bicyclemike11-28-06, 09:33 PM
Hello All, My Partner John Howland and I bought the rights to the Bowden Spacelander in the 80's from Ben Bowden and have built over 160 of them in the last 19-20 years. The originals were very fragile and did have a marked propensity for breaking on the downtube AND the front fenders.. I know about the fenders because ....well...I have sold lots and lots and lots of fenders to owners of originals to repalce their broken ones. Our continuing production started off being built initially with a very partial internal frame (1988-1990) under the fiberglass bodywork specifically to address the weakness of the Downtube and the bottom bracket area on the originals. Handling was still squirrelly like on the original and then we went to a custom made internal frame (1991-present) that gave the bike significantly more strength and better ride. I rode one of our 1993 models 512 miles in one week on the arduous RAGBRAI (Registers annual great bike ride across Iowa). Out of 13,500 bikes that started less than 4000 finished.
The Red Bowden I rode was one of them. I fit it with a N.O.S. bendix 2 speed kickback hub (provided by Larry Busch at Memory Lane Classics) Even though the hub was "new" old stock, the grease was still 40 years old and by the 5th day of the ride it had fried itself (courtesy of 100 plus degree days and the hottest summer in Iowa history) On a particularly hard ascent ( Contrary to popular belief IOWA IS NOT FLAT) with 110 degree weather, 100% humidity, and a 40 mph headwind, I got off the bike at the top of a hill wondering if I was really as weak as I felt at that moment in time. I thought the tires must be rubbing the body and checked the wheel alignment. To my sheer horror, the hub had seized and I had been riding up the long hill for miles with the brakes on. An oldtimer from WIckes bike shop who was sagging the ride did a roadside "overhaul" consisting of getting the hub open just enough to get some Wd40 in to thin out the grease. He said "just one turn too many and this thing will explode like an alarm clock hit by a sledgehammer on a bugs bunny cartoon". He did fix it and I forced $20 on him for the 10 minutes of his time. He said he just wanted to ride the bike and that would be payment enough so that night I let him ride it around for a couple hours and made him keep the $$ too. Not knowing my bike was fixed The late Jim Hurd former curator of the Schwinn Museum offered to lend me the red Bowden Spacelander he had bought from me a few years earlier which he had on hand with a travelling bike museum ably manned by Wheelman Paul Grimshaw. I declined and my two speed Bowden was back in action. It after all had two gears even if they were really just "hard and harder". Jim owned the original red Spacelander that is in the Smithsonian and he always told me he liked the ride and handling of the ones I produce much better than the original. If you ever want to test yourself to the limit and have the best time of your life doing it, Ragbrai is like one part Mardi Gras, One part Octoberfest, One part Woodstock and one part Tour de France. I can honestly it was a most amazing experience and people from Iowa were super friendly. Many wanted to pose with the Bowden and later sent pictures to me. I let over 100 people ride the bike. I sold that Bowden with over 5000 miles on it 10 years later. I think this is a testament to the durability and rideability of the Bowdens we continue to build to order.For more pictures of the Spacelander, My website is www.nostalgiamerchants.com and I can be reached at 1-800-336-BIKE (2453) with any questions about the Bowden or classic bikes in general. Thanks Bicycle Mike in Boston
PUT SOME EXCITEMENT BETWEEN YOUR LEGS RIDE A CLASSIC BIKE
