the one(s) that got away

getting back to my excitement over the upcoming NAHMBS ( and the beyond cool company of naer-do-wells we are goin with { am i really bringing my 17 y/o daughter with that band of pirates ?? - well she survived SSWC05 . . . . . } ), i thought i would talk about those dream bikes that just never quite got into the net. the big ones, the ones you see only a couple times in a life, and then you break a line, or they slip the net, or they just swim past and laugh while you flounder like an idiot. i have 2.

1st. actually this is the one that really gets me, and wasn't even for me. in the late 80's gretchen and i rode for suntour/ibis. shortly before the original ibis was shifting over to their next style of production, the owner called us up and told us we needed to get in line for the last batch of old-style road bikes. there wer egonna have all the tricks, the sculpted seat collars and headtube reinforcements, the erica paints jobs, all the stuff that made those bikes what they were only in a road configuration, never to be done again. i was on a shop race bike at the time, and didn't care about the road that much but gretchen we got in line. but then - for reasons i still cannot recall - which makes it al the worse - we pulled out. nicol pleaded with not to, saying we would regret it, if it was $ don't worry we'd work it out, but we resistied. those bikes, like the slim chance road bikes, and original Kb race-light road bikes from the famed bontrager garage were a rare hi-water mark in road frames. i kick myself to this day for letting that one go.

2nd. a nagasawa for me. this one i just put off too long. you can have your sachs, and your vanilla's. a nagasawa is what richard sachs BUYS, when he wants to see how the other half does it. yellow jersey used to seell them, and now nagasawa-san doesn't make em anymore.

the bikes we see this weekend wil be every bit as sweet as those ones i saw from the boat, but never pulled in, if not moreso. such an age of handmade bikes we live in !! but to me, nothing is as sweet as that one you saw, swiming back into the murk, chance of lifetime there . . . . . . . . and then gone.