Some time ago, I bought a bike from a guy on eBay, and when I met him to collect it, he opened up the back of his van and started handing me stuff.
“Do you want this?” he said, handing me an old-school ‘Fly’ aero front wheel. Of course I did.
“How about some Mavic wheel bags?” he said. I kept my poker face on – is that even a question? “Sure, I’ll have them if they’re free.”
“What about this?”. He was holding a lugged steel frameset, with a dodgy metal flake blue respray, and a well-used Mirage 9sp gruppo hanging from it in tatters. There were no wheels to be seen.
“You can have it for free.”, he said.
“Ummm…I guess so…maybe I’ll use the gruppo…”, I said. Into my ute it went, but I’ll be honest and say I was a bit reluctant to take it. Scrap steel is not worth the cost of the trip to the recycler.
That frameset turned out to be something quite unexpected, and when I realised it, the first Millfield Special was born.
Now that we’ve decided to restore this bike, you can follow the story in The Museum here.