[CR]Whatever happens to famous bikes revised

(Example: Framebuilders:Chris Pauley)

Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 09:54:21 -0800 (PST)
From: "Ted E. Baer" <wickedsky@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: [CR]Whatever happens to famous bikes revised
To: Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
In-Reply-To: <91D54AFB-2B1F-11D9-984E-0050E49E894D@t-online.de>


What ever happens to bikes of famous riders? Not a whole lot from what I have learned.

Back in the "old days" (late 80's/early 90's) when I worked for a shop here in Palo Alto (that is now out of business), "The Wheelsmith," we would get piles of old frames from famous riders. I bought one that belonged to some guy on the Coors Light team; it was a Lemond. A year later I sold it to some guy who found out who it had belonged to and was really stoked about it. Then, the "Crest" team unloaded a pile of frames on us and I bought one of those too. Those frames were Serottas in disguise. They had the seat-tube that became larger in diameter down near the bottom bracket. I outfitted it with OFF TOPIC C-Record and what have you and to this day that was/is hands down the fastest and most responsive bicycle I have EVER ridden. I got tired of it and sold it. Turns out that bike belonged to some dude named Alexi Graywall (whoever that is.)

Back to "whatever happened to these frames." Well we would have sales and sell them to the General Public for $150.00/each or so. Employees got them for half price.

It is important to note that many of these frames were in need of major frame repair. Mainly the top tubes needed to be replaced because the sweat from the rider (which contains salts, etc) actually corroded and "ate through the top tube."

It another story, some dude came into Performance Bicycles (where I was getting paid double what any other shop would pay only to do half the work) with these two racing bikes complete with racing tags, etc. He explained to me that both bicycles were owned and raced by Greg LeMond (not TDF bikes) and that he wanted them carefully packaged and wanted full insurance for the bicycles. No problem. We went through all of the motions and I handed the UPS LOG to him to fill in as I watched (so as I would not be blamed in the event that something happened to his bicycles.) Well, as luck would have it, UPS "came through again" and LOST BOTH BICYCLES. The UPS Driver, Supervisor, and someone else from the company came into the store to discuss the issue with us. They took full responsibility for losing the bicycles that were insured at $$$$ value. So in turn we had the customer come into the store and pick out whatever five bicycles he wanted in the store--no questions asked. I believe one was a Tesch road bike. So that is what happened to two famous bikes....................

Ted Baer If some of this post does not make any sense please forgive me. I went to see "Buckethead" in San Francisco last night and for the first time in 20 years got high without even smoking; I was sitting in a cloud of smoke in the upper tier at the Warfield Theater. Palo Alto, CA

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