VitusVision!

   I belong to a Facebook group that often comments on classic films, and a few days ago the topic of VistaVision came up. The widescreen film process developed by Paramount Pictures engineers debuted in 1954 with White Christmas, which is certainly a holiday favorite of mine, but I prefer the screen magic of Cary Grant in To Catch A Thief (1955) or Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)!

   Because this week's blog entry focuses on images of two recently completed and related bicycle projects, I'm introducing...

   The first feature, from 1988, is a silver 979 Duralinox Mk II, distinguishable by the grub screw at the seat post collar, instead of a traditional clamp-style lug on the Mk I.

   This 979 was built for my friend Arol in New Hampshire, who asked for a Mavic groupset at a reasonable price, and I did the best I could. Based on my past experience with searching for a couple of the group's rare and costly parts, I ended up subbing in brake levers (Dia-Compe) and shift levers (Simplex) that had been used as prototypes by the Mavic design team.

   Some blue accents with bar tape and cable housing match up well with the Vitus logos:

   The second feature, from 1985, is a red 979 Duralinox Mk I that has a Shimano 600 Ultegra (Tricolor) groupset and Cinelli cockpit, most of the parts coming from its silver brother, after Arol contacted me about changing that bike to a Mavic components. The remainder of the group came from the Saronni bicycle, for as you know, I just can't abide by Shimano parts on a Colnago!
   This Vitus bicycle is currently for sale.

 

   All parts have arrived to complete Brendan's Tommasini, so I will have photos of that next time, as well as further details about the modernization build of my new friend Lenny's DeRosa bicycle.

Piste Résistance

   If you don't live in an urban area, you may not be aware of the current trend of single-speed bicycles use. Connoisseurs might prefer to use the words piste (French) or pista (Italian), which mean "track", referring to the traditional location for riding these types of bikes.
   Some of the braver single-speed cyclists will go the authentic route of a fixed gear (no coasting!) and no brakes, which requires the rider to gradually slow his or her cadence in order to come to a stop - or lock up the wheels and skid, if possible. Other folks (the wiser ones, in my opinion) will add handlebar brakes for safety and maybe use a single cog with a freewheel.
   One of the bicycle projects handed to me by my friend Brendan was a single-speed conversion of a 1989 Bottecchia ADR Team bicycle. This bicycle model replicated the machines used by Greg Lemond's team when he achieved his famous 8-second victory in that season's Tour de France. The setup on this bike would be "for safety sake"!
   I had been tinkering with the Bottecchia intermittently in between other projects and as parts arrived in the mail. The frame's paint needed a little bit of attention as well, and I had luck matching up the neon yellow areas that had significant issues, like the edges of the bottom bracket shell (photo below).

   Unfortunately, the iridescent purple was nearly impossible to replicate. I did my best, even mixing some red and blue metal flake enamels to at least camouflage some of the worst areas under the top tube where sweat created some paint bubbling to the original finish. I had mentioned in an earlier post how I used a product called Metal Rescue to remove the rust, and it's always better to have the bare metal areas covered to protect the frame.

Hey, I can't always show only my successful results!

   I was made aware early in the assembly of the bicycle that it was fortunate the Bottecchia frame had short horizontal dropouts so that I could manually adjust the chain tension by by simply pulling back the rear wheel to the proper position. With the wheel centered, I then set the dropout adjustment bolts on each side in the right spot for future reference (see close-up below).

   Traditional track bikes have a fork end (see diagram below) to similarly adjust the chain tension by bolting the rear wheel in place in the correct position. Some folks with bikes that have long horizontal fork ends like to mount a chain-tensioning device like the one featured in the second photo below.

   If you have a bicycle with vertical or semi-vertical dropouts, a chain-tensioner similar to the one below will be necessary to eliminate any slack and keep the chain from accidentally jumping off of the cog or chainring.

