Hello,
I'm new to the list. My name is Dave Baseley, and I live in the hills of Berks County Pennsylvania, near Kutztown. ("In the hills" as in, "almost all of our rides end with a climb".) I've been riding since childhood, off and on, with the most recent "on" phase starting this past spring. I'm married to Carol (was) Adams, whom some of you may recognize as a strong long distance rider from the Baltimore/DC area. Both of us did a lot of riding with members of the White Clay Bike Club (Delaware) and Potomac Pedalers (DC) when we were hot n' heavy into randonneur riding in the late 80's and early 90's. We have both done Boston-Montreal-Boston, Carol in 1989 and I in 1990. We also completed Paris-Brest-Paris in the Centennaire year, 1991. Then we got into other things, me into computing and Carol into nursing, and we kind of drifted away from cycling a bit. (Well, okay, a lot.) Now we're starting to put on the miles again, and we've got these old bikes and parts that still work just fine but don't look -anything- like the new stuff, and thus, minus a few months of meandering in the info-wilderness, here I am.
I heard about the list from Bob Hovey. Thanks Bob, you were right, I like it. I also know some of your names from buying and selling items on eBay, where I go by the moniker wbaseley. (By the way, my feedback rating is currently a mere 98.4; I have a nasty habit of calling a spade a spade which has not been received well in eBay-Land. Ah well, live and learn.) Other names, such as Larry Black, I recognize from our randonneuring / FFFF days. Hi Larry! (Larry is probably scratching his head and saying, "Dave who????" Fret not, we were casual acquaintances.)
Our hardware collection is only marginally on-topic as we bought a good bit of it in the latter half of the 80's and early 90's. We're not vintage or restoration buffs per se, but I am a historian by nature and I love to read and learn about the formative years of multi-gear cycling and racing. Also we have some oldish bikes that continue to give us wonderful service and I want to keep them running.
Plus I am a bit of a Campy snob, in no small part for reasons of aesthetics -- which leads me to what I'll call my lighteweight bicycle aesthetic. I have always *loved* the gossamer profile of a Super Record equipped, steel framed bicycle. Which is probably why I can't much stand looking at things like monstrous downtubes pasted with garish decals, up-sloping stems, and kinky anatomical handlebars; collectively they affect my sensibilities in a most unpleasant way. I'm not a stickler for vintage or material; for example I think titanium is a spectacular frame material and that the current Merlin Cielo is a visually stunning piece of work. But by and large I find that what pleases my eye is firmly rooted in the vintage lightweight look; if I ever buy a Cielo it will by-george have a Cinelli stem and 66-42 bars.
We ride old (as in "on-topic") Vitus 979 frames as our daily drivers, equipped with an assortment of components. Mine has the Euclid drivetrain I first bought back in my randonneuring days, when I could not bring myself to hang Shimano stuff on my bike just to get a triple crank. I spent the entire 1990-91 winter futzing with odds bits and pieces until I got that stuff to work on my road frame. It is still easy on the eye, and still going great guns, as well it should since it is the very definition of 'over-engineered'. Carol also has a C-Record equipped Bottechia from 1987 or 1988, and I have a 1985 Cinelli Super Corsa with Super Record components. Both SLX frames, both ours since new. There's also an indeterminate but on-topic vintage Pinarello Treviso frame, a brutally stiff mix of Columbus SL and SP tubing currently strapped with a mishmash of on- and off-topic parts. And my son has my old Peugeot PK-10 hanging in his garage down in San Antonio.
Those are the "old" bikes. There are more -- a first-year Bianchi Volpe, a big, fast, fun beastie of a Cannondale tandem, an early-early, fully chromed, fully flogged, Ross Mt. Hood -- but those are even further off topic for this list.
So anyway. Hello again, and thanks very much for having me. From what I've seen so far I am going to enjoy myself immensely, though I'll have little of import to add. I'll just lurk and learn from the collective wizardry, so this is likely to be the only massive missive you will have to endure from this quarter. Unless the topic turns to Aermet 100.
Regards, Dave Baseley from Berks County Pennsylvania, still in mild shock over the early season snowstorm