It was a long quest - I stupidly sold it in '87 to buy an amp, went to buy it back from that friend to learn it had been stolen within a couple of months. When I started riding again in '97 I started looking for one.

It actually came as a complete bike. And it's the damnedest thing - all of the parts I had replaced on my original bike have been replaced on this one, too - but they're not the parts I put on the bike, i.e., there was a 105 rear derailleur instead of the Crane I had on mine, and some 'orrible cutout saddle instead of the Ideale 90 the dealer put on at my request in '78, and KKT pedals instead of the Lyotard Berthet platforms I had installed (replacing stock MKS) - even though the wheels are 27-in clinchers with Normandy Luxe Competition hubs, they're not the stock wheels like the ones I replaced, these are themselves replacements with Mavic Module E rims. Hell, they could be the stock wheels that someone replaced the rims, but there's this scar on the head badge that rings a memory of a similar scar on my old one. It's not inconceivable that it actually IS my old bike; if it turns out not to be, it surely came out of the same shop.

There just weren't that many of them made, so they're kinda rare. Not high dollar rare, 'cause nobody's ever even heard of them, nobody won races on them, they were the down-market version of the Royal Force, itself a down-market version of the Vent Noir, which was itself a down-market shadow of the Ultimas and Super Leichts just as Puchs (at least in the U.S.) were the also-rans behind the Austro-Daimlers.

But now that I have this one, knowing what I know now about bikes, I am struck by how neatly it's put together, how durable the chrome has proven. I'm really eager to get this bike up and running again, and for now I'll settle for a good cleaning, touch-up and build and adjust with period-correct parts. Maybe later I'll have it repainted professionally, but the artwork could be challenging because currently I can't find repro decals. If anyone has Greg's ear at Cyclomondo, you could do the same decals with "Force" and "X" and get both bike patterns ups, covering the '76 Xs and the '76-77 Forces. In other words, all five or so of us who might want them ...