Re: [CR]wow, here's a linkto the ol days

(Example: Component Manufacturers)

From: <OROBOYZ@aol.com>
Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 22:20:51 EST
Subject: Re: [CR]wow, here's a linkto the ol days
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org


In a message dated 1/25/2003 8:06:53 PM Eastern Standard Time, prutledge1@comcast.net writes:

<< Dale, I didn't know about Chris' death. Larry Black told me today that Chris died at a race in 1985 at the age of 35. I knew him as a nice kid from Virginia when he was 14 or 15 years old. I was a kid from NJ and we only saw one another at races. When I stopped racing in '66, I no longer saw Chris. How did his racing career go over the next almost 20 years? Did he do well?
>>

Sorry to have blurted out that bad news but Chris was a very popular rider in the Atlantic criterium circuit.. Larry Black probably will be able to clarify the goofs in my narrative but here's how I recall the story... Chris owned and operated a bike shop, along with his uncle I think, in Northern Va (serving the Washington, DC area) The family was Dutch and loved criterium racing..Chris was a very strong and aggressive sprinter, always a man to be reckoned with at the finish line.

As a manufacturers rep, I called on his shop in maybe 1977 or so trying to sell them a brand new bike line called Trek... At that time Treks came as frame sets ( 3 models, Ishiwata, Reynolds 531 or Columbus SL) and parts boxes (Suntour, Shimano or Campagnolo NR.) The Meermans didn't buy the line but The Bicycle Exchange did, who years later became Bikes USA, which became Treks largest dealer and who burnt Trek Corp. in bankruptcy to the tune of millions!

In any case, Chris ran his business and mostly raced up and down the eastern seaboard. So (it must have been) 1985 when he, as a still really young man, dropped dead of a massive heart failure. We were all shocked and saddened.

Dale Brown
Greensboro, North Carolina