Jim, I appreciate your kind words. Not to be dramatic, but I feel very lucky and privileged to be the custodian of one of the Clauds. It still seems a bit unreal to find a new one, and NIP/NOS components. I'm having a lot of fun with this new project. I'm also working on a '53 Claud.
A personal story around this..In January of this year, Andrew, my oldest friend of more than 35 years died at the age of 44. As teenagers in New York City, in 1974 we stumbled on a Claud track bikein the basement of Metro bicycles on 88th and Lexington. It was either from 30's or 50's. At the time we had no idea what it was, but we put on some Cinelli M71s, and started riding it around Manhattan (no brakes of course, teenage bravado).
For some reason the bike bug came back to me soon after his death, and I started noodling around and buying a frame here and some parts there. But the bug had bit, and the other night I was in bed an couldn't sleep. Andrew often shows up in my dreams and I had him on my mind. So I got out of bed and looked on eBay and the Cyclart site and saw the Clauds, which had apparantly just been listed. Since I promised my wife I wouldn't buy any more bikes for awhile, I went back to bed. Needless to say, I really couldn't sleep now. So I got up and did what any of us would have done and surrendered to temptation...The Last Temptation of Andrew.
Tobias Shapito Saint Paul, Minnesota
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