Reorganization, Rehab and Revision

   I had mentioned that my intent this offseason is a more relaxed process of doing a little here and there in the shop to bring my projects to completion. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I was trying to organize my assembly line of parts into a logical order and found the half dozen wheelset I have hanging around, in combination with the various tubes and tires I’ve collected for them, to be a real space hog.

   I spent a couple of afternoons just doing wheel work, with the idea to have them all assembled and ready to go, but out of the way. The sets belonging to the Olmo and Wilier needed major cleaning, particularly the rear wheels, as the hubs and spokes surrounding the freewheels had a coating of hardened, greasy dirt. The rear wheel of the Wilier also required extensive truing work, as its spokes were mangled a bit due to Giovanni’s sub-par shipping practices.

   The fuchsia decals (photo above) on the Rigida rims have bothered me since I got the wheelset from my friend Bill. No way do I want to see that color clashing with the yellow cromovelato that will be applied to the Coppi frame. Below is a sample of the effect we'll be trying to replicate.

   So while I was busy working on assembling the wheels, I peeled the eyesores from the rims and used some mineral spirits to clean off the remaining gummy adhesive. Aaah, much better!

   Four wheetsets, eight tubes and eight tires later, I have a nice chunk of room open once again!

   I’m currently in a bit of a holding pattern with new projects as the Ciöcc is still with Bruce, and when I pick that up, I’ll be handing the Coppi frame off to him. The Coppi originally had a clamp-on bottle cage, and I had no intention of re-attaching one of those contraptions over my future new paintjob! I visited my buddy Peter Dreesens, who neatly drilled and brazed a set of bottle cage mounts on the frame downtube.

   Also on hold is the Olmo, as my touch-up job didn’t turn out as I had hoped. The green paint I was using on the rear stays and adjoining seatpost lug unfortunately became darker as I applied additional coats. I’m going to sand it lightly and try something a shade brighter to match. Unfortunately, now that the temperatures have dropped, I might have to wait a while, since no one in the family really wants to deal with fumes from indoor painting!

   Back to the “old” projects. After discussing the options with Paul, he decided to buy my Veneto frame and pay to have me swap out the Campagnolo Chorus parts for his Shimano 600. There were a few damaged items that needed to be replaced, such as the rusted-in-place bottom bracket and stem, plus his chain and smaller front ring were badly worn.

   We were hoping for better timing, as he was visiting family in NYC for Thanksgiving and could possibly pick up the bike on the way home to D.C., but delivery of the necessary parts was slow. In fact, I was in the back raking leaves late Friday afternoon and noticed the mailman walk by. I checked to find the expected packages, and wouldn’t you know it, Paul was parking out front. He decided to stop by, just to check on my progress.

   He was certainly a welcome visit, but it was going to take more than just a few minutes to put the remaining pieces together, and it was a bit disappointing to send him away empty-handed. I was also hoping to find someone to take his sad Pinarello frame, but Paul had a price in mind at which, sadly, I don’t think he’ll find many takers. It might just end up a nostalgic wall-hanging.

   I put on the finished touches over the weekend, and here is a photo of Paul’s revised Veneto:

   With so much going on, I had intended to let go of the Cipollini Cannondale venture for a while, but a complete bike with an almost identical frameset showed up on craigslist. The real plus was a very nice Ultegra triple groupset, a cool set of red anodized Rolf wheels and a beautiful pairing of 3T stem and handlebars. The price was right to allow me to rebuild the Cipollini at lower dollar amount and still maybe make some bucks re-selling the unused parts.

   The funny thing is that someone from England contacted me over the weekend asking if the Cipollini bicycle was still available, and I laughed to myself as I typed the answer, “Well...sort of.”

Goodbye (ciao, aufwiedersehen, au revior) Fabian

   I am a bit late with this, as his last official “race” was just before Halloween, but I wanted to take the time to bid a very fond farewell to one of my all-time favorite cyclists, Fabian Cancellara, who decided to retire at the end of this season. My title refers to the fact that the charismatic star, born to Italian parents in Wohlen, Switzerland, speaks all four of the languages involved fluently – which astounds me almost as much as his list of victories.

   The photo above, showing Fabian with special team jersey and bike to mark his final ride, was taken at the Tour de France Saitama Criterium, a showcase event in Japan that features the various jersey winners from this year’s Tour. Just as a quick aside, the results of this event are always a bit staged. Somehow Chris Froome (in yellow as G.C. winner), Adam Yates (in white as best young rider), Peter Sagan (World Champion, wearing green as Tour points winner) and Japanese national champ Sho Hatsuyuma got into a breakaway, with Sagan winning the sprint. Well, at least that would be very realistic!

   Back to the main subject, I have written about Cancellara several times in this blog, as the powerful rider has consistently been at the top of his profession. An internet search of his palmarès would prove somewhat mind-boggling, but I’ll provide a brief summary of the highlights:

   Since turning professional at the age of 19 with the Mapei-Quick Step team in 2000, Cancellara has had great success in cycling’s Monuments, winning both the Tour of Flanders and Paris–Roubaix each three times (including TWICE achieving the very difficult “double” of claiming both events in the same season), and Milan–San Remo once. He also won the classics Strade Bianche and E3 Herelbeke each three times. Fabian has won the opening stage of the Tour de France five times and has led the race for 29 days total, which is the most of any rider who has not claimed overall victory. He has won general classification of Tirreno–Adriatico, Tour de Suisse, and the Tour of Oman. In 2008, Cancellara won gold in the individual time trial and silver in the men's road race at the Summer Olympics, and during the games in 2016, he again won gold in the individual time trial. He also has been the time trial world champion four times in his career.

