Well, Ken, we have nice eye candy here in DC, too. Most days, there's a lovely patina-ed DeRosa in front of the coffee shop on our downtown DC corner. And, an exquisitely original lime-green Raleigh Super Tourer (?), complete with Stronglight 93s w. world's heaviest pants guard, jubilee derailleurs, and original Altenberger dual-pivot side-pulls. And, of course, the mattress saddle. Often my '73 Raleigh Competition fixed gear conversion joins them, although I've lately been riding an off-topic beater instead. Saw an old Cilo flash by this afternoon. And numerous adds wanting to recover stolen bikes. DC downtown may be less brutal than NYC, in over 5 years I've only lost a rear light which had a hand screwed nut. Nothing bolted on has ever gone walk-about.
harvey sachs mcLean va USA
Ken Bensinger wrote about great bikes just chained up in the city: This may or may not inspire passionate discussion, but it's something I've been noticing quite a bit of and thought it might be interesting to hear if others have made similar observations.
Which is: amazing vintage bikes hitched to city street posts. And left in the rain, snow and sun.
Today I saw a gorgeous Frejus chained to a light post on 53rd street between Madison and 5th Avenue. Gotta be pre-1970. It had a chromed head lug and nice looking decals. It was tall and sharp, but heavily modified with riser bars and etc. Fork looked right, though. It was being used as a fixie.
There's a very nice DeRosa I see around, used by a messenger. Lovely blue with great looking lug work. Often chained in front of my office.
And then there was the rootbeer brown Masi Gran Crit I saw outside traffic court one morning. Thing was beautiful, and just chained there in the rain. Also used as a fixie.
But perhaps my favorite was a pair of messenger wannabees hoisting, respectively, a pristine white Schwinn Paramount trackie from, by the looks of it, the 1960s, and a Raleigh Team Pro trackie from the late 70s. They put them down, chained them both to a parking meter with a single cable lock, and went into some East Village bar.
Makes a man want to buy a pair of bolt cutters. Har har.
Ken Bensinger
Brooklyn, NY