-holiday76

Don't lie.



if any of you (and I know there will be some since some of you were collecting social security before the 90's) what was the first bike you HAD TO HAVE but could never afford and how did you learn about it? How did things go down before we had bikeforums and newsgroups?

Fine, I'll go first.

I'd never heard of bikes until I got on the internet. Prior to the internet I was also churning my own butter.

ColonelJLloyd 

I didn't start churning my own butter until I read about it on the internet. And, no, I didn't have a grail bike until I started hanging out on this forum.

-holiday76

OK i'm sure many people here purchased bikes prior to the internet, but that's not what I'm asking.

KonAaron Snake 

The first bike I ever lusted for was a De Rosa (probably not shocking). A friend I rode with and who was better than me had one, a 52cm Signature model with panto deltas, DA drive train and c-record headset. Compared to my Sirrus, it was so lively and fast (no doubt some of this was he had tubulars, I had specialized clinchers). The second bike I lusted after was a Merlin titanium, which rode like nothing else I'd ever felt. The frames were around 3 grand...totally unaffordable.

RobbieTunes

Well, I grew up in Wisconsin, and churned butter in the first grade. In second grade, we made maple syrup, and margarine was actually illegal.

As far as a grail bike, I saw an ad in a local trader publication, "Pinarello Montello, mint condition, spare wheels and helmet, $1200 OBO." I was NOT a member of bike forums, or any other bicycle web site, but I did look on eBay to see if the price was fair. It was.

I then did the normal thing, pre-internet. I drove there, negotiated a price ($801) and drove home with a mint Montello, including Ypsilon wheelset, and a spare Mavic CXP33 wheelset, two new Elite cages, a helmet, and two water bottles. The first time I looked up Pinarello's after that, I hit some page that described how the paint would bubble, decals would fall off, etc. Not wanting that to happen, and afraid to ride it, I sold it on eBay.

I was stupid.

Bianchigirll 

my Hetchins. I first read about them in a magazine back in '90ish.


PS while I was familiar with and in love with the whole Hetchins thing I likely would never have gotten without the internet and for better or worse Ebay, and of course the advice, encouragement of my bicycle hoarding er uh um "collecting" friends here.

auchencrow

Most of what I know about "grail bikes" I learned right here - but it just so-happens that my "grail bike du jour" is an Iver-Johnson, and an Iver-Johnson was my first bike.

Drillium Dude 

This:



In 1994 while stationed in London I answered an advert in "Cycling Weekly" for a Campagnolo 50th Anniversary gruppo. The gentleman posting the ad gave me some history on it, namely that he'd bought this Colnago with the 50th set on it from Deeside Cycles back in 1983. I purchased the gruppo and when it arrived I called him back to tell him how pleased I was with the condition (he'd thrown in a 6-speed Campy alloy freewheel, too, which I have to this day).

During the conversation, I told him a Colnago from that era was my dream (or Grail, if you prefer). He said if he ever sold, he'd contact me first.

About six months later, he did. I bought. When it arrived, myself and some mates at my local shop put the 50th gruppo on it, thereby returning it to it's original form some 11 years after the fact.

Today, the 50th gruppo has been replaced by full-pantographing. This bike is my number one choice for most any type of riding, the one I've owned the longest and the last I would ever sell.

DD

Old Fat Guy

I rode my 84 Cinelli SC today. I bought it new, last new bike I bought.

Gary Fountain

I can't think of any grail bike I did find on the internet. I came across only one in the For Sale section of the local newspaper prior to the internet though.

iab

Back in 1980 I lusted for a Cinelli CMX with a Campagnolo crank and Ambrosio rims. Different grail, different time.

shadoman

I guess you could say that mine only existed in my head.
A beautiful Fire Engine Red 3Rensho frame hung at one LBS,(resplendent with bright yellow graphics)
a full SunTour Superbe Pro group sat in a case at another,
the Selle San Marco Grey suede saddle at a third.

I could never afford to buy them all and put them together...

jet sanchEz

I rode mountain bikes and my friends and I all had some pretty nice setups as kids. One of my friends who was more into bikes than me also had a Ciocc road bike, a Designer '84. To me, it seemed like a piece of art and I always wanted one in my size. Twenty years later, in 2002, I came across a badly beat up Ciocc frame and fork in my size and I refurbished it. Of course the internet was around in 2002 but I had no idea about road bikes at all, and, in fact, there was very little information about Cioccs online either.

rhm

I wanted my Norman Rapide because I had a Norman catalog from 1950 and it showed the Rapide as their top-of-the-line. But I got that catalog on ebay; so perhaps this doesn't count?

I wanted my Raleigh Lenton Grand Prix and RRA because I worked in a Raleigh shop 30 years ago and I'd heard about these bikes from the head mechanic there.

gridplan

A lot of the early 80's bikes that I couldn't afford as a kid I learned of through Bicycling Magazine and cycling catalogs like Bike Nashbar. The July '82 issue of Bicycling was on Italy vs. Japan. It's where I saw my first Guerciotti. That lit the fire for that marque.

BlueDevil63 

My grail bikes come from reading bicycle magazines and hanging out at bicycle shops in the mid 70s. I remember going to the library and reading years of back issues of Bicycling and Bicycle Guide, etc. A Masi was my first grail bike because Eddy rode one. I also lusted after a Peugeot PX10. In fact none of my grail bikes were discovered on the internet. Bought over the internet yes but that's not how I found out about them.

bigbossman 

When I was a youngster, the first bike I lusted after was a Schwinn Continental.

Never did get one...... but I got over it.

fender1

Red Schwinn Continental. My first 10 speed.

bbattle

I didn't get into the C & V thing until I was temporarily retired in 2007. I thought this frame looked cool and bought it on eBay for a very cheap price.




I didn't know who John Howard or Dave Tesch were. I assume the seller of the frame didn't either because he didn't mention it or have a pic of Dave's signature decal in his ad.

John Howard


But thanks to the Internet, I know lots more. Dave Tesch built frames for Masi in the early 80's. My pics of the frame are now part of Dave Moulton's blog.

Plus, without the internet, I would never have bought this frame and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

I think this is another one of IB's sneaky marketing data mining threads where they determine who the curmudgeon's of the forum are. The ones that existed before the internet. They are trying to learn how people managed to live back in those dark days.

AZORCH

I was twelve in 1972. The school library had Bicycling magazine, which fascinated me for some reason - especially considering that my spyder bike was the only set of wheels I had at the time. French bikes, in particular, seemed to me to be the most exotic thing in the world and like many others at the time, the PX-10 became an unobtainable (for a pre-teen) dream bike. "Grail" was meaningless to me unless you were talking to me about King Arthur. I wound up getting a much too large Raleigh that weighed about ten thousand pounds at a garage sale - and hated it. Fast forward through a few decades of Centurions, Treks, Cannondales, and Fujis; when I began to see a trend in the bikes that most interested me: lightweight, steel, lugged. One of the first bikes I purchased purposely as a "C&V" was a 1972 PX-10. Somewhere, my twelve year old self was finally grinning.

mazdaspeed

I just want to say that IMO this is hands down one of the best looking bikes I've ever seen.

JunkYardBike

I can't believe you started another grail thread.

fuji86

Yeah, that Colnago is a sweetie. There are bikes on this forum that are daily riders that I'd be a basket case owning, riding and locking up somewhere.

fender1

Yes, you can.

-holiday76

no but this one is different!