VintageSprinter

Hi I'm new to the site and I'm posting pics of my recent aquistion, a vintage italian road bike. I think this bike must be 1950's / 1960's vintage, but I dont have a year.

Any Rossi owners out ther.

I would be very interested in anybody's opinion about this bike. I would love to renovate this bike and keep it, if it checks out ok ! But wont spend any money until I know more. This is what I've found so far.

The bike has "Rossi" transfers from the small Italian bike shop in Povolaro Northern Italy. But I am pretty sure its a respray due to the tell tale overspray on the end of the crank. So may not be a Rossi.

The frame is very interesting. Lightweight steel tubing which isnt identified. The drops are Campag. The lugs are very ornate with old chrome that has been painted over in places. Not sure at this stage how much rust or corrosion there may be. No BB markings at all.

The headset is the vintage L.Magistroni Senior. The saddle is Cinelli Unicanitor #2 suede.

The hubs are early 36h high flange Campag with no "Record" marking and straight levers. The rims are "Dolomiti".

The gears are early Campag Gran Sport with a 5 speed freewheel. The crankset is early Campag Record 52/47 with only "170" on the rear of the cranks. The pedals are Sheffield Sprint #673 which are pre Campag and ceased production in the 1960's.

The brakes are Universal Sidepull Model 51 which ceased production in 1961. The brake leavers are 1980's add ons. The bars are ITM Mondial "Map of Italy" logo alloy.

Pics to follow

Cheers

lotek 

I don't have any information about Rossi per say but the components on that are worth the price
of admission. I'd say its a respray as I've never seen a bike of that vintage with horrid 80's fade!
Is it possible the Blue is original color and the gold is late addition.
This is one for Citoyen du Monde (another member here) he is very well versed in
Italian bikes and builders.

oh yah I forgot, Welcome to Bike Forums, specifically the Cranky & Vintage section.
really nice find.

Marty

skyrider

Welcome nice bike, I own 3 Rossi, all exceptional rides. early 80s vintage.Seen afew around not many. google chrome rossi , thats anice one. New informationn has come to light, I just joined www. bdc-forum.it similar to this site but Italian scroll down abit theirs a vintage site on the subforum. I am not computer savy so im useless at this point. I started athread on Rossi and they were helpful, hes been building for 50 years shop still open today, One guy knows him personally, and one son gabrielle is Bianchi mtb team mechanic. One guy told me his fatherinlaw built my bike if it had hearts on the bb.If you get to the site, they want pics cause the one guy is going to Rossi shop shortly and he will show Bruno Rossi pics of the bike. I got alot going on right now re roofing my house , keep in touch, oh ya go to cicli rossi.it lots of info

mainducoyote

Any caps behind those pedal threads?

VintageSprinter

Hey guys thanks for the great feedback. Yea I'm starting to like this bike. I think its a total respray Marty, a bit of a wildcard.

and will chase up that .it forum, thats quite a find Skyrider, to be getting closer to the people who built Rossi bikes !

Mainducoyote, yea I looked and there is Campag engraving on the end of the pedal spindal !! Whats that all about.

Peter

devinfan

Beautiful bike! I would guess that it is in fact a Rossi, I can't imagine someone trying to fake that, they would choose a more widely recognized brand if a re-branding was the idea. Also, the component line is top-of-the-line for late 50's early 60's, so why would anyone hang those components on a less than stellar frame? The only thing is the paint job, while well done, doesn't fit the era of the components. I think if it were mine I'd be tempted (since it's a re-spray anyway) to pick a solid colour of my choice and re-spray it again. I think this bike would be worth the effort. Also maybe the chrome under the lugs is worth saving? In any case nice find. The component list including the brakes and pedals matches almost exactly that of my early 60's Cinelli.

