Howdee Pardners or whatever Americans say to one another these days (I expe ct it's now "Yo Dudes How Ya Doin'" or something),
I can remember my Dad a very long while back when he was into motorbikes te lling about the stuff he'd chucked out a few decades back and if only he'd known... and I guess we've all been there. My answer to him was that a unfa shionable modern out of production bike like a 360 Honda, a Kawa triple, a Honda Four even, would one day fetch big money. He didn't agree, because he's a more logical person than me, and his point was a) that all t his junk was mass produced in such numbers that it would never become rare; b) that you'd need a load of space to store stuff for 50 years until it be came collectable, which it wouldn't; and c) that only the very top of the l ine, exclusive stuff would have any even remote interest for collector s. In those days it was all Vincents, Norton Manx... but the fact that the little 350 sidevalvers, the 175 two strokes which nobody would touch just a decade before were beginning to get collectable made me disagree (that, pl us the fact that I'm plain stupid). Bicycle wise, shaft drives, penny farthin gs, that was collectable, nobody imagined that a Peugeot racing bike from t he 70's could ever be worth more than it's weight in scrap metal.
This debate is still valid, it's been discussed on list, I'm not inventing anything spectacularly new. And today I'm right in that quandry: I pass up bikes I'm sure one day will be very collectable, which I will probably lay out money for... but in the meantime, I just can't get even remotely excite d by the stuff, and I haven't the motivation to store it in case it becomes desirable. And I listen to guys who tell me that the junk I could buy for peanuts is a waste of money.
So much hot air so far, but I have a case study, a bike that was part of a
deal. One bike I wanted, one not, but there was no having one without the o
ther. So there lies this evening in a corner of my "shop" a semi-decent Jac
ques Anquetil racer, no doubt made by Gitane and marketed under different b
rands with a few minor cosmetic changes. It's going to get thrown out or pa
rted with a boltcutter, but just so future generations may curse my name, i
t's online at http://tinyurl.com/
and if that doesn't work there's always http://membres.lycos.fr/
Good bike, very light, some decent gear on her... And as usual questions se nt private to the effect of will I sell that bike rather than trash it, the answer is no, unless somebody is prepared to send a shipper and handle eve rything, which is not a viable proposition given the cost of shipping.
Nick March, Agen 47000, Lot et Garonne, France