   With the previously described drivetrain issues avoided, the only major difficulty assembling the bicycle was feeding the brake cable/housing through the top tube. With a carbon fiber or aluminum bicycle this process is fairly simple, since you can guide a cable with a magnet. Unfortunately this doesn't work as well with a steel frame as everything becomes magnetized and the cable will wander from its intended direction.
   After a quick internet search, I discovered a clever solution using a shop vac and a string. I simply sucked the string through from one cable port to the next, then taped a cable to one end of the string and pulled it through. I then used the cable as a guide for the housing when I pushed that through, and I just had to use a small metal pick to slightly pry the housing end upwards through the frame at the exit point.

I'll finish off this week's entry with some photos of the competed bicycle:

 

Gee, It's (FINALLY) a Gios!

   It’s hard to believe it has been six months since I started this Gios-Torino Super Record project, and in a way, it feels like the process has completely coincided with the start and end of the winter! Well, spring has definitely arrived in the last couple weeks, with a few of those days feeling more like we skipped directly into summer. I’m not really complaining, except that maybe it was a little rough riding in the 90-degree temps without having any time for my body to adjust to the conditions.

   A big part of the delay in polishing off the Gios was out of my control, as acquiring a few of the late ‘70s parts was incredibly difficult, especially if I didn’t want to pay a fortune for them. The most challenging of parts to find was an appropriate bottom bracket. The search was made doubly difficult because at the same time I was attempting to find a similar part to finish my friend Brendan’s Tommasini.

   Just when I finally found a bottom bracket for the Gios, I realized I forgot to find downtube shift levers. If you recall, I had bought the bulk of the Super Record group with the Peugeot, and it had slipped my mind that the PX 10/E had Simplex levers, and I had never purchased a replacement for those parts.

   A couple weeks later, I had a pair of Super Record levers to install, and I was able to roll out the Italian classic for some photos:

   I have finally purchased everything for Brendan’s two projects, and I have been piecing the two bikes together gradually as I await the last couple of parts to arrive in the mail. It’s been a bit awkward in my shop lately, as I’ve been constantly shifting bicycle positions in my rafters as I’ve been working on them, and I fully realized that at this moment I have too many builds going on all at once!

   The current process hasn’t run quite as smoothly as Cinquebicicambio , but it is inching closer to completion anyway. I started with the Vitus 979 from Brendan, which had a base of Shimano 600 parts, and I had intended to complete that group with the 600 crankset from the “donor” Saronni. My new friend Arol intercepted that build with a Mavic parts plan, which is not a problem, except for a further accumulation of parts to sort through and decide which are suitable for future use and which will be sold.

   I actually found a very inexpensive red Vitus 979 frameset recently on eBay, and I am simply going to put the Shimano parts right onto that, keeping in the general line of my original build plan. A quick search on eBay netted a headset and pair of wheels to complete the 600 group, as I had originally hoped the Shimano mix on the Saronni might help fill in the gaps, but found it had a 105 headset and a disappointingly inferior wheelset built from Sun rims and Origin 8 hubs.

   I few weeks ago I received a message from a gentleman named Lenny, who had seen some of my craigslist-ings and was very generous with his comments about my work. Through many incredible stories he shared, I learned Lenny is in his 70s, has led a very interesting life and is a bit of a globe-trotter. He has an incredible collection of bicycles, including a DeRosa that he wants to update with more modern components. I have a Campagnolo Centaur group that I received on-the-cheap, including a nice set of the company’s Nucleon wheels, and this sparked his interest. Through email exchanges, we came up with the idea of a work/parts swap for the Super Record components that are currently on the DeRosa.

   Although he lives outside of Boston, Lenny wasn’t too keen on shipping the bike back and forth. He has preliminary plans of a visit to the Philadelphia area, with the hope that he can drop of the DeRosa in Royersford, and I can take care of the work while he is off exploring.

   On a recent sunny day, I actually got to devote some time to yet another project, my own Pinarello Asolo, which had been purchased already stripped of its paint, but the frame needed some cleanup/prep work before I add color of my own. My second attempt at the pseudo-cromovelato giallo (yellow) will involve a chrome-like finish I used many years ago on the lugs of a Motobécane re-paint job. A base of glossy black will be applied, followed by a coat of Dupli-Color chrome and then the Metalcast yellow tint on top.

