-holiday76

well, i've only got a px10 out of the group (that I paid $50 or so for and havent ridden yet) so I can't really comment much. That said I'd love to own any of them given the right opportunity. I just cant justify the prices they seem to be selling for. Guess that proves your point..

Road Fan

Interesting about the bottom bracket height! My Woodrup also has a very high BB. Could that have been a trend in British road bikes back then?

divineAndbright

px-10.. I agree they arent lookers, but If I came across one for the right price I am sure I'd pick it up!

Colnago.. Yep yep, I had an early 90s one, wasnt impressed with it, the only nice thing I can say about it was I liked the chrome head tube lugs, luckily I got it super cheap.. I also like the whole why spend 600 dollars on a name when you can spend 60 on something that rides just as nice?

Paramount.. never had one, never even saw one, I secretly lust for one though (just a little bit), its "the other american bike", actually I would prefer a Volare. Hearing about the dead ride really turns me off now though, thats my biggest peeve for ride quality.

cudak888 

It depends how much you weigh. I hover around 215-230, and find them fine - someone 190 or less would probably beg to differ.

-Kurt

kalifornsky

Glad I have an `83 Paramount

Picchio Special

There was more than one bad one - there was a period where Colnago expanded too fast and lost the handle on quality control. While they're good bikes, they're not as good as their reputation or the prices they bring - there's nothing really special or distinctive about them. This is especially true of the late-70's to mid 80's bikes prior to the introduction of the Master, and the mid-level bikes from the mid 80's on (exceptions exist, but most are factory production bikes). Again, good riders and reasonably attractive, but some of the early and mid-80's bikes (the Sarroni red ones in particular) don't warrant the prices paid for them (those mylar chainstay protectors and taped dropout junctions - yuck). Definitely belong on the overrated list, IMO (and I'm a Colnago fan generally and have owned four).
Quick edit to say if you start looking at Supers beginning in 1971 and then observe what happens to that model in particular, the steady decline is pretty obvious, especially once the Super starts sliding down the model food chain into afterthoughtdom.

dbakl

I'd suggest that's a 71 with the hot dog "international" on the top tube. Bought one in college about 73 for 200., exactly like that brown one. It was a "good" one.

Huh? The British were making "Paramount" looking frames long before Schwinn switched from the "oldstyle" Paramounts to the Nervex lugged versions. Remember, Nervex lugs were the hot number from the late 50s until the early 70s: many, many makers used them. The slash cut seat stay or wraparound was a British and French feature for decades before the Paramount took that up.

I've posted it before.. all chrome 72 with a triple, this site doesn't allow me to post pics anymore for some reason.

treebound 

(sniff, sniff, sobber, drool, mopey face, bummed, ... )
Looks like I'll have to dust off my Master Light and put it up for sale and then start shopping around for a Basso, or some other obscure underrated underappreciated well made bike. I can use the left over money from selling the Colnago to buy a cabin by a lake in the woods and fish my sorrows away. I wonder if my 8 speed Shimano 600 group on it will kill the value any, probably have to just trade it straight across for a Cinelli or Ciocc or Robin Hood or something.

dbakl

I don't know, when I started riding in the early 70s the Colnagos certainly looked nice compared to the either older stuff or production stuff we rode. Usually it was the kick-ass riders that had a Colnago, or a Pogliagi, or a Galmozzi...

I think for pure performance the Italians certainly knew what they were doing.

sailorbenjamin

Krates would be #2.

RobbieTunes

I've got no problem with your list.

I don't know about bikes, but I know what I like....

...or ws that art?

USAZorro

Hey there. I have a PX-10, only it was made in Japan, and has great chrome and is well brazed. Nah, the lugs aren't thinned, but it rides like a dream.

oh. Wait. It says Fuji - The Finest on it. Sure looked like a PX-10 from across the room though.

I see someone has offered a 1975 Finest on CR for $1550. That's wishful thinking.

Quite strange that my list would be entirely different from yours - not because I disagree with your assessment of the bikes, but because of the sales figures typically attained.

I'm tempted to throw one that I actually own on my list. I'll have to give this some thought.

dbakl

Sorry, its my Paramount. Musta been a custom order. I think its 12.5", which is like track bike... on a touring frame.

RobbieTunes

Ship it to me and cheer up.

Picchio Special

They were nice in the early 70's - that was when they established the reputation Ernesto nearly killed when he expanded production too fast.
Look what happened with Supers from '71 on, as the attention to detail gets less and less (lugs not as well finished and thinned, fewer cutouts - though those were crude anyway). Having said that, Colnago seemed to know what he was doing when it came to designing a contemporary race bike - probably one reason Eddy worked with Colnago and rode his frames. Colnago was ahead of Masi in this regard, IMO. I believe he contributed to the trend toward smaller, stiffer frames (with correspondingly smaller seatposts) starting in the 1960's.
(No one on this list will accuse me of being an Italian bike hater.)

