A massive Thank you to Martin @MartyP I'm pleased to say the Iceman cometh home!Wow! There it is - god know how it got amongst the stuff we bought unless Evri delivered it to the wrong place and it's sat there ever since!? Anyway, will be in contact! Just glad it's not lost any more!
Just over 2 years since Evri 'lost' the frame when it was posted back after a fantastic respray by @KOMRAID it's finally back in my hands.
As Martin mentioned above - it came to him in a liquidation job lot of frames. It wasn't boxed - just wrapped in protective foam.... So there wasn't any information to return it to me.
Pure speculation of how this ended up here, but Martin suggested it could have started with Evri delivering boxed bikes to a bike shop.
The Evri delivery idiot must have assumed the boxed 'Iceman' was part of this delivery and without checking the delivery details, dropped it off and carried on regardless.
Whoever unboxed it realised it wasn't part of a delivery but liked it so shelved it.... discarding the box with my address on it.
The shop stock at some point becomes unsold/return/liquidated and the wrapped up frame becomes part of a lot bought by Martin's company.
Without Martin's enthusiasm for retro, it may have passed on again but he realised that this was something special and posted on this thread. Another big thank you to @gtturbo for bringing this thread to my attention.
Today I took the drive down (no postage this time!) and picked it up.
Obviously I've never seen the 'Iceman' in it's repainted state, so it's amazing to finally have it back after i'd given up hope of ever seeing it again. Considering it's been stored unboxed....and moved around, the condition is amazing. There's a chip on the head tube but I'll be retaining this as it's now part of it's story.
Here's some pics....
Absolutely chuffed to have this back after i'd given up hope of seeing it again. Suppose this is a tale about not giving up hope.
Without people like Martin with his enthusiasm and retro knowledge - this post to find out exactly what this was...and the retro bike community keeping an eye out and gtturbo giving the heads up....this lost prototype may have never turned up.
Back in the fold at last!
Cheers all.
boy"O"boy