Peter Mooney On the Cottage Wall

I posted this on Facebook, but that is fleeting, so for my own sake I am cross-posting it here.

An old bicycle, this is a French style American touring bicycle, with the frame built by an expat Englishman, painted by Chris Kvale (an old Norwegian. ;-). And built up with Italian components by ... myself.

For the folks who think a bicycle is a device to get efficently from point A to point B, or an exercise machine, let's talk.

After spending hours, days, months on eBay and other obscure sites, with the help of friends I assembled a bike's worth of components, mostly 'new old stock', some old. some new new - mostly Italian manufactured by Tullio Campagnolo. I then stripped off the protective anodized finish with nasty chemicals and polished the hell out of them. Then I masked off the areas I did not want painted on the seatpost, cranks and fenders.

I saved the fully chromed frame from a bastardized flatbar "townbike". It had areas of rust and light pitting so I sanded and filled the bad parts and masked off the chrome rear triangle, front and seat lugs and cable guides. Then off to the painter Chris Kvale, who etched the chrome, applied filler, sanded, sprayed it with primer, sanded, more primer and then eventually the finish color. He then sprayed a clearcoat, applied the transfers, and hit it with another clear coat, sanded, another clearcoat, more sanding, until you cannot feel the decals with your hands. (That paint job is worth a lot of complete bicycles.)

Dan Lestrud built the wheelset (Rigida rims, early Phil hubs) and I assembled the bicycle drivetrain, brakes, shiny bits, vintage French Luxor lights and handlebars - and laced leather covering on the handlebars and toe clips.

Sometime when you have more time we can talk abut the goat-leather trimmed canvas "bicycle luggage" made in France by Veronica Durrant.

Yep, an old bike. - Gunnar