The Observation Deck

Michael,

My experience with Dianne and LBS included the first personal fitting for a bike.
I was unaware that this sort of thing existed. I bought a Bianchi Limited, ( think it
was the second year that they did the frames in Japan, 1983, ) and upgraded to
a Specialized stem and bar set, and Suntour Superbe brakes from the levers on down.

I remember her with a tape measure and many questions about my riding style and
things never asked before in a bike shop. I didn't know that a professional bike
fitting expert did that sort of thing. That bike still feels as if it was built for me.
She was one of the first, and I would be curious to know of her whereabouts.

These days I mostly haul groceries on a Ute, the couple of times a year I blow the
dust off of the Bianchi are always special. So cool that you mentioned her and their
shop ! Thanks.

Would like to hear your experience with LBS.

Hi Russell. LBS became my shop of choice when I replaced that peugeot with an italian bike. I bought a frame and went looking for components. They were friendly and did great work. John...Diane's husband...built a couple sets of wheels for me ... I had a couple of goosenecks fuse to my fork tube (sweat, you know) and they'd cut them out. They'd re-face your bottom bracket . . . I never got fit for a bike there, but they did a lot of work for me. last I heard, Dianne was running a shop called Hub Bub.

Not to bore anyone, but after being a big bike fan at one time, I ran into a few physical issues that affected my relationship with bikes.

Actually, its been years since I've taken a bike ride of any real length, and years since I've taken the Gitane off the hook, so memory as to the specifics of it are a bit foggy, except to say that it was one of their better frames.

As for those Bianchi bikes, I seem to recall that the go-to color for that esteemed company back then was "Celeste". I do have a vintage Bianchi Nealco folding bike that I've used at the flea market to scoot around on. That design was handy for a variety of camping and military uses. Mine still has the original bell and generator set.

Remember the Presta and Schrader valve differences? Woe unto you if you lost your valve adapter.

Here's my bike tale for the evening:

I remember getting a great old track bike with wooden wheels from Heinz. One gear, no brakes, rat-trap pedals, and no way to free-wheel the sprocket.

Started the thing out, strapped down the rat-traps good and proper, and took off around Lakewood, being careful to time the lights so that I would not have to stop.
Then I pulled into my friend's driveway and stopped the bike, only to find that neither rat-trap pedal would release my feet, (or to be totally honest, perhaps I simply had not practiced the fine art of releasing them) and of course, as a track bike is always in high gear and a garage was right in front of me, I could not get it going again either. Oops. To my right was a high pricker-bush hedgerow and on my left was a gravel driveway. (Life is about choices, after all ) but somehow I managed to experience both the driveway and the hedge in very personal ways on that day. The track bike was disposed of soon thereafter, being designed for tracks as it was, rather than for my trips around town...

Back to thinking about bikes...

I bought a French bike in the 70's. It was a Motobecane, not too fancy, but it had some of the strangest parts on it. Just all kinds of strange sizes and threads.

I was in Cincinnati with it, and one of the crank cups stripped out the threads in the crank tube of the frame, so I really couldn't pedal it. I took it to a bike shop and they told me there was nothing they could do because they didn't have a tap to match that thread. They said they weren't sure, but maybe a machine shop could fix it.

I really had no idea about what kind of machine shop to go to, but I was driving by a company that had a sign that indicated that they did tool and die work. I was so naive that I just walked in the door with my bike and asked the receptionist if they could help. Well, she got all these executive guys to come out and look at it. They were pretty amused by my request, but must have taken pity on this skinny, long-haired, ignorant, young guy. It also must have seemed like a fun challenge.

They took me back into the shop. This place was big, and filled with huge Bridgeport milling machines and other fancy equipment. They were making pretty sophisticated parts for Cincinnati Milicron robotics, and other stuff that was all lost on me.

I was being led around by an engineer who rounded up a bunch of guys to start taking parts off my bike and measure everything. Soon my bike was locked into special fixtures that mounted on a Bridgeport to perfectly align the tube with a milling tool that went in the tube and smoothed out the bad threads. It had to be dead-on. The shop guys took great pride in their perfect performance.

They retapped the hole for the cup to original specs and reassembled my bike. They all had a great time figuring it out, doing the work, and giving me a great show about what they could do.

On my exit, everyone in the shop and office was beaming. I thanked them all profusely.

They never charged me a dime. It was so much fun, and I learned a lot.

Over the years, I've taken on some projects that didn't pay, or only paid a fraction of the cost, just to give the guys in our shop an opportunity to work on something a little different or interesting. Sometimes it's worth the price to let everybody stretch their skills and have a little fun. If it helps somebody nice, it's an added bonus.

That may be one of the things I learned.

.

That's priceless, Steve. The giving of joy while getting service . . . the way the joy and the service intertwine . . . what exactly is it that we're talking about here?

But really: giving a skilled person the opportunity to shine through a challenge . . . that's the way to get things done.

We're discussing a lot more than bikes here, are we not?

Shine through a challenge? Oh yeah!

Those bikes appear to have been the catalysts for some really great memories and experiences.

As a kid having speech, hearing, and leg impairments, I was on the receiving end of a whole bunch of negative garbage growing up. Whether from some adult who assumed because I had trouble saying my "r's", that I was not very intelligent, or from some abusive and bullying kid? Yeah, I remember, but I try to forget about all of that negative stuff.

What is a whole lot easier to remember are the times when people were kind to me, spent time with me, taught me about stuff and indeed in so doing, taught me about life. Heinz Linke was one of those people. He was kind, patient, and a person who had high standards. He was one of those people who helped Gary Rice to become Gary Rice.

No. this thread is about a whole lot more than bikes. It's about a bunch of not-so-former-kids remembering some great times and some greater life lessons... and yes, we are all still learning that our struggles with those bikes were so often, pure allegories-to-come for our adult lives.

I guess that's one reason that I've kept the bikes, long after being able to use them as much as I've wanted to.

Ah, the fun of being miles from home with a loose cotter-pin on your crankset....
...I sorta still feel that way from time to time...

Back to the bikes....