Sam built a bike for me in the early '80s. It was gorgeous. It had the front and rear racks, Mafac cantis, brake and stay bridges that pierced the stays, and excellent workmanship. The equipment was top-line French with Phil hubs as in the eBay offering. Thing is, though, I never liked the way it rode. It was nearly impossible to ride with hands off the bars. The front wheel would fall to the side, even when the bike was unloaded. I theorized that the bad handling was due to the very shallow head angle. Do you have a similar problem with your Braxtons?
I kept the bike as an object of art more than anything else until the early '90s when a cashflow issue associated with a new family and house forced me to sell most of my bike stuff. I consigned it through R&E in Seattle, as there was no market for touring bikes in San Diego at the time.
Kevin Montgomery
San Diego, California
From: derek@frameref.com <derek@frameref.com> Subject: [CR] Braxton touring on ebay To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Date: Monday, January 17, 2011, 1:25 PM
Stumbled across this earlier today - a really fine example of a Braxton touring bike - 21" seat tube. Based on the diamond reinforcements on the waterbottle braze-ons and the reverse placement of the rear brake - a style Sam adopted from his time spent studying under Jack and Norm Taylor - it's probably late '70s; he'd dropped this style by about '81 in favor of cantilevers on almost all of his touring bikes. Since there's no tubing decal, it's likely a blend of Reynolds and Ishiwata. TA, Simplex SLJ, Phil hubs, BB and CHP pedals, Campy sidepuls with Mathauser pads and Mafac levers, lovely brazed on rear rack. Fairly high spec for one of Sam's bikes of this era, and in what appears to be exceptional shape. I'd add it to my fleet - I own 4 Braxtons - but there's a bit of a cash flow issue just now. Somebody on this list should jump on this.
No relation to the seller, etc.
Derek Vandeberg
Bigfork, Montana