I rode my new Mercian Vincitore fixed-gear today, and greatly enjoyed it. I promise I'll take pictures and post them sometime in the not-too-distant future.
Riding it and thinking about how all the pieces come together made me realize I need to thank some people -
- thanks, Chuck Schmidt, for sharing that lovely '60 Mercian of yours. It was the push over the edge I needed to order the bike I'd been thinking about for months.
- thanks, Hilary Stone, Ray Etherton, Mick Butler, Bob Reid, and all of the lads on both sides of the Atlantic for turning me onto English clubman's and road-path bikes, as well as the history behind them.
- thanks, Sheldon. I went to your site back in '97 to learn more about a bike I'd just bought - only to see a section on fixed-gear bikes. And then I read it. And I've been hooked ever since.
- thanks, Douglas Brooks. You gave me just the right shove in the direction of ordering my Rivendell. I've never regretted it.
- thanks to all the folks I didn't get to see at the Cirque last year. I've already made my reservation for this May.
- and above all, thanks to Dale Brown for keeping this forum alive and well and functioning.
Russ Fitzgerald
Greenwood SC
velocio@meta-net.net