Hi all -
Per the suggestion in the welcome message, I shall introduce myself.
I am Gary Mason, a sixty year old American living in the Netherlands with my wife Janet. At the end of October of 2002, approximately, we will be retiring to Provence, in the shadow of Mont Ventoux.
I have come to cycling within the last eight months or so after at least twenty five years off. But even then, I was not very enthused. Of course, as a kid, I was an avid rider but that ended at about age twelve.
Coming here required that I get a bicycle (one does in Holland, you know), and I fell in love. I rode that city bike for six months, the last three of which were spent impatiently waiting for our custom road bikes to be built. They were built by Frank Groot of Vittorio.
They are essentially classic steel racing frames, with a few small concessions for comfort in my old age. But except for the builder, virtually everything on the bike is Italian - Columbus tubing, Campagnolo Centaur 3x9 gruppo, TTT stem and bars, Ambrosio wheels, etc. That pleases me very much, because I was lucky enough to live in Vicenza, Italy in my high school years, and have many wonderful memories. Of course I did not know then that Campagnolo was there. Oh well.
Part of my obsession with cycling now is history, hence my approach to this mail list. In particular, I want to find out about Maserati bicycles, which I only discovered might exist as I was reading 'The Dancing Chain' last night. I have since had a mail from someone verifying their existence, so I am on the hunt.
I want to see if I can find one, because another of my passions from my time in Italy is motor racing, and Maserati in particular. I will probably never own one of their cars, but I might get lucky and end up with one of their bicycles. So if anyone has any information at all about their history, I would love to hear it.
Looking forward to some great information on historic bicycles!
Cheers...Gary
P.S. Happy New Year to everyone!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Gary Mason mailto:gmason@insci.com Senior Sales Engineer TEL: +31 (0)23 536 83 84 INSCI, Europe FAX: +31 (0)23 536 81 84 Haarlem, The Netherlands GSM: +31 (0)65 149 41 42 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~