   I had been going back and forth in my mind about the Pinarello decals that I want to put on the frame. Although I like the black decals I had applied to the Coppi, I think I am going to go a different route this time around. I’ve seen yellow cromovelato Battaglin and Razesa bikes, as well as the copper Wilier Triestina, all with simple white logos, and I think it looks really classy.

The look I'm hoping to achieve with the Pinarello

   Believe it or not, I have a couple other projects in-the-works, but I have so much on my plate right now, I’m going to hold off on getting into discussing those for a little while.

More Mavic Mania

   As discussed in the past in this blog, I have a particular affinity for Mavic parts. The French company, whose name is an acronym for Manufacture d’Articles Velocipediques Idoux et Chanel (Charles Idoux and Lucien Chanel were the founders), has provided neutral support in pro races since the early 1970s, and their yellow and black cars/motorcycles can be seen anytime you watch the big events.

   Their product line has expanded again to include clothing, shoes, pedals and helmets, but there was a time when Mavic made all types of components. The company introduced a “tout Mavic” concept in 1979, in which a frame could be built up completely with brand components: brakes, levers, crankset, pedals, derailleurs, shifters, as well as bottom bracket, headset, seatpost, stem, bars, and of course, their legendary wheelsets. The wonderful aspect about Mavic components is that they could all be completely disassembled, and small parts could be replaced.

   During the late 1980s-early ‘90s, when the battle between Shimano and Campagnolo really stepped up, many respectable component companies such as Simplex, Sachs and SunTour disappeared. On the heels of brilliant ideas gone wrong, first with the electronic shifting system called “Zap”, then a completely wireless system known as “Mektronic”, Mavic's design team decided to take a step back and focus on wheels only.

   The original mechanical Mavic parts are still wonderfully reliable products, and cyclists like me with a vintage preference just don’t let them go easily. Those components are getting harder and harder to find and, of course, are becoming more expensive when you do find them.

   I was excited to see the wonderful condition of the Mavic group purchased for the Vitus 979 I’m putting together. A few of the parts seem to have not even been used, or at least were very well-cared-for. My friend Brendan recently expressed an interest in changing the Super Record group to Mavic on the Sean Kelly KAS replica I built for him a couple of years ago, so a few of the parts I won’t be using for Arol's build have already been claimed.

   An interesting inclusion in the group was a set of Sachs 8-speed combination shifter/brake levers (photo above) that are almost exact copies of the original Campagnolo Ergo levers. Without the Sachs logo on the handle and the embossed hoods, one really wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Arol’s preference for French parts will push these levers out of the picture, so I’m attempting to find Mavic 820 downtube levers (below) or perhaps the Simplex SLJ versions, which Mavic had copied. I eventually did a similar substitution on my own Vitus 992.

   Mentioned last week, we had decided to go the copycat route (compare the two brands below) with the Dia-Compe BRS 550 brake levers, and I was quite happy to find the logos could be removed easily with some fine steel wool. In fact, the black printing came off with such little effort, I can’t imagine it would have stood up very long to the constant use by sweaty fingers. 

   By the way, the bars that were included with the Mavic group had horrendous purple and teal splash bar tape wrapped around them. Now, I know you’ve heard me rant about this junk before, but if you have a nice bike and have this abomination to cycling on it, go out RIGHT NOW and change it! Something that matches the color of the paint or the logos, or maybe a contrasting color...ANYTHING will look better, believe me.

   Really, you have an expensive, flashy machine or (cycle-gods forbid) a vintage ride, and you want to accent it with “clown vomit” bar tape (to paraphrase my son Carrick). It’s like topping off the best filet mignon with ketchup – and Acme store brand, not even Heinz!

   There are many respectable companies that put out nice bar tape products, and the ones that manufacture trash like this are not included among them. If you are looking at any of the photos below and are saying to yourself, “Now what’s so bad about that?”, I bet you are a person who sees a Monet painting or a Bernini sculpture and think, “What’s the big deal with him?”

   Anyway, during my bi-weekly eBay searches, I’ve seen a few excellent bicycles with head-shaking handlebar decisions. I thought I’d sign off by sharing a few examples: