Bulgarian Boondoggle

   I don’t think I will be buying any more bicycles from Bulgaria in the near future! After agreeing to a partial refund on the Pinarello Treviso, my not-so-trusty seller disappeared for a few days. When he finally replied to my inquiry regarding his schedule for sending the money, he gave some scattered story about national holidays and then said he would get right on it.

   When at last the funds appeared back in my Paypal account, I started to take some preliminary steps towards putting this bike back in proper condition. I had hesitated to take anything apart until I was sure of the refund and that the bike was staying in my possession. Unfortunately that didn't give me an opportunity to find out if anything else was wrong with the bike – I was sort of stuck!

   Everything was going smoothly until I attempted to take off the drive side cup of the bottom bracket. I’m used to that being a tough job, but the cup moved initially and became difficult from that point on – not a good sign. Sure enough, after wrestling with the removal tool for about five minutes to get the part all the way off, I found damage to the threading. The cup will have to be replaced.

   By the way, with the bottom bracket removed, I found out that the bike is indeed a Treviso when I poked my finger up into the seat tube and found the surface to be “smooth”. It had a nice rusty coating but no rifling to indicate it was anything but Columbus SL tubing appropriate for the Treviso.

   A much more difficult problem proved to be removal of the handlebar stem, because it turned out to be fused with rust to the fork’s steering tube. After searching the web for some possible solutions, many of which did not seem very friendly to the frame, I am starting with trying a multiple-day soak with WD40. I will then try to tap the stem down with a hammer (with a wooden block to protect it, of course) to break free of the rust. I have to be careful not to drive the horizontal part of the stem down into the headset.

   Strange-but-true possible future steps might be trying lime juice, vinegar or cola (Carrick the Coke fan says to use Pepsi). I suppose after that, it would definitely be professional help, again.

   I found an inexpensive, beat up Treviso frame and parts available on craigslist, which I am considering because it has the correct fork and a metal headtube badge, which is missing from mine. If my current stem/fork problem can be solved, I could switch out the parts then resell the rest. However, if the problem cannot be solved, I could use this frame as a replacement, but we’ll see. 

   Another alternative would be just to call this project quits and be done with it. There is plenty of value in the parts of this bicycle, and even if I treated the frame as a throwaway and just resold the components, I would still be able to reclaim nearly all of the money I had originally spent. The wheelset alone, which includes excellent Nisi tubular rims and Campagnolo Super Record hubs, would fetch about 1/3 of the total cost of the Treviso!

   Hoping for the best, I envision setting this bike up to look like a real classic. I would have preferred to keep the original paint, but since this definitely is not, I’m planning on doing a custom paint job. This will involve the process of stripping the existing colors, but I’m certainly not in any kind of rush. Any type of repair work on the dents, and maybe the rusted cable guides on the top tube, will require paint removal anyway.

   Of course my design depends on the condition of the chrome that is under the paint, but I would like to expose as much of the “shiny bits” as possible. The rest of the frame would be in a dark green, with the Pinarello engraved logos filled in white. I would purchase some appropriate Treviso decals from Velocals, a company that I used for the Motobécane repaint project a couple of years ago.

   I was thinking of a brown leather saddle, either a Selle San Marco Rolls, the brand I used on the Colnago, or perhaps their Regal saddle, that has a fantastic old-school look with copper rivets on the back.

   Some leather handlebar tape would look really classy as well, but not the real stuff, which is too expensive. Fizik and Deda make a synthetic product that costs about a third as much and provides a lot more cushioning for the hands than the actual leather wrap.

   Because I have no experience with mounting/gluing tubular tires, and I really wanted it done correctly, I purchased some vintage-look Continental tires with tan sidewalls and took everything over to my friends at Bikesport. I also used that opportunity to get some advice about the small dents in the frame, and they recommended someone they use occasionally for frame repair.

   This was about a week ago, before I attempted to take apart the headset. If I can separate the stem from the fork, I will contact the repair fella and see what can be done to fix the frame.

   I listed the Bianchi on eBay last weekend and already have some bids, and a nice profit. I am awaiting some vintage Colnago handlebar plugs, and that will be the final touch on that project as well. I planned on spacing out the listings of these bicycles a bit anyway, so that I’m not hauling multiple bikes out for packing and shipping all at once.

   Since I have all the parts ready to go, I am hoping that when the Pinarello Prince comes back from the airbrush work, I will be able to put that machine together quickly. My basement rafters are bit crowded right now with eight bicycles hanging down there – three of our own and five waiting to be sold!