[CR]Greetings from the Lowlands

(Example: Framebuilders:Norman Taylor)

Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 12:00:13 +0200
From: "Brandon Ives" <monkeylad@mac.com>
To: Classic Rendezvous <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Subject: [CR]Greetings from the Lowlands

Howdy folks, I told you I'd check in from time to time and since we'll have been here a month as of tomorrow I figured it was about time. Note: If you'd like to reply to this post please CC the above email address since I have disabled delivery of CR posts. To keep things more or less "on-topic" I won't post all the interesting beer and personal info, you can get that from our blog (URL listed at the bottom of this email). Simply cycling here is chaos. Between the mopeds and scooters on the bike paths, 90% of the roads being cobblestones, and drivers that make L.A. rush hour drivers seem like the proverbial granny sunday drivers it makes it a bit difficult to ride. Luckily Belgium has some of the densest cities in the world and that makes it easy to walk around and get things done without a bike. We do A LOT of walking here. We have gotten out for a few rides and once you get about 10k out of the cities the riding is quite nice and well forested. The paths aren't as nice as the nice wide smooth canal tow paths in the Netherlands, but the scenery is much nicer.

Cycling as a sport here is just huge. . . and we missed the last of the track season by 2 days. The upside is the Gent 6-day festival is in another month though tickets are about $25 a head per day. Mitzi and I can barely afford going for one day, but we'll go never the less. Cyclocross season should almost be upon us but none of the shops around seem to know anything about it. I've been in 4 shops so far (you'd be surprised how few shops are in this area) and two have been the basic really small neighborhood shops, another was the huge Joma Sport where all the bikes were really boring modern fare but the staff was nice. The forth shop, which is only a couple blocks away, is the legendary Plum shop. Huge interesting collection of new and used, modern and classic. . . the problem is they are really, really unhelpful and kind of rude. I've been in three times and no one has actually said anything to me even after I was taking pictures of the place. They do have quite a few nice classic bikes used for sale staring at about $225 (200 euro), if anybody finds themselves over this way have a look. I did get pictures of their basement "museum" and the amazing collection they have. You can't really tell how good it is from the way the room is hidden way in the back in a basement and the bikes are just kinda tossed in so here's the URL. Plum pics http://tinyurl.com/qpdu There are some really cool bikes in there including three great 100 year old trikes Brian would probably give his eye-teeth to ride. Mitzi and I really like the collection since 95% is from before 1960.

I think most of the people on the list are fancy lug people. If you live in the U.S. fancy lugs may have gone only on fancy high-end bikes, but here they go on everything. Here's a page of pictures I took one evening while walking around of cheapest beater bikes that carry many of the same fancy lugs as their high-end cousins. They're nice eye candy and to me they just re-enforce the fact that you can't tell the quality of a bike from the lugs alone. You'll also note that the last picture is of the Eddy Merckx watches for sale here. He's still a national hero and is still a major marketing name. There's also a new coffee table book out on him that I've seen in all the bookstores. Street bike pics http://tinyurl.com/qpij With all that said I really like the these beaters and hope to pick up a couple. Though with everything being much more expensive here than we planned and the plummet of the U.S. dollar against the euro we'll have to see what we can scrape up. Each Sunday morning you can find these kinds of bikes for sale in a public used bike market for about $40 and up, so at those prices Mitz and I may each have one, but we're still waiting for just that right one.

The Belgian bikes in general are equipped with French parts, the main exception is the occasional Sturmey-Archer hub. Most of the classic bikes, even high end, have Huret drivetrains and Campy actually seems a pretty rare except on imported bikes and some of the early Merckx bikes. I haven't even seen any modern bikes with newer Campagnolo parts either for those that care. The bikes here seem a bit nicer than your usual Dutch roadster. Most of the daily riders in Gent have a preponderance of alloy parts, fenders, and chainguards, brazed-on tubular steel racks, large volume 700c or 650b wheels, and the fore mentioned fancy lugs. Large volume tires at lower pressure are a must here or your spine will turn to jelly after 20k of cobbles. A large majority of the bikes also have no more than 5-speeds since there are few hills, though Gent does have one large hill up to the University, and one-speeds predominate.

Well that's the classic bike report from here for now. I'll report back when I have other "on-topic" info or after the 6-day festival. If you're really interested in what's happening here beyond bikes check out our blog from the link below. dag, Brandon"monkeyman"Ives Way away from home in Gent, Belgium ++++++++++++++++++ Nothing says yesterday like something that used to say tomorrow. ++++++++++++++++++

Read why this email is coming from Belgium at our blog: http://homepage.mac.com/monkeylad/iblog/B1185361492/index.html