After describing his much-modified PX-10, representing all "rat bikes,"
which he defined as "best
ride for the least money...grizzled old veterans that are kept on the road
by doting riders, sometimes with
brilliant low cost improvisations." Tom Adams asked, "Anyone able to beat
$250 for an interesting classic ride? Come on, share
>your deep dark secrets."
I'm sorry, Tom, but I'll raise you one: Two bikes for a bit under $200, using stricter rules than yours. One started as an incomplete Gitane TdF. With another, much larger, trashmo Gitane and some parts, I paid $30. Did some swapping of wheels to swap a third bike (Torpado) with The Most Worshipful Great Scrounge of Chagrin Falls, OH, a kindred spirit and a great guy. I got the Gitane rideable and nice (Suntour Power shifters w. matching derailleurs) for just under $90 after allocating the parts costs. Ditto for a Motobecane Gran Jubilee, full Vitus. It was "free," from a friend, but with one shot wheel, totally shot cranks and bb, and beaucoup other problems. It came in at the same cost.
It was a game to keep track of the costs, as I built them up for good friends and didn't want to either profit or lose $$ on the projects. On the other hand, the labor content was pure insanity -- but great fun on winter evenings. Downside: now that these bikes have been "ratted," no one will ever be able to find all the "right" parts for them again. But, these were not real pretty framesets to start with, with pretty poor paint. My friends got great values, I had a lot of fun, and we kept two classics in use, instead of going to Pedals for Progress -- PforP is a great cause, but off topic.
Your mileage may vary. harvey sachs
>Tom Adams in Thawing (finally!) Kansas City
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Larry Osborn <losborn2@wvu.edu>
>To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
>Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2001 11:58 AM
>Subject: Re: [CR]What to call this type? (Was 50 yrs from now...)
>
>
> > At 11:00 AM 1/4/01 -0500, you wrote:
> > >Anachronisms
> > >
> >
> > Yeah, that's better, although it's difficult to get away from the negative
> > connotation the word usually has. Including the word "classic" in a type
> > name would impart far too high a status to some of this stuff, unless one
> > is also free to twist the meaning around to mean "a classic example of how
> > NOT to make a ....(fill in the blank with your favorite example) but that
> > gets into sarcasm again, and can only lead to trouble ....... sorry Dale,
> > it just oozes out of me.
> >
> > Still searching for a word/phrase that says we're not Luddites or
> > techno-phobes, we're not building shrines to these things (well, I'M
>not!),
> > we're just happily ensconced in our chosen era.
> >
> > From the ruins of Temple Tullio
> > Osborn