[CR]thoughts on "correct," original and "What, Me Worry?..."

(Example: Framebuilders:Pino Morroni)

Date: Thu, 08 May 2003 08:55:18 -0400
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
From: "ADP" <aphillips9@mindspring.com>
Subject: [CR]thoughts on "correct," original and "What, Me Worry?..."

Last night I was propped up in bed, going through my newly acquired pile of mid 70s Bicycling and Bike World magazines (thanks Mack!) and had an episode of deja vu. I was 8 again, and my cousin Ken had just given me a tattered pile of Mad Magazines dating back to the early 60s. Just like being 8, but no one came in to tell me to put the light out, forcing me to read under the covers with the flashlight.

Anyway, I was remembering all the cool things that I bought back in the late 70s when I started to love bicycles, and how quick we all were to make improvements and upgrades to our trusty steel steeds. If there was something new and cool that improved performance or comfort, we bought it, in the hopes of going faster or being more comfortable. We all built bikes out of bits of other bikes, some of them became quite Frankenbike, some of them just received necessary improvements.

Since none of my bikes are going to ever be quite correct (unless I learn to speak Italian and get as lucky as Steven Maasland or Aldo Ross), and I'll never be rich or thin enough either, I figure I'd try to keep them pretty much right in terms of paint and general era of equipment and not sweat the small stuff. No one at Cirque laughed at my mishmosh of Shimano 600 parts on my Trek 730 (who was "Ann Price" on a Trek 715?) and the best part is it rides really super.

Correct is, as correct does... As long as you aren't putting STI on Harvey Sach's Sears special, I think its the spirit of the thing more than anything else... I saw lots of bikes at Cirque that were not era, or not exactly correct for era and they were just as cool as the ones that fit in the narrow definition of "era perfect." They got ooed and ahhhed over too.

Ann Phillips, Decatur GA