----- Original Message -----
From: "flying_scot" <flying_scot@btopenworld.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2003 7:08 PM
Subject: Re: [CR]Old vs New
. Post
> war "racing" clubmen used derailleurs emulating their French and Italian
> hero's (Anything Italian was particularly in-vogue in post-war Scotland
> through the 40s and 50s perhaps due in some small part to our large ex-pat
> Italian community) Sturmey's were the reserve of the CTC club tourist folk
> and the pre-war die-hard guys who could see no better. By the time I got
my
> first 27" wheeled "racing" machine circa 1968, sturmey's were the reserve
of
> butcher boy's, grannny's shopper, eupemistically entitled Raleigh "Sports
> Tourist" lightweights, and the horror of horrors, the Raleigh Chopper.
Oh dear. I feel SO inadequate with my collection of S-A hubbed machines! Mind, I almost converted earlier today after taking my '48 Clubman on her first trial run... a frustration of slipping or "missing" gears that almost had me doing an eBay search for Cyclo-Benelux! But she may have settled down as have I and hopefully she'll be proving the superiority of S-A engineering tomorrow. Real men ride single-gear "fixed and free" bikes anyway. Well that's what they tell me.
Peter Kohler Washington DC USA (who hasn't ridden a derailleur bike since his Peugeot UE-8 c. 1976)