After so much assistance from Listmembers in identifying my recently acquired TREK 970, there is a one more event that occurred today that I want to report. The frame was missing the original fork, and in its place was a carbon fiber fork...ugh. So I went to the most likely dealer to sell the bike, and when the shop was identified (a wonder in itself with countless TREK dealers in this county of about 3 million people, 1/3 of which have probably ridden a TREK sometime in their lives) as the one where the bike was sold, I left my telephone number with one of the mechanics, hoping beyond hope that I would score the original fork. This afternoon I got a call from Scott, the original owner. "Hey, I heard you were looking for the fork that came on the TREK that my wife sold last weekend". Needless to say, I was in his garage in about 15 minutes. After the bike was sold, he figured he had no more use for the fork, so he tossed it in his re-cycle barrel. When he got a call from the bike shop with my number, he went out, fished the fork out of the barrel, and called me. When I showed up in his garage, I think he might have been happier than me that the frame and fork were reunited, although it's hardly possible.
I know that this story won't thrill you to your bones, because in many ways this story is repeated weekly all over the world. We love bikes. We skulk around swap meets, check craigslist, talk to friends, get up at daybreak to drive endlessly to yard sales on Sat. mornings. We talk to the mechanic who works in the LBS. We ride our Classics out on the roads, always keeping one eye out for that classic coming the other way. We work hard for weeks on end with nothing to show for our work. But then, once every now and then comes a prize...sometimes when we least expect it...that beauty peeking out behind a stack of boxes in some stranger's garage who just happens to have no more use for the old, worn-out bike. "Sure", he says. " I haven't ridden that old thing for years." And then its yours.
Through luck and the help of good friends, I saved this bike from almost certainly becoming ground, filed, sanded, chopped and sprayed with a 3 buck can of Krylon.
What a prize.
Pat Moffat Tempe Arizona USA Some people rescue cats. I rescue bikes.