You Too Can Apply Your Amazing and Hard-Won Knowledge of Classic Lightweight Bicycles and Fantastic Powers of Super Sleuth-Like Deduction To the Greater Good of Bicycles Everywhere...
(well *my* good - but I'm a child of the 60s - so it's all about ME)
And Give A Lonely, Abandoned, Abused Bicycle an Identity!
(heck, it's my size, it was cheap and I'm not getting a good tax refund)
Place yourself back in time to last Saturday, February 22, at the Dick Lane Velodrome in East Point Atlanta, where a bunch of bicycle-crazed folk were off loading the contents of their basements - to become the potential contents of someone else's basement.
I notice a lonely, black spray painted frame, sans fork, on the grass, surrounded by much newer and less steel, bicycle frames. Stepping over the carcass of a tired plastic Look frame, I find myself strangely drawn to the small, lugged, frame lying forlornly on it's side. I note the diamond shaped lugs on the down tube where the water bottle lugs are. Then the artful cut outs anchoring the brake-bridge to the seat stays. Curiosity quickened, metric tape measure in hand, I check the all-important center to center seat tube measurement. Hmmm. Can you say 50cm? Picking the frame up, I note the orange paint inside the head tube, the front of which is obscured by an "Alien Workshop" skateboard sticker-patch placed tastefully (ack!) between the head lugs.
I pay $10.00, much to the disgust of my boyfriend (who does not know about the campy NR gruppo sitting in my closet - please don't spill the beans) and head off with my treasure.
So before you go to this site:
http://home.mindspring.com/
And look at pictures, here are some facts about my Mystery Bicycle... It has an English threaded bottom bracket. The seatpost size is 26.8 and it has 126mm spacing (imagine that, just my chosen part of the CR era and ready for that NR gruppo). It has an "o" discernable on each rear drop out - Shimano? Campagnolo? Cyclo? There is an ugly plastic cable guide riveted to the bottom of the bottom bracket. The kid I bought it from said something about his brother saying it was a Merckx, but since it has no "EM" on the seat stay lug, I'm not so sure. No holes I can see in the head tube for a badge. No serial number either.
Nick Zatezalo, member of this list and fellow Atlantan got to see it right away and agreed it was a "something." I sent pics to a few people right off. Tom Sanders who said "(wow!)" about the diamonds on the brake bridge and water bottle mounts. Lou Deeter, who has forgotten more than I'll ever learn in my lifetime, suggested I find out what the bottom bracket threading and seat post size is, and aged it at 80s because of the plastic cable guide, intended on "saving money." Lou also said the lugs were nicely thinned and the sculpted seatstay was nice and suggested that someone on the list might be able to ID it based on the head tube lug shape and style. List member Mack Montgomery, who saw both the pics and had an in person presentation this morning, suggested that the drop outs might be 1010Bs and the lugs shortpoint Prugnats. Mack pronounced it "light" and demonstrated the healthy 'ping' when the down tube was tapped. My manager at the shop thought it was a Taiwanese Schwinn but both mechanics thought the lugwork nifty. I kinda doubt Taiwanese Schwinn, but it was orange.
Based on everything you've read and viewed - what is it? Even if it's not much, I think its pretty nifty and will benefit from a fork (WTB!!) and some nice paintwork. If I never get a positive ID, might be fun to put a scripty decal on the down tube that says "Mystery Bicycle," and a "MB" decal on the head tube.
Ann Phillips - Atlanta GA One cannot have too many bicycles - or as said to my son, "Mom bought bike parts this week, so we are having spaghetti again tonight."