Peter Bridge wrote:
>
> (cut)I say, ride it, except
> that I might not be man enough to ride a gold-forked Paramount.
I wouldn't ride the Anniversary Paramount because it is just too
ostentatious for my tastes; they certainly don't go for much money and
are fairly plentiful.
> I buy bikes strictly in order that they be available for riding, but if I
> stumbled into a historic bike -- a Coppi Tour winner, Merckx's first Tour
> winner, Merckx's hour bike, let's even say Thevenet's Tour winner.... I would
> either hang them up on the wall, or make sure they got to a place that would
> hang them up on the wall for the pleasure of lots of folks.
I would say the chances of the above scenario happening are nil. Said bikes are already on display.
How about a more down to earth example. Motorola team bikes raced in Europe by Lance Armstrong have come up for auction on eBay a few times and have not gone for big bucks. Lance went through a lot of bikes in a season. Multiply that by the number of season's that Lance has raced. Ride one of those? My friend does.
I have one of Andy Hampsten's Motorola bikes he raced in Europe on in 1992. Andy Hampsten, the only American to win the Giro d'Italia. I don't think twice about taking it out on a 60 mile ride. I'm not hurting that bike in the least by riding it. People don't see my bikes when they are hanging on my wall; they do see them when I'm out riding them.
BTW, I can not name a place west of the Mississippi where you can go to a bicycle museum to view bikes.
Chuck Schmidt
SoPas, SoCal