Tom Bruni was one of my very best friends. He was a frame builder by trade, I have one of his tandems. He was more of a maverick framebuilder who was always stretching the limits of bike design rather than as the keepers of the flame we follow. We approached bikes from totally opposite directions, his from the modern approach using and embellishing on mountain bike technology when mine was as a "retrogrouch" in his terms. Though his bikes are much more mainstream than those first rides, he was always looking for the key to a frame's design rather than the traditional way of doing things.
I first met him on a Baltimore Bike Club ride in 1990 with a rest stop at a pool at Codorus Park in Pennsylvania. He was holding court in the shallow end of the pool having ridden a bike that had been featured in Bicycling magazine, an unusual frame that had swingarms front and rear. I ended up arguing with him about using the frames geometry and tubing to provide the same virtues until we both had a good sunburn. And we've been friends ever since. I'm really going to miss him.
He was as passionate about bikes as any one of us, and an expert at just about all things technical about bikes, a constant reference for me and any of a number of friends and customers. Larry Black has done a better job than me at a memorial to Tom for the BBC's list serve. Perhaps we can convince him to copy it to the CR list.
affectionately,
Dan Artley in Parkton, Maryland
>>> "Angel Garcia" <veronaman@comcast.net> 07/11/05 9:47 AM >>>
This was posted on roadbikereview.com:
anyone know Thomas Bruni?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ----
"Baltimore bike builder was sadly killed Saturday in Westminister. "
http://forums.roadbikereview.com/
Angel Garcia
Long Valley, NJ