If your Seattle bike shop just carries the same old thing, come check us out. We stock unique and rare bikes. We have used bikes too…
1977 Windsor Professional Track
In the 1970′s every bike nerd in America coveted the marquee Italian brands like Colnago, Masi and Cinelli. They saw the bikes in the windows of fancier bike shops and in pictures of famous racers in the imported cycling magazines. Italian craftsmanship had mystical qualities, they were beautiful and they just had to be faster somehow. Sometime in the middle of the decade while paging through those British and French cycling magazines we started to see adverts for a bike line known as Windsor, and the coveted Italian labels had competition for the American bike lover’s attention.
Windsors were imported on the east coast by a guy named Sid Star, and if we remember correctly his company was called Alpha Cycle. Sid was also the importer of the wonderful Lotus line of bicycles. Anyway, Windsors were dead ringers for Italian Cinelli or Colnago, but at about half the price as they were made in Mexico by the Acer-Mex company.
Windsors were affordable to wannabe track and road riders. Jeff remembers how much he wanted a Windsor when they were first available and even began gathering the parts for the day the frame came home from the bike shop…. But it didn’t happen.
Fast-forward to the late 1980′s when Jeff was working at Saks Feed and Cycle in Kingston. Jeff had just loaded a ton of hay onto a truck when a local landscaper came in and asked if Jeff was interested in buying a frameset he had bought in Southern California about 15 years previous. The frame had never been assembled and it was a Windsor, in Molteni Team orange. Needless to say, Jeff bought it. The parts that he had collected all of those years previous? They were perfect for the bike.
If you’d like to admire this old Windsor, it is currently on display in The Harbour Public House (The Pub) on Bainbridge Island.
Vincent Seiferd, Sr. 1914-1992
Vincent Seiferd was our kind of guy.
Vincent raced his bike for a paycheck from 1931 until the start of WWII. As a professional bike racer Vincent wasn’t a superstar but he was always in the mix, tearing up the boards of all the famous east coast velodromes.
Nicknamed the Swedish Ace (even though his parents were actually German and Irish), Vincent entered his first professional race at the New York Coliseum in 1931. Over the years Vincent raced for all of the big east coast clubs including the Gotham Cyclists, the Empire City Wheelmen and the Century Road Club of America.
Well liked by his peers, Vincent was often spotted with other fast men of the era including Jimmy Walthour, Freddie Spencer, Danny Esposito, and Oscar Sellinger.
Like many bike racers in the 1930′s, Vincent’s athletic career ended with the start of WWII. Vincent didn’t race again after returning home from his service, but with the coaxing of his friend Jimmy Walthour who was by then a salesman for Raleigh bicycles, Vincent opened his two “Seiferd’s Cycle” bike shops on the Jersey Shore.
Old bike guys don’t fade away, but they do retire to someplace warm. For the Swedish Ace that place was Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1969.
Like many east coast pros, Vincent raced aboard Pop Brennan’s hand-crafted racing bikes. Brennan’s machines were tough, light, and superbly engineered. Vincent’s family gave us one of his old racing bikes to restore and display. We know bike shop guys pretty well, and Vincent probably owned dozens of bikes over the years, and this one had equipment and modifications that probably spanned 30 years of usage. We decided to restore it to the way it would have been outfitted during his racing days, with BSA drivetrain equipment, an Ideale saddle, wooden rims, a Brennan bar and an adjustable stem. The paint is a nice vaguely Scandinavian color scheme, perfect for the Swedish Ace.
By the way, we have an interesting side note for you: If you look carefully at Vincent’s photo you’ll notice that it has been autographed by comedian (and bike racing fan) Lou Costello.