Archiv der Kategorie: Radprojekte

Räder an denen ich gerade bastele, die aber nicht für mich bestimmt sind. Erst einmal.

Bottecchia Sprinter 1991

Ein Bottecchia in voller Neonblüte im Garten

Ein Bottecchia in voller Neonblüte im Garten

Vor ein paar Wochen habe ich auf Ebay relativ günstig diesen Neo-, oder besser Neonklassiker von Bottecchia erstanden. Das Wort „relativ günstig“ darf auf diesem Blog und in diesem Zusammenhang nur gebraucht werden, wenn es sich um einen zweistelligen Eurobetrag handelt. Ich mag solche Projekte, also Räder für wenig Geld kaufen und dann für wenig Geld in Schuß bringen. Man darf nicht durchdrehen und Veloflex Reifen in Frankreich bestellen weil sie farblich so schön passen, oder die vorhandenen Dura Ace Teile verbauen. Es ist eine Übung in Geduld, nämlich mit wenig Geld etwas schönes zu bauen. Nur … was mache ich jetzt aus dieser Kiste. Neu lackieren?

Zu den Details: Ein Bottecchia Modell Sprinter, nach Shimano Produktionscode von 1991, relativ gut erhalten. Ich vermute einmal, dass dies ein Einstiegsmodell von Bottecchia war und noch mit den Orginalkomponenten ausgestattet ist. Dsa sieht man ja auch schon an dem Lenkerband, das farblich genau auf den Rahmen abgestimmt ist.

Neonlenkerband mit graduellem Übergang von Lila zu Gelb.

Neonlenkerband mit graduellem Übergang von Lila zu Gelb.

Die meisten Komponenten an dem Rad sind von der Shimano 105 Gruppe, genauer gesagt Shimano 105SC. So also die Naben vorne und hinten, sowie die Bremsen und die Kurbel. Die 105SC ist eine sehr vernünftige Gruppe: Sieht OK aus, funktioniert gut und ist noch günstig zu haben.
Die Bremsgriffe sind allerdings von Modolo, Modell America? und die komplette Schaltgruppe ist von Suntour, Blaze, 2 x 7-fach.

 

 Na ja, SunTour. Einerseits haben die wirklich ein paar sehr schön anzusehende Teile gebaut, wie z.B. das Cyclone  Mk II Schaltwerk von 1981, dass sich noch in einem meiner Schatzkästchen befindet und darauf wartet verbaut zu werden. Andererseits gibt es aber auch eine Menge mittelmässigen und schlecht kreierten Schund von dieser Firma. Und dann der Name … also wirklich. Schön übrigens, wie der Swichennippel als Endkappe am Schaltungsseil hier verbaut wurde. Stilvoller wäre natürlich ein gelb eloxierter Speichennippel.

Soweit zu den Hauptkomponenten. Also, ich finde jedenfalls dass dies die Komponenten sind, die einem Rad ihren Charakter verleihen. Dann gibt es noch die Nebenkomponenten, in diesem Fall ein Lenker von „Cosmos“, einer Marke von der ich noch nie gehört habe, ein Miche Steuersatz, ein noch unbekanntes Tretlager, ein unbekannter Vorbau, eine Selcof Sattelstütze und, als Highlights gut erhaltene Wolber GTX 2 Felgen:

Wolber GTX 2 Drahtreifenfelgen

Wolber GTX 2 Drahtreifenfelgen

Fast schon zu gut für diesesRad, also vielleicht werden diese dann woanders verbaut? Ich habe da gerade so eine Baustelle an einem Kotter…..

Und ein weiteres Highlight, recht interessante Riemenpedalen von Maillard, Typ Atom CXC.

Die häßlichen Reflektoren müssen natürlich ab …. viel zu schwer, da geht ja die Leistung in den Keller. Na ja, und ich und Maillard – die habe ich alle recht schnell kaputt bekommen, also besser nicht zuviel mit diesen Dingern fahren.

Was ich aber am meisten überhaupt an Bottecchia mag ist der Headbadge am Steuerkopf. Wow, dieses neo-klassizisische Italo-Fascho Design Logo aus den Dreissigern ….

 

 Fast so schön wie das Chesini Logo. Oder das runde M von Moser.

Alos, was nun aus dem ganzen machen für wenig Geld. Ach so, der Rahmen ist mir übrigens zu klein, für mich selber wird das nichts.

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Eingeordnet unter 2012, Bottecchia Sprinter 1991

Lilac Angel for Larissa

Over the last three weeks I assembled this bike for the girlfriend of a cycling buddy in Bremen. He wanted his girlfriend to start riding and she asked for something that looks good and suits her personal taste.

