In article ,
Derk wrote:

Phil, Squid-in-Training wrote:
Now, flashback to two weeks ago. A customer's crash-replacement
Made-in-Italy Bianchi Pinella frame ($1800 retail) comes in for me to
build up, and although there's no problems on painted areas, there's
virtually no attention to detail when it comes to the bottom bracket or
headset! There's slag strewn everywhere inside the BB (even bits I can
break off with my fingernail), there's bubbling on the opposing side of
the welds, it's totally unfinished with paint all up in the threads, and
the headtube looks plain discolored and ugly.
Though this is an extreme case,the principle of it is normal.Example: I have
a 500 Euro italian Espresso machine here that'salways leaking, whilst a
cheap german machine I have too is neatly finished. I prefer the italian
one, though, because it has a "soul". It was made "con amore".

Just open the hood of an Italian car and the one of a German car and
compare. This is a cultural thing.

Greets, Derk

Derk, you know why the Germans don't bother to make the stuff under the
hood look pretty? Because nobody ever has to look there.

....wish this was true, since my mildly demented '98 VW Beetle is
displaying its check engine light as we speak. A few months ago, the
driver door nearly spontaneously fell off after two hinge bolts broke.
Don't ask me how that ever possibly happens.

....then again, New Beetles are hecho en Mexico, for what that's worth.

....then again, I'm not sure most national generalizations hold up. The
under-hood area of the 1st-gen Porsche 928 is very pretty (spider-like
intake manifold with wiggly runners), while there is a vast succession
of Alfas and Fiats with boring and ugly engines in them.

ObBike: given how fast I ride, sometimes in traffic, I vote for
soullessness. Those vampire-and-zombie constructed frames from Taiwan
tend not to be exciting in such circumstances. Who knows when the amore
may all run out of a crucial lug, leaving your butt alfresco con le pave?

....then again, I have a perfectly respectable Pinarello and Bianchi in
the shed.

....then again, the Bianchi was made in Japan.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos