Steel C&V derailleur bikes from the 60's through the 90's that no one else has or wants...

I got back in bike hoarding er... collecting in 2006 looking for several bucket list bikes: a 1974-76 orange Motobecane Team Champio/Champion team, an orange Colnago Super, an orange and light blue Mercian Vincitore and a black and red 1974-77 Reynolds 531 Motobecane Grand Record....

In my searching, I missed out several times on the grail bikes that I wanted but found acceptable substitutes for most of them. I also started grabbing up good deals that I ran across (and some not so good deals).

During the ensuing years in the US, savings accounts and retirement funds like IRA's and 401k's were paying almost negative interest. I decided that buying a bike instead was just as good an investment!!!

With a bike I can enjoy working on it (assembling a frame from scratch if needed), riding it and just plain looking at it... all thing that I can't do with money held by an institution! If I just broke even when I sold a bike I would be ahead of the game!

Most of the bikes that I acquired, I could sell for an affordable $500-$1000 USD. Also while everyone was overpaying for classic Eyetalian iron, top rung French bikes were a steal! Some Brit bikes too.

I sort of flushed out the collection with one or two bikes from a number of big name European builders including 40+ French bikes, 6 Raleighs, 4 Custom US builds, 3 Colnagos, 3 Bianchis, 3 Holdsworths, 2 Gazelles, 2 Centurion Iron Man Specials, 2 Swiss bikes, 2 Bilato Lemonds TeamZ's, a Hetchins, a Gios, a Merckx, a Paramount, a Trek plus some others... N=? ;-)

The rationale is that I can start thinning the herd 1 or 2 a month when the time comes... (when I decide I don't want to work any more)

I'll be spinning some off in the next month or so.

verktyg

Chas.