Originally Posted by
downtube42
I wonder if the engraver was a randonneur who rode grand brevets. When your mind is gone from sleep deprivation, it's good to have a reminder of the two most important things. The world shrinks down to time and location. Food and water come into play, but those are just a means to the end: time and distance.
I can't decide if they are bent from the pics. If they truly are, I guess I'd sadly replace them. The patina is grand.
Well, it
is the "Randonneur" model....
I like that hypothesis so much that that I am going to accept it as settled fact. These bars are going on the museum wall of my shop, along with my prototype triplizers, the mangled frame I was riding when I t-boned a large bulldog on a high-speed descent, and the nice Holdsworth Mistral frame that I bought for a song before discovering that it had a slight kink in the down tube.
It could also be that the engraving was done in the immediate aftermath of a ride--that would explain why the writing is so shaky. Maybe even during a ride, with a battery-powered tool.