the frame maker’s supply chain. I got hooked on these components and shapes early and repeated them often. Had the Nervex Ref 32 set never been born and subsequently make my radar when I went looking for something to grab me, to make me wet and sticky for this trade, I would have found some way for Goddard College to make that space for me that I gave up in 1973 after postponing my entrance for the final time.
These lugs are in my DNA. Everything I have done or fantasized about since my first sighting (not to mention finding the source for these so I could have them made to my specs for nearly a decade) – – everything I have done is a derivative of these. Some people order mashed potatoes. Some rearrange the mashed potato into sculpture. These lugs are my mashed potatoes.
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