skyrider

Two of my bikes came from the Niagara falls, Hamilton area, the stickers on the bike say. Scattollon cycle shop, the third in Windsor from an ex racer. I never rode a Cinelli, or Colnago but have been told the ride is up there,with the marquee italian made bikes. I was viewing some pics on ciclirossi site and there is a similar paint scheme in afew photos, mine have a nice paint gun metal gray, and one is chrome,with a cambio Rino grouppo, and the others with mixture of campi and Miche, Hey Sprinter is this your first, vintage bike if so nice start, what are your plans for the bike... Enjoy thanks for sharing.

skyrider

Look at your pics and how the paint is flaking off, I have one bike with the paint flakes off with my fingernail, and its all chrome underneath,

mainducoyote

If the back of the arms look like this it means that you have the most sought after Campagnolo cranks but ost importantly it enables you to pinpoint the age of this bike within a few years

lostarchitect 

Um, so, that crankset is junk, you should just send it to me so I can put it on a fixie.

devinfan

Looking it over, that bike is actually so close to what I assume is original, it might be worthwhile to get a set of NOS Universal levers to go with those brakes. I got a perfect set from Mike Barry (of Mariposa bicycles) for a somewhat reasonable price for my Cinelli, he seemed to have quite a few sets.

ddashoff699

Nice bike!

VintageSprinter

Well I think Devinfan may be right.

Yes this is my first vintage find. I used to ride road and track back in the 70s and my idea was to find a classic italian frameset and rebuild it with 70s SR kit. Something I could enjoy owning and ride whenever I feel like it. But now I'm not sure if this Rossi is the bike. It deserves to stay authentic, no junk here.

I'm going to see if I can get the Rossi guys in Povolaro to confirm its heritage from some pics, thanks to Skyrider. Then I will strip it down and get a frame painter to have a look at the frame and see how fragile it is. The old chrome is under the lugs and on the top of the forks only. I am still not sure how much corrosion there may be.

Coyote they are caps and here is a pic. The real deal it seems!

lotek 

damn for the price of the components (cleaned up. look up oxalic acid in this forum)
you could probably buy an 80's Colnago with Super Record gruppo.

mainducoyote

Yep, seems to be in top shape too, congrats!

skyrider

That frame looks like its in great shape, corrosion rust should come off quite easily, chrome on fork looks pretty good also. you have several options here.

VintageSprinter

Yes the campag timeline https://www.velo-retro.com/tline.html puts this crankset at 1958/59. Here is a photo from the Tour for 1959. These bikes look great.

VintageSprinter

I'd be interested to know what you think the options are? I dont really want to do anything that deminishes the value of the bike. I was thinking, send the bare frame off to a frame painter and pay for it to be stripped back to bare metal. With the cost of new paint / chrome depending on the complexity (ranging from block colour up to chromed lugs etc for big $). Then get some matching break levers to bring the bike up to an authentic spec. Besides leaving it like it is, the other option would be to break it down, clean up all the parts and sell them off one by one. Then the bike is gone.

Gary Fountain

I'd be interested in what the guys at Rossi have to say. It would be nice if it was one of their frames. I think it looks remarkably complete as far as the components go - with a few parts to complete it.

My real concern is the present paint scheme. It looks OK but it is easy to see it is a more modern upgrade. Thats fine if you are happy with it - ride it as is. It would 'bother' me though. I think the paint scheme would get on my nerves. Do you repaint and have the new looking frame built up with components with a lifetime of patina? I can 'feel' your real dilemma. What to do? If only bike manufacturers were made to stamp their logo, model, component group and year of manufacture on their frames.

If it were mine I would hope it was a Rossi - but that is a long shot. If it is not I would strip the paint off and re-paint the frame with a fairly neutral colour found on frames of that vintage such as a pale metallic light blue and clean-up the original chromework. I wouldn't fit any decals at all. Then rebuild it with the original components and replace components to make it more complete.

