It was the spring of 1972 and I was attending Hunter College on the east side of Manhattan. Bob Mahren was the president of the Hunter College Cycling club where he advocated for bike racks and promoted weekend rides. On this one particular weekend we all assembled at his apartment in the South Bronx. I rode up on my green Atala with Campy Valentino and Weinmann Vanquerer centerpulls. He had spent half the night installing his Nouvo Record front and rear derailleur on his pristine white PX-10. He was excited and bleary eyed from the strain of doing something new and unfamiliar, and happy to get rid of the original Simplex equipment. We were ready to go and by the time we reached the Valhalla water reservoir quite a bit north of New York City, his Campagnolo problems began to surface. I felt so bad that someone could have spent a week's salary on a classy upgrade and yet he was barely able to shift at all. I started to draw his attention to more pleasant subjects like the suburban beauty, the weather, how nice his bike looked etc....but all he could think of was his latest catastrophic failure, and how my cheap crap Valentino was working so well. I know it was something simple with his NR stuff, and with my current knowledge I could have figured it out in a minute or so, but high end cycle mechanics was new to me then too. I suppose he eventually figured it out and became more successful as an urban planner than he was a wrench. At the time I wasn't aware that a PX-10 is a mid-fi version of a high-fi tool. It sure looked like an extraordinary example of elegance and refinement to my eyes back then.
Garth Libre in Miami Fl. USA