I am a Dade County Transportation Enforcement Officer, and to do this job I must often drive Miami-Dade county 8 hours in a work day. Today at a downtown area supermarket, as I left after using the bathroom facilities, I spotted a Trek brazed with 531 tubing with beautiful paint and all decals in pristine condition. The size was like 55-57 cm by eye and the blue line derailleurs, rims and seatpost all looked clean and original. The cluster was something like a standard 14-24 or maybe 26 which was standard for Treks of the early 80's (my guess). The shocker was that it had a mattress seat and about 10 inches of stem showing out of the headtube. Attached to the steel high riser stem were steel bars that you would find on a 60's British tourer, like a rudge, and with tourer/Raliegh type levers. I didn't stick around to offer the owner $100 but I feel I would have had a 50/50 chance of getting the bike based on the neighborhood. These finds are still around to be had, even as more and more owners and pawn shops know that anything steel with lugs is likely to be worth something, even if they don't know the old Trek rep nor the Reynolds 531 rep. I would guess that we still have another 5 years left before someone makes a movie on the life of Eddy Merckx starring Antonio Banderas, and suddenly any lugged steel bike will be worth triple and more. Aluminum bike owners will look at their steeds with the same enthusiasm that people have for their stained plastic blender, and people will look at old Treks with the same admiration that they have for old two seater Ford Thunderbirds. Then it will only be a matter of time before old Blue line Suntour dt shifters are sold at auction for two days salary, and five year old aluminum Treks will be valued at less than a cherry pair of dt shifters.
Garth Libre in Miami Fl.