The UO-8 holds an interesting position in my bike cosmology - it wasn't until one of my buddies, Dave Goodpasture, showed up on a white UO-8 that I started taking bikes seriously. Later, I would be smitten by the PX-10 bug, but the sheer cool good looks of David's bike got to me.
Of course, I went through a bike snob phase even worse than my current one ...
Back when I was a wee tad, one of the students at Ferrum College (where me sainted father taught for years) had ridden BikeCentennial. At the time, I rode a Batavus Tour de l'Europe, which was essentially a Dutch UO-8 with a nicer crank and Weinmanns. My buddies all rode new Schwinn LeTours, which were essentially Japanese UO-8s - all of the above came stock with steel rims, centerpulls, generic seamed tubes, etc., etc.
What was the guy's name ... Rick something or another. His original bike had gotten clobbered halfway across, so he finished the ride on a Motobecane Nomade frame built with cobbled together parts. My buddies and I snickered at the rear derailleur - a Shimano Eagle that had not only had the guard cut off, but had been drilled out, fer crissakes ... now I rather admire that one, in a twisted sort of way. Low-flange Atom hubs, bolted on ... cottered crank ... and we sneered at it, in our juvenile way, not wanting to admit that he had crossed the country on the thing while we were still juvies who rode short distances.
Russ Fitzgerald
Greenwood SC
rfitzger@emeraldis.com
http://www.emeraldis.com/
http://www.lostweekend.homestead.com