This Road bike was purchased in 1978. I was working in Santa Monica at a customer site and on the drive back to Orange County I stopped by a bicycle shop on Wilshire Blvd.
I don't remember why I was at a customer site as I have several customer service people who did most of the field work.
I was such a sucker as I walked into SuperGo not really needing another bike. I had a MotoB a French bike with sewups that always would flat. Then I was mostly running a lot maybe eighty or ninety miles a week.
I was living in Mission Viejo on the golf course and still had my house in Lake Forest that was either rented out or my daughter lived there, not sure.
So I wandered around the bike shop and spotted two frames on a rack that were too sweet. Don't remember the other (curse of old age) but the Jackson had leather handlebars tapes and had been just put back on the rack after appearing in the LA Bike show.
Not sure how I paid for the Jackson as then I had an American Express Card and did not use other credit cards. Anyway I bought the Jackson and took off the wheels and put it in the back of my Corvette. I was driving a 1977 350 with a T-Top.
The frame was not white as shown and had a set of alloy sewup wheels. Those wheels were good for several years until the spokes kept going loose. Plus I would ride around El Toro Air Station and get flats and walk back or hitch a ride in a truck. Once I flatted down my Laguna Beach and walked several miles barefoot, you can not walk in old style cleats.
Actually you can not walk far in new cleats unless it is a MTB pedal. My office mate used to drive out at times and haul my ass back to the office so I decided to buy a set of clinchers for the Jackson.
I moved to another house in Lake Forest and still kept the bike. By now the top tube was chipped so I covered the bad spots with decals. I has always been a roller rider since maybe I was 14 and got the rollers from the bicycle shop I worked at in Santa Monica. Riding the rollers with the Jackson cause my sweat to drop on the top tube and it started to get rusty so I put my son's bike decals on it. My mentor Carl Siefert taught me to ride the rollers. I lived on Olympic Blvd then and would listen to AM radio playing Dixie Land Jazz while riding.
One day when I was out riding the Jackson while I still lived in Lake Forest a young female rider came along next to me an told me "Steel is Real", that made my day. I had a good friend named Clark that ran a front end alinement business and he showed me his bike that he had bought from an Olympic Gold Medal winner. Clark wasn't riding any more and I really like his bike with the carbon frame and other stuff.
So the Jackson retired for several years. But it was not forgotten.
The carbon frame was ridden a lot but when I moved to South Pasadena the Los Angeles streets started to crack the frame. I still have the frame in my locker is San Pedro but got another road frame to replace it.
While I was living in South Pasadena I decided to paint my 1938 Schwinn Paramount and after that I painted the Jackson. I masted the head badge and decal and the chrome tips were covered. My paint choice was a poor one as the paint never set very hard.
The Campy wheels were off another bike I was given after my boat was hit by a neighbor. Another story. The wheels came without cogs and all my stuff was Shimano. After an ordeal on EBay I finally got a working wheel set.
The OEM pedals were replaced at one time with 9/16 newer pedals using an adapter but have now been restored to the real ones. Getting cleats for newer shoes and older pedals was also a problem but I have plastic cleats that use modern shoe patterns but still use the old pedal.
Yes after forty years the brakes really work. Probably better than the rider.
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