Hope all had a good New Year and that adequate libations were ingested and that ALL rode their bikes on NYD just because you had to.
Anyways, likes I wuz sayin’ about those lovely bikes in Fritz collection, another very rare piece is a 1983 Pinarello Prestige we had ordered for a special customer. Our fortunate working relationship with Pinarello allowed us to bring in this lovely custom geometry (try that now) example with a Campag 50th group, resplendent with 24K gold plated forks and stays and jet black paint.
Some of the original parts have been changed but it was great to see it emerge in this collection. Giovanni Pinarello was always so accommodating and the bike came exactly as ordered and flawlessly finished. It would have been one of the earlier bikes painted in his then new factory. Until then the top frames were painted at his brother’s house in a farm area outside Treviso. Only visited there once but it was so interesting to see such nice work coming out of such simple, almost garage/barn type facility.
Of all the bikes we sold at my old shop the one that remains (to my mind at least) the absolute coolest was a very special Colnago. I had a chance in 1980 to acquire three of the team bikes he built for the Boule D’Or team he was sponsoring at the time. While two of them were simply just very nice Supers (with Mexico labeling) the third was built for Mr Paris-Roubaix himself, Roger De Vlaeminck. I can tell you when we got that bike everyone in the shop wanted it…but nobody rode a 57, either too big or to small.
Through the late Sixties and early Seventies RdV was probably about the coolest guy in the pro peleton. While his nearly 300 victories weren’t in the crazy Merckx league, they would thrash anyone’s total in today’s pro circuit. The ‘Gypsy of Eeklo’ seemed to float over those treacherous cobbles that brought down countless others. As well as being a great Classics rider, he also was competitive in the major tours with numerous stage wins and points jerseys.
I apologize because this photo could have been better but you can see the the foil decal on the chain stay that denotes Mexico but in fact the bikes were Supers with cast bottom brackets as per Mexicos of the time. In the photo below you can observe the RdV stamped into the dropouts (they appear in the rear as well). The builder had selected the components for the frame so as to be a perfect as possible for their star rider. I love this sort of detail and as a bit of an advert for my current Cunningham frames I’m happy to say that every part of every frame is as close to perfect as I can see…and I’m pretty picky. In fact after assembling hundreds of these wonderful, (now)classic bikes I can tell you the alignment of these newer units is even better than these older frames.
How cool is this?
I must say had I the op to buy it today, wrong size or not, I’d get it. Hindsight huh?
I’ll do one more little installment vis-a-vis the classic thing here and it’ll be largely about the man/bike I consider the absolute pinnacle of bicycle passion, design, beauty and performance (of the day).
Until then: go riding.