I just sold two bikes on ebay. Both were Italian racing bikes vintage early 80's. One was a Bianchi a medium line bike not full Campy, but painted Celeste. The other was a red '84 Ciocc, full Campy and sewups, weight 22 lbs fully equiped, these guys have never built less that top end, at least up to then. I still have the 70's era Allegro I want to restore, and an '09 Jamis Aurora Elite touring bike I bought last year.
I started riding bikes late for a kid, I was about 11 or 12. I'd tried younger, but could never get the hang of it. Kept tipping over. Finally after we were living on the farm in Tyner, one afternoon I decided I was going to ride or break my neck. Our hired man had an English three speed. What in those days we called a racing bike, not knowing any better. The road we lived on was dirt, down hill, just past the lower barn by the watering trough, (still there 50 years later last time I drove by), it curved to the left went uphill a bit, another road tee'd on to the right, then a downhill like a skislope that went straight to Buckley Falls, or turned to the left onto Winner Rd, another downhill.
Later that summer my brother John pulled off everything but handlebars, seat, and pedals and rode the same bike down the steep hill, missed the turn onto Winner Rd and went straight into the woods hitting a tree and breaking his arm, as I remember.
Anyway, I decided I was going to ride, so I got on the bike by the driveway, and started down the hill. I started to pedal and was wobbling like crazy. But I kept in control, sort of, went around the curve and just past the watering trough lost control, don't remember why, and headed for the ditch. I piled it up in the ditch, skinned a knee and picked up a few cuts and bruises. Picked up the bike and wheeled it to the house, went in and got bandaids and something to drink. After thinking about it, I got back on the bike and tried again, got all the way to the road on the right, turned and rode back.
Been riding bikes ever since, well except for a 30 year or so stretch where I didn't ride after breaking my anke riding over to my parents house in Anaheim Calif. I sold bikes, parts, everything but tools, after that.
After moving to Calif when I was in the 9th grade, I had a friend, Dave, his parents were English, he had a bike, so did I and I wouldn't be exagerating to say we covered most of Fullerton and Buena Park.
A girl, Nellie, lived for awhile next door to his house at her grandmothers, she was from someplace up north. I asked her out first, we went to Knotts, she borrowed his Mom's bike. Looking back I don't know if he ever really forgave me for that. Nellie came back a summer or two later and we all walked the two or three miles from where their houses were on Carol Dr. to our house, on Delhi Pl., to swim in the pool, she was a very pretty girl, probably 5'4" or so, tanned, long blond hair, with...well you know. She would've been 15-16 maybe 17 at the time. We were all there swimming me, Dave, my sister and her friends Donna (who was built too) and Elaine, my brother, my little sister, and probably my Grandmother in the house, Dave and I were hovering around Nellie, she was wearing a bikini, (this was 1966 or 67), that left nothing to the imagination. I thought she looked fantastic. She was showing off, diving into the pool, then doing acrobatics on the lawn, when she suddenly popped out of her bathing suit top, as she was doing a handstand, but that's another story. I will say she stood up, she was darkly tanned except for where her suit had covered her, she just looked at us staring at her, kind of smirked, then she unceremoneously got back in her top, before going back to the pool, with my sister and her friends, laughing. After forty some years, I can still close my eyes and see her, standing in the shade under the tree, looking at us. My mother drove us to take her home to her grandmothers a couple hours later. She left for home a few days later. I never saw her again. That's the story after all.
The summer before, we were still living on West Ave, he and I worked in a local car wash and then picking lemons. I used my money to buy my first 10 speed, a Falcon from the brother of a girl I loved or thought I did. That fall riding home from Dave's in the dark across the Catholic school parking lot, not paying attention, I rode right into the back of a parked car. It threw me unhurt for the most part up on the back of the car. The bike was hurt worse. It bent the frame and fork so badly that the wheel hit the down tube and a horozontal pedal was almost out to the hub of the front wheel. Took to the bike store that was in the West Fullerton shopping center and he said unfixable, but he'd take in trade, went home, talked and talked, and was soon riding a new blue Bianchi. I rode that puppy for years, mistreated it, left it under the eaves in the rain, but you couldn't kill it. Dave like most guys back then got into cars, as did I, but I continued riding my bike. Whenever I was between cars, often in those days, that's how I got around. But this was long before it became fashionable. Finally when I was 22 or 23 I parked it in front of the post office on Commonwealth near Lemon in Fullerton and went in to check my PO box. When I came out the Bianch was gone, stolen. I got home, walked or cadged rides, eventually got another car, then another... Finally went into a bike shop over by the college, on Placentia I think, and bought a Schwinn Sports Tourer, a bike I didn't know how special it was for years after I sold it, I learned it on line fairly recently in fact. Rode it, sold my car a 69 Mustang Mach I, rode the bike full time as my only transportation, slowly converted it to full Campy, even had sewups on it for awhile. Then broke my ankle, as described above. Bought bikes, thought about getting back into riding, but they hung from the ceiling in the garage. Finally in the last couple years rode a little, but Italian racing frames are not as comfortable for a 60ish body, hence the Jamis. A side benefit is it's dimensions and ride are similar to my Sports Tourer of years ago.
Lee Murray
ANYWAY...checking out Fullerton online to see what's changed, I saw that Rutabegorz is still there. Forty years old this year in fact. I used to go there with friends back in the early '70's. It was in '71 or '72 that a friend, Carol P., (who passed away at 46, from breast cancer in '98, (ladies take the hint)), loved it, and got me going there, dragged me there really. Before she passed she'd bought a condo and was living in Fayetteville, going to Upstate in Syracuse for chemo, when she told me they'd said it was back, and gave her another year. It's vague now, we'd made plans to go dancing on her birthday. She went back to her home in Manhatten. I don't remember the exact timing but just before her birthday I think, husband number 5, called and told me she'd passed over. The funny thing is I still hear her talking to me. She's always here, but that's another story too. I guess when you know and care about somebody, seeing or talking to them, almost every day for nearly thirty years, they don't just disappear... 
ANYWAY...Rutabegorz was like a cross between a head shop, and a coffee house in those days, when Carol dragged me there. But I liked it. We'd go there in the afternoons or evenings and get drinks or coffee, sit for hours hanging out, there were people playing guitar and singing here, playing chess there, and just sitting at a table or in chairs reading or talking somewhere else. As I remember, it was dark, and cool, with tables and chairs here and easy chairs there. But time, and I moved on, and now it seems that 40 years later it's still there. The pictures on the website make it look a little Denny's-ish. Perhaps not the same great place to hang out now, don't know. They do now have 3 locations and a bed & breakfast in Orange. I'll check it out when I get back. In the universe/reality where she didn't get cancer and die, and I didn't move here, probably Carol and I are still going there...who knows.
