Hi Austin,
I've been meaning to join here for a while, and this bike finally got me to...
The reinforcements on the frame are something you'd see on a Motorpacing bike, and the clip on the stem would be the upper clip for a stem support rod.
Most also has a seat support, and the wear on the paint right under the front end of the seat looks about right for a clamp that might have been loose for a while.
I've been looking for pics of one like this, which I think I've seen before, but I can't find it.
Pacing bikes are pretty special, and would have almost all been custom built. They got used fairly hard, and after a point, some got converted to being normal bikes either for training or just warmups.
They also got used for a long time, even much more recently.
I have a couple, one from the 20's or 30's And one from the 80's
The older one had a similar conversion, but they'd even removed the racing bars and put on flat bars. It had also been crashed heavily and had the steerer repaired with a solid steel slug and pins where it had cracked.
Here's a before and after pic of it as I bought it, and once I got it mostly fixed up. I don't have a stem support, as the fork isn't tapped for one It's original, so it was probably raced without it.
Steve Birmingham
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