We all meet with people every day of our lives just about.  Family, friends, fellow workers and even the clerk at the convenience store where we frequently purchase smaller items on a daily basis.  Let everyone you come into contact with know that you are looking for an old "Ten Speed"!  Everyone!

The day a fellow from eastern Canada purchase this Peugeot PS28 from me, his best friend scolded him.  As it turned out, his best friend had a gorgeous Marinoni something or other.  The Marinoni had been hanging in the garage and unused for a couple of decades.  Had the guy who bought the Peugeot mentioned his interest to his best friend, he would have never had to go to the trouble of searching on-line for a vintage road bicycle.  He could have just gone next door and scooped a much superior bicycle - for free!  Be absolutely assured, the Word of Mouth bike finding procedure is incredibly effective.

Be straight forward.  You might not have a great deal of time to make your interest known.  As you are buying a box of milk, you might say...

"I am looking for an old "Ten Speed" bicycle.  You know, the kind with the skinny tires and curly handlebars.  You wouldn't have one that you would like to sell, would you?"

At first this will be an awkward conversation to initiate but practice will make perfect.  Starting now, mention your interest to virtually every single person that you come into contact with.  Do this in person or get on the phone and start dialling.  Begin with your family.  Move on to your close friends.  Then people that you know pretty well.  Fellow workers. As you go through this exercise, your skill at opening up such a brief conversation will improve.  Sooner than you might expect, you will be mentioning your vintage bicycle interest to everyone that you meet.  And the results just might prove very interesting.

These days, in the time it takes to buy a litre of milk, I can make my interest known.  As often as not the person I am dealing with has, or at least knows of, a vintage road bicycle.  Availability might not be certain but at least a path is open for hunting.  And without a path to follow, where would you look?

Do not discredit the Word of Mouth method for finding an old bike.  Literally hundreds have come my way this way and I practice the method all the time.  Had it not been for this means of hunting for old bicycles, both my 1971 Carlton Professional  and 1975 CCM Tour du Canada would have been lost forever.  But I made my interest known to a the right person.  I simply spoke up at the right time and the rewards were great.

Needless to say, if you are going to include this bike finding procedure in your day to day activities, you had better have something to write with and on with you at all times.  It is frustrating to learn of a potential purchase opportunity only to have no way of recording the contact information offered.

Of course, it is of little value to find a vintage road bicycle, be it in person or on-line, unless you are prepared to but it.  And buying a vintage road bicycle is more complicated than one might think.