A little bit of history: Update

At the end of last February, I wrote “A little bit of history sold on eBay.”

A custom touring frame that I built in 1982 came under the virtual hammer. The bike had previously featured in a Bicycling magazine road test.

The bike’s new owner, Ron who lives in the Bay Area, recently sent me pictures. He wrote:

“I took the bike to Terry Shaw, who took the bike apart, cleaned it, and put it back together using the parts from my Fuso.

Currently it is set up for commuting to downtown San Francisco. Fat tires are for all the bad roads in SF and fenders are for all the fog in the morning. When winter comes again, the rack will come off and become the training bike when it is wet.

This bike is great, top tube is 1.5cm longer than my Fuso so I raised the handlebar and set it up for less aggressive riding position, my Fuso is a 53cm, this frame is a 55cm.”

As I thought it would, the original paint on the frame cleaned up nicely; it was simply covered in dirt from years of neglect.

It does my heart good to know that another of my bikes, has found a good home, and is being ridden. Which, after all is what this bike was built for.

An old friend comes home

In 1982, soon after I started building my own custom frames, I built a 58cm. frame that was somewhat of a showpiece. It was dark blue with lots of chrome.

I am pretty sure this was the frame I posed with in the Masi shop, and was used in one of my early ads. (Left.)

The frame was eventually sold to Bud’s Bike Store, in Claremont, California, and built up as a display model. This bike brought in many other orders, including this one built in 1983.

Then around 1984 this display model was sold, and bought by Lorin Youde. In his own words he told me, “I rode the heck out of it, then for some unknown reason, sold it in 1994.” He added, “Even my wife told me not to sell it, and it was not long after I realized I had made a big mistake.”

Lorin tried to fill the void with other bikes I had also built; he bought this John Howard two years ago.

Then he bought this Recherché in near new condition; it was the one I featured in this post.

Last year Lorin decided to track down the bike he sold. The person he sold it to had resold it, and the bike was in now Spokane, Washington. The new owner had just had knee surgery and so was willing to sell.

A price was negotiated, and the bike returned to it’s original owner at the end of last year. Lorin just sent me pictures. In an email he told me, “I replaced the 8 speed Dura Ace components with period correct Super Record and while not quite in pristine a condition as Chuck Schmidts' it still looks pretty good and is a pleasure to ride.”






Actually, I think the original paint looks pretty darn good for a bike that has “Had the heck ridden out of it.” There are more pictures here.

Like finding an old Corvette in a barn

The smiling face you see above is Tom Cook of Chandler, Arizona. Tom has good reason to smile; a friend of his, knowing he was an avid cyclist, gave him his old bike that had been sitting in this original owners garage for many years.

When Tom emailed me last week, he said, “I feel like I have discovered an old Corvette in a barn.” The bike, covered in dust and minus wheels, was otherwise complete with the old Campagnolo equipment that was on it when the original owner bought it as a teenager in 1981.


The frame number (N814) recorded the date it was built; November 1981, the last digit showed it was the 4th frame built that month.

At that time I was still working full time for Masi in their San Marcos, California shop, so to build four of my own custom frames in one month, in my spare time, shows I was putting in some long days back then.

The DB57 is the frame size (Center to Top.) The DB was an identification mark I used on 1981 and 1982 frames. DB came from Dave and Brenda. (My ex wife.)

This particular frame and its components seem unaffected by the years of neglect, and actually cleaned up nicely to reveal the original paint.

The oval panels were an idea I had used in England in the late 1970s. See the picture of me on the left, holding my personal bike with similar painted on panels. This picture was taken late in 1978 a few weeks before I moved to the US in January 1979.

When I started building my own frames again in 1981 I used the same decals I brought with me from England, even using the logo with the words “Worcester, England.”

I did this partly for economic reasons; I couldn’t afford to re-design my decals. Also I was proud of my heritage and where I had come from.

I had a small extra decal made that stated, “Frame guaranteed handcrafted by Dave Moulton in California USA.” This was to avoid any confusion as to where the frames were built.

The oval panels were a big hit in England, not so much in America. In the UK customers wanted my name prominently displayed; in the US, I was an unknown and it seemed customers preferred to have the name understated.

