Something Old and Something New.. That's Old..

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is to head over to my buddy Tom's family home after the festivities (I use that word loosely) are over at my families house. His family's spirit and joviality is not to be missed on such an occasion and I always make it a point to stop by (dressing up like Jesus with flashlights strapped to the back of my head singing happy birthday to myself def would have been a fucking riot BTW xD). Darts were thrown, fruit was juggled, hacky sacks were hacked and many a rancid fart was cut. Afterwords I was reaquainted with a very old and dear friend taking up space in their shed- My old 1980 Team Mongoose from when I was a teenager:

A bit worse for wear now after various crappy rebuilds, loaning it to Tom to ride around and sitting in storage for YEARS now. But here she is back in the day in all her BMXy glory circa 1988:

Granted it was no GT Pro Performer the rest of the rich poseurs in town were riding but it was a noble steed none the less allowing me to pull many a block long wheelie on the way to school..

The frame was originally given to me by a good friend of my brothers at the time. His name was Bill. Bill and my bother were the coolest guys I knew growing up. They used to ride mopeds together before it became the gayest shit you could possibly be caught doing with yourself in the states. Imagine someone riding a huffy beach cruiser in a speedo with rollerblades on. Fortunately they moved on to muscle cars not long after. My bro had a 68' Firebird and then a 88' Grand National Turbo which I never got to drive:

To best describe my brother back then, I quote Lucas from the NYC fixed forum when I first posted that snap in the car appreciation thread:

'Man, just look at that dude. That guy has the flyiest car on the block and I'd bet money he can jump the shit out of a BMX too. That's the kind of legend that introduces you to iron Maiden and gives you your first titty magazine over the single greatest afternoon of your 12 year old life.'

Yup, that was him in a nutshell :-)

Anyways, back to Bill. Along with mopeds and muscle cars, he was also a die hard WWII 'fan' (and more). He had the foresight to invite my brother and I out to his car one night to show us his new AK47. Putting an AK47 into the hands of a 13 year old who plays manhunt for days on end while running around town camouflaged with a black spray painted entertech tech 9 pistol was better than seeing my first titty mag..

***

UPDATE: A couple of days after this post, I was messing around in the shop when my folks came over for a visit. My moms saw the BMX leaning up against the welding table and asked if it was new. I told her- 'Hell no! I've had that thing since I was a teenager'. Fresh from my reminiscing of this post I asked her if she remembered my brother's friend Bill from back in the day, and that he was the one who gave it to me. To which she answered- 'Oh yeah, he's a woman now'. My natural reaction to that was total befuddlement- 'Wait, what?!!' I was almost as shocked to hear that as when I found out Campy actually issued MTB a groups for a spell. I sat there eyes glazed over as she continued- 'Yeah, your brother was mowing our lawn one day when a car pulled up and woman came out to say hello. He almost fainted when he realized who it was'. Hearing that left me feeling kinda :-/ for the rest of the day..

Fucking weird huh?! I really wish I'd gotten this little tid bit of info before posting this entry. No matter, it's a gem that shouldn't be overlooked none the less..

***

Right, bikes. So yeah, they were a couple of rad guys and they were original ones who got me into BMX since that's what they did before the whole moped phase. My bro taught me how to strip and rebuild bikes and fix flats and shit. Eventually I did my own work and built all my BMXs and fixed my friends bikes too. Man those were the days..

As far as any future plans go, I would like to eventually get the frame dipped in a hot chrome bath and then get some old school parts for it to get her back on the road. As you can see it would be a worth while project for bringing back some good old memories alone!

Like I mentioned in the title of the post, that was something old. Here what I meant about something new that's old- A super sweet 1972 Andre Bertin Track bike:

Pretty fucken schweet huh?!

More snaps on my flickr..

This sweet whip came to me by way of my good buddy Phil while he was in town for Christmas. He originally bought the frame from a guy who lived near a velodrome in Milan for $140 euros complete. He fixed it up a bit and rode it around briefly before we found him a nice curvy KHS aero. He loved it but was sick of the bitchy TA drivetrain and hard to find french replacement parts. It stayed in storage for a number of years at his girlfriends parents place outside of London before he was finally able to bring it back to the states. I'd only seen some snaps of it up until then so I was stoked to finally see it in person. More so when the measurements turned out to be 56.5cm CTC squared! Granted I prefer a 56cm CTC TT but at only .5cm longer something tells me I'll deal. Esp seeing as how my ass has a lovely Philippe Adjustable Stem to make the fit right and match the Phillipe bars on the bike as well. What gets me even more stoked than anything else is the fact that I just so happen to have a set of DURA ACE 10 CRANKS WITH FRENCH PEDAL THREADING- FUCK YESSSSSS!!!!! Here I thought I was going to have to have them rethreaded or get some french pedals in order to get some use out of em. Weird how Shimano, a Japanese brand known for english standards on everything, makes anything with French threading right?! Tho after doing a little research I discovered that AB had the distribution rights to Shimano in France during the 70's and 80's before Shimano bought the rights back in the early 9o's. Apparently during those decades there was a surge in Shimano parts showing up on French bikes with the old standard french sizing. Making it PERIOD CORRECT to toss a set of DA10 French threaded cranks on there BITCHEEEZZZZ!!! In any case, I'm kinda stoked on that since I really don't like TA cranks and I don't really have money to go nuts with builds like I used to. Unless of course I get a good deal on some Stronglights that I should never have sold..

So with that, I'll probably just toss the DA10 cranks, chain and a regular threaded cog on there to keep the Normandy hubs/Mavic rims combo going. But not after spending like 3 days removing all the tubular glue (nice job buddy) and polishing them up from all the dirt etc. Seat and saddle combo to be contemplated as well. An Ideale 39 saddle and a rando 26.2 post should do..

The only other history I've been able to dig up the frame is what I've found on the Bertin website. Being that the frame construction is of Durifort 888 and the # 72 stamped into the top of the Seat lug, I'm thinking it's a 1972 C 56 model. I was unable to locate any other numbers anywhere on the frame or anything else on the web to help me identify the frame more precisely. I'm hoping that something else will turn up when I get around to striping down the frame, cleaning and rebuilding it. If anyone has any other information or details on Andre Bertin please be sure to let me know!

Big huge ups to Phil for finding her and introducing the old girl to my filthy ol' mitts! With any luck she'll be back on the road soon enough and always available whenever you're in town for a spin man :-) ..unless we go snowboarding instead \m/

Right then, lots more bicycle and non bicycle garbage coming soon!!

Something Old and Something New.. That's Old..