Harvey, I was riding through a less urban part of Cranbury Saturday, still a lot of open space out there.
Anyway, your posting questioning the bike to bring to L'eroica was inspirational. I had bought a frame really cheap on Ebay some time ago of unknown provenance. It was in pretty poor shape cosmetically, lots of rust spots, bad paint and chrome. I was interested in trying to powdercoat a sort of beater bike, as i do the process in house for my furniture. I finished the bike in a gradated powder bronze, copper, and
finally oiled bronze (nomenclature of the colors) and painted the lugs silver. It had been hanging in my studio with this durable finish since
last fall, I could not think of a build that would differentiate it from
the other 'performance' bikes i have. I had eventually speculated it was an early 70s Raleigh grand sport.
So your posting about Eroica came up and I found it incredibly interesting as a paradigm for a build. Make something durable, versatile gearing on the expectations for terrain, attractive (of course, always a parameter), and could be left in Italy if a terrific find came up. I used free and leftover components I had picked up (recognize those throw in Modolo bars Lou?).
This 'Raleigh, an interpretation' is the result:
http://www.wooljersey.com/
btw, i fabricated the head badge in bronze.
rides really fine. Had it out 2x this weekend.
Since there has been quite some talk on what, how and why to paint, I threw this in to give the perspective that there are perspectives, that these are objects and meant to serve various functions such as icons, historical referents, investments, and, a 'tool' for riding. Back in my day and my area, we looked to personalize our rides. Authenticity was not in the vocabulary. When we unpacked a bike out of the box, everything not unnecessary came off the bike, from reflectors, chain guards to those premium lever hoods i see shilled on the list occasionally. Then the component upgrades based on affordability, preference, and advertiser's seduction...
..gabriel
btw, I have 2 biodegradable strippers available that do a fine job removing powdercoat, and do it myself mechanically with sandblasting.
> harvey sachs
> mcLean va
> (but did that measuring when we lived in cosmopolitan Cranbury, NJ,
> population about 2000, and had been for 50 years.)
--
gabriel l romeu
after a fine weekend of riding all English (the bike above and one of
the Ron Coopers) in
Chesterfield nj usa
± http://studiofurniture.com Ø http://journalphoto.org ±