   Below is one of my favorite action photos of Fabian – I just love the composition, with the Swiss champion, who has just made the winning move up the cobbled Muur de Geraardsbergen to win the 2010 Tour of Flanders, and the massive crowd at the top roaring for their “honorary Belgian” hero. 

   Last week I mentioned a Pinarello Veneto repaint job, and it unfortunately has come to an abrupt stop before even starting. The peeling paint and rust issues were not just surface problems, as the bottom bracket and stem are both completely stuck. In fact, when I inserted the bottom bracket tool, the teeth on the inside rim of the cup just crumbled. And I am very familiar with Pinarello fork/stem problems from past experience!

   Without being able to service the bottom bracket and headset, I don't think it would be worth it to sink funds into this project as-is. Painting around the issues wouldn't exactly be ideal anyway, considering the awkward masking it would entail.

   I feel really bad about this situation, and I proposed to Paul trying to cobble something together that would fit his budget by combining his parts with the Veneto I currently have for sale, but we'll see what we can come up with. 

   In the meantime, I dropped off my Ciöcc frame at Bruce's place to have it touched-up, and I have been doing my own bit of (simpler) paintwork on the Olmo's rear triangle. The Wilier also arrived from Italy, in the normal average condition that Giovanni's "finds" always seem to be - nothing that a little work can't improve, though. I definitely plan on purchasing an aluminum polish kit to try to bring up the shine on that frameset.

   It's always at the back of my mind - or maybe more accurately, in front of my face, as it hangs right at the bottom of the basement steps to my shop -  but I have yet to finalize a plan on the Colnago. However, it's kind of nice to keep a relaxed attitude about completing all of these projects. I can jump from bike project to bike project, picking out some aspect to work on, as the mood strikes me.

Stocking Up

   Not that my shop was exactly empty of bicycles, but about a month ago I was down to two finished bicycles for sale. Last autumn I had seven bikes, some complete and a couple in need of a few parts, and I was amazed that all but two were sold by the time spring rolled around – unfortunately they were the same two bikes mentioned earlier.

   I still have the Pinarello Prince, but a gentleman from Belgium offered a nice amount of money for the frameset on the Cipollini bike, and I was tired of seeing it sit around here for the last year and a half, so off it went! I still have all of the detail parts and might put them to use on a similar, less expensive frame if I can find one.

   I was stunned with the fastest sale I’ve ever made, as a local rider made a nice offer on the Bottecchia ADR team replica bike I wrote about last week. The story was that he had one just like it back-in-the-day and regretted the mistake of painting it, then selling it. He actually contacted me before I had even completed the work on the bike. I finished up on Friday and the bike was gone Sunday afternoon!

   After I had cleaned the Bottecchia, I found that under the grime the paint was in nearly perfect condition, but for a scratch on the top tube, probably from leaning it against something (WHY do people do that?), and some marks where the Silca frame pump was installed. I think that the grimy condition was really to my advantage, as the seller kept the price low, probably thinking the bike to be in worse shape than it actually was.

   I also completed the Triomphe group on the bike by replacing the respective SunTour parts, and during the process I have become a bit of an expert on the very subtle differences between Campagnolo’s Triomphe and Victory components. I gambled a little by purchasing on eBay a couple of small lots of parts in order to acquire the pieces I needed, but after reselling the extras, I ended up with quite a deal overall!

   As a bonus, I popped a new battery in the color-coordinated Avocet computer that was installed and found that it worked perfectly! Here are some photos taken just a couple hours before the sold bike was wheeled out my door:

   I am very budget-conscious with my business, but a little cash in my hand can be a dangerous thing – not because of how much I spend, but how much “damage” I can do with relatively little, particularly when I have a streak of luck with my bargain finds.

   I’ve hooked up through eBay with a dealer from Ceprano, Italy, who sells unique bikes that he finds at estate sales. I’ve purchased bikes from him in the past, and we’ve both saved a good amount working with each other directly to avoid the eBay fees. He tends to ship on-the-cheap as far as packing materials go, but I’m certainly not expecting anything pristine at the prices I’ve been paying, and I can touch-up or repair something if necessary.

   The Pinarello mountain bike and Fausto Coppi bike came from Giovanni, as did the recent Olmo purchase. Last week I saw that he had a silver Wilier Triestina bicycle for sale – I’ve never had one, and I couldn’t resist. More on that bike in a later post.

   I also got an incredible deal on a Colnago Mexico that was being sold at the Newark Bike Project, an interesting community shop that has racks of donated bikes, offers mechanical classes and holds “open shop” sessions for D.I.Y. repair work. The bicycle has an incredible mix of Campy parts, including Record, Super Record and Corsa Record (better known as C-Record), as well as some Shimano Dura-Ace brakes! I’m not sure what direction to go with this assortment, but individually the parts have great value.

   The Mexico has some paint issues, but more of the spot touch-up variety. With the relatively small price I paid for this bike, I was tinkering with trying out one of the high-end repaint companies, but then another job came my way, and I changed my mind.

   I received a call from a guy in the D.C. area who had seen the Pinarello Veneto I had on craigslist. He had a Veneto himself, although of a deeper blue color and MUCH poorer paint condition. He asked my opinion on what to do, and after seeing photos, I laid out the cost of having it stripped and painted. We had several enthusiastic exchanges of questions, stories and photo samples of past work, which eventually led to a visit/drop-off from Paul on Saturday morning.

   I haven’t had time to take some pics, but you will definitely be seeing plenty of his bike in the upcoming months!