Picchio Special

I think the Master was the design that got Colnago on the way to reclaiming its mojo - they certainly got the paint and graphics thing sorted during the 80's.

lotek 

Kurt,
Somehow I get the idea that you're confusing fit and finish with ride quality.
Most pro's (and lets face it this is where the ride quality really counts) couldn't care less
if the lugs were thinned or not, had file marks or had paint that was going to peel in a year
(they'd have a new frame). To the pro's and the framebuilders the frames/bikes were tools
to be used for one purpose, and that wasn't toodling around Coral Gables.

Marty

dbakl

Hey, I'm still riding mainly on my '84 Cinelli, which most people will concur is a piece of sheet, but I still enjoy it, and always have.

But man, when I rebuild a wheel for my '63 Carlton, man that is a sweet riding bike, but way different than the Cinelli.

cudak888 

On the contrary - I think you'll see that the list is considerably biased towards fit and finish for most of them, while ride quality takes a back seat.

I could conceivably make a list called the Top 5 Overrated C&V Ride Qualities, and I can guarantee you that the list would be significantly different. Colnago would probably be axed entirely from the list, the Trek 720 would take position #1, and Merckx would probably end up in there as well. I'd probably put the Paramount at #5, only because the ride quality is of such a specific character that would suggest a far more limited appeal then their present demand. (In other words, I suspect lots of folks are buying them who might change their mind about the ride quality if they would only bother to try something else).

The only problem is that I can't think of the rest - there are far more unappreciated frames out there with outstanding ride qualities then there are highly sought-after machines with terrible ride qualities. Come to think of it though, I've always wanted to try out a Rene Herse or Alex Singer. I didn't put them in the list due to the fact that I've never seen one in person, let alone ridden one, yet I'm almost certainly expecting disappointment. No touring bike with a $10,000+ price tag can have a ride equal to that price that something equally nice in fit and finish could match.

Well, you've described my Basso quite well - somewhat sloppy, marginal thinning, file marks present in cases, terrible paint and chrome; but it rides as if were a bullet straight out of James Bond's Walther PPK. I'd liken it to a Colnago, and as Otis pointed out, they have a great, lively feeling when going uphill.


I can't say my testing ground gives me good data for grades, but it has, so far, been quite adequate for virtually anything else. I have long, fast straights, shallow and tight curves, smooth roads, and the infamous Country Club-Prado which is about as close to an oval-track gravel road (granted, it is paved, but very rough) that one will find within 25-30 miles.

-Kurt

treebound 

Nah, that's alright, I'll get over it, probably the next time I ride it. -)

T-Mar

I'd probably put the PX-10 at the top of that list. Besides all the other facts mentioned, it has components that are mid-range at best. Let's face it, the rear derailleur and brakes are not much better than those found on the UO8. Of course that worked in the dealer's favour when selling a UO8, that looked virtually identical to the PX10 to a boom era newbie, and the advertising still showed Merckx on a Peugeot.

I also don't like the handling. It, was always too flexy, probably due to the smaller diameter metric tubes.

As Jim stated, Peugeot sold a lot of PX10 because of their racing success. However, I think more important was the price and weight. It was the least expensive top of the line bicycle you could buy, courtesy of those components. It was also advertised as the lightest, again courtesy of the components. In terms of dollars per pound, it was the clear winner of the boom period. Just ignore the so-so components, poor workmanship, flexy ride...

caterham

kurt, your list is spot on,imo.
if only you could expand it to include a 6th marque- us masi.
based on the frames that i've seen and ridden over the years, the level of skill,workmanship & detailing was so disparate between the various technicians, locales and timeframes that it's almost impossible to define them as single company's product.they've ranged from very nice to overcooked & overworked to soulessly indifferent. if not for the movie 'breaking away' and the seemingly endless mutual promotion by those same builders after setting out on their own, the only interest in them nowadays would be for the early italian bikes with direct racing lineage(ie-eddy m).

Otis

Thing is this "poor build quality" thing for Colnago's I think is overstated (thanks internet). Yes, I know they sub contracted a bunch in the late 70's and early 80's and I'm sure there were numerous crappy ones, but I never noticed at the time as I just rode and did not really know too much about bikes.

But the half dozen Supers ranging from '74-'80 that I have personally had go through my shop in the last six years (3 of which I saw naked) were all very well made. Thin even lugs with crisp edges, no blobs of braze, etc. Actually much better than most of the Italian bikes I've seen from that period. Maybe people only remember the bad ones they saw, or love to degrade stuff that's held in high regard. But I really think folks repeat a lot of stuff they really have no first hand knowledge of.

Not talking about "sprinting up" mountains, I'm talking about going down them FAST. That's when you'll like your Colnago best

SirMike1983 

Good call-- these things have gotten very expensive of late. It seems to me that each generation reaches a certain age and then reaches for the "nostalgia" trip. It happened with ballooners starting in the 1970s and 80s as vintage high cachet machines. It seems that now people who grew up in the late 60s and into the 1970s are reaching the age where they start on the nostalgia trip, hence Krates have become a huge collector end.

Citoyen du Monde

There is at least one person willing to say it.