Hello Group, Do any of you remember a balloon-tire Dayton bicycle that brought over eight thousand dollars on eBay a few years ago? I recall a good deal of discussion on our list concerning this bike. Some people were amazed that anyone would pay such money for what is, after all, a gas-pipe clunker. Others admonished the members of our group for not stepping up to the plate and paying more for the Cinellis and Masis and Hetchins, etc., that many of us admire. Wherever you may fall on this continuum, it seems to me that John Barron is quite right when he says that we collect classic bikes for reasons that most often do Not concern "performance." The buyer of the eight thousand dollar bicycle, by the way, had an ebay name with the word "streamline" in it. It is not much of an imaginative leap to infer that he was paying for the Dayton's virtues as a work of functional art. I love my classic bicycles because they are beautiful. The fact that I can actually ride such a beautiful object is a bonus (much better than collecting arrowheads or porcelain, for instance). Didn't Keats say that Truth is Beauty, Beauty Truth, and that is all we know or need to know? In any case, love of beautiful objects is as mainstream as it gets.