higgins617

So many vintage bikes aren't wearing their original components when we end up with them. Do you guys ever think about why POs changed what they did and to what they did?

Have a bike that should have been all first gen DA, instead it's got a Cyclone RD, Sugino crank, the DA FD and Shifters, but Cinelli stem, GB bars, campy brakes, pedals, and post.....

Zero trend that I can think of. Just the best of what was available at the time? What was on hand? Any bikes you had something similar going on with

Spaghetti Legs 

When I can I like to know the story behind the bike - that's why I particularly like getting bikes from the original owner. I've never wondered too much about components too much, old bikes and parts get replaced.

My Merckx Pro came with 1st gen C Record but had Dura Ace index shifters. I figured the original owner didn't like the Syncro and changed (it has the cable adjuster that came with Syncro 1) to DA. Thing is, shifting wasn't all the great with the Dura Ace and I switched it to Syncro 2.

styggno1

It is almost the favourite part in all my hobbies. I spend a lot of time researching what has been done, by who - and why.

khatfull

Same here. I have two bikes that I got from the original owner:

- 1973 Fuji Newest bought as a frameset from the OO.
- 1974 Crescent Pepita bought as the whole bike from the OO. (Currently in process, https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...uxe-320-a.html)

In both those cases I've had good e-mail exchanges with both gentlemen. It has been the most satisfying part of either restoration.

juvela

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With regards to a new arrival's past one thing I have found interesting is the presence of license stickers/plates & transfers from retailers. This sometimes can show you places the machine has lived in its earlier days...

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Wildwood 

I love to know the history.

But the bikes i've wanted lately seem to come as a frame and fork with no history trace possible.

RobbieTunes

I spent a ton of time researching the origins of the Cinelli-made Cinelli Equipe Centurion, distributed by WSI/Centurion in the US after being made in Italy at the Chirico factory in Bussero, Italy (Milan). The information was both interesting and fun to find and think about. I think my bike geek spurs were earned through that endeavor.

A follow-up to that, not of my doing in any way, are the threads on the Centurion Ironman and other Centurions.
Good stuff, time well spent when one considers all the other things we can do with our time, efforts, and money. While they may not be missionary or humanity-based endeavors, they don't endanger the environment, promote violence or antipathy.

There's nothing wrong with interesting information, used without malice. I recommend you research at will and enjoy what information you find, do with it what you will. There's a lot to be said about riding a bike as it was intended, with the equipment that came with it. It's a way to compare ourselves to those who rode then. (I find myself lacking).

Anyhow, smile and ride.

rhm

Thank you for using the word "past" and not the word "history"! Every bike has a past. Few have any history.

Yes, with several bikes I've done my best to figure out what they looked like when new, and it's often not easy. And with some, I've speculated about what's happened to a bike between then and now.

My Holdsworth is a good example. It came to me with gobs of wretched paint on it, and a campy headset. The seller knew exactly what it was, which saved me a lot of time. But a previous owner had added lots of stuff to the frame including cable stops, rack mounts, two different eyelets on each dropout, two water bottle mounts on the downtube, and more.

Evidently he tried to turn a racing frame into a touring frame. Did he do the brazing himself? Did he tour on it? I won't ever know, but I wonder.

Not to be outdone I had Gugie change the rear dropouts, change the fork, change the cable routing, and add brake bosses. Unless he can find my threads about it on bike forums, the next owner will have an interesting time of it, figuring out his bike's past.

AZORCH

Me too. I put in an inordinate amount of time researching frames, parts, previous owners, catalogs - you name it.

Although I've had pretty good fortune in a couple of instances, often enough there's simply no background to be had. That's the beauty of this forum, by the way. Even though information specific to a particular frame may not be available, I can usually find someone on here with knowledge that helps to quench some of my curiosity.

pcb 

I don't have much interest in trying to track component changes over the years, but when I luck into handbuilt frames from builders still in the biz I always try to get the original build sheets and/or anything they might remember about the frame and OO.

Got the build sheets for two '82 Columbines, discovered that one was built for a pumped-up weightlifter and so had a heavier-duty downtube.

Ran into Mark DiNucci at NAHBS who filled me in on the extensive backstory of an '83 DiNucci that was on the way at the time.

