That Pashley is beautiful. What's a bike like that weigh? I know that's not the point, but I'm curious anyway. What are hub brakes like in terms of stopping? I might look for one of those except I'd need to put at least a 7 or 8 speed hub on. Again taking away the traditional aspect of 3 speeds

Your photos show it, brilliant. I also volunteer so be careful not to overcommit, enjoy.

It's a svelte 32 lbs.

I've never felt a need for more brakes when riding it, They just work.

To be honest, as much as I love this bike there are times I wish I had a wider range with closer gearing. When I tried to get this one into my "19 mph" club it was the limitation of the gearing when the road turned up a bit that kept me from getting there. I'd love this with an 8 speed IGH like on Azor. I've even toyed with the idea of getting the IGH swapped but haven't seriously looked at it.

Pashley does have the Morgan 8, a similar bike with an 8 speed IGH. But man, the prices have gone up. The Guv'nor is now almost $500 more than I bought mine for.

Killa collection. Sigh... almost every bike depicted would fit me and ready dialed in.

Life is short, don't let all work steal it away. Enjoy your rewarding retirement!

Congrats on the retirement and I hope you get to enjoy every minute of it!

Of the bikes listed as keepers (13 total by my count) 11 are similar (fast, road bikes) and 2 are different (Pashley & the errand bike).

What about deciding to re-home all of the maybes and non-keepers and the really trying to determine the differences in the remaining 11 road bikes?

Have each fill a specific role and try and shrink the number further? More focus on riding and enjoyment rather than what I do when I have too many of a thing which is look for reasons to continue to to build/tinker!

Regardless, congrats again and great collection of bike to look at from afar.

This sounds funny but I particularly like that omafiets. I guess I'm a practical person.

There was one listed on FB Marketplace here in Woodstock hat would be in my garage if it had still been available. Not looking for one but it was cheap and it called to me.

this is why we have more than 1 bike, not that that is a bad thing per se

I've addressed this several times and like @jamesdak have instructed my son to do as he sees fit, keep, sell, give away, donate, etc, whatever he sees fit to do, especially if he wants to cherry pick and donate the rest.

No expectations at all, it is entirely up to him and he knows it.

All that said does not mean I won't downsize if I get there, we'll see.

Not funny to me, that bike is the bee's knees because it is so practical. I got it after years of getting by with other bikes for running local errands and such. And yes, I figure it will be the last bike I'll be able to ride when I get old. Like in 30 years, LOL!

But I have found out that doing 20+ mile rides on it are really simple and fun. I'll load up the basket on the front with a bunch of real camera gear and go have fun. It's quite comfortable and has a lot of gear range with the 8 speed IGH. I optioned the heavy duty brakes so I've never felt a need for more braking power. And the way the front rack is attached via the bike frame vs the front wheel is awesome. My son had my Cherokee for awhile as he car shopped to replace his SUV taken out by a drunk. I needed gas for my mowers and did not want to carry a 5 gallon can of gas inside my car. So I threw it in the front basket also. When full it was around 30 lbs and yet the handling of the bike was not affected at all. With the step through design there's not worry about tipping a loaded bike over to get on it. You just step through and go. And the two-legged kickstand means it stays solidly in place as you load it down. I can ride it through all sorts of puddles and even slushy roads and never get any water on me.

The built in frame lock for the rear wheel is so convenient and the key stays in the lock until you use the lock. Combine that with a 40+ lb weight and I never worry about bringing the chain that's designed to work with the lock. I just don't see anyone quickly picking it up and running off with it, LOL! I figured I'd need to upgrade the light when I bought it but that's not been the case. The front dynamo hub gives plenty of juice and the light gives more than enough light to see where I am going. I've had one slow leak the first year so I put sealent in the tubes and have had no issues since.

Anyway, I could go on and on about the merits of this odd bike. It's the most I've paid for any one bike and to me it's money well spent. It' usage will probably increase tenfold when I'm retired as time will no longer be an issue. I can use this to run just about any errand in the valley I need to do, versus hoping into one of the cars.

Well, I thought I'd revisit this to see if my thoughts from two years ago were sound.

Since the OP I have sold the following bikes.

Pacenti - Went to an older guy who bought it based on the advice of his younger son who is a fellow "steel is real" kind of guy
Colnago Master Extra Light - The small size made this an easy sell
Holdsworth Professional - I never really got excited about this one so another one easy to let go
Kestrel 200 SCI - Listed over a year and finally sold this weekend. I did have some regrets about letting this beauty go
Softride - So fast and a sublime ride. Yet call me vain, but I could not get over the appearance of it. If another one with a great paint job showed up I would jump on it. Silly, yes.
Bianchi Giro - No longer needed as a winter ride once I got the Poprad and a Panasonic PT-3500. This had that crunched tube on the frame. I tore it down for the parts and have the frameset stored in the garage
Meile Latina - Nice riding bike but never stood out amongst the other great rides.

Still listed locally for sale to make room:
Merckx Corsa 01 - I finally started appreciating this one more but I thought it would be easy to move on. Get's a lot of attention but no one has actually followed up with actually coming to see it.
Moser Leader Ax - Also getting its share of attention and questions. One buyer supposedly wanted just the frameset and then backed off when I asked to confirm before tearing it down.

