Charles and List, Driving home thru the neighborhood yesterday, my beady eyes spotted an interesting bike in someone's open garage. It was up against the wall, behind some other stuff, so I was pretty amazed at myself for even having spotted it. But just the sight of slender chromed fork tips, with that certain elegant rake was enough to trigger my radar. Since it was a quiet street, I backed up for another look, but still couldn't see it very well. Curiosity finally overcame good sense, and I just hopped out for a closer look. It was a Mondia Special, in a small to medium frame size, with Campagnolo cranks and front derailleur, and chrome Nervex lugs. It had a rather short handlebar stem. I didn't hang around to scope it out entirely. Sadly, it looked rather neglected, with faded paint and some rust spotting.
The brand was not familiar to me, so when I got home I looked on the CR website, but incorrectly assuming it was Italian, I didn't find anything at first. A Google search pointed me back to the CR site under Swiss brands. Later I searched eBay and found the very pretty restored frame that Charles wrote about two days ago (250568074544). Finally I searched the archives for any recent posts on Mondia and found Charles' note, which I had not seen previously.
That's the end of my story, which I admit seems rather pointless, except to say that now I have a new old brand to admire, and to add that there is no telling how many lovely old bikes are sitting around in peoples garages.
John Hurley
Austin, Texas, USA