You might recall a week or two ago I posted about local bike mechanic Stan Haley who had his ashes put in the frame of his bike and had the bike hung over the bar at Beggar's Banquet, a legendary local hippy bar and purveyor of fine grub. If any of you have ever been to East Lansing, Michigan you may remember the place.it has a stained glass window on the front with "Gimme Eat" a notable quote from Heller's Catch 22.
At any rate I went through most of Stan's estate today. I was given all kinds of free stuff like partial containers of Campagnolo lube and tubes of Phil Grease and such. Cycling shorts and tights were piled into my arms as gifts. Then we got to the good stuff.
Hundreds of apparently never worn XXL sized vintage jerseys. All by Giordana: seems like Stan wrenched for a few years where he could get them discounted from his employer. I bought quite a few, nearly all the ones with De Rosa, Ibis, Paramount (the Paramount ones stay in my own stash!), Campagnolo, and Pinarello on them . Some from Tours of Russia and China, too! I could really use some help dating some of these. For instance I have long and short sleeve Ibis ones in orange and blue when SAAB was a major sponsor. I also have De Rosa ones where SAAB was a major sponsor. Can anyone tell me when these might have been from?
My lack of expertise in these may be to your advantage if you are attending Cirque. I intend to set out most of them at a low fixed price above what I paid and sell them off without differentiating prices on them, so be sure and beat a path to my Vendor's Table if you want to get any. For instance I think there are eight different De Rosa designs and I have no idea if some are rare and some are not.
Among this stuff was the most beautiful cycling jacket I have ever seen. green and white vertical stripes on the front with large polka dots in red, yellow, and orange, red wool body and yellow nylon sleeves. Sounds just ghastly, but unless I am losing my sense of the esthetic it is just gorgeous! Does this color and pattern sound familiar to anyone? I swear I have seen it in European races, but am coming up blank.
At any rate, if you are pretty good at dating such things, I'd love to hear from you on this project.
Tom Sanders
Lansing, MI USA