The morning was gray and wet. No ride today. The core of the gathering of Detroit area folks and myself met in the large parking Lot of the Royal Oak City Market. We decided to all stand under umbrellas until a group formed and go to Mark Agree's house and inspect his bike workshop. We got there expecting to see, perhaps, 20-30 bikes and were stunned to see easily three times that many. Racks and shelves of parts...more wheels than a Ford plant...We were there for hours and never did get to see all of it. Mark seems to be at least as driven as myself. Jimmy Katynsky, Tom Cox, myself and Mark just crawled all over a seemingly endless supply of Torpados, chrome Cinneli and Paramount bikes, Colnagos all over the place...things I have never even heard of. Goodies!
We then adjourned to a local restaurant where we had agreed to meet with folks after the early morning activities and were joined by Marcus Hellman, and Ed and Kelly Kasper. I hauled out some of my collection of rare hubs and we all picked them apart until the food came and then rejoined back to the parking lot of the City Market. While Mark and Marcus raced around the now dry parking lot on Mark's Torpado and my Richard Sachs, Ed pulled out this comical tiny little folding bike. It was a Bridgestone Picnica. The fun was not just the funny looking little bike, but really got going when Ed (once a pro racer) jumped on it looking a lot like Pee-Wee Herman, but a hell of a lot faster, joined Marcus and Mark passing them handily until they got their act together. They seemed rather indignant to have Ed going by on this tiny little bike-like thing. Not many folks can keep ahead of Mark...our local version of Lance Armstrong. We who were watching nearly fell down laughing.
We got into a swapping mode and started buying into some of Tom's stash...especially the seemingly endless supply of mint saddles.
Finally all good things have to come to an end and we departed, hoping to get the Cadieux Cafe Races next weekend for some great racing and great fish and chips.
Tom Sanders
Lansing, Mi