A few months ago on this blog, I featured a photo
collection of a couple Vitus builds that I had built at the same time,
and I’m following up with a similarly-themed entry, though both bicycles aren’t
currently complete, nor are they both for sale.
The first bike is the violet Vitus 979 that
had been used as a donor bike for my friend Brendan’s Sean Kelly KAS bicycle.
I was finally able to find a Mavic bottom bracket and a really nice Selle San
Marco Regal saddle.
I had substituted in a Cinelli 1A stem, as
well as a set of the company’s Giro d’Italia handlebars. I included the Modolo
Mach 3 brake levers that came with the bike, but the rest of the components are
all Mavic. The bike is now listed on my For Sale page, along with a red Vitus 979.
I keep a bicycle down at the shore, so I
always have something to ride when we take a trip to Stone Harbor and so I don’t
have to transport one with us when we pack the car with the rest of our stuff.
I really enjoy my Vitus 992 in Lotto Team colors, and I decided to bring it
home last weekend, after I took a trip to south Jersey during some incredibly
warm October weather. You can read previous posts about this bike build starting
here.
I intend to tweak the setup a little bit, as
the gear range is a bit small in the back, particularly because the Mavic 801
derailleur (pictured below) wouldn’t clear anything larger than a 23-tooth cog. I’ve heard that
these derailleurs can be adjusted to accept larger gears by loosening the lower
pivot bolt and sliding the cage downward, but I have yet to experiment.
Another option would be a longer cage Mavic
rear derailleur. The 845 derailleur is rather conventional, compared to the modernist
styling of the 801 and 851 versions, but I kinda dig the funky graphics on the
face plate (below). They are pretty rare and would probably be a bit pricey,
but we’ll see.
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