Howard Darr wrote:
> I have some sentiment that a classic commuter should have a high funk
> factor.
>
> Mine is a maserati that was low end and has about as much patina as a
> bike can have.
I'm with you on that. Mine is an old Italian frame of unknown provenance I acquired third-hand. The guy I got it from purchased it used in the early 70s with a mix of Italian components. He decked it out as a touring bike (although it has fairly tight geometry) and rode it across the US in the 1976 Bikecentennial event. Some years after that he began having problems with the bottom bracket -- it always seemed to be loose when he rode it, but he was unable to find any play when he put it on the workstand. He eventually brought it to Yellow Jersey in Madison, where they discovered that the BB shell had cracked all the way around the seat tube socket.
He had the components transfered to a new frame and was going to toss the old one, but gave it to me instead. I eventually replaced the original cracked Italian-thread BB shell with an investment cast English-thread shell and built it up as my commuter bike. The frame is now painted in flat white primer; nothing else.
The frame appears to be at least moderately high-end: Campy 1010 dropouts, Prugnant lugs with windows, and fully chromed under a greenish-gold paint. No traces of the original manufacturer were on the frame when I acquired it, and the owner couldn't recall any when he got it either.
I've built it up with a mish-mash of parts: Sugino triple crank, Duopar RD and Cyclone FD, Ofmega Sintesi pedals, funky Maillard front and rear drum brake hubs I've never seen anywhere else, Soubitez halogen generator lights, Snoopy bell, etc.
http://www.os2.dhs.org/
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John (john@os2.dhs.org)
Appleton WI USA