At 04:25 AM 10/26/04 -0700, Jerry Moos wrote:
>One theory that has been aired here before is that, in the day, guys with
>plenty of money who had decided they really should take up cycling went to
>the local Schwinn and bought the best and most expensive bike on the
>floor. Then they rode it around the block a couple of times, couldn't
>figure out these derailleur things, or just moved on to their next passing
>interest, and left the bike in the garage for 30 years.
Stories like this sound like urban myths, but;
Many years ago, I answered a local ad for a "lightweight Schwinn". A woman in her '60s had been told by her Dr. that she should take up cycling, as she needed low impact exercise. She asked her son, a well known local criminal lawyer, to pick her up a bike. He went to the local Schwinn dealer and said "My mom needs a bike. What's the best you've got?" She rode it around Lake Calhoun once and decided cycling wasn't for her. "My bottom hurt for days". About 10 years later she decided to get rid of "That old bike in the basement"
The bike was a pristine P15 and the price was too good to be true. But the frame was too small for me and funds were tight back then, so I passed her number on to a short friend. He blew it by waiting a couple of days to call her.
The saddest part is that she lived half a block from a bike path. If she'd gotten a nice Suburban, with upright bars and a mattress saddle, she might have gotten 10 years of use out of it.
Mark Stonich;
BikeSmith Design & Fabrication LLC
http://bikesmithdesign.com