Originally Posted by 79pmooney

Quick sorta Eisentraut story. Summer of 1983 I crashed my Mooney and bent the fork blades. I was living on the island of Alameda across the estuary from Oakland. Took the fork to the shop (3 miles from my house and a block from one of Alameda's bridges. (Alameda - all roads lead to Oakland, via bridges or tunnel.) It was a slow period for Eisentraut. Only person there was Ed Litton. He took a look, said it was fixable and proceeded to straighten the blades. He obviously knew what he was doing. I was impressed.


Ordered a new fork from Peter Mooney. Later that year I learned Ed had moved on to go out on his own in Richmond. I contacted both of them and arranged for the fork to be sent to me unpainted; that I would have Ed paint both fork and frame a new color. Fork arrived, I took both to Ed, got a quote for too little to mention here for a metallic Imron single color strip, paint, decal and replace headset. A week later, done. Absolutely perfect! (Well there was one flaw. A tiny pinprick. By the tire on the right chanstay, Once the bike hit the street and saw its first dirt, I could never find it again.


Now that paint has many chips, all earned. And much of it looks as perfect as whan it left Ed's. (The beauty of a quality Imron job.)


So while this is a very tangentially Eisentraut post, Eisentraut will always denote for me professionalism and quality at the highest level. (And I love seeing Ed Litton's bikes and seeing him at the shows in years past.)