At 7:49 AM -0500 11/14/09, Ken Freeman wrote:
> I think it's complex enough that not even a standard set of
>questions would suffice, and it would be better to simply leave it
>to the expert restorer to gather the information necessary to
>satisfy his customer.
My point was that even when using the best restorers in the bike business, I have been disappointed with this approach. I used to blame the restorer, but I now realize that it is my job to be specific about what I want.
The restorer cannot make decisions for you about personal taste. They could ask you questions about your personal taste, but unfortunately, in my experience, they don't. They make assumptions, but those may not be correct. My most recent restorations have a tiny bit of orange peel in the paint. I wanted it that way... because the originals have it, too. Many customers might reject this as a flaw.
The restorers, even if they claim to be experts about the bike you are restoring, may not have noticed some details. On my Cinelli, the rear bridge had to be redone (it had been replaced with a 1970s one). The new bridge approximates a 1960 Cinelli bridge nicely, but it doesn't have the fender mount that Cinellis from that era have. (At least all the ones I have examined.) I should have specified the fender mount... rather than rely on the restorer to think of this detail.
Perhaps I am a difficult customer, because I do want the restored bike to approximate, as closely as possible, the bike when it was new, rather than have it look like a new bike in a generic way.
The questions I proposed were not intended as a standard, but as a guideline to get people thinking, rather than saying, as I did: "Make it as close as possible to what it was when it was new." There simply is too much room for interpretation with the latter approach.
A good car restoration spends thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on research alone. Since few owners of classic bikes are willing to pay that money, the service isn't even offered for bikes. When you see the results produced by people like Joe Bell (who, by the way, told me that he doesn't do restorations. He'll paint a bike for you, and put stickers on, but you need to tell him where they go) for relatively little money, you realize the bargain you are getting. You can't expect the painter to spend many hours on research for that.
Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
2116 Western Ave.
Seattle WA 98121
http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com