From Nothing to Too Much

   Knowing that eBay has a time limitation on its buyer protection policy, I thought I should formally notify them of the long shipment delay of the Bottecchia frame. Amazingly, just minutes after I had opened a case on Saturday morning, the mailman pulled up in front of our house and pulled a large box out of the rear door of his van!

   The most important consideration when I opened the box was that the frame appeared in the expected condition, although the seatpost, which wasn’t pictured in the auction listing, was extremely rusty. However, most of the problem is below the insertion point, so I should be able to clean it up sufficiently so that it functions properly without getting stuck in the seat tube.

   I was holding off on the purchase of a few small parts to complete the project until I was sure the frame would actually arrive, but this isn’t the only reason I didn’t jump right into putting the Bottecchia together. On Thursday a gentleman from Connecticut stopped by to complete a swap he had proposed for my Bianchi “Pantani” build. John had a 2007 Cannondale bicycle that was a bit too big for him and had tried unsuccessfully to find a buyer. The SystemSix Team Si 1 is a top-quality racing bike with a composite frame made up of an aluminum rear triangle and carbon everywhere else – the complete machine weighs about 16 pounds!

   The bike has top-of-the-line Shimano Dura-Ace components, including a newer wheelset that is clincher and tubeless tire compatible. The bike also has some upgraded parts, such as Ritchey WCS carbon handlebars and a Thompson Masterpiece seatpost. The bike was listed at $4800 new!

   John also had a 1996 De Bernardi Veloce that he warned was a bit rough around the edges, just sitting around in his garage. He asked if I would like that, too! This was a bicycle that he used to race when he was younger and cost over $1300 new – not cheap back then! It has a mix of lower-level Campagnolo Veloce and Athena components, but it does have the ErgoPower shift/brake levers. For a mid-‘90s, non-professional-racer-build on an Italian import frame, the overall quality is not bad at all!

   Again, John had upgraded some parts, such as a beautiful set of Cinelli bars and a Mavic wheelset. The wheels are actually mismatched, with a classic Open 4 CD rim on the front and a deeper CXP30 aero on the back, but their similar gunmetal finish pairs them well visually. The bike does have some rust issues on the “sweat points”, where the paint is beginning to bubble, and some of the chrome is pitted badly.

   After helping to get the two bikes out of John's car, we laughed at how heavy the steel bike felt after removing the the Cannondale, which you really could lift with two fingers. The funny thing was the De Bernardi is made of Columbus Thron tubing, the same as my Colnago, and it really is fairly lightweight for a steel bicycle - it's a racing bike, after all.

   I felt I was getting too much of a deal in my favor and gave him $50 for the De Bernardi.I think someone would like this bike as a “beater” or commuter bike, and I should be able to get a couple hundred out of it with some new tires and bar tape.

   I'm beginning to notice a lack of open floor space in my shop, and the need to get these two bikes cleaned up and ready to sell became even more of a priority when a neighbor dropped off a couple of cruiser bikes that required some attention. Linda had expressed the need for more than three gears to ride and recently purchased a Schwinn Admiral, an off-the-shelf bike that she (wisely) didn’t trust to the Walmart employees for fine-tuning.

   The bike she was replacing, a 1981 Schwinn Collegiate, needs a bit more work, particularly a good cleaning. It also badly needs a new set of tires (I’ve never seen the sidewalls fall off of a tire before!), and the rickety saddle has to be swapped for safety’s sake. I started a preliminary wipe-down of the bike, and the paint and chrome started to shine nicely. I’m thinking that someone headed down to the shore this summer would get a kick out of this oldie.

    For the first time, I had a chance to take my Bianchi Cross Concept on some of the unpaved rail trails in the area, now that most of them have dried out over the last few days. The bike performed exactly how I wished it would, with the grip and stability of a mountain bike but the speed and agility of a road bike. The carbon fork and rear stays noticeably dampened a lot of the rocky ride one would experience on portions of the trails that have been scrubbed of their usual cinder top layer.

   On a couple sections of the Perkiomen Trail, where it gets less sun, there was still a bit of snow, and I rode in the mushy tracks that some of the Park Service vehicles had left behind. Things turned a bit crazy when I hit a spot that obviously gets NO sun and the ruts were solid ice! I felt like I was on the Olympic bobsled team, except that I was sitting three feet above the banked curves with a totally unstable, high center of gravity.

   I was glad that I was wearing a knobby pair of MTB-style cycling shoes, so that I had some traction when I put my feet down. I was in one of the steep-sided ravine parts of the trail, and although there is a split-rail fence for protection, I had a fleeting vision of careening head-over-heels, 40+ feet down into the creek below.

Definitely one of those instances where being on a bike trail, away from car traffic may not actually be safer!