[/caption]Honestly, I get carried away at times. I'd really like to make the claim that the bicycle is the finest example of mechanical genius made manifest. History would probably not support me. The case can be made for a lot of other innovations throughout time. The bow and arrow. The stirrup. The printing press. The grain mill. The wheel...
But what an incredible machine. A transportation machine using gears and chains and wheels and levers. And it is self-powered. And elegant! Beautiful designs...
Even as kids, we all knew that bikes could be beautiful, functional, elegant things. I was never allowed to buy a Stingray bike, which about half the kids I hung out with rode. I wanted one, but my parents thought they were frivolous and trendy gimmicks. They were mostly right on that one. But it didn't take long to outgrow that 20 inch Schwinn coaster brake bike I'd gotten when I was four or five.
By around eight or nine I needed a bigger bike. My grandfather made a deal with me: if I could save half the money, he would match me. In 1965 a new 24 inch Schwinn was probably less than $50.00. I did my part, he did his, and I had a new bike. I had to keep that bike a lot longer than I wanted, and I grew out of it pretty quickly. I created a big stir when I traded the bike for a used 3-speed English racer in questionable shape.
And that led to a renewal of the grandfather deal, and this time I was a worldly 12 year old and aware of the value of a dollar and I knew that I could buy a 26 inch silver Murray a lot cheaper than a Schwinn, and it didn't take me long to save my half of the money. I got a bike that was functional, but certainly nothing to brag about. It got me around town just fine, in fact it had the slightly narrower 1.75 tires, which was nice. But there was a new wave of bikes coming out. The 10-speed! And teenagers were riding them, even adults were riding them. They were sleek, shiny, engineering wonders. They were very cool.
Having that perfectly okay Murray worked to my advantage that year. It gave me time to study and research bikes. My friends and I pored over catalogs and went to the bike shops looking at the 10-speeds that were available.
There were really only three 10-speed bikes any of us had ever seen. The Schwinn Varsity, the Schwinn Continental and (rarely) the Schwinn Paramount. But this was a college town, and soon we were hearing about the European invasion of Raleighs and Peugeots and Motobecanes, to name just a few.
As every kid got a Varsity as soon as possible, I bided my time. I had too new of a bike to deserve a trade-up. I would have to save the money myself. And the longer I had to wait, the more time I had to read and learn about quality components and frames. A few dedicated friends at that time were doing the same research. A European bike was going to be the only suitable steed for me. Lugged frame, 27 inch wheels. I needed center-pull brakes and a decent derailleur. Throughout 7th grade I saved my lunch money, subsisting on 2 cent cartons of milk and 10 cent bananas.
I had over 100 bucks when summer hit. And that was enough. I could buy a bike, if I could find one. Problem? Meet solution. Endre's Bike Shop in Belleville, Illinois had the Raleigh Record. It was a really decent bike, better in my estimation than the Schwinns I could afford. We found it in my size and took it home and it was the greatest bike of all time.
For about two weeks. My yellow Raleigh Record was stolen from our garage on Lindenwood, chained to a post. The thief cut the lock with bolt cutters. A year of savings vanished overnight. A year of research into the best bike and components, gone in an instance.
* * *
My dad said that insurance covered the theft. Forty years later, I doubt it. I think he felt so bad for me that he gave me the money to get a new bike. I couldn't get another Raleigh Record. But at a small bike shop in Smithton, Illinois -- Macks' Bike Shop -- I found a new bike which I would drag around with me for thirty years. It was a Dutch made bike by The Royal Dutch Gazelle company, the Tour de Lavenier. It was an exact duplicate, made under agreement with Raleigh, of the Grand Prix.
The Grand Prix was a better bike all around than the Record, so it was a nice step up. I put a Brooks B17 on it and a lightweight rear carrier. I upgraded to Weinmann center pull brakes and a Simplex Prestige derailleur. I learned to tear it down and rebuild it to the smallest ball bearing. I rode it to school, then to college. And then it sat in shed and garages over the years as I quit riding, then decided only to ride coaster brake bikes many years later.
I left the bike in a garage many moves ago. I guess I'll never know if it ended up in a landfill or at a flea market or in the hands of some aficionado who saw in it what I had seen so many years before.
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