[CR]Belated Intro

(Example: Production Builders)

Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2006 11:34:43 -0400
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
From: "John Betmanis" <johnb@oxford.net>
Subject: [CR]Belated Intro

Hello fellow CR listers!

Since I just re-sent a reply with the required proper sign-off, I thought I might as well introduce myself as well. I was originally subbed here in 1999 when it was a bit more free-wheeling (sorry for the bad pun). I re-joined about a month ago and found the list had changed somewhat under Dale's stewardship. I belong to several lists, so I didn't expect the rules here to be any different from standard list nettiquette, but when I went back and read them, I found I was wrong. The rules mystified me a bit, but I can see now with some of the topics being bandied about that coming clean regarding who you are and where you live would tend to add more validity to the posts.

Anyway, I started serious cycling in my early teens in London, England in the 1950s. The first bike I owned was a re-painted Hercules roadster with a 3-speed S-A hub and semi-drop bars added. I bought it from a classmate who was getting an Ellis Briggs from his older brother, who in turn had a new Claud Butler Avant Coureur on order. I rode this Hercules all over, including day rides from London to Brighton and to Oxford and back. It wasn't long before I was lusting for a real lightweight bike, since some of my friends in school had them and rode with a club. I particularly remember one classmate who was getting a Gillott built and would bring in brochures showing the lugs and other bits he was getting. Soon I was working two part-time jobs, delivering papers and groceries, and started scouting around for a bike whose payments I could afford. I settled on a bike with the curliest lugs and skinniest seatstays in my price range, a Claud Butler New Allrounder. It was made of straight gauge 531, black with a light blue head tube and black Club Special fenders. I remember specifying that the Clubman fenders be replaced with Club Specials because I'd be riding with my friends in the club and the deeper Club Specials were less likely to splash riders next to you. Once a week I would ride to the Claud Butler shop in Clapham to make my "HP" payment. I spent many wonderful Sundays riding with the Dragon R.C. In the winter I'd convert to bike to fixed wheel for better control on the slick roads and to stay fit on the shorter rides.

In 1956 I emigrated to Canada with my parents. My vision of the "New World" was long distances and superhighways with no cycling as I knew it, so I gave the Claud away. Indeed, after I arrived in Toronto I don't remember seeing a lightweight bike for years; they were mostly prehistoric looking clunkers with one-piece steel cranks and coaster brakes. Oh, from time to time I'd see a "real" bike, usually Italian, ridden by an Italian-looking rider. It wasn't until the bike boom years, after I'd moved to a smaller city for my job, that I again bought a bike and got back into cycling. It was a Nishiki Landau. In 1981, when I wanted something lighter and faster I bought a Nishiki Ultimate with NR components and I had the shop replace the clincher rims with tubulars. I decided on the Ultimate over a Marinoni because I just didn't like the very plain Italian-style lugs Marinoni used. Later I bought an old Jeunet Captivante track bike from a fellow club member to get back into fixed wheel riding. My dream has always been to find an old Claud Butler in a yard sale.

By the late eighties, early nineties, I was becoming a backslider and not getting out on the bikes nearly enough. However, I'm retired now and have a lot more time, so I've been getting out and riding regularly. I never did acquire a taste for the new bikes with their newbie-oriented gadgets. In the sixties and early seventies I had motorcycles and rode motocross, so when mountain bikes appeared a decade later I had to try one out, but never succumbed to buying one. (I also owned a pickup and a couple of vans back then, but never got a SUV when they became all the rage.)

So what can I contribute to the list? Well, I'm a retired Mechanical Engineer and have many years of practical machine shop experience, so that also makes me an "engineer" in the British sense. I grew up where "rare" bikes like Hetchins, Bates, Paris, Hobbs, etc. were commonplace. Yes, I'm sure I could build a bicycle frame (LOL) and have often fantacized about it because I'm quite skilled with silver solder. No, I don't believe "just anybody" can do it, at least not well. However, frames were brazed on production lines by hourly workers for many decades, so it's far from impossible. Now that I've "formally" introduced myself you'll know where I'm coming from when I make the ocasional comment here.

John Betmanis <johnb@oxford.net>
Woodstock, ON Canada