Dan,
The "John, his painter" would be John Grant, who was the owner of Apollo Engraving. They were they guys who engraved the lug cutouts and BB cuto ut for Marios lugs (he just finished them by hand after they were engrav ed by machine). They also engraved the parts.
John Grant painted the last 50 bikes that Mario built in Monterey. There was a small paint booth at Apollo Engraving where the bikes were painte d.
Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA
You can already see some additional pix on the eBay listing. I'll be posting more as soon as I get 'em back from the person whose camera was borrowed for the visit.
Nice bike. If it's fake, well, that's a SWEET fake.
We've an extra reason not to call fake on it, based on the CyclArt report that #77 went to John's Bike Shop -- there's a John's sticker on the downtube. What does a John's sticker say? "John's" -- that's all.
Seller says he got it from Jacques Boyer, but that Jacques said it was not built for him. Jacques, seller says, told him Mario had built it for his painter "John" -- ergo the "John's" sticker. I disillusioned him, gently I hope.
No panto'd bits. NR pedals are now mounted.
Problems: Hardly. Two little chips on the top tube, seen in a photo on the eBay listing now. Otherwise, it's been a clear garage queen.
Seller is selling 'cause it's been nothing but a garage queen, and that's not been as much fun for him as he thought it would when he fell in love with it upon meeting it at Jacques' place. It's also not his size, as easily determined because it's MY size, and I had a couple-three inches on him. And all his other bikes were smaller. Yes, he had other bikes, as in Colnago, Schwinn Paramount with Nervex lugs, Eddy Merckx bike sitting under a poster of Eddy, Colgate team alu bike, and so forth. Dude is not posing, and a Confente does not look out of place in his pure-bike-geek garage. Tidy bike geek, but still, bike geek.
My call: Nice bike, and I told him I hoped he could get his asking price -- and that I doubted he stood a chance of it.
Oh, and I didn't see the Boyer provenance, although he mentioned having it as part of the package. I also didn't get to ride the bike, but he didn't blame me for asking....
Dan Kehew
Davis, California USA