Only a few frames were painted in this fashion in the US; I am guessing two or three. By 1982 when I started building my own frames full time I had dropped the oval panel idea.

This particular frame has only one set of water bottle mounts on the down tube. It is a “Criterium” frame designed to be raced in short events.

I remember it drove me nuts when I started working for Masi and the frame had two water bottle mounts and a pump peg behind the head tube.

To me the Masi was a classic frame, one which I was every bit as proud of as my own frames. To carry a pump under the top tube was, in my opinion, downright “Hokey” for want of a better word. It spoiled the look and the lines of the whole bike. Plus it got in the way when shifting gears.

I built frames with water bottle mounts on the seat tube in England, but riders would only use two bottles when racing and they were not carrying a pump. The rest of the time the pump was carried in front of the seat tube.

So on these early frames I refused to add a pump peg. I soon capitulated, realizing I was not selling frames in England any more. I had to adapt to my customer, not the other way around. In addition, I began to see that in the hot California and Arizona climate, people really needed two water bottles.

These strange little quirks of the framebuilder back then, made these frames different.

Now it serves to remind me what an ornery, stubborn bastard I was at that time, and it was a wonder I didn’t drive away more potential customers than I sometimes did.

Apart from that, it does my heart good when one of these old examples show up like this, bringing back so many bitter, sweet, sweet memories.

1970s Time-Trial Bike

Fag paper clearances. (British slang for cigarette paper.) Meaning the rear wheel was so close to the seat tube that you could barely get a cigarette paper between the tire and the frame tube. See the picture above.

This was an extreme fashion fad in the UK during the mid 1970s especially on time trial bikes. It served no useful purpose except to make the chainstays shorter thereby saving a little weight, and making the rear triangle a little stiffer. The frames were usually built using vertical rear dropouts to achieve the close clearance.

When fads like this become fashion a framebuilder can do little but follow the latest trend, or loose business; I was no different. However, I did not follow the extremes of some framebuilders who built these frames with clearances so close you had to deflate the rear tire to get the wheel in and out. This bordered on the ridiculous.

Some built frames with extremely steep head angles so the front wheel barely cleared the down tube. This was a part of the trend I refused to follow, as it made for some very “squirrelly” bikes. The last thing a rider needs is a squirrelly time trial bike; a TT bike needs to hold a straight line.

I remember one frame (not one of mine.) brought to me for repair. The down tube and top tube were bent. My first question was, “What did you hit?” The owner replied, “Nothing, I slowed to take a corner, and the frame collapsed under me.”

When I inspected the frame the first thing I noticed was a black rubber tire mark under the down tube right where the tube folded. It became clear to me what had happened. The front wheel was so close to the down tube that when the rider applied the front brake there was enough flex that the front wheel touched the down tube.

Maybe his headset was a little loose, whatever the cause, once the front wheel touched it would have stopped the bike very quickly and the forward momentum folded the frame. I replaced the top and down tubes, making sure to make the head angle a little shallower, making for a little more front wheel clearance.

The bike pictured at the top was one I built for John Patston, an international class rider who represented Great Britain on their national team. In the above picture, John Patston is leading, followed by Paul Carbutt, and Pete Hall. (All on ‘dave moulton’ frames.)

The forth rider Grant Thomas is obscured behind Patston. This was the British Team riding in the 1975 World Championship 100 km. Team Time Trial event.

John Patston was primarily a road rider, very strong and aggressive, often riding away from the opposition to win solo. If others stayed with him, he would usually win the finishing sprint. He was also an excellent time trialist.

I received a great deal of publicity from this particular bike. It featured in the British “Cycling” magazine. (Affectionately known by cyclists throughout the UK, as “The Comic.”)

I can’t remember whether the bike was built in Columbus or Reynolds tubing, but the complete bike built up with Campagnolo titanium components, weighed in a 19 lbs. Pretty light for 1977 when this was built.

The bike was also featured in “The Penguin Book of the Bicycle” published in 1978. (Left.) The same photo shown at the top was used for the title page as the book was opened. (See below.)

