Head Tubes are Like Book Covers

And Bottom Brackets are the Footnotes

Last spring the Tenspeed Heroes presented a small photo essay entitled, Brian Baylis, The Draughtsman, and surmised at the time we could have easily written a piece called Brian Baylis The Collector. One of our favorite things about Brian is how quickly he studies the bottom bracket and the head tube of any given Colnago, Masi or Baylis original. It is an assured movement of a man that knows his favorite book so well that he only has to thumb the pages for a millisecond to arrive at his passage of choice. Brian removes a bit of dust off the stamped serial numbers and offers a couple of quick anecdotes as to the frame’s provenance and singularity; “This must be one of the first Colnago’s imported in the country.” We have a feeling there is some cosmic power that enables orphaned frames, forged by the great builder’s, to find men like Brian and end up in their careful hands. Rightly so.