Hi, I'm an old (well, getting there...) bikie from Minneapolis. Rode all of the places beyond where mom told us we couldn't go as a kid, then got into serious riding in the 1970s. Then, like any self respecting(not) bike junkie I ended up working for peanuts at a bike shop (Freewheel before they moved to the west bank) for a couple years. Raced a bit too, back when we had all of 4 women racing in the MN state championships. Then in the late 1970s I got a real job driving truck for a bakery and later the Postal Service. As a result I'm now retired with a pension and overweight... But I have plenty of time to ride and work on that!
My first decent bike was a Raleigh Professional I bought new for $500 in 1973 with part of my college financial aid. I know, I have weird priorities... I eventually broke down and bought a well used Volvo for $175. The Pro's frame was way stiff for my 140 pound weight and rode like hell, so when the opportunity to buy a new Teledyne Titan frame for $275 in 1975 I jumped at the chance and fitted it up with the Pro's Nuevo Record Gruppo. I sold the Pro frame to a friend of similar light weight and it rode awful for him too. Over the next few years I swapped the Nuevo Record rear derailler for a Suntour and swapped the tubulars for clinchers on Super Champion rims.
I did a major rebuild of the Titan in 1988 and fitted Phil hubs and bottom bracket, a NOS Nuevo Record rear derailler, and aero clincher rims, and Scott brakes. Since then I've added a Campy Synchro II index shifter, and swapped back to flat sided Sun Metal clincher rims. For a while I had flat bars on the bike, but switched back to drops. The Titan holds a lot of memories for me- I've done a couple double centuries on it as well as an MS150 and TRAM.
Unfortunately it doesn't exactly meet my needs (but it's not for sale!), as I've got MS so I have a hard time getting my leg over the top tube and with my two cylinder (leg) engine missing on one cylinder I'm not setting any speed records. So I bought a Trek 7500 with the "woman's" stepover frame a few years back and it worked great- until an errant driver totalled it last spring and broke my wrist. So I'm shopping for a new bike to replace the Trek and the Bike Friday folding bikes look tempting. I also have a Santana tandem I bought back in the late 1980s which doesn't get ridden enough.
So hello, and thanks for putting on such a great forum on classic lightweight bikes- I wish I'd found this list years ago!
Diana Slyter