Before we go further into the tangled web of actual latter-day Floyd retrieval and subsequent restoration (knock on wood; I have a Telex waiting from Signore Capodanno, my man in the south) perhaps it will be of some service to review, precisely, what is and what is not a Floyd. At left is not an original Floyd, although after Verner's death in 1963 there was an ill-fated attempt to revive the marque. This amounted to nothing more than emblazoning the trademark Spenserian script onto a seemingly meaningless array of products. The Floyd coffee percolator met with some little household success in the nostalgic early 80s', but there is nothing here to suggest that this example bears any relationship to a bicycle. It is likely amateurish homage paid by a island-dwelling race fan of the time.
This Floyd met with an equally dastardly end, and you might make a case that neither is this example an original. By 1930s' the telephone, the wireless telegram, and the automobile, all conspired to make the world too small for the "Sagebrush Robinhood", and he was gunned down in 1934. Equally legendary, unequivocally un-bicycle.
Ahh, this is more like it. While from the angle of the camera in the photo on the left we do not know the exact year and model, this is by all accounts an early Floyd frame built while still on the Bianchi team in the late 1950s'. From the scenery, I would say that this is a shot from Sardinia, before the start of a race. The rider is most likely Busi or Verner, two of Bianchi's pride, judging from the luxurious delivery system to the starting line. Note the rider in the background; not everyone received such kingly treatment. Floydian certitude: highly likely.
At right, a Molteni rider with his drilled and fluted Eddy Merckx bicycle, likely made by Ernesto Colnago, a colleague and equal of Verner's. Shares much of the same drilling common to racers of the time; Busi's proposed Floyd was to be drilled to such an extent as Verner found dangerously excessive and excessively fashionable, neither of which he found reason enough.
Nobody is really sure what this one is; it might be a bicycle.
2 comments:
Have an old frame hanging in my garage, never knew what it was, the side says '..oyd' in script. If I send you a picture, can you tell me about it?
This is sheer gup. Floyds were always second best, at best, leaving the real riders on the Bianchis' and Spavintos'.
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