Having a bit more time lately, I've been putting a lot more km on racing bikes, after mostly commuting to work on touring/randonneur bikes for about 14 months. In the last month, I've put 500 km each on the early 80's Alberto-built Masi Prestige and on the early 80's Zunow. Now riding the 1988 50th Anniversary Limited Edition Paramount with mostly gold anodized Galli components.
Can't find it now, but I thought I once saw a comment on the Waterford website that the 50th Anniversary was "perhaps the best" or maybe "perhaps the most refined" Paramount ever built. I have to agree. I have four all-chrome Paramounts from 1970 through 1975 and I have to say the ride of the 50th Anniversary with Columbus SLX is much more refined. The early 70's Paramounts, with the unusually heavy gauge 531 used by Schwinn, have a ride some would call "solid", but others consider "harsh". I know 1988 is Off Topic by date, but the mid/late 80's Paramounts were definitely still KOF, so I wonder if anyone else has the same opinion of 80's Columbus Paramounts versus early 70's 531 ones.
BTW, this bike has a Selle An-Atomica saddle which Rivendell was selling for a while, athough it seems they have now dropped it. It is a US-made slotted leather saddle, which may have pushed Brooks to reintroduce the Imperial (although the new Imperial is evidently much different from the original). Rivendell is now selling the Brooks Imperial. The main reason for using the Selle An-Atomica (model Titanico, despite not one gram of titanium used in it) was that it is leather and came in red to match the Paramount frame. The cutout was rather an interesting novelty. Now having ridden it a while, I have to say I like in so far. Anyone have an opinion the the Selle An-Atomica?
On a separate subject, received my new issue of Bicycle Quarterly yesterday. Didn't have much interest in the two articles on pioneer MTB riders/builders (though some readers no doubt did). But I was fascinated by the article about the 1994 Paris Roubaix. Jan points out something I either forgot or didn't notice at the time. Namely that when Gilbert Duclos-LaSalle (teammate of Greg Lemonde) won P-R in 1992 and 1993, he used Rockx Shox front suspension forks at least one of those years, and that as a result almost all the contenders showed up with Rockx Shox in 1994. Museeuw even had a trick Bianchi with suspension front and rear. After seeing the article, I rewatched by remastered WCP DVD of the 1994 P-R, and by golly that was right, Phil Liggett even commenting that those without the suspension forks weren't seriously trying to win.
Yet despite Tschmil winning with suspension forks, these disappeared within only a couple of years, replaced with more or less "classic" forks. Now granted, Colnago countered with his "precisa" straight forks, which many here consider ugly, but at least they were steel, and attached to a lugged steel frame. Of course steel frames have now been almost entirely replaced in P-R by Off Topic carbon, but at least KOF steel frames did beat back MTB technology at P-R for a couple of years before succumbing to the carbon fibre onslaught. Thanks to Jan for that bit of history, among several other interesting articles in the latest BQ.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Big Spring, Texas, USA