Hi all,
I am a 54-year old professional scuba diver and an avid collector of vintage bicycles. I am new to the CR list and thought an unorthodox introduction would be fun so here it is:
Last Saturday I happened to be scuba-diving off the coast of "Cardiff by the Sea" (San Diego) and found an old black Brooks Professional saddle on the ocean's floor. I rescued the saddle from the mirky salt and mercury infested waters and brought it back to my home for proper evaluation. I deduced that the saddle was dumped into the ocean within less than twelve hours of my finding it, (judging by the lack of algae, barnacles or "flotsam and jetsam" stuck on the leather and or rails.) I used a blow-dryer on the saddle followed by large amounts of Brooks Saddle Treatment to revive it. I nice find I thought.
Later, as I was hosing down my scuba gear out on the rear deck at my home, my mind began to run rampant. I thought to myself, "What if there were other treasures down there?" The weather was still unpleasant (as is always in San Diego) but I could not resist the temptation of the fruits of which may still lay in the shallow offshore waters. That said, I hopped back into my car, suited up for another dive, and had at it. This time I really hit the jackpot! I saw a pair of what appeared to be rear frame dropouts sticking up out of the sand. Both dropouts read "Brev. Campagnolo" on them. I began scooping sand out of the way in a furious effort to unearth what I hoped would be a miraculous find. After half an hour of work, I pulled a COMPLETE Masi frameset from the sands of the ocean floor! There was no headset, yet the fork still lay in the headtube; (odd I thought.)
Once I got the white frameset ashore, I realized that some meat-head had done something ridiculous to the steerer of the fork. Instead of the steerer being a nice piece of straight guage tubing, someone (somehow) made a raised shape of a spade on the steerer. Once I saw this, I literally fell apart inside. I had wasted all of this time digging this bicycle frame out of the ocean only to find that it had been modified and thus, rendered ruined. Luckily I was not too far from the local recycling center so I pitched the frame and fork in the scrap metal recycling bin.
All said and done, I returned to the home-front for the remainder of the day. "Well," I thought, "things could be worse; I could have voted for George Bush!"
What a day at the beach!
Hayden Rourke
San Diego, CA