What's the rarest or most obscure bike in your collection?

[jamesdak]

Originally Posted by martl

Not too many Mike Appel around i guess. I've seen some odd geometries from him on the net over rhe years. Mine has an unusually long top tube... Maybe he was specializing in such, i dont know.

That is a real beauty!!!

[rccardr]

1974 Wizard, #26. Genuine Brian Baylis/Mike Howard frameset.
Full metal and paint restoration by Joe Bell. Need to downsize so it will (sadly) be up for sale in the near future.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA by Doc Mertes, on Flickr

[af2004]

Originally Posted by hampco

My one-of-one Pegoretti Dario4Andy:

What a great Bike...

[Sketchy]

Originally Posted by tepextate

Holy cow. Where did they get that downtube from?

Reynolds

[makoti]

Originally Posted by tbike4

Hollands must be pretty rare. Took me almost 5 minutes of Googling to find one.

Not that rare out this way, Northern Va and MD, but rare enough. "People in the know" know of the bikes. I have two, but the one I consider rare is this one.
Stainless Steel. His only one. Couplers. I'm fairly sure the only one he did. The thing that makes it rare is John came out of retirement to make it for me, and it is his final road frame. Last one. He did one paper boy, cruiser bike for himself afterwards but this is the final Hollands made for sale.

Since this picture, I had it etched with his signature and logos. Very subtle.

[cornelldewitt]

Well, if other people are posting mountain bikes in here, I might as well show this one. This is also for all the Serotta-stans here on The Paceline.

This is my resto-mod of a 1992 Serotta T-max. I got this bike new when I was racing for the Morgul Bismark team in Boulder. After sprucing up my old Phinney during the pandemic, I turned to this bike. This was kindof a test run to see how I liked it before going the full-meal-deal on it. Later. It's a singles speed with disc brakes, using the White Industries ENO rear hub and another White Ind disc front hub. SunRingle 28h tubeless rims. Carver carbon front fork. ProTaper cockpit. The paint job is new from Ben Falcon here in Brooklyn, with the Morgul Bismark team livery. I had all the decals made custom, including M-B on the seat stays. The original had yellow outline with black center, which I replaced with yellow outline around clear, to highlight the paint. The seat-tube decal is of my own color scheme design, based on seat decals from older Serottas that I loved the look of.

The brakes are a pretty cheap/kluged set-up: Avid BB-7 cable disk brakes with cheap Odyssey levers--on the front they are mounted to disc brake mounts on the new forks, but on the rear, it's mounted to a crappy little thing King Kog LBS found on Ebay. It's not great. Not much power, and gets knocked around pretty easily.

But I love riding this thing so much, and because, I don't know, doing this project was a hoot, so I'm going to go all in next... I'm going to take it to a frame guy to knock off the canti mounts, and add a disc mount to the rear triangle, with a brace. Heresy, I know, but I'm having fun. Then I'll have the rear triangle painted again (lol) and probalby paint the fork in the same neon yellow with M-B stickers on it, like the original had. I don't think I'll put a suspension fork on. Then I'll put some proper hydraulic brakes (I'll go on the record that I hate hydraulic disc brakes on road bikes--I'm rim-brakes all the way--but I love unneccessarily powerful hydraulic disc brake on mountain bike.)--probably Hayes Dominion T2.

It's got a few nods to the old: American Classic seatpost, Campagnolo cranks, and a retro Flite Ti saddle. On the next iteration, probably all I'll keep is the Campy cranks. Will probably put on a Ti seatpost, and oh-my-god I can't believe I rode a Flite for so long! So uncomfortable. I'm all about the cut-outs now, and will pick something nice for this.

Anyway, I think it's pretty unique. Feel free to hit me with questions.

[ldamelio]

Probably a Spectrum CX that Tom built for me in 2014. As far as I know, he built maybe 4 - 5 CX frames. Mine and one other ti and two steel that I know of (one was Tom's personal CX and one belonging to a woman I regularly saw at the races.) Not sure if he follows the forum to chime in.

I also own Jamey Driscoll's RS CX bike circa 2004. I'm no longer racing, but it makes a helluva gravel bike.

[jbrainin]

This One-Off Titanium by Mike Augspurger, is my rarest, most obscure (and most unique) bike:

[Scott5182]

Originally Posted by El Chaba

John Hollands made nice bikes. I don’t know exactly when he stopped, but for a five year +/- period, they were very popular with the racing set here in the Maryland area. I knew his son from racing. He was not young when he started building. He was English and an engineer. I heard that his son had started racing and was looking for a better bike. His father wasn’t satisfied with what he saw and balked at the cost of the stuff that did satisfy him….so he decided to build a frame himself. Pretty soon he had more requests and there were some special pricing schemes for a couple of teams in the area. They had a good reputation.

John was a good builder I did his paint work out of my garage in Annapolis in his early days. I still have the frame he built for me in 88. I won Cat 2 Maryland road race on it that same year. It’s slightly rare as it has True Temper RCX tubing.
Still have it, restored it a few years ago. It still gets ridden once and a while as it’s part of the vintage rotation. Good memories.

[pdonk]

Originally Posted by uno-speedo

The most obscure in my collection. A Grove Innovations X.

Can't believe I missed this first time round. That bike is amazing. Looking at your collection you have or have had some beauties pass through your hands.

In terms of my bikes the are all relatively obscure or rare.

Level top tube Vamoots SL
Paul Brodie built climbmax with gatorblade and filled brazed stem
Dekerf team sl, with tuning fork and brodie stem
Altruiste track bike.

[zmalwo]

anyone here got a beryllium bike?

[Pastashop]

Originally Posted by Kirk Pacenti

Wow, some really great stuff here.

I'll post some pics of my 1978 Serotta Club Special. Sat in a barn for 40 years... just a few hundred miles on it. All original Nuovo Record group.

Cheers,
KP

Would love to see that! (Have one from about that timeframe, great bike, would be awesome if one or two sizes larger, but great bike!..)

[C40_guy]

Originally Posted by jbrainin

This One-Off Titanium by Mike Augspurger, is my rarest, most obscure (and most unique) bike:

That's sweet! Mike has moved on some other pretty interesting machinery!

[SPOKE]

Just maybe my Exxon Graftek and one of the 3 Teledyne’s I have qualify for this thread. The two other Teledyne’s are built up but are out in the detached garage. Just didn’t feel like walking out there right now.

[YVR_brad]

Originally Posted by ldamelio

Probably a Spectrum CX that Tom built for me in 2014. As far as I know, he built maybe 4 - 5 CX frames. Mine and one other ti and two steel that I know of (one was Tom's personal CX and one belonging to a woman I regularly saw at the races.) Not sure if he follows the forum to chime in.

I also own Jamey Driscoll's RS CX bike circa 2004. I'm no longer racing, but it makes a helluva gravel bike.

Would love to see pics of these!