Tobi (the guy) was able to buy an old OLMO Speedy Gonzales dated from 1990 or 91 with a complete Shimano 105 7-speed setup for less than 20.000 Yen. It took me two weeks to deassemble the whole bike, grease all parts, spot-repair some rusty patches and scratches, grease, lubricate and adjust headset and bottom bracket as part 1 of this project.

Larissa wanted to have some combination with black and lilac as the dominant colors and chrome and white in the back. As they are still young and work in poorly paid jobs (hospital, kindergarten) they didn’t wanted to spend too much money. As opposed to professors working in poorly regarded academic institutions that regularly poor thousands of Euros into the garage equivalent of Greece.

We decided on the main components and technical specs and we purchased the necessary spare parts such as chain, cabling, handle bar tape, brake pads, new saddle, Look pedals and new Schwalbe Ultremo tires. In the end we spend less than 35.000 Yen in total on this bike which was somewhat within the budget.

I think the result is a good looking, feminine bike with a sensible design. The main color is black with lilac cables, saddle and tires outlining the contours of the bike. White is the second colour within the triangle of the upper, lower and saddle tube. Design wise everything fits together.

From a technical point of view the bike is now in good shape and the Shimano 105 components work very well. Shifting is smooth and the braking is now super-aggressive. During the project I found out that the outer chain ring had to be exchanged but I was able to buy a NOS Shimano one from the Eighties as replacement.

As the original components were used there were hardly any compatibility issues. Only the truing of the rear wheel took quite along time in order to get the right mix of tension, torsion and trueness in both directions.

If there is one thing I love and hat it is the glossy black handlebar. It looks very good and very sexy – the combination with black leather would be perfect. However it is a pain to wrap the handle bar with this tape from Fizik and I would recommend to use it only with „pure“ handlebars, in other words, don’t try to wrap brake or shift cables with it.

Larissa was happy when she picked it up on Sunday and so was her boyfriend. I had fun doing the consulting and assembly. Having done previously the Pescarolo and the Kotter, this has been the third bike I assembled for someone else. This will never become a work to earn a living, however the combination of doing something with my hands and making people happy is a quite satisfying one.

More pics are here.

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Eingeordnet unter 2012, Mob, Olmo Larissa

Pescarolo: A former 問題児 fixed again

Another bike project ready to be ridden: The Pescarolo. I bought this one by mistake last winter and parked it at my parents house for occasional rides. Finally I had the time to fix it.


Henri Pescarolo is the name of a French racer.You never heard of him? Well, that is because he used to be a car racer – attending 24 hours of LeMans a record 33 times – and not a bicycle racer. For some reason a bike in the early nineties was named after him. And for some other reasons I thought that this would be a fabulous Italian steel bike. 


Well after having now some experience with bikes I have to confess that this isn’t a very good bike. Well it is size 54 cm which doesn’t fit me at all. The frame is made out of Vitus 999 tubing, quality wise two notches up the standard of water pipes (say: Reynolds 501 or Columbus Aelle). Non butted, plain gauge. So the bike is pretty heavy with 11.1 kg.  The components are mostly Shimano Exage 300; this is the Nineties equivalent to Sora and Tiagra. From the stamping one can see that the bike was built in 1991. But I like the Biopace chain rings, as I had them on my first Panasonic racing bike and also the old, shining Alesa 913 rims are good looking things. The handle bar is from a now defunct German company called Friko. 


I completely de-assembled the bike with the exception of the headset and the bottom bracket as they were still in good shape, in order to clean the frame. That was one messy and filthy piece of heavy steel and it took me quite some time and massive amounts of brake cleaner to get the job done. The amount of brake cleaner used today has destroyed more of the ozone layers I would guess, that one can ever use this bike to make up for automotive traffic. Never mind. However, below all the filth was rust and it wasn’t possible to get rid of that, neither to repaint the frame, so I left it as it was. Now I think that it has some nice patina which resembles the general state of affairs in the city of Bremen.



I then started working on a new handle bar tape (I ran out of orange bar tapes), new brake and shift wires (Jagwire) and replaced the aging brake pads with good Shimano new ones. 
I worked on the drive system and spend another spray can trying to clean the chain but it was impossible. In the end I threw it away and bought a new one. Then I worked on the drive system.



After cleaning the rims and greasing the bearings and trueing, I assembled everything without tires and started to adjust brakes and derailleurs. To give the bike some nice and individual touch, I added red end caps to all wires and one red chain ring screw. 



