I think that's a great story. Thanks for sharing. Ted Ernst Palos Verdes Estates, CA
> Subject:
> emotionally satisfying bicycles
> Date:
> Sat, 29 May 1999 16:31:10 -0400
> From:
> "Aldo Ross" <swampmtn@siscom.net>
> To:
> <classicrendezvous@listbot.com>
> References:
> 1
>
> classicrendezvous
>
> In a message dated 5/28/99 4:04:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> dimauro@tmn.com
> writes:
>
> << The PX-10 is not only physically nicer to ride, but is also
> emotionally
> much more satisfying. The ride connects me to a wonderful era of bicycles
> and bicyclists.>>
>
>
> Replace "PX-10" with "1958 Olmo", and you have expressed in just a few
> words
> the very thing I spend hours trying to explain to my cycling friends.
>
> Replace it with "Ed's old Bianchi", and it brings to mind a dear friend of
> mine.
>
> This is the story of what got me interested in vintage racing bikes.
>
> Some time in the late 1950's my dad's friend Ed Christmann ordered a new
> Bianchi Pista frameset from Italy. Ed was a local man, born in 1910, who
> raced during the 20's and 30's, back when there were numerous wooden
> tracks
> in Ohio, and back when the only "Power Bars" were made by Hershey's and
> melted in your pockets. Ed was Ohio One-Mile champion a few times, but
> his
> biggest race was a relay across the USA, sometime in the early 30s. Each
> team was made-up of a rider from each "region", who would ride 200 to 300
> miles until they met the next team rider and "handed-off". The bike he
> used
> for that race was a 1927 model... he always told me he got it the year
> Lindy
> flew the Atlantic.
>
> After the war, Ed worked as an Engineer for a local paper machinery co.
> He
> was make good money, and wanted to replace his '27 bike with something
> new,
> so he ordered the Bianchi.
>
> I was born in 1962, and can't remember a time when Ed wasn't visiting our
> house monthly for dinner, or just to talk. He watched me grow-up, while I
> watched him grow old. He never mentioned bikes or racing until 1979,
> when I
> first became interested in racing. That's when he told me about his bike,
> and I went to see it. (my first look at a Bianchi... I've been hooked
> ever
> since.)
>
> The bike looked ancient even then, with tires slowly cracking from age,
> and
> deep red decals beginning to oxidize. Ed let me borrow it to ride one
> weekend. It had the flared chrome head lugs typical of Bianchis from the
> 40s and 50s, a Legnano-engraved Ambrosio bar and stem, with some of the
> original thin red tape still under the electrical tape he resorted to in
> later years. The frame was drilled for brakes, because Ed always
> preferred
> a fixed-gear road bike. The brake was a Mafac lever with a later
> DiaCompec'
> pull. The rest of the bike was Campi from the early 60s. Ed always
> talked
> like he'd had the bike just a "few years". which, as I grow older I learn
> can mean almost anything! Anyway. I cleaned the bike, oiled the chain,
> rode
> around a local truck-driver training school for awhile, returned the bike,
> and didn't see it again for eighteen years.
>
> I went on to my own racing career, went through a dozen different bikes,
> and
> finally got on a team sponsored by Bianchi. I remember Ed was so excited
> when I told him... I think he always thought of it as Coppi's old squadra.
> He was always interestd in how my racing was going, and he loved looking
> at
> my bikes...we'd marvel at the wonders of the post-fixed gear age. I
> remember spending hours with him at the workbench, trying to decifer the
> mysteries of my first set of Campi Ergo levers, or enjoying the chance to
> overhaul a Super Record derailleur.
>
> Ed used his Bianchi almost every day to ride the two miles round trip to
> morning mass at Holy Trinity, weather permitting. There's still a shiney
> crescent on the stone interior wall, polished smooth where Ed leaned his
> bike each morning. He could sometimes be seen at four in the morning,
> headed for the park to listen to the birds awaken in the cool of a summer
> morning.
>
> Ed passed away in November of 1996. He had no children, and his wife had
> died many years before, so his estate went to a nephew somewhere.
> Spring of
> 1997 they held an estate sale, and I went looking for furniture and
> funishings. in the back yard I found all his bike stuff piled under a
> tree.
> The bikes were filthy, but everything I remembered was there: the Bianchi,
> his wooden-wheeled 1927 bike, all the pumps and spare wheels, and spare
> parts from the 20s and 30s.
>
> I waited in the back yard for what seemed like a week, while they
> auctioned-off the rest of the items, until they finally got around to the
> bike stuff. The crowd, which had started at around 200, had thinned-out
> to
> just me and a half-dozen junk-store operators, so there wasn't much
> competition for the bikes. Only the wooden wheels aroused any interest,
> but
> I bid as far as I needed, determined to get every last nut and bolt.
>
> I've overhauled the Bianchi, and I've. or rather "we've" ridden about 200
> miles together since last spring. There is no way to explain the
> feeling I
> get when I'm riding Ed's old Bianchi.
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