Hi Jan,
I've enjoyed reading your magazine articles. This story might take a little time, and you can sort through the useless details...just be glad I'm only a two fingered typist. LOL! One of my close friends and riding buddies came into my shop just before the Sequoia Century in 1986 and asked me if I would ride his Singer , for some reason the front changer wasn't shifting properly. I took it across the parking lot and stood on it, it felt like Craig Calfee's bamboo bike that Craig displayed at the Interbike show several years ago. Something seriously wrong. The seattube was cracked on the left side following the lug line of the BB shell in the back and the crack cut across the lug extension in the front. My friend is a big guy, 220 lbs. I regretfully told him the Singer was dead for a while, and loaned him my Alex Ringer to ride the Sequoia on. This story goes on for a bit.... sorry. In 1970 I started blowing glass as a hobby, got seriously hooked by the craft of it and moved back to Southern Cal where I grew up to build my first glass studio in 1972. I met a lovely girl at a craft fair in 1973, and moved my studio to Whittier to be closer by. Her brother, a bike enthusiast according to her, lived at the time in Washington State. He called one day when I was visiting her and we talked about bikes. I never met him in person. He told me he had a blue Alex Singer that Spence had built for him. In the fall of 1980, a man walked into my new bike shop in Novato, CA ( I poisoned myself making iridescent glass in 1979 and decided to do something better health wise) looked around briefly, saw some handmade glazed ceramic bike pins I had on the counter , and said with a smile," you've got good taste in pins, my sister designed those". I smiled back and said, " and you've got a blue Alex Singer, I used to date your sister, and talked to you on the phone once. He was shopping for a house in Novato after a job transfer and ended up buying one about a mile from the shop. We became close friends and when his Singer needed a paint job, I send my Chris Pauley in at the same time to Cyclart. Jim and Susan did a lot of fancy and unusual paint jobs for me in those days andit wasn't too hard to persuade them to lift the "R" from the end of the Singer decal and replacing the "S", turning my Pauley into an Alex Ringer to spoof people with as my friend and I rode together. The 53 Rue Victor Hugo, Levallois underscript remained the same. The decals looked convincingly authentic. It was great when the two frames came back from Cyclart. Both candy blue, pinstriped around the lugs with a thin gold line, Most people would overlook the Henry James lugs and fork crown on the Ringer and assume that both bikes were Singers. We had a great time making up stories about Singer's deranged brother-in-law that lived in the basement making Ringers. Fast forward back to 1986, but first, My friend's Singer was hit in by a car in 1984 and needed a new DT and TT. Back it went to Cyclart and I sold him a new Columbine to ride while it was being repaired. Dave Tesch had recently started at Cyclart and did the retubing. Dave was extremely talented with a torch but maybe too agressive for the repair this bike needed. Cyclart took a while to source a 26.0mm TT and 28.0mm DT. Sandblasting the frame after repair Tesch discovered the DT just installed had a crack in it and needed re-replacement. This wasn't good news. All in all, the BB shell and seattube got heated 5 times! Once during initial construction, once to pull the bent DT out, once more to install it, once more to pull it after discovering it to be cracked and once more to install a sound tube. Yikes. While my friend was enjoying the Sequoia Century on the Ringer, I called his wife and told her how I thought his bike was basically done for couldn't safely take another repair and offered her my Ringer for the price of the paint job. She accepted and he got a great card from her that night after a great ride with a bill of sale for the Ringer plus a little note from me in it saying I hated to see a grown man cry, so enjoy... A couple months later we decided to see if new Singers were still available. Spence Wolf graciously wrote a letter to Ernie Csuka for us introducing and recommending me to them. I had a local French friend translate all the geometry, fittings, tubing and appointments we desired on the two bikes, and with a suitable deposit, posted the letter. This was in September 1986. We waited nearly a year August of 1987 before receiving notice that the frames were ready to be shipped. In Septmber 1987, nearly a year to the day from the posting of the order we cleared customs at San Francisco Intl Airport. We couldn't wait and started tearing the box open before we got it to the van. Two new Singers! You can envision shredded paper , packing blowing away in the SF breeze into the Bay as we ripped into the crepe paper surrounding each frame. Then the shock! I couldn't believe it What a terrible paint job. The worst Gitane Interclub, Libertas,or Firenze looked better than either frame. There was a thumbprint in the downtube on mine just above the bottle braze-on. The pinstriping looked like it was applied with a broom. My frame had enough sand on the right seat stay captured in the paint to do your nails while you rode, and the chrome, like the best french croissants, was very flaky. We were both stunned, seriously disappointed, and then starting making jokes about it on the trip home. I did send a note to Ernie Csuka saying the frames had arrived in one piece, it was difficult not to add that I was sorry to see that his painter had gone blind. I made a trip to Paris in 1985 to visit Singer Cycles, rode with Ernie's son arond the Hippodrome, and spent quite a bit of time with them. I gently brought up the finish and detail work on the two frames from 1987. Enrie Csuka replied that those frames during a difficult time for the shop with his brother's ill health, and they were the last made before his brother retired from the shop to the upstairs apartment. Time does funny things to our memories, and it may be that Grant has Roland's last frame, or that I may have misunderstood Ernie, very possible considering my poor french and his slightly better english. His son spoke excellent English and translated much for us. The bikes on the showroom floor in 1995 had wonderful paint and chrome, as did my friend's original Singer. I never assembled my frame but finally in 2001 sent it to Ed Litton with a new set of original decals to have it properly painted. For all my disappointment with the original finish, this is a great riding bike. I didn't want to have any expectation about ride qualities but this IS a good one. Much thanks is due to Ed Litton for making it as beautiful to look at as to ride.
Paul Brown Cycle Dynamics Santa Rosa, CA
By the way, Ed has my friend's old Singer to retube to ST, think the BB shell will take one more reheating?....we'll find out.
Cheers!