The Mystery of Tom Pritchard’s Bike

(bicycling.com)

316 points | by mstats 1286 days ago

13 comments

  • jonah 1285 days ago
    What a great man and what great storytelling. Thank you for sharing.

    I happen to have an Eisentraut ‘Limited’ of similar vintage. I bought it off of a retired aerospace engineer a decade ago. It's equipped with the same classic Campagnola and while the frame is a little tall for me I still get great pleasure in riding it around town. It is beautifully made, very light, and a piece of art.

    Not mentioned in the story but Albert Eisentraut was building his bicycles in Oakland.

  • orthopodvt 1285 days ago
    What a great story and an amazing person. It's always nice to read about someone who was genuinely a good person. I especially liked the quote: “Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived that distinguish one man from another.”
    • fxtentacle 1285 days ago
      Fully agree. What an amazing read :)
  • alister 1285 days ago
    As to the significance of "5826 D.B.T. 1976", it appears that it stands for Denver Bicycle Tax. This is probably why the author tried phoning the Denver police and then the oldest bike shop in Denver.
  • dakial1 1285 days ago
    It seems that you can me make a movie on this guys life. I got to know a few characters like him and the truth is that they are awesome people but never stay around for long, as they are always seeking the next adventure.

    For those who want more, here's the piece he wrote on Tom: https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2009/01/11/moose-and-the-my...

  • tedmcory77 1285 days ago
    I've lived in St. Pete since 2000. If Tom was who I think he was, he was certainly a character. He'd drive around with that d* jeep blasting flight of the Valkyries.
  • nl 1285 days ago
    > Eisentraut trained Bruce Gordon, Joe Breeze, Skip Hujsak, and Mark Nobilette, among others.

    That's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Breeze who built some of the first mountain bikes.

    • alaxsxaq 1285 days ago
      I spent half a day with Bruce Gordon and bought one of his bikes a decade or so ago. He's gone now, but he was an interesting character in his own right - seems the bike world is full of them.
  • dakial1 1285 days ago
  • TheGrassyKnoll 1285 days ago
    > "He said he was trying to get the attention of a beautiful young woman who was a serious cyclist, and he couldn’t just ride up on a Schwinn Varsity."

    So, I had an orange Schwinn Varsity when I was in jr. high school. (40 pounds of steel baby). Then one year, one of my friends got a 20-something pound Nishiki. What a revelation that was; the feeling of efficiency was just incredible.

  • undersuit 1285 days ago
    I need to know more about Tom Pritchard apparently, but I've been embarking on my best attempts to upgrade my bikes on my own. When I saw that 6-speed with down-tube shifters and the camo road bars! God, it's so fun. I need to redo the paint on my SE Draft Lite so I can take some pictures and at least try and feel like I have a cool classic bike.
    • SECProto 1285 days ago
      > I need to redo the paint on my SE Draft Lite so I can take some pictures and at least try and feel like I have a cool classic bike.

      Or not! To learn from Tom, he had the adventures but wasn't outspoken about them - the stories were told by others. With a bike, the point is to enjoy it! I have an 80s steel frame, not as unique, but it gets me around, fast, and I've had tons of fun with it over the past 15 years. Camping in the woods with it chained to a tree, riding through 6" of slush on slick tires, wiping out and learning multiple times... I've touched up scrapes and dings with not-quite-matching shades of nail polish, my handlebar tape is falling apart, my bottom bracket sticks out a bit because I did a shit job of replacing it 5 years ago. But I love it anyway. Or as the article said,

      > “Bicycles are not built to be used as status symbols,” Eisentraut himself wrote in a chapter on framebuilding for a book called Bike Tripping, published in 1972. “The cyclist should ride his chosen bike, instead of bullshitting about its angles or its chain stay length.”

      • undersuit 1284 days ago
        OK, my green nail polish running out will probably be when I do something about the brake levers and the damage done to the original paint by said brake levers.
  • jeffreyrogers 1285 days ago
    This is a really wonderful story. For anyone like me who's reading the comments but doesn't care at all about bikes: read the story, Tom Pritchard sounds like a great man.
  • austinjp 1285 days ago
    Many, if not all, lives are as rich as this and would benefit from as romantic a retelling.
    • axaxs 1285 days ago
      I think that's a bit unfair. Most Americans for example haven't even left the country(and many, their state), much less try and smuggle hash into Spain.
      • ashtonkem 1285 days ago
        While my story isn’t done being written, I doubt mine would hold up a candle against what Tom had experienced by my age so far. Some people just live unusual lives.
      • yters 1285 days ago
        or even left their neighborhood

        i grew up on an island less than a square mile and some never left it, and thought the US was tge same size

  • WalterBright 1285 days ago
    A fine story, and a sweet bike. The engineer in me says "perfection".
  • jeffrallen 1285 days ago
    I also appreciate that the author doesn't wear stupid gaudy bicycle jerseys and shorts.
    • chestervonwinch 1285 days ago
      Having lived in Florida, I would wager that the author is suffering for fashion in jeans and a black shirt moreso than he would be in "gaudy" bicycling attire. Or maybe that's your point -- that we should all prefer looking hip over dorky-yet-functional?