Hey folks,
I've just joined the list so I thought I would post up my official introduction post.
My name is Dave Mann and I live in the Boston area.
I got into bikes when I was in high school in central Ohio. A kindly guy who ran the local bike shop talked me through the task of renovating my suffering bike. When I was finished and got it working well enough, he offered me a job in his shop. That was 30 years ago.
That kind soul's name is Chuck Harris. And while the shop has been closed, I'm glad report that he's still producing and selling his wonderful mirrors.
Chuck was a huge influence in my cycling. The first time I rode from one town to another was one a group ride. And I still remember the day he dropped everything he was working on to help a coast-coast tourist who limped into town with a blown bottom bracket. Those experiences expanded my horizons about riding which eventually led me to the wonderful world of bike touring.
I'm insanely interested in lightweight sport touring bikes. Especially the early Japanese and American frames and great Japanese components.
This is firmly based in the first experiences selling and working on Japanese Fujis and Miyatas in Chuck's shop. It's also based on the set of bikes that I've owned which has included: 1978 Fuji Grand Tourer SE (traded in on a...), 1979 Fuji Royale II (sold to pay for a...), 1982 Trek 600 (which I rode for over a decade including a transcon tour before I crunched it under a car port and replaced it with a...), 1995 Trek 1220 (aluminum race frame which I finally got rid of when I found this on eBay...), 1979 Trek 510 (a bike that I just adore) and a 1983 Trek 311 (my errand bike).
I'm particularly interested in pre 1984 Trek sport touring
bikes. Some older pics of my 510 are here
although please note that the components have been changed
significantly (some new, some old) since these pictures
were posted: http://www.vintage-trek.com/
Lastly and perhaps most importantly, I'm very, very, very interested in older frame geometries and to that end I've been standing up a web projected devoted to compiling a list of bike geometries. My primary interest is to document older geometries from the 60s, 70s and 80s so that a) they aren't forgotten and b) that we might better understand the influence of these geometries and their relevance for today.
If you post about an older bike of yours, I warn you ahead of time that I may e-mail you off list asking you to measure up the frame. Many of these bikes have geometries that are entirely undocumented. IMO, we're in danger of collectively forgetting so much.
-Dave Mann, Boston, MA
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THE BIKE GEOMETRY PROJECT
A community effort to document and compare bike geometries
http://home.comcast.net/