Vintage Bike of the
Month
1972 Penton 125 Six
Day
"Who owns that orange Penton out front?"
bellowed the voice from down below.
Although I happened to be riding a Penton
that afternoon, actually hearing someone
outside my inner circle yelling "Penton" im-
mediately sparked my attention. As I wiped
the beef stew off my face and raised a hand,
an older, silver-haired gent with a smile a
mile-wide walked over and sat down
next to me at the bar. My first words
were," I'm surprised you know what
a Penton actually is!" He beamed and
said he bought a new 125 when he was
a teenager. As one who has chased vin-
tage bikes for a very long time, I imme-
diately blurted out, "You still have it?"
This is where it got interesting. He
paused for a second or two, then looked
to the sky, and with a bit of delay, said,
"Yes, yes I do still have it," almost as
if he'd forgotten about the bike. As one
who's chased vintage bikes for years,
I asked, "you wanna sell it?" Again,
he paused, then looked over the railing
at my '76 Penton 400 Cross Country,
laughed, and said, "I'd sell it to you." It
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