" Another thing that always made me scratch my head are brake levers suc h as the ones on this bike. Were those style simply "tourist" levers put onto dropped bars? They always seem like they would be very hard to rea ch. Enlightenment sought."
Mark Hoffman New Britain, CT USA
Quite correct. Even my 1948 and 1949 Clubmans had these traditional non-hooded brake levers. These machines were designed to be ridden "on t he drops" always so the levers worked quite nicely actually. If you've neve r ridden a machine with a geometry and frame size like this, it's like learning to ride all over! 'bars down, seat post up, long top tube, short seat tube.. it all "works" even though I finally, at 6'2" gave up convincing myself a Clubman's 22" one size fits all frame really was big enough. But something about this combination makes one want to do one thing: ride the thing really, really aggressively and fast. The best pick-up road races I ever had was on my '49 Clubman with an AM hub.. s he just flew. So you really can appreciate how they did those epic Land End s to John O'Groats records. Of course the owner of this beauty now has to go out and find the absolutely de rigeur all black riding kit and cycling goggles, too. Afterall, he's got change back from four grand as it is.
Almost.
Peter Kohler Washington DC USA
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