Jan,
You are absolutely correct; sources and their relationship to the situation need to be disclosed. I am perfectly happy doing so. Generally I leave that out of my "stories" for brevity, but in a case such as this I'm more than happy to name names and describe the circumstances.
One needs to be very aware of motives when trying to understand circumstances and those who are describing them; cross references and other known facts must jive with the statements before anything can be taken a possible fact. I have what you need if my word is not suffecient. Since I have nothing to gain from the information either way, I am only interested in the true story being known. It is my job and my porpose here on the list. I have taken the time to increase my knowledge of the WHOLE story and feel extremely confident that I know the facts and the reasons for nearly every event and milestone in the entire Masi/Confente Saga. Interested?
Brian Baylis La Mesa, CA
Work beckons, a Confente awaits my touch-up of the original finish, as we speak. Really!
There seems to be a contradiction in the statement made in the Bicycle Trader article - if Eddy rode Confentes, and if they all were labeled as such, we'd have seen photos of them in races. So either Eddy rode re-labeled Confentes, or he didn't ride Confentes, or photos still have to come to light that I am not aware of.
The frustrating thing with many published accounts is that the format where they were published did not allow for rigorous source references. That is why Vintage Bicycle Quarterly requires articles to be annotated with the sources for any statement made. For example, who is this Lisa, when did she say this, etc. If we had a last name, we could find her and ask. If we knew that she said this in 1996, several decades after the conversation, it would be different from her saying it in 1976.
This is not to criticize Bradley Woehl, owner of American Cyclery in San Francisco, who did a tremendous job turning the Bicycle Trader from little more than a rag of bike adverts to a quality publication, paving the way for others like VBQ.
Other questions that arise from that account are possible misunderstandings, because we have a Belgian communicating with an Italian, overheard by "Lisa", who may be American.
It is sad that obviously a lot of good research went into that article, and yet it remains little more than hearsay for future generations. Of course, I know from experience that adding sources to an article means a lot of fact-checking, and often takes longer than writing the article itself. A recent article in VBQ on early Campy derailleurs come to mind...
Similar are Brian's claims of "credible sources" for his unraveling
the Confente story - I understand that this is a contentious issue,
but it would be helpful to know who said it, when they said it, and
what their positions were in this. Right now it is one person's word
against anothers, and how are we supposed to figure it out? I like
Brian, and I am willing to believe him, but that is like voting for a
president because he (or she) has a telegenic face.
--
Jan Heine, Seattle
Editor/Publisher
Vintage Bicycle Quarterly
http://www.mindspring.com/
Brett Horton recently supplied a list, provided by Eddy Merckx, of the bikes he (Merckx) rode; list below. The list does not mention Confente bikes.
In the Confente history pages (thanks Chuck Schmidt for the links) at
http://www.bicycletrader.com/
So, maybe when someone meets with Eddy they can ask him about this.
Brett's list from meeting with Merckx: 1965 - Superia (stock bike) 1966 - Peugeot (stock bike) 1967 - Peugeot (stock bike) and Masi 1968 - Masi 1969 - Marcel Van der Este (Belgian builder) 1970 - Pella (or Pello) Torino, Italy 1971 - Colnago and Kessels 1972 - Colnago and Kessels 1973 - Colnago and Kessels 1974 - DeRosa and Kessels 1975 - DeRosa and Kessels 1976 - DeRosa and Kessels 1977 - DeRosa
Angel Garcia
Long Valley, NJ