Awesome Customer's Awesome Bike: Early' ish Richard Sachs

     We work on a lot of bent Huffys and other lower tier bikes here at Via Bicycle. So it is a special day when something of this caliber rolls through the door. This bike belongs to one of our best customers. He knows his stuff and lets us work on most of his ever growing fleet of bicycles. It is a Richard Sachs road bike, I am not sure of the model. It looks a bit like the later Strada Immaculata, which means clean road. It is unusual to see one in this dark grey paint scheme, I quite like it. This color was my father's preffered color for painting cars when I was a kid. So, it has that connection for me, personally. The serial number is 1234 with the number 57 stamped into the BB shell as well, which I assume is the size. I know little about Mr. Sachs serial number sequence except that this is maybe the 123rd bike he produced? I am sure the owner will inform me better. Richard Sachs is one of the finest American frame builders in the past 40 years, he knows how to build a bike frame and will tell you as such. His brazing and file work is near perfection, in my opinion. Not sure if this is a Joe Bell painted bike or not. The paint is great, very thin allowing all the detail work to show through. Enjoy the photos.

73CM Witcomb USA we recently built / sold!

     This is the largest size frame we have ever built here at Via Bicycle! It has a 73CM CTC seat tube! A very tall customer came in looking for a bike, and we had one that fit the bill. It was made by the Witcomb USA shop in Connecticut. I estimate production to be in the mid to late 1970's as the company was finished by the 80's. Many current master builders worked there including Chris Chance, Richard Sachs, and J.P. Weigle. Here is a link about the marque via Classic Rendezvous Witcomb USA. I wonder if any of them recall this frame being built / maybe one of them built it?
     Usually on larger frames, mixte stays are added from the head tube to the rear drop outs to add reinforcement. Not the case with this bike, very unusual. We put it together as an upright bike to be ridden around the city. We used heavy duty wheels so that the customer will not have problems. We hope this bike suits our customers needs and he is pleased with the results! After it was built by our head mechanic Davis, he took it for the required  test ride, quite an adventure! Enjoy!

Customer's bike- 1979 Richard Sachs 'Touring' bike

A good customer of ours brought this gem by the other day. It is a not like the usual red Richard Sachs custom bikes, but a touring model. Not a true touring bike with cantilever brakes and lowrider mounts, but close enough. It has dropout eyelets, longer stays that comfortably accept 700x32cm tires and the rear Eclipse rack is mounted to the seatstays. The bike is also an early Sachs, somewhere in the low 400s, as an independent frame builder, making it a rare find. Good score Aaron!




Mostly Campagnolo Nuovo Record components except for the Avocet headset and seat post. Quite unique.