Hi Chuck and group:
Since you are calling for lurkers, I'll come out and introduce myself. I've been faithfully reading this digest for the last few months and absolutely enjoying it and learning a lot.
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and have always loved bikes and enjoyed riding. After owning (and occasionally riding) the same bike since I was in college thirty years ago, I decided to get into bikes a bit more and also riding more. Some of the bikes I currently own includes an early sixties all Campy equipped Bianchi Specialisima, an Alan built Guerciotti screw and glue with Victory group, a Bottecchia Americas 500 with all Campy, a Masi 3V Olympic #119/200 with all record group, a Pinarello with SR group and much pantographed components, a Colnago Super with the 30 anniversary group with even more pantographed and inlaid components, a De Rosa Nouvo Classico with titanium Record group. All of these are restored or in excellent condition. I have refurbished or restored most of them myself. I must admit that I enjoy working on the bikes as much as I do riding them. This may explain why I almost spent as much time working on them as I do riding them. Besides the Alan screw and glue, I've never ridden anything other than Steel lugged bikes, nor have I ridden anything with Shimano. I have a heavy bias towards Italian bikes. I may be missing something?!
As for the subject of this post, I do ride all my bikes. Now, I understand most of them are nothing special to the real bike collector but I did have people telling me that I shouldn't be riding some of them. A guy once stopped me on one of my rides to ask to look at the Colnago and after admiring it for a good long time told me that I should be hanging the bike in my living room. I had encountered similar comments about my Masi and Pinarello. I have the same attitude towards my other hobby of restoring and racing vintage cars. I believe in enjoying them unless one of them becomes the last one of its kind in existence. Then I will donate it to a museum and let the future generations enjoy it.
Can anyone tell us more about the Mill Valley swap meet? Tim?
Back to lurking and learning,
Felix Chiu