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.”