Richard Sachs gave me some info on road frame I had that I later stupidly sold.

Still hoping to hear from Peter Weigle on an '85 Weigle Special Road.

Waterford can provide original build sheets for Waterford/Gunnar frames.

Many builders will do a little digging for you. I always introduce myself, ask very nicely, and strongly emphasize I know they're busy and under no obligation to help me out. If I don't hear back from them, I don't bug 'em. It's good business for them---John Murphy at Columbine got a fork order from me, since one of the frames had a non-original fork. I figured, heck, he's still building, why not get a matching Murphy-built fork for the frame 35yrs later?

khatfull

That is VERY cool!

The Golden Boy 

Part of having old stuff is reconstructing/imagining the "life" it led.

I used to (am still) into old guitars and stuff. Since there's a few people who are into this sort of stuff... I used to own a 100w Marshall master volume amp from 1978. The 100w amps had a grille on the top to let heat from the tubes out, the 50w models did not. For whatever reason, a previous owner wanted his 100w amp to look like a 50w amp. He cut a piece of wood and blocked in the hole, and cut some of the tolex from the bottom of the amp and glued it over his patch job. It's ugly- and it really kind of makes no sense at all (RIP Grant Hart). When I got my current amp, I offered to swap the guts of the two amps- and I got a sweet deal for a great sounding "beater" head.

One of my other amps is a 50w Park master volume head- it's pretty much identical to the Marshall- but it's cleaner and more rare. It's also one of the VERY last real Parks from 1981. A previous owner must've wanted an effects loop in the amp- there was a whole lot of work done to that amp- they cut 2 holes into the back of the chassis. To top off the stupid, they aren't even, one is higher than the other.








I also own a 1965 Fender Jazz Bass. It had been stripped of it's finish and really poorly lacquered; you can still see all the brush strokes on it. After looking in the control and pickup cavities, it looks like this bass had been "Fiesta Red" originally. Fiesta Red is pretty much "pink." The previous owner refinished the bass and signed his work- New Years Day 1972- right in the neck pocket.





To me, that's really neat- in the late 60s and early 70s, there was a very strong "natural" aesthetic that was big. Among the new and big sellers for the big makers were natural, walnut and Antigua finished instruments; and it wasn't uncommon for people to have flashy guitars that were stripped and refinished natural to reflect what was cool at the time. In 1972, it would have been SO NOT COOL to have a shell pink bass- I could imagine myself wanting to do that if I were a 20-ish year old kid in 1972.


To get back to bike-y stuff- I got my 1984 Stumpjumper Sport from the original owner. He told me he got it when he lived in San Fransisco, and commuted over the Golden Gate Bridge every day. He made me a copy of the original receipt. One of the features of the 1984 Stumpjumper Sport is the first generation Mountech rear derailleur. It's well known that those units have a propensity to fail catastrophically. This bike came to me with a mid 90s Deore LX rear wheel and Deore XT rear derailleur. It seems pretty obvious to me that this bike fell victim to the Mountech seizing up and spinning into the spokes- wrecking the derailleur and the rear wheel- necessitating the replacement.

jimmuller 

I sort of reconstructed the past of one of my bikes, the Motobecane. It started because the details matched none of the catalog details of an interesting frame on ebay, from a local seller no less. I concluded it was probably 1974, had been lovingly ridden by its OO, crashed around 1982, repainted, the rear wheel rebuilt, and eventually retired. The date codes in the wheels which were reputed to be what was on the bike said '74.

All the rest have mysterious pasts, except the one I bought new.

1989Pre 

My Grubb frameset came from Aubertin, France, which is outside of Pau. At the time the bike was built (early 60's), the Tour went through Pau, so it is fun to speculate.
My Moser came from Poland, but I'm not sure if Italian bikes could be shipped to Poland pre-1989
Pre-1989? (scratches chin).

easyupbug 

Love it. I have the first Japanese tubed (Tange Prestige) Italian to be raced in Europe, 1984 Levis Team (Andy Hampsten) Pinarello, which caused quite a stir with Italian purists. Also Frans Maassen's Wordperfect Team Master from 1991, he had two firsts and a second that year.