After years of reading about others' great finds on Craigslist, and perusing the desolate ranks of BSOs on my local Craiglist, I finally stumbled across a real jewel. Better yet, it's now mine!
You can see it here:
http://www.os2.dhs.org/
The frame was built by Jeff Bumby, a local builder from Ripon Wisconsin. He is the former owner of "Rippin Good Cookies" and when he sold the company and retired he suddenly found himself with a good deal of both money and time. He set up a nice frame building shop for himself to serve the local market.
This frame is, I believe, a relatively early one -- late 70's or early 80's. The Columbus tubing decal is a style most often seen on 70s frames, in any case. Dropouts and bottom bracket shell are by Roto, and look newer than 70s to me anyway. The paint was done by Mike Appel in Madison, one of the original Trek brazers. After leaving Trek, Mike built custom frames in Madison and taught a lot to people like me, Dave Tesch, and Joe Stark. He's now back with Trek as a painter -- "I'm done with building bikes" is what he told me last winter at the Cronometro swap.
I don't know what I'm going to do with it now, I don't really "need" another bike, but I'm pumped nonetheless. Besides, it was a bargain!
--
-John Thompson (john@os2.dhs.org)
Appleton WI USA