chip.hedler

The Gitane that was mentioned in a previous post was a club model with Reynolds main tubes. I rode it for about a year, but the frame was just too flexy when really turning the power on. The place where everyone went to get top-of-the-line equipment was a pro shop in a basement up in Cleveland run by an old German biking wizard named Heinz Lincke. He sold top-of-the-line machines: Gitanes, a prestigious German brand named Bauer, Masis, maybe some others as well. He would measure you and tell you in a strong German accent what frame size you should have, work out what chainwheels and freewheel you should use, and special-order it directly from Europe. He didn't say, but he must have emigrated from Germany either before or after WWII because he had all these home movies of indoor 6-day races in Europe he would show to demonstrate what good riding form is. He and a bunch of other white-haired transplants from France and other European nations would get together once a month for century rides outside of Cleveland that involved several stops for food and beer. They would ride like hell for about 20-odd miles, then pile into one of their refreshment haunts, eat and drink, maybe have a smoke, then get back on the bikes and ride like hell for another 20 miles or so. Few of us young wannabes could avoid getting dropped until after the third or forth stop when the pace would slacken due to excess lubrication. Heinz helped me order and set up my 2nd really good bike, an all-Campy Gitane Tour De France, which I rode for the next 4 or 5 years, including long-distance rides from Windsor, Ontario to Toronto and from Calgary, Alberta to Lander, Wyoming. That bike got destroyed when a car passed the bunch I was in, then made a sharp right turn directly in front of us. Nobody ran into the car, but in trying to avoid it and the other riders, the Gitane and I nose-dived into a ditch, hopelessly kinking the frame and the fork. I salvaged all the components, though for my next bike...