Re: AW: [CR]Re: Odd-weird-interesting-scary NOS 1972 Czech bike & saddle

(Example: Production Builders:Peugeot:PX-10LE)

From: <Nipponcomet@wmconnect.com>
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 23:19:45 EST
Subject: Re: AW: [CR]Re: Odd-weird-interesting-scary NOS 1972 Czech bike & saddle
To: schmidi@gaponline.de, dcwilson3@yahoo.com, classicrendezvous@bikelist.org


don, i do believe that PUCH (pronounced like book for those of the Miche debate group) is/was actually part of Austro-Daimler-Puch, .....not the Audi, Volkswagen companies that swallowed NSU.... Daimler as in Daimler Benz or as in Mercedes Benz.....anyway, my reason to chime in was a Favorit story....somewhere in 1974 or 5 my partner and i were at the new york show and happened by a booth manned by a knockout dark eyed, dark haired woman that caused us to stop and drop in....she was an eastern european transplant to nyc working for company named joannue ( i believe that was the name of the company)... we ended up buying some foldups for our store...not the cheap italian chiorda types, but the cheap czech favorit types....anyway they arrived some time later and w/ them came a parts catalog and other cycles they handled....the standout was an all campy favorit for what seemed like the price of a set of campy side pulls....not really, but compared to what the brakes cost back then and their unexplainable difficulty in getting, the campy favorit was a real sleeper just for the groupo....in order to get 2 pro favorits we HAD to buy 6 other cycles...so we found a model that compared to a Peupeot PX10, spec wise, for about a third of the px10's wholesale (the specs were an assortment of wish list and promices based on factory availability)....and sew up wheels to boot....of course the shipment came weeks later, cash on delivery only. well the order was 2 bikes short, back ordered, the all campy pro models of course.....the campy parts order was also all back ordered......so what did we get???....6 of the weirdest all czech bicycles i have ever seen.....they made every part on the bikes, right down to the sew ups...they were very light in total weight and the wheels were exceptionally lightweight.... the spokes were very thin and the rims seemed to be smaller than 700C...and a super thin coating of paint....very strange but they had a real presence about them....someone said like a peek behind the iron curtain, yes, very much so... as with anything we received as complete bikes they were totally disassembled, cleaned and regreased....those were some strange parts that required very careful tightening for fear of stripping anything w/ a thread on it....well we never saw the pro models and blew out the club racers just to be done w/ the whole commie con job....somewhere in 6 basements those 6 bikes certainly still exist....probably not ridden beyond the first sew ups failure to hold air....they were really neat but i'm not sure they were really bicycles in the western sense of the word. i do remember the czech national team was very powerful back in the 70's, and they all seemed to be rideing that illusive all campy pro model. those certainly were the days!! charlie flaherty baltimore maryland usa