My name is Morgan Fletcher. I live in Oakland, CA. I have been a bike nut ever since I was small, never really grew out of it. From day-long rides on my bmx bike to family bike rides on "10-speeds" and tours to racing road/track/mountain. Did a loaded-with-100lbs-of-gear tandem bike tour from San Diego -> Tucson with my new wife for our honeymoon. Kinda got off the bike over the last five years of raising two kids, now back on the bike again, riding regularly. Will get my five-year-old on a trail-a-bike after Christmas. My wife also rides, and my kids will too.
Never was much into older bikes, just wanted the new stuff. Now that I'm 34 I guess some of that new stuff is now old stuff.
I've owned a lot of bikes, worked in a bike shop. Some of my past bikes:
'70s or '80s Olmo track bike w/ Suntour Superbe, _beautiful_ maroon paint early-'80s Colnago Master funnybike, zero miles early-'80s Cinelli rebadged as a Centurion w/ Campy/Ofmega '87 Merckx Corsa Extra w/ Dura-Ace '82 Ritchey mountain bike Campy/Mafac/Magura/Shimano late-70s or early-80s Laguna Cruiser converted by me in 1982 to a "mountain cruiser" with BMX and Magura and Mafac, weighed 50lbs
...and many more. Don't have any of those anymore, miss them all.
Since I've been riding, I decided to find a "beater" winter road bike and build a fixed-gear bike for rainy commutes and to get my spin back. As of this fall I had only one road bike, a Landshark w/ 9spd Dura-Ace, and I intend to take it down for the winter and have the frame repainted. Went looking for a rain bike on Ebay and elsewhere with a $500 budget and was smitten by an early-90s, deep-blue De Rosa SLX road bike with C-Record, sew-ups. Bought it. It's certainly no rainy-day bike, but I will ride it this winter anyway. Whoops. Also found an 1980s Bianchi "Nuova Racing 12/V" (Columbus Tretubi) frame for $61, will build that into a fixed-gear fendered beater. The problem is I kept looking and then bought a 1960s Olmo frameset, for $75.
The Olmo has got a non-original repaint (Joe Bell I think) and some added braze-ons, and the cloissoneé (sp?) is gone off the head badge. I don't even have it yet, it's still in Philadelphia, I'm waiting for the seller to send it to me. I'm going to hand it to Ed Litton as soon as I get it, he'll remove the braze-ons, and hopefully he can get the paint and decals as close to original as possible. It'll also be a fixed-gear bike - I have no desire to actually ride a multi-geared vintage bike - but I'll do my best to use period-correct components. I am interested in buying any Olmo-related parts you may collectively have for sale.
The Colnago Master mentioned above fell into my lap. I was working at a bike shop in Sausalito, CA (regrettably not A Bicycle Odyssey but the other one, Sausalito Cyclery) when a man I knew walked in, an Italian. He owned a small very Italian deli in a nearby town, which had this beautiful Colnago Master time trial bike on the wall in flawless condition: dry chain and freewheel, unglued sew-ups, never ridden. It had beautiful pantographed and modified Super Record components, an aluminum straight block 5spd freewheel, those funky grooved tubes, pearl white paint, etc. He said he was redecorating and wanted to know if I knew of anyone who wanted that bike, price $600. I told him he had a buyer, instantly. I managed to scrape $600 together (I was making $6/hour.) and visited him at his shop a few days later. Here is my sin: I did not buy it to keep it. I couldn't afford a $600 piece of art at that time, and to be honest I didn't have much nostalgia for older, less effective bikes either. I bought it to sell it. He'd bought it in Italy, through a friend at Colnago, and had written it off as an advertising expense here in the States. It came with an original receipt and some Colnago accessories (couple brass fittings for inflating the tires on the funky aero rims and the rear disc wheel, some water bottles, extra handlebar tape, etc.) in a Colnago plastic bag. Paid him $600 for the bike and extra rear disc wheel. Took it home and immediately lined up two buyers, one for the rear disc and one for the bike. Quadrupled my money. Kept the aluminum straight block off the disc wheel as a souvenir. This was over ten years ago. There, it's off my chest.
Sorry I wrote so much. I could write more. I remember often visiting a little hole-in-the-wall bike shop near South St. in Philadelphia, when I was going to college there. Funky little dark shop, funky guy, funky bikes. He had a couple OLD track bikes with wooden rims and was restoring them. It kinda went over my head and under my feet at the time, but I remember feeling very awed and gleeful seeing those neat old bikes. I know a funky guy named Chris "Io" (Iochamedes I think) who had a similar, very stoney shop in Fairfax, CA. Had some of those weird Pedersen bikes with the hammock-like seat and many cantilevered tubes, crazy 1960s Italian folding bikes, old American fat-boy bikes and several old European racers, all sorta for sale. Some friends of mine own a bike shop and have Otis Guy's and Joe Breeze's "Anchor Steamer" tandem on which they rode to a 1972 cross-country tandem record. My friend Harry, member of Marin Cyclists, taught me a lot of my bike riding and racing skills. He once showed me a picture of himself as a teenager in the stars-and-stripes jersey of a junior national champ - he raced on the road and track beginning in the 1940s I believe. I've raced against guys who raced as early as the 1950s. (Nick "the Bike Barb" is who I'm thinking of.) Knew Maynard Hershon when he was working at Sunshine Bicycle Shop in Fairfax, always an asshole, but a good writer. I could go on and on about this stuff.
Anyway, sorry for the long email. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool bikie and I am looking forward to "renovating" ("restifying"?) this sorry old Olmo into a pretty bike again. If you can help me with pictures or info or parts I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks,
Morgan