Don Hester’s late ’50s Frejus
Late 1950’s Frejus road bike
Don Hester was one of the most prolific American bike racers in the 1940s.
He was the winner of the 1942 “To Hell With The War” unofficial national championship race held at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. Don’s bike racing career, like many of his fellow sportsmen, was interrupted when he was subsequently called to active military duty. After the war Don left the Navy and picked up right where he left off, winning every race he entered in 1946, including the official national championship.
This isn’t a bike that Don raced on, but a Frejus road model that he bought for himself and rode around on after he retired from racing.
The bike is a Frejus road model, built with Reynolds 531 tubing and sporting some tasteful stripes, chrome lugs and chrome stays. It has an early Campagnolo Record group, the derailleur running smooth round pulleys, not toothed versions and a crankset with only subtly different gear ratios (a 47 tooth small chainring and a 52 tooth big ring).
Late 1950s Frejus headbadge
Understated, but still Italian…
Campagnolo Record crankset
Early Campy Record equipment
Ever wonder what bike to buy for yourself? Of course, it seems like a difficult choice, particularly if you’re looking at a high performance road bike. Really though, it’s just as easy to make a good choice today as it was sixty years ago.
You just take a look at the bike a retired pro picks for himself and pays for with his own cash…