I have two Romics myself, a 24" Junior road bike I bought for my daughter when she was young and a custom built track bike. Odd thing is Ray Gasorowski, the late builder of Romic, never liked toe clip overlap - I had to convice him that the slight overlap inplied by my preferred frame angles was not a problem on a track bike. So the overlap on yours must have been dictated by some other design element. I've heard that Ray's son is still building Romics, or at least was until recently in Houston, maybe the same site. If you can find him, he may be using the same decals, although I hear the bikes bear no resemblance to what his father used to build.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Houston, TX
olyoop@comcast.net wrote: Greetings: I'm seeking two Romic roundel decals and two of the multi-color rings (featuring a variation on the world champion colors) that encircled the seat tube of those bikes from Houston. These are to be used on an interesting child's bike with 600c sewups that I recently purchased for my nine-year-old daughter. It appears to date from 1975, to judge from the patent date on the rear NR derailleur. It's champagne in color, and weighs approximately 17 pounds (substantially lighter than my 19-pound Masi fixed gear, anyway). Construction details range from very nice (beautifully filleted rear brake bridge, for example, and apparently high-quality paint for the era) to crude (the seatlug's edges are hugely inconsistent). Odd too is the design's overall balance. The front center is EXTREMELY tight--the inevitable result, I suppose, of providing a proportional top tube for someone who's four feet tall. Never mind toeclip overlap; this bike very nearly has pedal overlap. I sucked in my breath and gave a lot of overly-technical warnings when offering it to my oldest child, who heretofore has ridden only a leaden mountain bike or on the back of our tandem. Meanwhile, the rear stays are long enough to provide a fist's worth of clearance between tire and seattube. Did Romic figure that a tiny wheelbase would be too dangerous? My daughter is thrilled with her new acquisition, and placed second among girls in her age group at the local crit in her first outing--all without ever shifting once from the 36x18 gear (with 600c wheels, remember) in which she started. She's asked for brakes that she can actually activate, however, and prudence dictates that I replace the period-correct Campys with some light-touch, dual-pivot stoppers. I am thrilled to have another NR bike of decent quality to play with, and to have found a stash of NOS Soyo 600c sewups at a Seattle shop for $5.00 each! Thanks for decal leads, and for reading. Kris Green About to move for the first time in a decade--yikes! Olympia, WA