Mario Confente's opinion

Bicycling Magazine 1976

Mario Confente's opinion about a statement Bicycling Magazine's editor Wallace Clements made in 1975.

Bikes from Cirque, Part 1

My name is Aaron Popelka, and I am a mechanic at Via Bicycle.  I will periodically be making guest posts on this blog to supplement Joel's regular posts.

This past weekend I accompanied the Via team to Cirque for the Sunday show and swap meet. I took many more photos, and will be posting more detailed photos and descriptions of bikes in the coming days, but here is a sampling of some of the bikes that were there that were particularly interesting or beautiful.

J. P. Weigle

Super clean Mario Confente track bike in the hotel lobby, owned by Wayne Bingham, organizer of Cirque.  I wish I could get a drive side shot, but the couch was in the way.

An early Hi-E lightweight road bike owned by Larry Black.

 Pristine Paramount headlugs.

Dual headlights and a nice rack on a J.P. Weigle.

Alex Singer constructeur bike.

Stickler for details

I think I may have touched upon this before, but I often find myself taking pictures of bicycle details, rather than the complete bicycle. I guess I am more interested in the parts rather than the whole. I wonder if other people see these bicycles the same.

In looking through my vast collection of bicycle pictures I have, most are just a headlug here, brake hanger there, and not many complete bicycles. I have numerous pictures that I really have to use clues to figure out what the bicycle was that I photographed the seat lug cluster of.

Take this Mario Confente. This bicycle has become the holy grail of late 1970s road bicycle collectors. I have only these five pictures take at Cirque in 2008. I really wished I had more to look at, but only more detailed pictures. Seeing a completely built of bicycle is great, just look at the post from yesterday of Nick's Medici, but I really like the bits and bobs that go into it.

Overtly critical

Well to be fair after the last posting about finishing touches on a restoration, I do understand that sometimes it is not the bicycle that is the true goal but the path that it takes to get there. From locating the period correct bit and bobs, to reproducing decals, and sometimes just the simple thing of finding out who actually made the bike.

Finding out who made a bike can sometimes take you down the rare road of documenting a builder that there is no gathered information about. In talking with various collectors, looking through old magazine and trade publications you begin to form a story- a history. This can be rather rewarding because you will be the keeper of the flame, someone that saved it from obscurity.

With the advent of the Internet, almost every vintage bicycle aficionado knows of Mario Confente, even though he built reality few bicycles under his own name. That is not only because he built finely crafted ones, but he is well documented. Take someone more obscure like Harry Rensch, that name is foreign to a lot of American collectors(and I assume Europeans alike, minus the British). He built very unorthodox bicycle frames that would completely stand out compared to any other postwar bicycle at the time(even most today). His history has also been cataloged for the future so collectors have correct information for restoring. Names like Pop Brennan, Dick Powers, Alvin Drysdale, or even the famous builder Gloria need to have a formal account of bikes they built and riders who used them. I applaud all the collectors that help document the history of cycling and the technical advances made over the past 100+ years. Magazines like the Bicycle Quarterly and On the Wheel, and websites like Classic Rendezvous and Velo Retro offer invaluable information and a place to meet other like minded collectors.

In the photo is a myriad of cotter drive side cranks. Rudge, BSA, JC Higgins, Raleigh and Phillips are all visible.