[CR]Cirque du Cyclisme; the next day.....

(Example: Framebuilders:Tony Beek)

From: <OROBOYZ@aol.com>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 10:03:03 EDT
To: Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Cc: vontutschek@mail01.onetel.net.uk
Subject: [CR]Cirque du Cyclisme; the next day.....

Many weary bike nutz are on their way home or maybe sleeping late after an awesome weekend. I was amazed and delighted that so many folk traveled so far to attend. Ray Etherton from the UK was perhaps came from the farthest away, but our Californians may be farther (I'll have to check that!) Nonetheless we also had folk from New England in the far northeast, Florida to the south, and many points in between.

For the first time ever, the Saturday events went very very well I think ...

The morning ride was well attended with mostly early arrival out-of-towners. I was scurrying around like a maniac in preparation for the day and missed taking a pictures of the CDO bike parking rack loaded with its best-ever selection of cool bikes. Roy Drinkwater (PA) got a lot of attention with his vintage flavored and eccentric "Hot Rod," a smoked chrome Austro Daimler with RockShox fork, shock seat post, Look Ergo stem, mustache bars and more! About thirty riders saw Greensboro sights and then burnt up the roads. Thanks to ride leaders Gary Kling (Rev.) Mike Richardson and Tom Lauer (MD)

The Cirque Seminar was a resounding success!Keynote speaker maestro Brian Baylis really put on a show.. No fleeting overview, Brian really spent the time to cover key frame building practice and his wealth of knowledge and experience. Attendees learned if they were attentive about the challenges in making a craft work (bike frame) at this level. This was an unprecedented event that was hugely informative.

Brian's presentation was video taped and we are proceeding to edit the efforts and will have a packaged version that will be available from Brian some time in the future. I will announce that availability at that time on the CR list. (Please save band width & don't e-mail until we announce that it's done...there is a lot of interest!)

As hard to follow as Brian's act was, Alan Bernstein rose to the occasion and showed his beautifully crafted film, which analyzes the work and approaches of two other master bicycle frame builders, JP Weigle and Richard Sachs. After the film Alan answered questions and showed Sachs lugs that had an interesting story behind them. Alan is doing a great thing in trying to add to our heritage and make a record of these gifted craftsmen (artists!) and will do more work in this direction. Bravo Alan!

Our final Saturday presenter was Michael Kone from Bicycle Classics and the charmer once again enthralled all of us with his insights about the world of vintage lightweights. Using slides and his wide experience, Mike really demonstrated the why & how we all value these bikes... the widely varying points of approach from nostaglia to history to rarity and design excellence. Mike put in perspective the balancing act of variables that contribute to bicycles being collected and acquiring financial worth. But his bottom line was the fun they are to ride! A great talk by someone who has earned all of our respect! Hats off to Mike K!

Most all attendees then traveled out to a local Brew Pub for food and drink and talk (about old bikes natch!) into the wee hours. (Some of us instead went back to work on the next day's road ride maps that should have done earlier!!)

But it was a fun day, neat information but above all, great camaraderie.

Time has run out on my one finger typing for this moment, so I will postpone further reporting (Like Sundays big day!) until later... Thanks again to all those who came and shared and laughed with us all. What a fun time!!

Dale Brown
Greensboro, North Carolina