My name was airbrushed from the picture, as were the spokes from the wheels to make room for the title text. However the same picture appeared again later in the book, this time with my name intact.

The frame was painted black and had gold pin striping on the edges of the lugs. It also had John’s initials “JP” painted in gold on the seatstay caps. Cycling magazine drew an interesting parallel to this, one that I had not realized when I chose that particular color scheme.

The British tobacco giant “John Player,” also with initials JP, sponsored a Grand Prix racing team at that time. The cars built by Lotus were painted black with gold lettering.


My thanks to Lance Woodman for reminding me of this bike.

A little bit of history sold on eBay

A custom 'dave moulton' touring bicycle that featured in a "Bicycling" magazine road test in January 1983, sold on eBay last evening.

There were only 20 of this particular model built; I put in a call to the seller last week to ask for the serial number. Confirming the number 4823 in my serial number record book showed it was indeed the same bike.

This story goes back a year earlier to January 1982. I was building frames for Masi in their San Marcos, California frame shop.

I became a victim of my own productivity, and was building frames faster than Masi could sell them. The inventory of frames became so large I was temporarily laid off. I had essentially worked myself out of a job, and was sent to the unemployment office to sign on for benefits.

I got as far as standing in line at the office, wondering what I was doing there. My pride or maybe my ego told me this was not right, and I left without ever signing on. I went back to the Masi shop and asked if I could use their equipment to build my own frames.

An agreement was reached on rent, etc. and I started calling bicycle dealers all over the US, telling them who I was, and offered to build custom frames. I started to receive a few orders; I could deliver a custom built frame in two or three weeks at that time, which was unheard of.

I was also unheard of for the most part. I had gone from being one of the best know builders in England in the 1970s, to an unknown entity in the United States in 1982. The Masi name on my resume helped, but I still desperately needed publicity; I contacted "Bicycling" and they agreed to do a road test.

They chose the Touring model because it was different than the usual bikes they tested and wrote about. I built the frame in April of 1982, I contacted various component manufacturers for donations of components to complete the bike. The bike was assembled with a strange miss-match of Avocet, Sun Tour, Modolo, etc.

Fellow Brit Steve Aldrige, who had worked with me at Paris Sport, now worked for "Buds" Bike Store in Claremont, CA. Steve was also the US National Team Mechanic; he built the wheels, and assembled the bike. Bicycling did their road test in the summer of 1982 but it would be the following January before the article appeared in the magazine.

After the road test, Steve Aldridge got the bike as repayment for his work and it was subsequently sold. I never saw or heard of it again until it showed up on eBay last week. The bike was up for sale by The Drop Off Store a consignment store in Rancho Cucamonga, a few miles from Claremont where the bike was originally sold.

The drive train has been upgraded with Campagnolo components, but it still appeared to have the same Modolo brakes. The paint appears to be original and in fair condition, and the original color matched pump was still in place. The bike is in need of a thorough cleaning and probably the tires and handlebar tape need replacing. I appears the bike has been stored for many of its years.

In 1983 the retail price on this frame was $925, the complete bike went for $1600. Yesterday on eBay there were 14 people bidding and the virtual hammer fell at $1,330.30. The item number was 350029129880. You can read the Bicycling road test article here in PDF format.

This is the highest price I have seen on eBay for one of my bikes. I think it is fair given the rarity and history of this bike. Incidentally, I didn’t reveal the history before the sale because I didn’t want to influence the price.

There was another seller on eBay asking $4,000 for a Fuso, which is way out of line. There are still plenty of Fusos out there, (I built 3,000.) so if you miss one, another will be along. I don’t want to see anyone screwed, buyer or seller.

This particular bike and the subsequent road test in Bicycling played an important part in getting my business out of the Masi shop and into my own facility in San Marcos. It not only gave me the publicity I needed, but was one of the things I used to convince my bank to lend me the money to finance the operation.

Another interesting footnote: If you look at the Masi Registry, you will notice there were only a few special order Masi frames (Like track frames.) built in 1982. That’s because they were still selling the backlog of frames I built in 1981. It would be well into 1983 before production began again. About the time I moved into my own facility, and David Tesch took over as Masi’s builder.