I rarely buy bikes for myself these days. Maybe 1 in 20 or 30. I often buy in my size so I can at least ride them, but know when I'm buying it's going to be fully restored and resold or at least fully overhauled and sold.

Fellow BF'er [MENTION=191163]bennie222[/MENTION] helped me scratch a bike off the bucket list this month, something I've wanted for a while. I still owe you one man, haven't forgotten!

I found a Moto Prolight at an overly-reasonable price on CL in his neck of the woods a few weeks ago. Posted it for a sec in the CL & eBay thread but after about 30 minutes I removed it, deciding it was worth the effort to try and make this mine.

I noticed the model on the TT was 'Pro Mark I' which suggested Euro (German?) market, so I found it doubly interesting. Texted the buyer, the second he heard I was in Atlanta, the line went dead. Got in touch with [MENTION=191163]bennie222[/MENTION] and he talked to the seller, picked up the bike, and it was on. Awesome pack job and short ground ship later, it's in-hand. I owe a big thanks to [MENTION=191925]dashuaigeh[/MENTION] for his assist in helping me put the pieces together. Appreciate you, brother!

I've been known to remove vintage shop stickers, but the sticker under the rear cluster has some history and is pretty cool. Machnow is/was Berlin's biggest bike shop that started back in 1899 with brothers Ernst and Karl Machnow, apparently the shop was known for (Stern? Stadler?) bikes, and moreso Arcona wheels. Research on the address (Hauptstrasse 163) shows it rolled through a few names/owners over the years but remains a bike shop even today in different hands.

Seems the bike is lacking a head badge (touch of adhesive is still there) but otherwise... this is how it was served up over there: Full 600, bonded frame. They sold a Mark I, II, III. Over here they were badged "Prolight". Needs a bit of service before I take it for a ride and it's obviously not fully put together anyway. I'd always coveted but avoided bonded frames until I recently picked up one of the Raleigh 1000SP Titanium 853/531 mixed frames and loved the ride. Figured if I was going bonded, I might as well go French

Some hi-res pics here, smaller versions below: Motobecane Prolight - Pro Mark I - Album on Imgur