CYCLE TECH ROFO: Down in the shop, working and...decorating?

While I haven't exactly been hit by the spring rush, I have had a consistent one or two customer projects hanging around the basement for the past month or so. Most recently, my buddy Johnathan showed up for a "build day" for another of his unique bicycle finds.
This time around it was a bright green 1999 Cannondale Super V 400 mountain bike. Although this might not have been quite as exotic as his Raven MTB that we worked on last October, it also didn't have the structural issues that we had to deal with on that machine!

The major work on the Super V was mainly switching from standard V brake calipers to cable-activated disc brakes. The most finicky, time-consuming process is centering the rotor between the pads and achieving that delicate balance between having no rubbing sound and having a good cable pull to effectively stop the bike. It's amazing that for such a short time I've had hydraulic disc brakes on my Bianchi and everything else now feels "mushy" to me when squeezing levers.

We supposed that it probably isn't as much of a big deal when you aren't doing aggressive downhills, and Johnathan confirmed the bike stopped as well as he would ever need it to during his test ride later that afternoon out on the Schuylkill Trail.

The past few days I've been assessing another customer's project, which involves a swap of the SRAM and Shimano parts from his carbon fiber Ridley Excalibur to a Torelli steel frameset. This retro/modern build is nothing too complicated, other than dealing with some of the basic English- to Italian-type conversion issues. I found out the drivetrain was VERY worn, so some unforeseen replacement parts will be on tap, and I'll share some pix next time around.

A few weeks ago I met a very nice gentleman named Ralph, who had showed some interest in the Lazzaretti bicycle I was building. At the time his son was contemplating a retro/modern build of his own, but the price for this rare frame was a bit out of his range. It turns out Ralph speaks fluent Italian and was able to visit the Lazzaretti shop when he lived just to the northwest of Rome in the town of Lidispoli. For a couple of years he enjoyed riding up and down the Tyrrhenian seacoast or inland to take on the challenging foothills of the Apennines.

Ralph has been very generous, not only with his patience with my occasional attempts to converse by email in Italian (I'm way too slow trying to speak it), but with some of the fantastic things from his collection that he has shared with me! A couple of weeks ago, he shipped me a pile of Italian newspapers to practice reading, and he included a few copies of La Gazzetta dello Sport, the famous pink newspaper that sponsors the Giro d'Italia.

Ralph is downsizing to an apartment, and promised his wife that he would thin out his collection of cycling memorabilia, and he knew exactly who would be a likely recipient! Along with a few magazines and an accumulation of cycling decals, Ralph presented me with a number of flags from the cantrade (urban wards) of Siena. These flags are displayed during il Palio, the famous horse race that happens twice a year in Siena's Piazza del Campo, as each of the city's 17 sections have their own entrant in the contest.

The timing of this gift was perfect, as Strade Bianche was held on March 2, and the race traditionally finishes in the Piazza. The event itself wasn't so exciting, as Tadei Pogacar completely dominated with an amazing, long breakaway, but I was thrilled to think I had my own connection to the festivities near the finish line!

Our basement walls are a rather ugly parging over the stone foundation walls, so some type of covering is quite welcome. However, it is stone, so tacking up posters, etc. isn't really an option, and taping isn't really effective, either. I have to be clever about suspending decorations around the walls, usually involving picture wire and/or rods of some sort. The first one below is actually on the freezer door with magnets!

Civetta (the little owl), represents the area just north of the Piazza, in the center of the city. Traditionally, its residents were shoemakers.

Aquila (a two-headed eagle), is situated to the Piazza's immediate southwest. Folks there were commonly notaries.

Valdimontone (Valley of the Ram), the southeast section of the city, was historically home to tailors.

Later conversations with Ralph revealed he had led quite the interesting life, living in Africa (I think it was Nigeria?) for ten years growing up, eventually marrying an Australian woman and residing "Down Under" for a bit. During his latest visit to my shop, he brought along a bicycle he had purchased in Australia, hoping I could help him out to determine whether it would have some resale value here in the States.

Built with high-quality Reynolds 531 tubing, this early-1980s Abeni touring frameset is remarkably lightweight. Ezio Albeni, from the Rovato section of Brescia, Italy, immigrated to Sydney, Australia, in the mid-1950s. In 1973 he opened his Europa Cycles shop in Kingsford, where he and his son John build custom frames and bicycles.
Ralph had this bicycle built for his wife with an upright bar configuration, but otherwise mostly Campagnolo Super Record parts from the era. Also installed was a Sugino crankset that would allow for smaller chainrings/lower gearing up front. I'm thinking of going back to a full Super Record, drop-bar arrangement, as well as re-applying some appropriate Abeni decals.

As if I hadn't been treated to enough, Ralph also brought along another supply of cycling memorabilia, including a real prize - a 30-foot-long Mapei banner he "acquired" when the race course was being disassembled at the 2015 World Championship in Richmond. Knowing I was a big fan of the Johan Museeuw-led Mapei team of the 1990s, he figured correctly that I would love this item.

In an email exchange the next morning, I noted how funny it was that we both were in attendance of the event, and remembering the excitement when I unraveled the banner, he asked if I had slept wrapped-up in it. After a good laugh I relayed my plans to cut the long sheet in half and create a skirt for my workbench.

Ralph had also brought along a selection of his posters, including one featuring one of my favorites, Giuseppe Saronni (pre-Colnago years), although I suspect Ralph was happy that his hero, Franceso Moser was also in the background:

He certainly didn't miss out on bringing along some of his Moser posters, as there was one with him in his World Championship stripes (maybe shot from the same race above), a "gritty" image from one of his three Paris-Roubaix victories and this framed image:

There was a cool black and white poster of Fausto Coppi, but the real standout for me was the immense billboard advertising the 1979 World Championship in the Netherlands: