I started off with a Windsor Carrera Sport, that lasted about 2 seasons before the waterpipe tubing flexed beyond belief and I was finally able ( with the help of a good friend) to talk my old man into a new frame. He succumbed to the beauty of a Holdsworth road racing frame. It was a step down from the "Pro", but had 531 none-the-less. Yep, 16 years old with a British road bike...no wonder I feel spoiled now. For the track, I borrowed a variety of bikes from friends including a Bianchi and a Fillet Brazed Ron Cooper made for Cliff somebody or another from Reno until just before the 84 Olympic trials. My good friend and current (at the time) endurance record holder Scott Hitchman came across a Motobecane that had been crashed and buckled on the TT and DT. It was a big bike, so Scott cut the top tube out, lowered it and yanked the dropouts out and installed track dropouts. My other good friend, Jim Stone painted it with a base coat of black and then used every imaginable color and just made little dots all over it. She became known as "jellybeans".
Miss all of those bikes, but i think the fillet brazed bike is why I have such a love affair with the clean look of fillets.
DW
Central Texas
(is a long way from Sacramento.)