Bruce Schrader wrote: <snip>
Wonder if I'll be able to make it next year...got to get a worthy bike to bring and ride.. better get started now, I guess. Let's see, Masi, Hetchins, Colnago, GIOS,....no...maybe something domestic and exotic... maybe something new from one of the "torch bearers"... oh, this isn't going to be easy.
OK everyone, let's buck up and start getting ready for next year.
With all due respect, one of the things that I really enjoy (and try to contribute to) is the (at best) "B" bikes that show up. Let me offer a few examples that had nostalgia (and a few yecchs) written all over them:
Sam FitzSimmons 1960 Schwinn Continental with slapper front and telescopic rear trumped Larry Black's '76 Schwinn Varsity. Last year (?) Wayne Bingham brought one of his immaculate Raleigh tourist bikes. This year, I brought (and rode) my ~1965 Sears Ted Williams Sport Racing (with copy of the catalogue page). John P. had the gall to offer his "creek-dried-up-look-what-we-found" 50s Cinelli carcass with cranks. Its patina should never be touched, he said, clearly one-upping my full Patina, cast-lug, Magistroni-crank, FB hub, swap meet special Roma Sport tracker...
These are bikes folks relate to in a different way, whether it is "did people really ride that stuff?" or "Wow, I haven't seen one of those in decades!" Steve Kinney and I had a great time reminiscing about the Sears (he's afflicted with two or three of the beasts).
Please don't take this as an invitation to amplify an off-topic remark, but I believe there were only 7 Bugatti Royales. Like it or not, the Buicks and Hudsons and lowly Model Ts are also important in automotive history. My Sears is exactly like the first 10-speed I owned, a used one I bought in 1962, and it was a genuine hoot to discover the same reverse-laced hubs and other "features". I spent far more time than the thing was worth in dollars to accumulate the right parts, and still enjoy the reactions I get.
The day we totally ignore the Raleigh Internationals, PX-10s and Gitane Tour de Frances, and all the others that were the starters or first racers for a whole generation, we will have lost a lot of our foundation. Viva la (le?) Singer, but I still like my workmanlike Cinelli, too.
Bruce, find something that resonates for you, ride it with joy, and bring it for us to admire.
harvey "proud of my humility" sachs mcLean va