possibly stolen hollands (just recovered)

[ischon]

bought in a sketchy deal in baltimore for $100 frame fork and some parts that didnt belong on it. he was also selling a old tomasso that had tubulars that also seemed too weird (both were too big, he didnt know what tubulars were and said that his dad rode both)
57tt ctc 61 st ctc
yellow to white fade with true temper stickers all over it


if you know someone who had a hollands stolen, let them know

bad news is... bottom bracket left side has been stripped because someone has tried putting the wrong bb side in there... :(


if no one claims this, ill melt some filletpro in there, rethread it and ride it around!


feel free to repost this anywhere on the net where we can help get this frame back to its original owner (if it is in fact stolen... which im pretty sure it was)

contact me via the forum

i can get the serial off it and if anyone has John's contact info ill try and ask him for the info about the bike and its owner!

thanks!!!
-Ian

[avalonracing]

Cool of you to try and track down the possible rightful owner. I PM'd you a number for JH that may work.

John made some pretty bikes.

[ischon]

spoke to john about the bike this morning

it was the 8th he built. The year was 1988. he painted it himself.
It was one of the baltimore city cycling team bikes for juniors(possibly for someone name ryan maroni). John used to drive the car and build the bikes. They were supposedly a force to be reckoned with! The funding for the program got scrapped and the bikes and all the team gear got put in a storage room. apparently then they got sold by someone.

John says in that regard it was stolen. He says it could have been through a number of hands, but i think it wasnt built since then, judging by the weird headset duck taped in there and the shell that has a sugino bb in half and the other half stripped. Someone probably bought it through someone who was selling the bikes from the storage room and never finished building it up because they stripped it.


im going to show john the bike today as he wanted to see it.
thanks for the contact info, this has been a neat adventure.

[rice rocket]

57TT/61ST for juniors?

That means I must be a midget. :rolleyes:

[avalonracing]

spoke to john about the bike this morning

it was the 8th he built. The year was 1988. he painted it himself.
It was one of the baltimore city cycling team bikes for juniors(possibly for someone name ryan maroni). John used to drive the car and build the bikes. They were supposedly a force to be reckoned with! The funding for the program got scrapped and the bikes and all the team gear got put in a storage room. apparently then they got sold by someone.

John says in that regard it was stolen. He says it could have been through a number of hands, but i think it wasnt built since then, judging by the weird headset duck taped in there and the shell that has a sugino bb in half and the other half stripped. Someone probably bought it through someone who was selling the bikes from the storage room and never finished building it up because they stripped it.


im going to show john the bike today as he wanted to see it.
thanks for the contact info, this has been a neat adventure.

I think you mean Brian Maroni. Brian has been a serious fixture in area road racing for years.
Sending you a PM.

[ischon]

just got back from 4 or so hours at john's shop

wow is that guy incredible! tons of great stories of his son's racing and all the teams that raced his bikes. Very knowledgeable. he taught me a few great tips for my framebuilding, even in such a short time.
so glad i lucked upon this frame! worth the $100 for just the stories!

[ischon]

I think you mean Brian Maroni. Brian has been a serious fixture in area road racing for years.
Sending you a PM.

thanks!
ill try and find him!

[avalonracing]

just got back from 4 or so hours at john's shop

wow is that guy incredible! tons of great stories of his son's racing and all the teams that raced his bikes. Very knowledgeable. he taught me a few great tips for my framebuilding, even in such a short time.
so glad i lucked upon this frame! worth the $100 for just the stories!

That is cool. Is he still building bikes?

[ischon]

He has a few for himself he is working on and at least one right now he started for a customer. He said he builds, but isnt advertising. he would build if you asked him, but i dont know how long he wants to keep doing it.

he said he would help me tune my track geometry before i build my next track racing bike!
im bringing him the new drawing soon so i can get my lugset sorted and start working on it

he knows alot about racing geometry... pretty cool stuff. hes build national championship track racing and road frames!


he also builds beautiful Damascus steel knives and restores and builds rifles. pretty neat guy. really interesting story! got into because his son needed a bike and he built his first with a hand held torch! pretty good looking bike too! i saw it in the basement with some other crazy rare old cycling memorabilia

[ischon]

found the owner of the bike! hooray!

[rice rocket]

So was it a stolen item?

[ischon]

not sure. the bike belonged to the city of baltimore and were put into storage and disappeared. no one knows where they went. i bought it from a guy who said his dad bought it. he had 2 of the team bikes.

stolen or not, the rider it belonged to is exited to be getting it back! it has a lot of rich history associated with it. many milestone events were raced on it in america and abroad, including a few national championship races.

[avalonracing]

Again, I think it is super-cool that you've gone out of your way trying to figure this out. Most guys would try to keep their new acquisition on the down-low if they thought that it was stolen.
:beer:

[William]

Good karma thread!! :banana:





William

[ischon]

thanks!

i have build a few frames of my own now, and if any of them happened to get stolen i would be totally heart broken! custom frames are very special and once i found out the history of the bike, it was clear that i had to find the owner!

i wish the baltimore city race team was still around! it would have been a great way to get into racing before college!

[Acotts]

way too cool. what an awesome thread.

you are a good man. :beer:

[andeww]

ya good move, either you scored a good deal or helped someone out that should reimburse you