My problem here is that everybodys position has merit. Why is that? Well, perhaps it's because, after all, and much as we love these bikes, they are just bikes. They are things. Granted, they are things that we have invested much of our individual identities in but, nonetheless, things. And, as such, there is NO moral question here to be decided. If we were talking about the rights and wrongs of using body parts of the dead (or the living for that matter), to give to a richer individual who could afford them, then we have a moral issue. But parting out a Gios for bucks is a matter of no consequence in any moral sense. (Also, if I am not mistaken, at some time during the 1980's the Gios name was hijacked by on or another importer and many inferior bikes were produced and passed off as the real thing....but I digress as usual).
That said, what about the following situation. I am restoring a 1959 road bike made by a local builder who died many years ago. I bought the bike from the original owner who raced it, crashed it, refinished it, and trashed it. But the builder's core still remains and it is, to my knowledge, one of the few road bikes of his around as most of his work was on track irons. Anyway, Ive had decals reproduced, I know the paint color, etc, etc, etc. But......I do not have the correct 1959 parts. Ah hah! I do have a 1959 perfectly correct mid level Italian bike that I bought out of misplaced nostalgia, paid too much for, and dont really like any more as my involvement in this activity deepens and sharpens. Well, what I am going to do is a heart/lung transplant. Taking every appropriate part off the Italian bike and using them to restore what I think is a bike really worth an effort at preservaton. The Italian carcass will wind up on the list or ebay. So, am I committing a sin, or is this a good deed keeping alive a builder who is on the verge of being totally forgotten?
Edward Albert
Chappaqua, NY