Rollfast

washer62

Finally got my last part from Niagara Cycles. Took 6 weeks and 3 days. 19 emails back and forth. While customer service seemed to be trying hard to complete my order, don't think I will be ordering from them again.

ThermionicScott 

I recently learned, to my horror, that Dunhill would be exiting the pipe tobacco market in the near future. So I took the opportunity to buy a few more tins of my favorites and try a few others while I still can.

Chombi1 

The Chorus crankset for my Bottecchia Professional SL build came in from Austria!

1st gen Chorus crankset w/ 172.5mm arms.
Paid quite a bit of money for it, but when the seller said it was in mint condition, he meant it!
And it came complete with crank bolts and dust caps too!
I learned that if you come across a C&V component in the right size and best condition, you gave to snag them asap, and try not to worry too much about finding it a bit cheaper somewhere else, as you could be wating for a very long time to find one again....
So happy as this was quite a big hump to get through on the Bottecchia build up.

Chombi1 

Dunhill out of the pipe tobacco business??!
That's unbelievable!
Such an iconic brand, related to pipe smoking it was. My dad was always a Dunhill smoker.
He would have been very sad if this happened when he was still alive.
I still remember buying those small tins of Dunhill tobacco for him from the tobacco and pipe store near my work.
The one in the bottom of your box, to the right, was his favorite. I used to buy him the big cans of that mixture for him.

noglider 

It's not just the slowness, it's the uncertainty that makes it not worth it for me to buy from them any more.

ThermionicScott 

Yeah! As I understand it, Dunhill had been shifting toward becoming a "lifestyle brand" with all sorts of menswear and gadgets for a long time, and their parent company decided that pipe tobacco wasn't an essential income stream anymore. I know that demand for pipe tobacco isn't what it once was, but it's a shame to see such genre-defining products go away.

On a similar note, I'm glad I got the chance to try "Revelation" before it went out of production. It had already changed hands from Phillip Morris to House of Windsor, but what I got was tasty stuff.

smontanaro 

... for my Frejus.

non-fixie 

A picture of Jacques Anquetil, taken at the Grand Prix des Nations, in 1953. He rode for La Perle at the time, and the colors would have looked like this.

A promising young lad, that is!

Rotten

I got a box from @gugie,I got a box from gugie! On my birthday no less!

Phew, I'm better now.
Just wish I had time to do the build soon but it's going to be after the new year.

ascherer 

Decal set for my International from Velocals. I hemmed and hawed for months since I have no desire to repaint, but many of the decals were missing or damaged. I applied the Herons and Reynolds decals this morning. These little things make me very happy.

Andy_K 

I don't always get excited about new water bottles, but today I did.

Choke 

Ironically I had placed an order for something similar (though different colors) from Cima Coppi a few days before this showed up on the Vintage Velos website. I suppose it's not a bad thing to have two Frejus jerseys though.

obrentharris 

Very nice!

When I was an aspiring young bike racer Anquetil was my coach's hero. He even encouraged us to practice Anquetil's slightly high saddle position and "ankleing" technique. This was in the early 70's when Merckx was in his ascendancy.

With all the hullabaloo nowadays about the French Constructeurs, technical trials, and randonneuring bikes, it is sometimes forgotten that the French made some very fine full-on racing bikes. Finding an older one in my size and price range has been a long task: Evidently not everyone has forgotten them!
Brent

kansukee

Go these last Friday...building the wheelset this week

noglider 

@kansukee, what hubs are those? Never seen them or heard of them, and I web-searched.

busdriver1959

I’m going to guess Curtis Odom.

kansukee

They're made by Curtis Odom; he's on Facebook. It took me a while to get a hold of him through there, he must be pretty busy with other stuff. Turns out he hasn't made any hubs anymore for the last 4 years or so and he only had these left and another pair somewhere in France that he didn't remember what they were. They are even more impressive in person and I can't wait to have them laced.

Try him through fb and be patient and he'll eventually get back to you and hopefully you will find out what that other set is like_ he had quite a few designs, all of them gorgeous.

JohnDThompson 

48T Stronglight chainring, the final piece to triple-ize my mod. 93 crank:

merziac

Sky at Velocult has some, don't know if they're for sale.

rjhammett

The other day my wife asked me what I would like for a holiday gift. I told her I couldn't think of anything. Later that day my tape measure gave out. Here is my $5.36 gift that arrived today.

merziac

This is some of the best advice ever given here imho. Many times you may be able to find it cheaper but it will not be nicer, and just as often you may find a nicer one, but it will not be cheaper. Always consider, when will you find another and remember "a bird in the hand".

merziac

Also saw some more of these today at Crank in PDX.

Andy_K 

I followed Chombi1's advice from post 4055 above. I put in a crazy high bid with 5 seconds left on the eBay auction and ending up getting these for just about $10 more than the buy-it-now price on a used set that was available at the same time with standard cracked housing.

kansukee

Yeah I don't doubt that some stores may have some laying around but that's something you would only find by chance, in person. When I started looking for these I did an extensive search and nothing came up for sale...I was lucky to find this pair.