It seems like the shadow is getting longer and longer every year.... "Some time" ago, in 1977, me and my brother sold the first MANDARIC frame. At that moment we didn't realize what this favor to a fellow club member would come to be.... We actually made the first frame about a year before, in 1976. But the frame was far from something we could sell, so I kept it for myself. This is how it started ... We knew only how to cut the tubes, but beside all our knowledge from university classes we still couldn't figure out how to braze the frame together. We spent months trying to achieve that, until my father found "Master" Ranko who was a retired aircraft welder. Ranko knew all the secrets of silver soldering, brazing, welding TIG; MIG; Gas, and could join any metal in any of those techniques. Yes, I saw him welding Magnesium casting, or Campy Record cranks, with a simple Oxy/Acetylene torch!!! So, we took the assembled frame (tubes finely inserted in to the lugs) to Ranko one day and, to our surprise, he soldered the frame with such ease and elegance that it looked like a really simple procedure. Geometrically that frame was a mess, but mechanically it did worked then and it's probably still rolling somewhere (I have a trace of one of my frames made back in 1983 and they say it still rides just fine!) With our second frame (the first "commercial" one, sold to Zika "Vrcinac" - my clubmate with a super long torso and short legs, no doubt he couldn't find a stock frame to fit him) the procedure was the same, we cut the tubes, assembled the frame and took it to Ranko's place for soldering. But in those two visits, I will quote Ranko's words: "You let them see something and they learn and steal the secrets so quickly, damn students..." He was right - we learned what Ranko was using, what the name of the solder was, what the name on the flux bottle was and we memorized all the movements and techniques he was using while soldering. So when we assembled the third one, made out of Reynolds 531SL tubing, for myself (but now with a more appropriate geometry) my brother Rodoljub (in English, his name means "Patriot", my father was a fighter pilot, and it was only 8 years after WWII when my brother was born) with all his arrogance and young hardheadedness, decided that it was time for us to solder the frame - ourselves! We already got a supply of the same silver alloy Ranko was using, we got the flux, and the new, proper Propane torch. And we made it! Of course we brought the frame to Ranko, to kind of brag about it hoping that he would "approve" our work. He said the work was excellent, and asked where we found someone as good as him. We told him the whole story hoping he wouldn't be really angry at us, but to our surprise he said : "Look, you are young guys, and you learned it by yourself. My philosophy is - I don't have to hide anything from anybody, otherwise I wouldn't have showed you how to do it, right? If you see what I am doing, and you learn it, and repeat the work in the same quality like mine - you are equal to me or maybe even better". We never saw Ranko after that, but I remembered his words (and "enforced" them) every time I got a young apprentice in my shop. That is how MANDARIC Bicycles started, a long way back in the "good old days" of 1977/78. In 1980 we received from Reynolds England, test tube sets of their legendary tubing, 753. For about 4 years already, frames made out of 753 were winning World Championships, major Tours and Classic races. The TI Raleigh Team was winning almost any race they participated in. Having 753 frame was like riding possessed. Almost unfair. No other tube manufacturer had ever used Heat Treatment in the final process of bicycle tube manufacturing, and combined with the extraordinary qualities of legendary Reynolds steel, it made incredible results. However, such a material also imposed obstacles on the framebuilder, as the frame had to be silver soldered completely and made in "sequences" (something we still do in making Scandium frames). Knowledge from university, experience from making hundreds of frames, and exceptional soldering material (we use the exact same one that Reynolds recommended in their Technical Papers for all our frames!) made us so sure that we could pass the test, that we stashed the tubing somewhere in the shop, leaving it for later to finish frames for customers first. Reynolds would send you two sets for the test, if you fail one, you'd have one more to try. If you fail twice - you don't get any more chances! That's it. But we were sure we'd do it, despite the fact that Reynolds actually sent 753T sets, the "worse one" for the frame builder, as T designates "TimeTrial", which translates into super-light tubing with wall thickness of 0.3mm in the middle. Talk about thin, you can cut yourself on that like a razor. The tensile strength of that steel is so high, that "normal" Cobalt doped cutters wear out after two, three sets!! So six months passed, and we got a telex, from no one other than the legendary Mr. T.A. Bill. For framebuilders, Terry Bill was "Reynolds". He was the connection and the big shot there. Mr. Bill politely requested, "If you can't make the test sample, please return the tubing back to Reynolds". Oops, we thought we messed up. So we grabbed the tubing, filled out the lug points to perfection, soldered the frame, followed the whole protocol of work, made a number of slides, and shipped the frame - good-bye. Reynolds did three tests, Static, Dynamic, and Visual. Visual was the worse nightmare for the frame builder, what they would do is actually cut the frame into pieces to "peek" inside the tubing. So we knew, we would never see our frame again, they were going to chop it off! We knew we are going to pass the test, we knew we didn't need the second set for testing. So I decided to make the frame for myself from that second set, as not only was 753T but it was in French Standard, with tubing diameters in mm, rather than inches, and nobody but France used those parts anyway. The frame is still here with me in my office on the wall, same like it was after few races I did on it in late 1981. Of course we passed the test. The only slightly overheated area was around lug/seat stays, as that part is really tricky to be done totally in silver and we knew in advance that we did overheat there for about 10-15C! It was still below their maximum allowed temperature, but only for 10C. Precise work, isn't it? More to come...