Ideally I need to move on about 4 bikes to have the bike cave with enough room to store the remaining bikes. I like the bike cave to have all the bikes stored in such a way that I can grab any given bike without having to move others.

So that said, these are still on the bubble for possibly being put up for sale locally. I think....
Purple Paramount - Has been a great ride since being built up with a nice Dura Ace setup yet I could consider letting this one go.


Davidson Impulse - Has been a favorite for years but maybe it's time to let someone else enjoy it. This would be a hard decision. I also keep considering giving this one a modern build so who knows?


Colnago CT1 - This is so dang good on the ride. But I got it so cheap that I could sell it and even if it went cheap I'd still make some rare money off a sale.


Wayne Evans- This one is so good each time I take it out but it get's lost in the shuffle of all the other bikes. Still, how often do you get a bike from the likes of Bob Fourney? This one does fit 700 x 30 tires so it may sell easy in today's world.


Of course the reality is I do have room for all these bikes. To include the Andy Gilmour frameset I still have not built up due to a stuck BB I'm still dealing with. Now that I'm finally starting to ride again my feelings on letting some of them go may change. Or maybe other bikes will become less desirable. And thus ends this morning's ramblings.

I think that you should keep the Wayne Evans, the purple Paramount and the Davidson, you may have regreat if you sell them. The Colnago can be a quick sale. When you have rare bikes even if you don't ride them as much, if they are meaningful to you, better keep them than sell them. Nice frames are getting harder to come by nowadays.I on my side, am probably going to sell a rare Raleigh with C Record to a neighbour because I don't use it and because I don't feel connected to that bike anymore despite its rarity

jamesdak is the Davidson Japanese Tange Prestige? If so I’d be inclined to keep it for the sake of variety, plenty of SL/SLX and enough 531 bicycles kicking around…

georges1 the C-Record equipped Raleigh sounds worthy of a few photos here before it gets cast adrift…

Good point! Until I think more. I used to have several Prestige tubed bikes. Now it shares that "honor" with the PDG Paramount. I love the Paramount due to it's paint job but the Davison is the superior riding bike, hmmmm........

This is another one I keep going back and forth on getting rid of. It's the one I turned into a "weight weenie" project of sorts and got it down to 15 lbs 14 ozs. The ride is OK but not on par with most of my steel on my rough chisel roads. I keep thinking I could swap the light tubulars off this onto my Coppi and then sell this one. Still, it's a sort of rare bike being an old Paramount Racing Team bike, plus it's one of my few remaining patriotic paint jobs. I will say that the light weight never proved to be an advantage for my silly 19 avg mph game. The light weight did not translate into a super fast bike under me.

Maybe I should get this one out soon for a ride and decide.


15 lbs 14 ozs as seen in this picture. A Dura Ace Crankset should drop that a bit more.

Any bike can be special in some way. Not selling can always be rationalized. And selling in today's market will likely not be satisfying.

BUT

It's only a bike. How "special" is it ? Does it serve any unique purpose other than See What I Got ? None of those will be particularly easy to get rid of anyway so you may be happy to see them gone when they finally are.
I don't even keep pix of the bikes that I used to have. BFD. A history of possessions ? Puhleeezzz. I don't care now and neither will anyone else when I croak.

YMMV of course

LOL, yeah we are completely different people with different views on things and life. It's all good though.

Thanks for sharing your collection with us, jamesdak. It's very impressive. Curious, whatever became of the too big Tommasini?

It sold for a rare profit for me. I even tried to give the lady I bought it from some additional money when it sold but she wouldn't take it. I'd love to find a deal like this in my size for sure!

Hey James -- quite the collection. I learned your location only immediately after returning from our most recent (2019, if I recall correctly) extended family reunion at Powder Mtn.

I, too, am probably retiring this year (end of academic year in June), and my artist wife and I will have to plan a return trip to northern Utah. Beautiful area! Some of those hills look like they demand some lower gears and some good brakes.

Hit me up when you're out here if you want. And if you want to ride and can fit a 55/56, I can hook you up.

The davidson and wayne evans would be on my keep list, even if you put different components on them
I am sucker for fun color

Well the crazy purple Paramount sold today. Once again, a younger guy in his 20's. Drove about 3 hours down from Idaho to look at it and the Merckx. He picked the Paramount, solid choice. That leaves me with just the Merckx and the Moser listed locally right now.




Still having issues riding though so there may be more going up soon. Trying some things to see if I can get past these lingering heath problems that keep interfering with my riding.

I may throw a lot of money away on these bikes I refurb but it always feels good to see some new rider happy with one of my builds. Just retired the bike in my strava list and it looks like I only put 189 miles on that one. That shows how little I've been able to ride this past year when one of the "primary" bikes has so few miles on it.

I am sure the newer rider will love and appreciate the bike for what it is. When I sold my Raleigh with C Record to my favorite 75years old neighbor, he was very happy. I wish you a quick full recovery so that you can ride again.