Mike Claus's Vanguard

I've owned the bike since it was new. I purchased it in '93 or '94 from a bike shop in North Carolina. I rode it regularly for a lot of years. I used it primarily for recreational rides, but I commuted on it for 5-6 years, 26 miles/day. I also did a couple of self supported solo tours with it - one up the NC Outer Banks for 5 days. And another East to West across NC for 9 days.

It moved with me to southern California in '02. So Cal is a cycling paradise compared to NC - bike paths and bike lanes everyplace! It got quite a lot of riding until I accepted my current job in '04. Then I had no time to ride so it sat in my garage until about 2 years ago. Then I decided I needed to make time to ride again. I had an unfortunate accident then - the bike fared fine - I needed to replace the handlebars and the linkage - but I broke my right arm and wrist. During my recovery I started learning about recumbent trikes. Now I've pretty much gone completely trike - and the Vanguard is not getting enough use, but still gets a few miles every month.

It's still in great shape mechanically - somewhere along the way I had some serious upgrades done - new BB, new rear hub, new headset, indexed shifting, stronger rear wheel. Cosmetically it is not quite so perfect - mostly scratches on the seat frame from leaning it up on stuff, and from the one big crash.