Well, it’s been a couple of months since my bike-hoarding confessional, and I’ve been somewhat wheeling and dealing. I hit up two swap meets with the goal of thinning the herd.

Swap #1: Marin
To maximize space, I loaded up around seven full bikes and managed to sell a 1950s Roadmaster Cycle Truck frameset (still suffering from a stubbornly stuck stem) and a nearly-complete ’57-ish Roadmaster, which is now off to a second life as garden art. (The new owner didn’t want the wheels, so naturally, I kept the Bendix 2-speed for nostalgia.)

Swap #2: Stockton
Then I decided to try a “new” swap strategy: I showed up with around 100 fenders (mostly balloon tires from the '40s and '50s still waiting to find their soulmates) and a couple of bikes. After selling a few fenders and chainguards, I declared an official “Fender Frenzy” and announced that everything left was FREE. Cue the feeding frenzy—like Black Friday but with more metal and fewer elbows. Even after 75% of my stock got snapped up, I still had a few relics left, which I promptly tossed into the scrap pile the next day.

And, yes, there were a few “minor” setbacks: At the Marin Swap, I couldn’t resist picking up a 1950s Urago Randonneur that I might restore and ride, and at the Stockton Swap, an early ’70s Zeus that’s almost complete. I’ve had a Zeus frame without a fork for ages and have been gathering Zeus parts to fulfill my dream of building an all-Zeus bike. I mean, as a Spanish teacher, how can I not have a Spanish bike, right? Then, last weekend, I drove an hour each way and picked up a 1950s Follis that’s a good inch taller than me. But with its Maxicar hubs and Beborex brakes, it’s got the perfect donor parts for a 1950s Peugeot project I’m working on.

So… that counts as “downsizing,” right?

Here's the Urago

Urago
More about the Urago here https://fattiretrading.com/urago/


Zeus Competition
More about the Zues here https://fattiretrading.com/zeus-competition/