First let me say congratulations to
@CruJones for the big win with Rocky! Great job!
And thank you to everyone that voted for my RadRot X53!
I had much lower expectations than the 2nd place finish for my bike. Apart from cleaning the bike and replacing the wheels and tires, most of the work was not evident unless you had followed the build journal. And even if you had followed each entry, things like restoring a rusty chain or straightening a bent fork or even realigning the chain guard are not the things that seperate one bike from any other in the same way that 'Rocky' did. Yet in the end almost 50% of the voters cast one of their votes for it. So what
did seperate it from the majority of others? I can't say for certain but I have my own theories.
This contest is visual. It is about artistic expression and design and bicycles are the medium. In the end when faced with deciding on how each individual devides their votes [no matter how many], it is based on the visual gratification that they discern. (By the way, the photograph also plays a big part in this.) Everyone has their own ideas about what looks pleasing but there are certain design principals that transend opinion. There are whole fields of study on things like the golden ratio and fibonocci numbers, etc. that help to explain why certain things 'feel' pleasing while other things do not.
So it is my opinion that even though I played a very small part in making my bike appealing with a couple of modern touches, and adding a couple of things that make you feel nostalgic, the real reason that it placed high in the voting total was due to the original design by a celebrated designer in the 1950s and the warmth of the faded and rusted finish that only time can produce. Therefore the second place award for the X53 actually goes to the late Viktor Schreckengost (Murray-Ohio’s chief bicycle designer) and Mother Nature. I'm just happy to be the current steward of such an iconic bike!
-Jim Henderson