Archive for the 'Bike Shop Tales' Category

Small Vid of PreciRay in action.  More step by step usage coming soon.

Snagged this “Wheel Building Machine” at Copake swap meet.  Cleaned up pretty well and is fully functional.  VAR still distributes these machines.

So, you want an accurate hand-held tire pressure gauge for those high pressure tires on your classic bike, but don’t want to chance the wrong mojo that might be conjured up by using some digital read-out thing?  Well, here’s the real deal.  Vintage  Silca tire pressure gauges.  I can envision a pro race mechanic in 1973 with one of these hanging around his neck, having just checked that the tire pressure on Gimondi’s bike was just right!These are new old stock, made in Italy by Silca and the lanyards are either red or blue.  There’s only a few of them, so please call for price and availability.

Spent some time yesterday tweaking the old Raleigh for tomorrow’s Tweed Ride.  She’s a ’73 Super Tourer that’s been “hot rodded” a bit.  Seemed like just the thing for a jaunty roll through DC on a Fall afternoon.  Looks like it will be a beautiful day, after several days of rain.  In fact, 70 degree tempetures are predicted, which is actually warmer than I had hoped because I wanted to wear lots of wool and, well, tweed.

For the ride, the Raleigh got new leather grips, real TA clamps for the bar-mounted bottle cage, and my cool flask and cage I got from Joseph Ahearne .  I think she’s all ready to go.  Now all I have to do is fill the flask with some of that Lagavulin 16 year old that’s here in the shop!

This is a vintage bike project we are working on for a local client.  It’s a 1968 Bottecchia Professional.  The frame was purchased at the Cirque du Cyclisme swap meet back in June.  We are outfitting it with an eclectic mix of vintage components, and a few “modern classic” bits too.  This Bottecchia is meant to be a “rider” not a show bike, and the parts were chosen to best suit the owner and the way he intends to use the bike.  At the same time, parts were chosen to create a bike that still maintains the original vintage spirit, and a bike that might be something like what the original owner had riden and upgraded over time.

As you can see by the size of the frame (63cm), our client is tall, and needs the right complement of components to get proper fit and function.  We’ve chosen a Stronglight 93 crank set (not shown) with 175mm arms, because we can use the desired 52/39 chain ring combination.

We are using a Cinelli 1A stem and 64-42 bars.  Brake levers are Modolo Professional, pulling CLB brake calipers.  Campagnolo Nuovo Record front and rear derailleurs and shifters are installed.  All the components came from our inventory.

Hard to believe that this frame is more than 40 years old!  The fact that it is nickle plated under the paint went a long way toward preserving it.  It has a few “battle scars” that needed to be touched-up, but nothing that will detract from the overall character and image of the bike.  The chrome still shines, the decals are intact, and the paint still gleams with a good cleaning and a simple coat of wax.

We’ll post more pictures of the finished project, and then go for a ride with the owner!

Cheers!

Make Sweat not Smoke – Pedal Power – Gas is Dead – Don’t be an Engery Pig – Ride On!

What better to do on a rainy Saturday at Velo Classique than to dig through yet another box of strange and interesting stuff.  Today’s discovery was a cool collection of bicycle patches from a era not too long ago.   It was probably about 1973, in the height of the bike boom when these patches were made.  Interesting that they are somehow pretty relevant now.

Was sitting around Velo Classique this morning and ran across a small sampling of some great vintage bicycle stickers.  We will eventually sell these but give us some time to sort them out.

Vintage Bicycle Stickers - A small Sample!

Welcome to the Velo Classique – Bicycle Emporium Blog.

We hope to make this blog a place to share a wide array of information pertaining to Vintage Lightweight Bicycles and the artisans that continue the classic tradition of bicycle craft.