Finding a once in a lifetime collection!

That's me with the bikes loaded up on my car.

Some friends from California recently had a family member pass away up here in Laramie Wyoming, and as they were going through his belongings, they found that he had a couple of "old bicycles", and they asked if I would be interested in them. They knew that since I moved up here to Laramie, I've acquired the bicycle resto hobby. I agreed to take them, figuring that the bikes would probably be dept store models or maybe an old Schwinn Varsity, and I would just donate them to the Fort Collins Bike Co-Op that I volunteer with. Little did I realize what they were...

I met my friends at the storage lot where they had stored Uncle Bob's stuff. I brought my car with my Yakima bike rack mounted. As I pulled up, I saw the bikes leaning next to the wall. They looked like older road bikes, maybe 70s era models. I parked and we said our "Hi!"s and briefly chatted. Then it came down to the business at hand. As I examined the bikes, I was seeing some really high end stuff on these bikes: tubular wheels, Campagnolo drive-train, Brooks saddle, etc. My curiosity was piqued!

It appeared that what we had here was a Schwinn Paramount (!!!!) and a Raleigh Professional, both with Campagnolo Nuovo Record, Reynolds 531 tubing, and tubular wheels. I was in shock!!! This was quite a find.

The only "bummer" item was noticing that the frame sizes were too tall for me to ride! They were probably in the 64-66 cm frame size, quite a bit larger than what I can ride. What was I going to do with these two gorgeous vintage collectible bikes that were too large for me? Give them to my taller brother!!

My brother (who got me into this bike-resto hobby) when we delivered it to his house. 

We had already made plans to go to my nephew's school band recital that week, so I packed up the bikes a few days later and delivered them to Chris. The photo above does not illustrate his happiness! He told me that he wasn't going to believe it until he saw the bikes in person. As he approached my car, he was in shock/denial phase. He couldn't believe that I indeed had been given a vintage Raleigh Professional and a Schwinn Paramount, both in great condition.

Chris has figured out that both of the bikes are 1974 models and that they were built a month apart. He is very eager to dive into getting this beauties restored! I worked a deal with him that he and I would restore both of the bikes this summer. We are going to photograph it along the way and share them with my friend.

So stay tuned for our progress on these beauties! I will be posting our progress on Instagram/Twitter with the hashtag #ProjectUncleBob.

--UberClydesdale