Full House

   Yes, that's a deck of Bicycle brand playing cards - kind of a double play on words!

   My rafters are filled with finished bikes for sale, and I wanted to highlight the two builds that were near misses for inclusion in last week's blog entry, as well as introduce a couple new projects that will be on a slower schedule until I clear out some of my stock.

   Of course, the front derailleur needed to complete the Tommasini Prestige arrived Friday, after I had posted to the blog. Maybe the bike was just meant to have more personal attention and not get lost among the other photos of completed machines last week. I've included a photo of the matching Silca frame pump that comes with the bike.

   The addition of the Falcon rear derailleur was exactly what was needed on the Atala Grand Prix. The long cage takes up all the chain length that is needed to accommodate the wide range of the 14-28t freewheel. This bike would be perfect for a leisurely ride on some of the area's many rail trails, but it has enough Italian flair that the rider may want to jump onto the tail of one of those club rides that buzz by!

   I've actually had this new, old-stock Olmo Sportsman hanging in my shop for a few months. The perfect 56 cm frameset came from Arvello, Italy, and has never been assembled into a complete bike. In fact, the steering tube hasn't been cut!

   Too many other projects and repair work have been going on for me to devote too much time to this, but I have casually been looking for parts. There was a start of a Campagnolo Record 9-speed group in my stock, but filling in the missing pieces has been a tough job so far.

   I'm still doing some research on this next frameset, a composite Casati Fibra. I've sent notes to Casati dealers in the U.S. and to the Casati factory in Monza, Italy, asking for more information. I don't have a production date for the frame, and I was told by the seller in the Netherlands that this was a limited item only sold specifically to Casati importers.

   The red-painted areas of the frame, such as the head tube and partial sections of the top and down tubes, are aluminum and the rest carbon fiber. The aluminum sections have some interesting shapes that I will have to capture with photos in future blog entries!

   Casati is a highly-respected name in cycling, having been established in 1920 by Pietro Casati, who won the 1913 Tour of Lombardy. His grandsons Luca and Massimo now run the company, but they still produce some of the world's most beautiful hand-built framesets in their workshop.

More to come...

Hey, batting .333 would get you to Cooperstown!

   I fully intended on having sets of photos for three newly-completed bicycles this week, but because of circumstances I couldn’t control, I ended up only having one. I’m disappointed, but as my title states, having that type of lifetime average would put me in baseball’s Hall of Fame (that's legendary Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Feller on the left).

   Let’s start with the delay, namely from the postal service, which is keeping me from finishing the Tommasini. The bike is complete, except for the front derailleur. If you recall, a clamp derailleur was included in the Campagnolo Victory component group I had bought, but I needed a braze-on part. I placed an order last Saturday, and with Priority Mail, I really expected the derailleur to be here by now, but...

   By the way, I heard from the Tommasini factory in Grosseto, Italy (about a two-hour drive south of Florence), and I was spot-on with my 1982 estimate for the bike. I was told that Irio Tommasini himself confirmed the frameset as a Prestige model.

   The Atala Grand Prix is complete, except for a rear derailleur, but the reason for its delay is a little more involved. I was hoping that I could install another Campagnolo derailleur with a traditional drop parallelogram and that the added length of the bolt-on derailleur hanger would help take up some of the slack in the chain. Unfortunately, the derailleur pivots too far forward on the hanger, and the short cage doesn’t provide enough chain wrap.

   There are some vintage long cage derailleurs out there, but of course the Campagnolo parts are expensive. In fact, I’ve seen some listed at near what I had planned as a starting price for the entire bike! That is definitely not what I had in mind.

   Well, as it turns out, the 7-speed Shimano freewheel I installed didn’t really fit well within the 126-millimeter rear spacing of the Atala’s frame. I’ve already put more time (and money) into this project than originally planned, and I didn’t really want to mess with spreading the rear stays (called cold setting) and having to realign the dropouts, so I swapped in a Falcon 5-speed freewheel. Falcon is a British brand dating back to the 1930s, and just out of pure luck, I found an inexpensive, new-old-stock Falcon long cage rear derailleur listed on eBay. I really would prefer a complete “Campy” setup, but I liked the idea of the Falcon brand connection, so I’m going to give that derailleur a shot.

   In the meantime, I attempted to true the rear wheel and “POP”, one of the spokes snapped right above the nipple. Of course, the spoke was on the drive side, which meant I had to remove the freewheel in order to weave the spoke into the hole in the hub, AND the vintage Falcon freewheel required a special tool. I have accumulated quite the collection of freewheel/cassette tools for the various brands out there, and it is a bit of a shock when I don’t have one that will fit!

   The one project that I was able to polish off is the Pinarello Asolo. Considering that this build dates back to January 2018, I was very happy to finally wheel it out of my shop for photos. This is one of the few times I bothered with a shot of the non-drive side, since it actually looks a bit better. I had Bruce mask the drive side chrome chainstay, since a bouncing chain would easily chip off the paint, so the opposite side shows more of the green fade and also a Pinarello decal on the stay (note: I eventually opted for gum wall tires, as they looked classier, and the first photo reflects that change).

CAMPAGNOLO Chorus group, including: CRANKSET- Campagnolo (53/39t, 170mm); BOTTOM BRACKET, DERAILLEURS (both), BRAKES, HEADSET; SHIFT/BRAKE LEVERS- Mirage 8-speed Ergopower; HANDLEBAR- Cinelli Campione del Mondo (42cm) with Cinelli bar tape, STEM- Cinelli 1R pantographed (105mm), SEATPOST- Kalloy (27.2mm), SADDLE- Selle San Marco Ponza, WHEELSET- Campagnolo Mexico 68 rims, Athena hubs, 8-speed cassette and NEW Continental SportContact tires

   I equipped the Asolo with commuter-style pedals that have a clip on one side and flats on the other, and a little beefier road tires. My intent is that this bike will take the place of my Flandria "townie" bike, which I am selling. Friends kind of roll their eyes when I say, "I don't intend to be a collector", but I am honestly making an attempt to keep it under control. I do USE all of my bicycles!
   I'm including photos of the Flandria again in order to spark interest for potential buyers, but also because I changed the setup slightly since posting earlier images. The bike still has the beautiful Shimano 600 "Arabesque" components that feature artistic scrolling , as well as decorative/weight saving "drillium" on the crankset and brake levers.
   However, the original Flandria wheelset didn't hold the bead of modern high-pressure tires very well. In fact, on two occasions the tubes bulged free and exploded - not a very confidence-inducing thought to be in your mind when riding! The wheelset also had bolt-on hubs with large wingnuts, which I liked, but the rear nut could't be completely rotated without knocking on the rear derailleur mount. You actually had to remove the derailleur before changing the wheel - inconvenient to say the least.
   I exchanged the problematic Flandrias with a quality set of Mavic wheels that have ice blue anodized rims that go nicely with the frame. The bike is posted on the For Sale page.
    

   I’m hoping that my next blog entry includes bicycle build photos and very little text involving complications! Did I just curse myself?