R: War bikes (Re: [CR]period of ownership)

In Italy all of them had the rearmost portion of the rear mudguard painted. Britain is another thing and I can't vouch for the laws there. The Bianchi's mudguards are either chromed or stailess steel, then painted over with the same paint scheme as the frame, then manually overpainted in white. My Mother-in-law who was in her late teens at the time the law was passed, clearly remembers helping her father paint all of the mudguards white and the reflectors black. The use of headlights was simply outlawed. After the war, most people simply cleaned the black off the reflectors and left the white. Another interesting sidebar to this story is the fact that my wife's grandfather, the original owner of the Bianchi, had worked for the Italian railroads from the teens until the 50's. He told his daughter, my mother-in-law, that in the first world war, he helped collect old bicycles from the wealthy land owners for their metal content. This is likely the reason that ordinaries on the continent are almost unheard of. As they were already obsolete, they went to the foundries as an act of patriotism.

Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