After a long day of cycling with mapleleafs13 down a new path through Port Credit, I ended up back at his place to gawk at his collection and workshop. Hung out with him and his brother talking and looking at bikes, and he showed me some of his latest acquisitions. The last thing to come out in a parade of great bikes was this frame - a 1985 Strawberry built by Andy Newlands. Now let me tell you that buying another bike was THE LAST thing I was planning on doing that day, but once I saw this frame I knew that there was no way I was leaving without it. Mapleleafs13 is, as his brother kindly pointed out, "an enabler", and he certainly wasn't trying to talk me out of it, so after a few minutes we were headed back to my place with the frame strapped to the back of his car.

I love this frame, it is just full of beautiful details, and I have spent more than a bit of time just staring at the workmanship on the lugs. Now that I have it, I'm not quite sure how to build it. I have a beautiful set of super record tubulars also courtesy of mapleleafs13, so I am leaning toward full super record. However, I have a deep and abiding love for Suntour, so I was considering waiting for a donor bike to come up with full cyclone or superbe and going that route. That being said, I'm open to suggestions and fun ideas. As it stands it is pretty much a blank slate, so if this Strawberry was yours for the picking, how would YOU build it?