Re: [CR]Ebay Chris Chance...best bike ever?/Why not buy

(Example: Racing)

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 10:21:32 -0800 (PST)
From: "Don Wilson" <dcwilson3@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [CR]Ebay Chris Chance...best bike ever?/Why not buy
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
In-Reply-To: <bf5.dba2c7f.32dad7ef@aol.com>


Lou consistently offers some of the most thought provoking posts on this CR list, so I want to begin by thanking him for giving me his food for thought. Lou wonders, with a slight suspicion of motive, why some here don't buy the Chance bike, if they think it is so great? An absolutely spot on question and here's my response.

To start with, I can't speak for others, but I can say for myself that I have never bought a Picasso either and I recognize several of his paintings as masterpieces. I don't have to own a masterpiece, or want to buy one, to judge it and call it a masterpiece. I would even go out on the following ledge and say that only a small percentage of persons that have described any artifact as a masterpiece have ever actually owned the artifact so described. FWIW, I have never actually heard anyone else but Lou mention that willingness to purchase a masterpiece was a pre-condition of describing something as a masterpiece.

Now to narrow in on bikes, this bike by Chance is the wrong size for me. And I don't like to ride fixed gears anymore (I never did much) and don't like to own bikes I don't ride; yet, that does not preclude me, however, from recognizing that certain fixed gear bikes are among the purest, most elegant examples of light weight bike making.

And just so you don't think I'm a snob about how old things things must be to be considered masterpieces, I also don't own a vintage Bugatti car from the 30s, or a new Veyron, even though I believe both are masterpieces. Likewise I find some (but not most) of recent bikes made by KOF builders the equivalent or the better of some great bikes of the past.

Price, too, is always an issue with me, regardless of whether something is a masterpiece, or a thrift store special. I never spend money on collectibles unless I can see a quick cummulative payback with some profit, if I don't enjoy ownership as much as expected. Call me old fashioned. :-) Further, I am not so vain and self-deluded as to think that just because I call something a masterpiece, everyone else in the market will soon agree (to wit some of the responses to my original post) and drive the price up and guarranty my profit. People think what they will and there is often no accounting for taste (to wit, some of the responses to my original post and perhaps my own). :-)

Lastly, to be completely fair to myself (something I always heartily recommend in such cases), I did say the Chance would have to be in the running; that doesn't preclude other fine bikes from being in the running. And no I have no vested interest in it. I just love that bike.

The only other bike I have ever responded to as strongly as this Chance is a lugless, blue Bill Philbrook pictured on the CR site. It was my best bicycle masterpiece, before I saw this Chance.

Yes, I have seen many frames that evidence vastly more expenditure of painstaking work than either this Chance or the Philbrook I mentioned. But they both have the "it" that in my mind's eye makes them masterpieces. Is one better? The Chance is the better bike to me now that I have seen it by a small margin, though I still love the nearly absolute minimalism of the Philbrook.

Next, is the Chance flawed? Of course, all masterpieces have flaws. The Marilyn Monroe created by Norma Jean Baker has a mole. The mole on its own is hideous. But it either humanizes her in some subtle way, as some have speculated, or, more to my way of thinking, is simply transcended by her own elusive, nonlinear magnificience. Regarding the Chance, the little gee-gaws for the owner's name are as terrible as MM's mole. But the bike transcends them without question to me. Who knows how or why? Frankly, who cares?

Finally, if one wishes to explore the subtleties of market player motivation, as Lou seemed to want to do, I think the more interesting question here is how much would investments in other bikes that others may have serious sunk costs in, and so not surprisingly view as being better than this Chance, be affected, if tastes changed dramatically to view the Chance (and bikes of like ilk) as being the now contemporary view of what a masterpiece of bicycle building were? Now, that's always a very intriguing and enlightening hypothetical to consider when studying and forecasting the dynamics of any market--how will change in competitive standards affect the status quo and determine its response? In art markets, for one instance, it is not unusual for holders of traditionally valuable masterpieces to look down their noses at new, or rediscovered artists being enthusiastically touted as having produced some masterpieces by a new generation of critics, connosieurs and laymen. The next new masterpieces always pose a risk of a sweeping change in taste, which in turn can pose a risk to supply/demand balances for previous masterpieces. Certain contemporary strategists, usually the kind with nothing to lose from change in the direction they proselytize, might argue that an art market has to undergo a bit of creative destruction in order to make room for the new order of masterpieces and values. FWIW, I don't hold with those strategists. I just love that Chance. It doesn't go deeper than that.

And again, to Lou, thank you for making the comment that triggered this response and for all the other comments that you make that get me thinking.

Don Wilson
Los Olivos, CA USA


--- LouDeeter@aol.com wrote:


> I guess I'm perplexed. We have two listmembers who
> say this is the "best
> bike ever". One of those has actually seen the
> bike. So, I have to ask, are
> either of you bidding on this bike? I mean, if it
> were my "best bike ever",
> I'd be either ready with the trigger at the end or
> I'd already have the
> bidding so far into the stratosphere that everyone
> else would just sit on the
> sideline in awe. I'm not watching it, so if it
> ends and neither of you bid, I'd
> be interested to understand why not. Lou Deeter,
> Orlando FL
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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