Jim,

one more submission for you here.

I bought this 88 Paramount as a frameset back in 1995. It's a 50th anniversary edition and the boys at Waterford pulled out all the stops on this one. Having seen the frame stripped of paint I'd have to say the attention to detail is amazing for a production frame. It's up there with all but the most stellar custom work.

The original owner had ridden it indoors on a trainer and the paint was blistered from being sweat on so much. I re-painted it myself and built it up as a road bike initially. Over the years it's also been a fixed gear, a priest barred basket bike and was my test mule for the first 650b conversion I did a couple of years ago.

Ten years after the first paint job it was starting to look pretty shabby so while I had it all apart to paint it I took the opportunity to add a bunch of braze ons for fenders and some mini racks in order to make it into a randonneuring type bicycle. For the front rack I made an integrated decaleur and modified an Arkel handlebar bag so that it can be removed simply by pulling a pin that I fashioned for the purpose. I also experimented with the way the racks attach to the frame, particularly the front one. I brazed on an Ibis type cable stop for the rear centerpull brake.

I outlined the lugs just for the heck of it. This was the first bike I had tried this with and it was not easy although by the time I got to the last lug I had improved a lot. The next bike I did lug outlines on came out much better since I had figured out some better techniques.

I'm submitting this to the current classics section since I think it fits best there. If you think it belongs in a different category then feel free to change it.

Thanks, Alistair.

alspence67@hotmail.com