Russ Fitzgerald has posted (on the Velo News web site) a very reasoned response to Maynard's rantings re: Berthet pedals.
Even if you take into account the fact that Maynard has never been consistent about anything, his seeming loathing of the vintage bike scene is difficult to figure out. Clearly (as Gabe Konrad could testify) Maynard has been agressively, profanely anti-vintage since the mid-1990s at least.
This is in contrast to his early Bike Shop columns in Winning, where the shop's owner Bob rode an old six-day bike and where a vintage Cinelli hung in the basement, attracting admiration from all. Even in the early '90s, Maynard now and then would reveal some affection for bikes of days gone past, as in his love letter to his old Raleigh Professional, reprinted in Half Wheel Hell. Maynard tracked the bike down, got it going again, and promised to ride it forever.
Of course, he didn't. He revealed in an interview with Grant Peterson that he dumped the old Raleigh and that he was now riding whatever new piece of iron that he could get ahold of through his bike industry connections.
Anyway, on a different topic, it was nice to the names of Kvale and Wastyn mentioned in the same posting from Robert White. Chris builds some of the nicest frames around. And Mr. Wastyn seems to be from the same mold as the old Twin Cities six day men, Ken Woods and Cecil Behringer, now unfortunately gone. They were grouchy old men sometimes, but they told better stories than Maynard.
Mike Hagburg
Bismarck, ND