Jim,
I meant no offense by my remarks towards you or anyone else in our community. I support and identify with anyone like you who gets "bloody fingerprints" cleaning and rehabilitating bikes in need of TLC, and I count myself among those committed to loving and riding bikes first, as you obviously do. And I know that most of us who can make a little bit of money while spending time on and around our passion for bikes--even if we do not even cover our expenses-- consider ourselves very lucky, indeed.
While I have no personal connections with any non-industry collectors or traders (other than bike shop owners or bike industry distributors and manufacturers) whose primary source of income is derived from classic bikes or parts. I presumed that such person(s) existed, however, because I have seen such people operating in other fields. like stamp and car collecting.
It was those who are primarily money-driven (but who do not share our passion for actually riding bikes) whom I was addressing the latter part of my last post.
The overwhelming number of posts that have appeared here are from people like you, Jim, whose passion for cycling has almost nothing to do with money--other than to avoid going broke while feeding our addictive bike habit.
What I truly cannot comprehend is being involved with trading bikes and parts purely for profit--and without the passion that is clearly the cause of your "bloody fingerprints." I will not say that my passion for cycling is morally superior to someone else's pursuit of profit. I was just trying to say how incomprehensible the pure merchant's profit motive is to me, absent any passion for the objects of the exchange.
Once again, I apologize for any offense or harm taken at my last post. It was purely unintentional on my part.
Regards,
Jon Spangler Alameda, CA USA
On Jan 22, 2010, at 5:00 PM, <classicrendezvous-request@bikelist.org>
wrote:
>
> Message: 10
> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:47:22 -0600
> From: jim abt <jamesabt@charter.net>
> Subject: Re: [CR] NOS the TRUE value?
> To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> Message-ID: <81018C5BE3514164AE22EB3918987FF2@D7YXN561>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Let us not forget the other breed of us like myself. I am of the
> caliber of cyclist that is not only passionate about the ride
> (7,000 miles annually in a nasty climate...especailly winter) but
> also of the machines themselves. The way that I share that passion
> is to take the old uncared for (most of them that are old) and
> overhaul them right down to bloody fingerprints clean and then
> share those parts with those that need them for building their
> rides (or pieces of art...whatever). I get a big rush out of seeing
> the before and after. Almost to a fault because if one was to have
> the smallest preconceived notion that I am becoming rich (God
> forbid) in this venture, well, you may want to give it a try and
> see for yourself, but maybe you will want to save yourself the time
> and effort and take my word for it, I am NOT. For me to take the
> parts that I had spent countless hours on and then put them all
> back in the frame of a bicycle and then take the photos of the bike
> and try to be the "merchant" would even be less worth it.
> Especially if all the i's aren't dotted and all the t's crossed. I
> have a very beautiful Frejus that is simple and honest proof of all
> of that. I am not saying it is wrong or right I am just saying that
> it is.
>
> There are just a couple of things that I can not sit still for....a
> bike that hangs and doses not roll....and one that does that is
> abused and not taken care of. If you have the ones that are
> orphaned please send them to me so that we can give them a good
> home. These perfect peices of man's msot important invention, the
> wheel, deserve that. They deserve to spread their wings and fly.
> Just ride
>
> Jim Abt
> Wausau, Wi. USA
>
Jon Spangler Writer/editor Linda Hudson Writing
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