In reading the recent PY-10 vs. Team Pro debate, one could come away with the impression that this list is only for the "Bicycle as Art" crowd. I certainly hope this is not the case.
I've spent hundreds or thousands of hours filing and sanding brass on frames until there were no visible blemishes. I knew full well that 99% of that effort would pay no performance dividends, but I did it anyway because I knew that one of the functions of the frames we were building was to be beautiful works of art.
I've also spent thousands of hours racing and training for races, not giving a tinker's cuss about how my lugwork looked, just hoping that my bike held together until the finish line.
The terms "Classic" and "Artistic" are not synonymous! Would anyone question that a frame ridden by Anquetil in a tour stage was a classic, even if it were built quickly with little attention paid to asthetics? In my book, such a bike would certainly be a classic, blobs of brass included.
PY-10 and PX-10s are an integral part of cycling history. They brought high-performance to the masses. They deserve acceptance and appreciation as classics as much as any frame which has been polished to a jewel-like finish before paint.
Respectfully,
Forbes Bagatelle-Black
Santa Clarita, CA