Originally Posted by
branko_76
Maintenance guys were cleaning out the basement of a University of Chicago building. I was too enamored with the bike otherwise I would have been neck deep in that dumpster...
It's in such good shape that I'd venture to say that it's the first light it's seen since the 1960's.
Originally Posted by
branko_76
It would be nice to restore it and donate it to a worthy cause. I can't see myself riding it much through urban streets.
Depends. It's like nothing else, but the enjoyment of a DL-1 is all dependent on whether you can fit it or not and how abused the rims are. The slack geometry requires perfect fit or you'll have knee clearance issues, while braking performance is dependent on those rims.
I have one of the later ones - a 1979 Rudge DL-1. It's a 22", and it is both too small for me and despite being well kept, the nipple seats have been abused on the rims, and one wheel has three replacement spokes laced to the wrong cross as the rest of the rim. It's a knee-banging, rough-stopping affair, and I've ridden the thing less than 15 times in the 12 years or so I've owned it (this photo is dated April 2008, and there was a massive bent fork issue to sort out, so I might have had it 13 years). If it wasn't for being an oddball export model made 7 years after the Rudge brand was dropped everywhere else, it'd be entirely unremarkable.
However, in your case, life has pretty much put a brand-new 1950's DL-1 in your hands. This is from the era when they were the absolute best. I think you'd find it a lot more sublime than the experiences I've had with my fudged Rudge.
-Kurt