We poor collectors have to resort to other means to add to our stable.
Eager to find some British lightweights but not willing or able to pay the rate for those advertised in the cycling press, I used a different approach.
I got copies of my local paper from the 1940s/50s in which, in Monday's edition, there was always a report of the weekend's cycling action.
Under the club notes, it would list those who finished in the top three in various races. In the belief that they would have used the kind of bikes in which I was interested, I jotted down the less common-sounding names.
These I fed into a name-tracing programme which produced, in many cases, just one address. I was then able to phone that house and, if my luck was in, speak to the chap who used the bike 50 years earlier. Sadly, sometimes I could only speak to his widow.
Although some of the club cyclists had given up their hobby years ago and got rid of their bikes, a surprising number had held on to them. These could sometimes be found gathering dust in sheds and garages. I've managed to get two Cinellis and a Flying Scot this way and have a chance of getting what promises to be one of the best original Scots around. The female owner raced it for one year in 1954 and it's been hanging in her loft ever since.
Don't know if this approach would work in America but it's enabled me to find lots of interesting bikes and, just as importantly, speak to lots of interesting people about Scottish cycling half a century ago.
Bruce Robbins.
Get your free email with GroupWeb Worldmailer at http://www.worldmailer.com. Send and receive e-mail from any computer with a web browser.