Dear Listmembers,
My apologies for leaving this report hanging. Having a VERY difficult time squeezing in some time at the keyboard amongst my real work. Several frames in the works, every imaginable sort of touch-up, frame repair, tons of polishing for plating, and repaints in progress, etc. Deliquent on answering email as well. Typical day in paradise.
A few notes about the Cupertino weekend. Ordinarily the gatherings upon which we (the So.Cal faction, so to speak) meet are all down our way. Traveling the distance that Jan and Peter drive to join us makes for a different type of experience. I also enjoy riding in new areas. Northern CA is a very beautiful area to ride. There is traditionally a lot of climbing. Having heard in a few private emails from persons who live or have lived in the area, there is more to that ride if one takes other options I think. The downhill section we took may not have been the most "gnarly" decent available. A few people mentioned "the widowmaker" or "the corkscrew" decents from Mt. Eden. All I remember was that I was chaseing alone for the entire decent and it wasn't so nasty as to deserve such names to my recollection. I do remember pedaling as fast as I could go and having to be a little cautious on the road because there were patches of shadows from trees on the road making it diffucult to see road imperfections at times. When I'm blazing down a road I'm unfamiliar with and have no rider in front for reference I tend to be more cautious on the decent. If that was the Widowmaker then we all cheated death, because no one ended up as a hood orniment or part of the landscape.
Jan Johnson did film quite a bit of the event, including during the ride. I think some of the footage might be interesting and/or funny. I'm curious how it turned out. There were a good number of nice bikes in attendance. Personally, I don't spend a whole lot of time checking out the bikes. I see so much stuff day in and day out that it takes something extremely unusual to capture my attention. I look at everything but I don't obsess. I come for the people and to be part of the event and ride. I like meeting people and talking about bikes and helping by answering questions. I like to see completed projects I've worked on.
One thing did get my attention. There was a Confente on display, frame #7 I believe. On display was the "build card" Mario used to write the dimentions of the frames. Having heard various things about how Mario went about building frames, which has always seemed awkward to me BTW; this build card sort of caught my attention. The first thinh I noticed was that this 62.5cm frame was speced with a 55 cm top tube. I looked at the frame and could tell the top tube was longer than 55 cm. I measured. It measured 57.5cm or thereabouts. That is more "normal" for a bike that size. Hummmmm. So why did the card say 55cm when it was actually 57.5cm? I also noticed a seat angle was noted at 73 1/2 degrees or so but there was no head angle given. At the bottom head lug there was an "S2" written in. No bottom head lug angle was given but I knew that Mario used to begin a frame by brazing the head tube to the down tube. VERY odd place to start a frame. I believe there were only 3 templates he had for these bottom head angles. That means that head angles on all frames are whatever results from the bottom head lug angle he uses. Odd. So how do you establish what angle to miter the top tube/head tube junction? It turns out the "55" is the "cutting length" of the top tube. But what is the head angle? Obviously he had to make every fork the same and there had to be some charts or formulas to go along with this system of narrow parameters for frames. Needless to say none of this works for full custom frames of a wide variety. I've heard that the related "book" does exist and I am going to check into it to see if learning more about it makes the system more understandable. Right now it seems like an odd and very limited way of building frames. Since I am a Confente owner now myself, I'm a bit more curious how he went about the process. I noticed that frame #7 and frame #24 have simular "traits" in the paintwork. Interesting.
Chuck and I had a great dinner with Jan and Peter at this very HIP resturaunt in Woodside. Part of the odd collections handing on the wall at this place is a geuine "Flexi-Flyer" sled, belonging to none other than Peter Johnson. Part of the rotating display of oddities and whatnot that decorate this place.
OK, time to make everyone absolutely SICK! Perhaps Phil Brown in particular. This is a true story and took place recently in the town of San Rafael, CA where Phil currently lives. A person that both I and Joe Bell know quite well has a brother who lives up there. Apparently a few Sunday afternoons ago he just happened to drop into a flea market/swap in San Rafael. It turns out the day was over and the vendors were readying to leave. The guy walks past someone who has a bicycle on display. He inquires "how much for the bike?" The reply from the vendor "uh, we're closed, everything is free." Buyer "really, even the bike?" Vendor, "everything". So the "buyer" who in this case only spent some time, walked out of the place with a free bike. It has a 1963 bike liscence on it, so the bike is no newer than 1963.
A few days later. The "buyer" contacts his brother to tell him that he has this bike for him, since he knows his brother, our friend, likes "old bikes". The bike gets sent down to So. Cal where it is fortunately even the correct size for the recipient. Nice gift. The bike is orange and appears to have all or most of the original parts on it, in addition to original paint and decals on the frame. Neeto! JB suggests a check of the date on the hub locknuts. Holy COW! 1958. The campy crank has the lip for the pedal; wow, sounding better all the time. Damn! This whole bike for free? Man, what a score. Too bad it's only a MASI SPECIAL!!!!!
Someone top THAT! We get to see the bike in the next day or so. I understand it has Cinelli style lugs (as it should for the period) chromed and the whole nine yards. I'll report on what I see when it happens. This is the earliest Masi I will have ever seen in the flesh. I hear Pergolizzi also has a simular machine, possibly a year earlier even. How exciting that two of such vintage have surfaced on opposite coasts.
More to say later but must get some work done now.
Brian Baylis La Mesa, CA Waiting for a Masi Special to fall out of the sky and into my lap!