Originally Posted by
Munny
Hi Non-fixie,
I was there and on your first picture you could see the handelbars of the bike I exposed ... at the very very end of the row, level with a saddle since I positionned it the reverse way to stress on the "difference".
I don't agree with the statement of typical Belgian frame.
Of all my Belgian bikes, just one has stays that are painted.
I'd say that the absence of chrome goes with the general built. The cable stop on the last picture is speaking of this. On a sixties frame I would instead expect 2 parts brazed on the stay. A little ring and a stop.
Anyway, I like the color and I'm pleased that you bought it.
I think it had been for sale as a complete bike on a local web site. I asked a question then, given the color and the size, but at that time it was too expensive.
This edition of the StalenRos has been of a very good quality with even more participants than usually.
Hello, Munny. I'm sorry I missed the chance to meet you in the flesh, I would have have liked that! You're right in that not all Belgian frames have silver-painted fork ends. I should have expressed myself more clearly: I've never seen silver-painted fork ends on any other than Belgian-built bikes. I have a Dutch Jan Janssen with painted socks, but I'm pretty sure it was actually built by Flandria:
The silver paint job on the Toortelboom is much nicer, though, as is the general finish. The seller told me that all the other parts on it were Campagnolo Super Record, so I it's not so surprising he had a high asking price for whole bike.
BTW, Frans Toortelboom was a professional racer between 1966 and 1973. If he started a bike shop after his racing career I guess this was one of his early bikes.
And yes, this edition of Stalen Ros was definitely bigger than last year. However, I did miss some of the older stuff that was on sale then.