At 11:51 AM -0400 10/9/08, John Betmanis wrote:
>Then there's the mystique of hunting down the parts and building the bike.
>That in itself is what many of us enjoy the most because it's our hobby. It
>can actually be an anti-climax once the bike is complete. We've had our fun
>putting everything together and the total cost was worth the experience and
>it was $100 here, $50 there and we certainly could not have bought all the
>bits at once, even if they had been available. Once the project is done
>nobody would buy it from us for the total cost, but we'd let it go for a
>fraction because we've had our money's worth putting it all together and
>now we want to move on to something else.
To me, the appeal is the opposite. I love to get my hands on an all-original bike, untouched in 50 years. When you disassemble and overhaul it, you begin to appreciate how it was made, and why it was designed that way. You see all kinds of smart little things. After overhauling it, you ride it, and figure out how it rode back then. You are accompanied by the ghosts of the builder and the original rider. You gain a true understanding of what made these bikes special. And in some cases, you may even rediscover details that had been lost over the ages, as builders took their secrets to their graves.
If you want challenge, restore one of these beauties. Machine the parts that are missing, try matching the original paint, lettering and lining. When you reconstruct one of these, you really learn how they were made. Making the BB eccentric for an early Herse tandem is a four-hour machine shop job, and that does not count the time for making special tools. Machining an Herse stem gives you a true appreciation for these bikes. It's a great challenge, and the hunt for the parts actually is the least enjoyable part.
With a racing bike, it's very different. The secrets of the bike are in the frame, and unless you saw it in half, they remain hidden even during a restoration. So then the appeal shifts to the hunt for the parts, and that becomes enjoyable. You can always use an incorrect 1980s derailleur for your 1973 Cinelli Supercorsa, until you find one with the correct date stamp. The parts are plentiful, so the hunt is more a matter of patience, and less a matter of outlaying huge sums of money. One thing always remains the same: The ride at the end of the road still is the most rewarding part...
Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
140 Lakeside Ave #C
Seattle WA 98122
http://www.bikequarterly.com