Yes, I think it's from an O'Neill neoprene boot, maybe size 9? No, make that Euro 43. Young, with that subtle touch of the Chattahoochee.

Janitor's Note: This article weaves all over the road (pun intended) but it really is about windsurfing (and bikinis). Don't let the first paragraphs mislead you.

I don't always windsurf and when I don't, I'm often out biking. Despite a fair amount of carbon hanging in the garage, my bikes of choice seem to be older bikes, or as they are referred to on Craigslist, vintage bikes. They have a pleasant ride and I enjoy riding a bike that has a "story" and almost all of mine do.

Actually, what qualifies as a vintage bike on CL varies. For some, it's a classic bike: nice chromoly steel tubing, better aluminum Japanese, French or Italian parts and good hand crafting. This is the stuff I try to find - a little French, a few Japanese - all ride great. The ad below is a great example, some of Trek's better work, made in Waterloo, Wisconsin.

Classic Trek touring bike. The early 80s 720 and less known 620 are prized by collectors and cyclists looking for a bike that you can literally ride across the US.

For others, it applies to any old piece of crap that you desperately wouldn't want to ride even when it was new. It sucked then and it likely still sucks now, especially, given the advances in shifting and brake technology. In my teen years, as a bike shop monkey, I saw and repaired enough of them to know.

Still has the original wheel spoke reflectors! Five whole speeds! Count 'em!

Similar bike after replacing components to save weight. Sadly, it did not qualify for that year's Tour de France.

What you enjoy in one passion doesn't always translate very well into another passion - pretty much like languages and cultures. Ignoring this, I thought I might look around and see what's available in the vintage windsurfing world. First of all, I should know better. In the 70's and early 80's, a few classic designs came out like the Mistral Superlight and the Original Windsurfer was still around but there were also a lot of clunkers. You don't hear much about them unless you see a post on a forum for someone wanting an obscure mast foot for a brand that's been dead longer than parachute pants. Old dacron sails actually pull pretty well in light air but are an absolute handful at the sign of the first white caps. You end up pushing like crazy with the front hand and reaching back and pulling hard with the back - which explains those old pics where harness lines were about 3 feet apart.

Barely visible, this 1982 pic shows the harness lines set as wide as the windsurfer's grip. Source

Nonetheless, I perservered. Searching our local Craigslist for "windsurf" surprisingly I got a few hits (I'd expected none). Ah, a "Bic Windsurfer". Bic made some great short boards in the day - people still swear by the Electric Rock (E Rock). Back in the day, when your whole short board quiver was one board, it could do it all. But, no, it's longboard - a Bic raceboard. It never was quite as popular as the Mistral, Fanatic and F2 mainly because it was considered a touch off the pace. Few people buy race equipment to come in fourth.

But, the real find in the ad are the sails. Clearly, an entire herd of dacrons had to be slaughtered to make these sails. With modern used sails going for less than a day at a Braves game, I wouldn't know what to do with these. Probably the best idea I saw a long time ago is a tarp/sun shade Gene Mathis had made from some old sails.

Disappointed, I turned my attention to eBay. The problem on there is that almost nothing is local and nobody wants to ship or pay for shipping outside a few shops selling off demo inventory. If you live in California, New England or Florida, you can sometimes score a deal. Almost all private sellers are "local pick-up only". Can you imagine shipping on this auction?

A partial, edited listing of the items includes:

In case you were wondering, this was "high end" fifteen or more years ago. Does anyone have a "high end" computer from 1992? Yeah, you get the idea. But, if for some reason you have $10,000 burning a hole in your pocket, I know a guy that can deliver this stuff to you.

Now, I was bummed, depressed, despondent and forlorn (I'm working on vocabulary words today). Until I saw this auction. Yes, this is vintage and this is definitely something I could use.

This is a totally unrelated early Who song. Totally unrelated. Totally. No connection to the eBay item.

Probably the best part (no, not really, not the best part) of the auction was the item description. I think that US Sailing based their recent Olympic vote on this detailed analysis of the sport of windsurfing (of course, overlooking the bikini girls).

Poster Details: This poster shows four girls standing on a windsurfing board. They are all in brightly colored bikinis and thongs. On the left it says 'Full Sail'.

Windsurfing is a surface water sport using a windsurf board, also commonly called a sailboard, usually two to five meters long and powered by a single sail. The rig is connected to the board by a free-rotating flexible joint. A windsurfer is steered by the tilting and rotating of the mast and sail as well as tilting and carving the board. The sport combines aspects of both sailing and surfing, along with aspects shared with other board sports.

The auction does have a "Buy It Now" button. I do have a Paypal account. That definitely would be a cool vintage item to have. Maybe for the living room. I'll go see what my wife says.