Page 132 - The Hunt - Spring/Summer 2023

VINTAGE
Do you remember your first bike—or your favorite bike? For Chester County artist Tim Barr, it was a hand-me-down bicycle. “When I was around 4 or 5—that was in 1961-62—I had a cheap 20-inch bike that my two older brothers learned on. It had a thin, welded gooseneck
I snapped off doing a large jump,” Barr says. “The stem struck me in the chin. I landed
on the hard macadam with the broken-
off handlebars still in my grasp. My dad welded the bars back on, and soon my little brother learned to ride on the same bike.”
Centreville, Delaware, wine merchant Linda Collier was a youngster in a world of bikes. “We had so many bikes growing up I can’t really remember all of them,” she says. “We lived down the Cape [Cod], and at the end of every summer, they sold off all the rental bikes, so
we’d all get a new one each year that way.” Living his teen years in Europe, former
Chaddsford Winery owner and winemaker Eric Miller didn’t really do much biking until he pedaled to and from his first winemaking job along Lake Erie. “I think the bike that got me into biking was the one I bought in Fredonia, New York, after we moved there,” he says. “It was a Raleigh—same brand my father once had. Like with American cars, I wasn’t a fan of American-made bikes. It was wonderfully flat along Lake Erie and below the grape-belt-defining escarpment. We lived in that wonderful slice of Ozzie and Harriet America that was totally alien to me.”
If you think about it, it’s memories of life in our younger years that tether us to lots of things vintage and antique—bikes, cars, vinyl records, sporting gear, watches, books,
whatever. Memories keep these objects fresh in our minds, often beckoning us to re- purchase them (or something like them) for ourselves or for children and grandchildren.
Craig and Mindy Morrow understand
this urge in us. They own Bicycle Heaven
in Pittsburgh. Billed as the world’s largest bicycle museum and shop, it displays, sells and services all sorts of bikes—6,000 all under the same roof. Vintage bikes from their collection have played prominent roles in movies, borrowed for A Beautiful Mind, Super 8, Fathers & Daughters, Fences and other films.
One particularly fascinating model in the museum is the Bowden Spacelander, British- made and first introduced in 1946. With
the first fiberglass frame, it’s one of the most sought-after bicycles. “There are only 30 or so to be found—and we have 17 of them,” says Craig
130 THE HUNT MAGAZINE spring 2023
Love at First Bike
Some of our oldest and best possessions provide memories of newly discovered mobility.
By Roger Morris