After Saturday's Baltimore ride I drove down to DC and started seeing some sights. Not boring cultural stuff like the Library of Congress or the Lincoln Memorial, but inportant stuff like Proteus Bikes. Jill DiMauro, CR list stalwart, recently purchased the historic property and business, and I stopped in to check it out. A couple hundred well spent bucks later, I was on my way again with a set of Weinmann 610s with drilled levers, a Crane GS rear, a Mighty Tour right arm (been looking for one for a while!), a Berthoud saddle bag, string back gloves, Dia Compe non aero brake hoods and various other neat bits. Jill told me she's working on a scheme to get the frame building operation going again by renting the Proteus workshop to a new builder (I hope that wasn't a secret, Jill). Proteus is a historic US cycling site, and the shop is inviting and full of funky associations and auras. I highly recommend a visit. Jill's thinking of adding a Capuccino bar and a cycling video pit. Sarah, you didn't patent that, did you?
And speaking of funk, I had an invitation to visit the Funk lab of Mr. Funk himself, Harvey Sachs. I drove over to the Virginia side of the Potomac, and blundered my way over to Casa Sachs, with Harvey talking me in via the cell phone. Our mission was to prepare one of the Sachs fleet as a loaner for CPT Bike hisself, Sheldon Brown. I was greeted at the door by the newest marque of Sachs hound, an abandoned Rhodesian Ridgeback they had just rescued from the pound, saved from the scaffold at the last second, and therefore named Dunkirk. Harvey had invited me over for sandwiches and Mrs. Sachs asked from the kitchen if Salmon Salad was acceptable. I replied in the affirmative, and entered the kitchen to offer to help by opening the salmon tins (about the limit of my culinary skills). Well, none of that at the Sachs house: she was dicing salmon filets for the salad, adding various condiments and things like diced apples, while Harvey toasted the bread and passed me a beer. The salmon salad was delicous and the whole meal wonderful..
Afterwards, Harvey showed me the fleet and we got to work on the bikes. I'll probably hash this, but I believe we kitted up a prewar Schwinn track bike for Sheldon, and Harvey was going to ride some small label Italian steed. Both bikes were rich with patina. Harvey was worried about the bikes not being "pretty" enough, but I thought they were wonderful. The big problem was that Sheldon is some taller than Harvey, so we needed a longer straight post for the clip on saddle. Harvey pulled down a box of posts, (of course he had a dozen assorted straight posts lying around and could find them! Don't be silly.) got busy with the calipers, and in a few minutes had what we wanted. We swapped posts, adjusted the saddle, added SPD pedals and we were ready. I then casually mentioned to Harvey that I needed a set of TA ProVIs spacers. He went into another box and pulled out spacer blanks, already the right thickness, but with the center holes too small. On goes the drill press, and quicker than I can tell it, I had 6 spacers for my cranks. Thanks, Harv, and I'm glad Sheldon made it back safely. That's never assured on bikes I've worked on.
Then it was home to the (hotel) bed, and lay out the kit for Sunday. Part three soon to follow.
Tom Adams, Shrewsbury NJ
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