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History Dave Moulton former bicycle framebuilder My frame building experience dates back to 1957; I first learned this craft from a man named Albert 'Pop' Hodge in Luton, England, an industrial town thirty miles north of London. Pop Hodge was in his seventies at that time and had been building frames since the early 1900s. The first frame builders were blacksmiths and Pop brazed his frames in true blacksmith fashion by heating the joint in a hearth of hot coals. |
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I had been into bicycle racing since the age of 16. Over the years I built and raced my own bikes and experimented with frame design. I first achieved success in the mid 1970s when I had a frame building business in Worcester, England a town in the West Midlands. |
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| I did this in a simple typeface similar to that used on road signs; easy to read and distinctive in my name being spelled out in all lower case letters. A picture of a leading cyclist riding my bike on the cover of the British "Cycling" Magazine would result in a huge boost in sales. Sometimes a photo would be a head on shot and all that could be seen was my logo on the head tube. This was a simple design of four lower case ‘m’s in the form of a cross. | |||
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| Paul Carbutt of the British Olympic Team rode this Dave Moulton Bike in the 1976 Olympics in Montréal, Canada | |||
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 Paul Carbutt on his "Dave Moulton" bike (Circa 1976) |
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The Fuso Logo |
In retrospect it was probably under priced for the amount of work that went into it. The John Howard frame was only produced for a little over a year and in 1984 when my contract with John ended I started the Fuso line of frames to fill the void in my frame shop production. | |
| My main competition at that time was the Italian import frames and I found the Fuso name when looking through an Italian/English dictionary. I came across the word "Fuso," Italian for "Molten" as in molten metal, a play on words on my own name. I designed a logo depicting a crucible pouring molten metal into a mold and the Fuso brand was born. Incidentally I didn’t know at the time that Fuso was also a Japanese word. During WWII there was a fleet of Japanese battleships named Fuso. Mitsubishi also used the name for their line of commercial trucks. They had apparently had the name since 1968 but when I registered the name as a trademark it was allowed because there was no conflict between bicycles and commercial trucks. | ||
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With lessons learned from the John Howard frame the original Fuso had less
frills. The design and workmanship was the same, so the Fuso would perform
the same as anything else I built. But to cut cost and keep it affordable
there was no chrome or engraving and the decals were simple vinyl stick on
type.
(Update 2/26/05.) The first Fuso frames had a plain fork crown, but around 1985 I was able to order a large number of Cinnelli fork crowns with the Fuso name cast into them. This was less costly than hand engraving. |
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| Some people had always lamented the demise of the John Howard frame and so in 1986 I introduced the Fuso Lux (Short for luxury) with the chrome and the engraved seat stay caps. The Lux also had the decals 'buried' under 8 clear coats, hand sanded as did the John Howard, a very labor intensive process. | ||
| Pictured here is a rare Fuso Lux built in Reynolds 753 owned by John Katsaras. Click on John's name to go to his site to see more photos. | ||
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(Update 2/26/05) As I find documentation it is necessary to update these pages regarding dates the various model frames were introduced, etc. The first Fuso introduced in 1984 did not have a model name because there was only one model. It was offered with a two color finish, in four different color schemes. 1. Red (Top) with Charcoal Gray Metallic (Bottom); See Page 4 and 8 for a picture of this one. 2. Metallic Silver (Top) with Red (Bottom); 3. Lilac Metallic (Top) with Dark Plum (Bottom); 4. Light Metallic Blue (Top) with Dark Metallic Blue (Bottom). The decals were a white vinyl panel with gold lettering and rainbow chevrons with the colors Black, Blue, Red, Orange, Yellow. The Fuso Lux was introduced in 1986 so it was now necessary to give the first model a name to avoid confusion. So it was then dubbed the FR1. (FR was for Fuso Racing, the number 1 because it was the first model.) The vinyl panel decals were simplified to four colors with yellow lettering and blue, red, yellow chevrons. The frame was now offered in a choice of one, two, or three colors chosen by the customer from a range of standard colors. (Continued Next Page) |
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I am still asked. "Who painted your frames?" The answer "I did." I had my own paint facility with a totally enclosed paint booth and an oven to bake on the paint. I started out doing my own paintwork and later trained others to do it my way. Over the years I had three different full time painters. | |
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As well as John Howard and Fuso frames, there was another I built called Recherché. This was a 'private label frame' built for brothers Kent and Kyle Radford owners of Rancho Bernardo Schwinn and was sold exclusively by them. I believe the store is no longer in business or if it is, it is under a different name. Rancho Bernardo is in North San Diego. | |
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The frames were only produced
in a very limited number for about two years from 1985 to 1987 as I
recall.
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So the Recherché is essentially the same frame as the Fuso. Just a different name and decal and one or two other little touches to make it unique. Like the fork crown with two grooves cast in the top; the seatstay caps were changed and the treatment of the fork tips and rear drop out attachment. The brass was allowed to sink into the end of the tube. This is a typical style French frame builders use and which I was imitating.
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