Best of luck,

Gary.

devinfan

Well I have another suggestion, but it's probably not one you'd like. The real value of this bike is in the components, which are out of this world if you're a collector of vintage Italian 60's racing stuff. If I were in your situation I would be very tempted to:

1. Dis-assemble the whole thing.
2. Clean and polish all the parts as much as possible, store wrapped in tissue paper.
3. Sell the frame and fork on ebay.
4. WAIT, until the perfect Italian frame from the 60's showed up. These parts would look absolutely perfect on anything from a Cinelli, to a Frejus, the list goes on and on. Buy the frame and assemble a 1960's Italian dream bike.

The reason I'd do all this is the value of a highly recognized brand like a Cinelli would be greater in the end, and you've got all the parts (which is generally the most difficult part by far) to finish it perfectly. A nice repaint is going to cost a lot, and it's going to be a repaint. You could probably get a stunning original frame with patina for the price of a good repaint with chrome on this bike.

Anyway that's my 2 cents...

skyrider

Thats basicly your two options from two knowledgable forum members, I really do think its a Rossi know one fakes a Rossi decal, I would clean it up ride it enjoy and then youll figure out want you want to do. Browse these pages here youll get lots of ideas, and info, maybe sell the crankset, if its that rare, replace with lesser campi ciao.

VintageSprinter

Thanks guys for some great feedback, really appreciated. I certainly hadn't considered another frame with these components, which is a really good idea. Besides I cant really bring myself to sell this stuff off now I have it. I may end up with two bikes anyway!

I will update this thread if I get feedback from the Rossi team. In the mean time I have stripped half the bike already to at least clean up the kit. Interestingly it seems that the frame was once painted green, this has come through in a few spotes I have been cleaning up. Its a Bristish Racing green type colour.

Cheers

skyrider

Cool good luck lets us know how it turns out I see your pics on bdc-forum.it wellsee what happens. Im pretty anal about Rossi cause have 3 they have Italian pedigree, and they just shred the ashpalt. See ya

VintageSprinter

Hello to all who have contributed to this project so far and thanks for the great input.

I have now stripped the bike down to the bare frame with the exception of the fixed bb cup.
Unfortuneately there hasn't been any feedback from Cicli Rossi in Italy. No response to my emails. If you call they dont speak English.

There are more pics here
https://s1080.photobucket.com/albums/...ntageSprinter/

I'd like to get peoples opinions on the following:

1. Can anyone ID the lugs and fork crown which are quite distinctive ?
2. What type of tube existed in 1958 in Italy ? What size / thickness was Columbus ?
3. The headtube has recesses where the headset cups are mounted with shims. Does this say anything about the tubeset used ?

The frame specs so far are:

Suspected 1958 build.
Italian threaded bottom bracket and steerer
Very approximate frame weight is 1900 grams
Very approximate fork weight is 700 grams

Seattube
Angle 72 degrees
Length C-T 21.5" (54.61 cm)
Outside Diameter at top 31 mm
Inside Diameter at top 27 mm
Tube Thickness at top is about 2mm

Toptube
Length C-C 22"

Headtube
Angle 71 degrees
Length 98 mm
Outside Diameter 35 mm
Inside Diameter 30 mm
Headtube is recessed with shims for headset cups.

Front and rear drops are Campagnolo.

753proguy

That's what I would do, I think (but don't polish any parts, just a careful wipedown with a soft cloth, please).

The hubs you have are 1958-1963. There will be a two-digit date code on the inner faces of the locknuts. If they haven't ever been replaced, then that was when the hubs were made.

I don't see the small hole above the rear der. pivot bolt threads (for the old Sport rear derailleur's spring) on the right-rear dropout, so that makes me think that the frame is actually newer than the parts. That hole went away in about 1963, I believe. (Unless the hole is present, and I just can't see it in that pic.).

The GS rear mech. seems to have the adjuster where the housing enters the mech., so that would put it at pre-1960, I think. You parts seem to be saying 1958/1959ish, but that frameset may be a bit newer. Doesn't matter a whole bunch, as the parts are what is valuable. You should sell that rusty old bike to me for 100 quid. ;-)