I met Craven Moarhead today for the first time, at his place. He showed me most of his various bikes, and I tried them. Then we took a real kick-ass bike ride through rural roads near him. We went pretty fast, and it was the first time I had gone that fast for that long in a while. We went about 27 miles in all.

First, I tried his balloon tire Varsity. What a scream that thing is. It rides like a tank, eagerly soaking up any surface irregularities. Handling is slow but friendly and predictable. Shifting is really weird, as the shifters are mounted on the top tube backwards. Pull the right shifter back to shift the front derailleur down, and so on. Braking is excellent on this bike, equipped with two drum brake hubs. With brakes this good, who would want disk brakes? And of course, acceleration and hill climbing on this bike are not good at all. But that's not what it's built for. It's an awesome hauling and errand bike.

I tried his Austro Daimler racing bike. Not ready for prime time. It has bent up wheels with loose spokes. and it rides with a shimmy. I look forward to the improvements.

The Super Course is very nice. The repaint job is amazing. Brakes work better than on my Weinmann centerpull equipped Super Course. I'm not sure why, but I think it's the levers. His fork is an aftermarket one, and it seems to make the bike a bit more stable and nimble than mine.

So there we were, in our street clothes, riding on the road with the other weekend bike riders in their lycra getups. Craven wore cut off jean shorts. I had rolled up painter pants and sandals on. (SPD sandals, though). I had a t-shirt on, too. I own all the garb, but it seemed fitting not to wear it while riding our old bikes.

We had the same model bike! I call mine a 1971 Raleigh Super Course, though it might be a 1972. Craven thinks his is a 1972.

Mine is a 21", and his is a 23". We both think mine feels that it climbs more eagerly. It may be because the frame is smaller thus stiffer.

I also looked at the Miyata frame he scored at the Trexlertown bike swap. It's amazing. It's a hard-core steel racing frame, and inspired by the Italian designs of the day. I expect it to be extremely responsive and nimble.

Max speed today was 35.7 mph. Average was 14.3 mph.