I had to make some additional purchases at Stadler bike shop in Bremen so I drove there and discovered some cheap tires and a cheap chain or replacement. I also found some nice toe clip straps, originally I had planned to use simple and plain platform pedals, but the original Shimano 600 pedals were still in good shape and with new white straps they look well.


After more cleaning and adjustments the bike was ready at 6 PM today and after making a short test ride, I invited my son to ride around the block.



Both of us are very pleased with the result. Henri however prefers his Giant bike with rapid fire shifters, mainly because he isn’t used to use downtube shifters. I told him how to shift but he cannot remove his right hand from the handle bar for fear of falling, so he tried to shift the rear derailleur by using his left hand – which looked incredibly dangerous.



Today I had thousand more important things to do than to fix this bike. I also spend about 90 Euro on the original bike purchase plus another 90 Euro on components plus about 8 hours of time and it is rather unlikely that somebody will buy the bike for more than a 100 Euro in Bremen. But I immensely enjoyed the day, concentrating only on one task, working with my hands and my brain and having a perfect result of a day’s work ready in the evening. Within half a year Iearned all this bike mechanic stuff and that is much more than I expected.



If you want to buy it: 200 Euro may be much but you will get a very solid bike with all consumables newly installed. There are also fixation points at the rear and in the front for mudguards, so the bike will bring you through bad weather as well.


It’s now a nice bike. But with two Olmos coming back from the paintshop soon, I need some space in the garage to built up the next projects.

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Eingeordnet unter 2011, Bremen, Meine Räder, Mob, Pescarolo

Moser Leader AX Frame

Ah, a Francesco Moser bike…..
Moser Leader AX Evolution Frame Size 56 cm. A typical Italian engineered product: Beautiful design, top notch engineering and some miserable details: integrated quil-stem for teh saddle post.

 „Unifork“ , according to Hiroshi this qualifies the bike from selling in Japan. But…

… the fork is open at the drop-outs. I guess this is due to weight savings? Or just sloppy craftmanship?
Of course, a bike like this must be equipped with Campagnolo components. Old Athena head set.
This is a used frame and it has some wounds.
Dedacciai tubing. „Modern“ steel technology. Forget Columbus, Reynolds or Oria.
The integrated seat post design. Looks alomst like an aluminium frame.
Some work to be done.
But generally the frame is in good conditions. Although perhaps not good enough for Japan.
Wishbone type brake bracket.
A wonderful frame indeed and I would really love to built it into a complete new bike with modern components. But the frame size is just too small.
I came out of the garage (aka as area 51) yesterday and just by chance my wife as arrived with the family car. She noted the Project Galibier and said „Oh, another bike, is this not your third one?“ It was a classical situation, first I wanted to mutter somethinga long the lines „Well, it isn’t like it looks like, please let me explain….“ But then I realised that my wife has missed purchase of #3, #4, #5 and #6 so I could answer with gusto: „No, this is not my third bike!“.
Anyway, there is hardly place in the garage left.

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Eingeordnet unter 2011, Bremen, Mob, Moser Leader AX

New Parts

I just love the moment when I come home from works and a new parcel with some bicycle parts has arrived at my home during my absence.

This is part of the new handle assembly for my Peugeot Galibier. It will replace the current bullhorn handle bar. I am just waiting for the stem, so that I can replace the whole unit. I will keep the bullhorn with levers and cabling so it will be relatively easy to swop both assemblies. I just love the Tektro brake levers for its simplistic, light design.

New wheels. My Campa Zonda rims have been reduced to less than 1 mm width due to extensive braking in the mountains of Bremen. I was looking for something very light and a reasonable price that would be a match for my (body) weight. These wheels are advertised by Nelson Vails, so they should be just fine.

This one is not for me. Unfortunately. And with frame size 52 cm it is too small for me anyway. But I mange to buy this blue Chesini Criterium frame from 1996 for Hiroshi of C Speed who will covert it into something even more beautiful, I am sure of. Europe is a heaven of old steel bike frames.

I just love the headbadges of Italian bikes. My favourites are Bottecchia, Olmo, CIOCC and Chesini. The Chesini headbadge consists of a metal badge glued to the steering tube and a rather rough engraving with white paint above and below.

There is a bike show in Bremen on March 12 and 13th with a special exhibition about Italian classic steel bikes. I will send some photos later.

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Eingeordnet unter 2011, Bits&Pieces, Chesini Criterium, Moser Leader AX, Uncategorized