There's a bike shop about 60 miles away that is totally in line with my interests, carrying Surly, Salsa and Crust for bikes as well as Rene Hearse tires. Very big into "all-around" bikes and gravel riding in particular.
A few years ago, I was interested in a Jones and upon calling to see if this shop stocked complete bikes (they didn't), one of the employees told me he had a Jones and if I wanted to come by the shop to ride it, he would run home and get, which I did. Very cool bike.
Yesterday, I was in there and they had a Surly Bridge Club I could ride (been looking for years, but no one ever has them in stock). Took that for a ride, then rode a Salsa Fargo....both very nice bikes.
Sitting up against the front windows, dirty and obviously a personal bike, was a Stooge titanium bike that looked a lot like the very first modern mountain bike, Breezer #1. Joe Breeze made 10 bikes for that first production run, but only his had a truss fork. The others had straight unicrown forks.
Breezer #1 (Currently in the Smithsonian)
Attached FileI mentioned how cool the bike was to the girl who was helping me and later on I mentioned having ridden one of the employee's Jones bikes several years ago. She replied that not only is he still at the shop, but the Stooge is his! He promptly came over and offered to let me ride it. Charley Kelly was one of the original creators of what is now mountain biking and Joe Breeze made his Breezer series of bikes at Charley's request, so Charley has Breezer #2. Apparently, Charley stayed with the owner of Stooge Cycles and they agreed to do a limited run of 10 bikes, inspired by the first ten Breezers. The offer was made to the public and only one guy bought one, the guy who works at the bike shop I visit. Of course, the owner of Stooge built one for himself, so there are a grand total of two of these framesets in existence, and I got to ride one of them!!
Stooge C.K. Flyer
Attached FileThe thing was a blast to ride, but probably not for everyone, just die hard bike nerds. I once had a 1984 Takara Highlander, which was very representative of those first mountain bikes and this thing rode like a much nicer version of that bike. This was also the first titanium bike I've ridden. Previously, titanium had no interest to me, but after riding this bike and discovering that as pictured, with huge 27.5+ tires, the bike weighs in at 25 lbs, I now want a titanium bike!!!
My old Takara Highlander
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