There's many a good tune played on an old fiddle
Aah, but you have to be careful where and when you play...
I rode my ever-so-comfy (and ever-so-sturdy) 1975 Falcon Route (
2 race-level models up from the famous Black Diamond tourer) on the Camb"rain" 600 in 2009. Alas, it poured for 30 out of 36 hours, and the
Flying Falcon became the
Flailing Falcon after its bottom bracket threads succumbed to excess corrosion, and couldn't clasp onto a bb cartridge.
(I found this snag out 250k into the Borderline 600, somewhere near Otterburn. Overcame the drifting chainset problem by packing out the gap between left crank and bb set with a plastic wrapper from a flapjack, plus a few zip-ties. This "fix" got the event done, then had to be repeated when my attempt to Araldite the bb in place failed, 50km into the Humber 400.)
Since a new LEL/PBP machine was supposed to be in the off-ing (
another story of problematic "enigmatic" frame suppliers - for a different thread) I took the decision to "retire" the Falcon - the first bike I'd bought, new, when I was 13 yrs old. It was merely 531 Plain Gauge and, in touring mode, had a shimmy to die for (or die on!)
I'll clean the frame up and mount it on the dining room wall, perhaps...
Can't throw it away though - that frame got me up Mont Ventoux and completed La Marmotte as well as 2 x SR series, a LE-JOG and a Camino de Santiago de Compostella.
So, it is sadly missed. Great machine for cruising long distances and dealing with AAAs.