[CR] Ebay Outing : Zullo Super-Record, 52cm c-t

(Example: Racing:Beryl Burton)

From: "Steven Maasland" <themaaslands@comcast.net>
To: CR <Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 03:35:59 -0400
Subject: [CR] Ebay Outing : Zullo Super-Record, 52cm c-t


Don Gillies outed the auction for this bike in a rather joking manner:

http://ebay.com/<blah>

The bike is labeled as a van Herwerden. I am very familiar with the van Herwerden shop as it is just down the street from where my maternal grandparents lived for over 60 years, in Voorburg, the Netherlands. I cannot remember a single time that I went to Voorburg without at least peering into their windows.
>From the 70's onward, they were and still are one of the most important high end bike shops in the Netherlands. It is quite a funny shop as, for many years they earned a good part of their profit from the sale of "no-name" gasoline. They in fact had a "witte pomp" straight in front of the shop where they dispensed gasoline. "Witte Pompen" were independent gasoline outlets that did not have any allegiance to any of the big name brand refiners and tended to offer slightly lower prices. I can remember many a time that I would stop there with my grandfather in his Daf automobiles to fill up.

Back in the early 80's, I made a habit of making an annual trip over to Europe to get some riding in. It would generally involve a flight over to Schiphol, with a cycle tour leaving from there (one all around the Benelux; another to Switzerland, Normandy and Southern Britain; yet another to Yugoslavia and back; one through the midi of France...) At the time, you could buy Campagnolo parts considerably cheaper in Europe than in North America, so on two occasions I had Marinoni build me a custom frame, which I built up with discarded parts from the shop I worked in, then went to customs to register the bike, brought it over to the Netherlands and switched out all the parts at van Herwerden before embarking on my tour. The van Herwerden family was very accommodating and even let me use a stand in the back to do the building... On my return, when asked what I had to declare, I would tell the customs officials that I had replaced some broken and defective parts on my bike but other than that nothing. I got waved through...

Van Herwerden sold large numbers of bikes imported from Italy, including Chesini (see the Chesini logos that are panto'ed on the parts of the bike for sale on ebay) Gios and their house brand which were often made by Zullo. If I am not mistaken it was due to their contacts with Cees Priem that the TVM pro team later rode on Zullo frames. They had a very well supplied clothing department and were the first shop that I saw selling embrocation supplies.

They have a web site: http://www.vanherwerden.nl/ they seem to specialize in triathlon gear nowadays.

Thanks for the memories Don!

Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ
USA