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.

Building my blue bike while Barry blew

With tropical storm Barry breezin’ through town this weekend, bringing heavy rain and high winds, it was the ideal time to be indoors building up my new Recherche.

By Sunday afternoon the worst had past and the rain abated long enough to get outside and take a few photographs.

However, gale force winds and the threat of more rain made even a short test ride out of the question. Of course I know how the bike will ride; exactly the same as all my previous bikes.





I had blue tires and blue handlebar tape just waiting for another blue frame, so I am pleased to have found one.

The Recherche

The Recherche was a private label frame that I built for two brothers, Kent and Kyle Radford. They owned a specialist bicycle store in Rancho Bernardo, which is in San Diego County, California.

They sold the frame out of their own store and also marketed the frame to other dealers, primarily in Southern California. The frame was first built in 1985 up to late 1987 or 1988. There were a little over two hundred of them built.


I have been in touch with Kent Radford in the last year, he still owns the number one Recherche. The name and the decal design was the Radford brother’s creation. They always pronounced it Reh-shur-shay. I believe it means “to search” in French, (Please correct me if I am wrong on that.) and that is probably not the correct French pronunciation.

It was a “no frills” frame, painted in a single color with the white Mylar panel decals; at first available only in red; later it was offered in blue and black also. Although I describe the frame as “no frills” it was of course built by me to the same high standard as any frame from my shop.


The frame was the exact same geometry as the Fuso; in fact the production of the Recherche was grouped together with the Fuso on the same jig setting, and both brand names brazed in small batches at the same time.

The frame was built in the same Columbus tubing, with Campagnolo or Columbus front and rear dropouts. With a Cinelli investment cast bottom bracket shell. The Recherche lugs were also investment cast but a different style than the Fuso; the seat stay caps were also different.




Most Recherche’s had a distinct cast fork crown with two decorative grooves cast into the top. (See left.) Towards the end of production this crown became unavailable and a plain sloping crown was substituted.






(Right)

The way the tubes were finished at the front and rear drop outs was distinctive. The tube ends were scalloped with a round file and the brass allowed to sink inside as the brazing cooled. I was imitating a style that is common to many French frame builders.

These small but unique features made the Recherche different in appearance, but because the design and workmanship was equal to other frames from my shop, the finished bike rides and handles the same as any other I built.

The red paint finish that the majority of Recherche frames had was achieved by painting a candy red over a bright orange base coat. Most red paint jobs appear orange, especially after they start to fade in bright sunlight. The candy red method I used was labor intense because of the extra steps in painting, but the end result was a truer longer lasting deep red.

My thanks to Lorin Youde, who lives in Southern California not far from my original San Marcos shop, for sending me these pictures. He picked up this 62 cm. Recherche last year, with original red paint and very few miles on it. It is number 201 so one of the last few built.

With so few of these built compared with close to 3,000 Fuso frames produced and with the small but unique differences I have described here; the Recherche could be a desirable frame to own should anyone be lucky enough to come across one.

Because so few were built the chances of finding one in any given size is slim, especially in the less popular very large or small sizes. If Recherche does indeed mean “to search” then maybe the name will become prophetic.