This is interesting about your grandfather's enjoyment of the same bike for so many years. I was going to suggest that a custom bike with 7 speed components must be at least 20 years old and I'd guess that many riders, including me, would need to change their position/fit after that many years. Maybe a 40 year old would still fit the bike they had built when they were 20 but my position when I was 50 is painful for me at 76.
The first pic is from sometime in the late 30s-- my grandfather on the right, Oscar Wastyn on the left. My gramps would have been maybe 22 or 23 here.
The second pic is the bike in pretty much it's "final form," I want to say 1988 or 1989-- he would have been 73 or 74.
Still running no FD (it didn't get a freewheel until the 1960s) and still running a saddle-to-bar drop that makes my back hurt just to look at it.
I mean, there's barely daylight between the drops and the top of the front tire. Five speed Campy freewheel. One DT shifter.
