Italuminium

Cool! Those blue arc en ciel rims are funky. Maybe I ought to visit one of the many fine "spice merchants" here in town before building my SOMEC, it apparently gets great results

Sir_Name 

That really came together beautifully, especially for "just tossing stuff onto it". Remarkable that the various blue bits work so well with one another. Lovely frame and build details, too (cable routing, Somec/S/Tulip details, perfect crankset, etc.). The paint fill on the calipers matches the (Ambrosio?) finishing tape nicely (where can I find that stuff w/o buying bar tape I don't intend to use?).

Now, I know it's impolite to ask, but... What does the svelte climber tip the scales at in current dress?

Michael Angelo 

Great looking build, lots attention to detail. How comfy is that saddle??

gomango

Jeff,

What a top shelf build.

Love it. I always thought you should build your Somec frameset and look at the result.

As for the Gazelle, it's a road frame. No off-road with that one.

I'll build it when I get bored this winter.

pastorbobnlnh 

DD, I'd be honored to assist in this build. I must be honest, however, I've never worked on a Zeus. Send a picture via email (my user name + gmail dot com) of the overhead view so I can see the retaining ring/outer bearing race. I'm assuming the races need tightening, not the cogs. To do so will depend on the internal spacers and how many were used.

In the mean time I can loan you my hill climbing freewheel. I'm not a Navy conditioned sailor (even compared to a Navy chaplain (BTW a retired one preaches for me regularly when I go on vacation)), so instead of muscles, I rely on gearing.



I've actually been tweaking the gearing in the "high" end. As pictured it is 16-18-26-30-34-38. Today I plan to swap a few cogs to even out the jumps and make it 17-21-25-30-34-38. You can read about my planned use here.

rccardr 

Very nice, DD. Love the details on this one.

jyl

The grooved top tube is a super cool detail, on a really lovely bike. Curved shifters are trippy, man. Love it. What's the scale say?

Giacomo 1 

Wow, she is a beauty DD!

Love that crankset! Which tubulars did you pick for her?

She looks very racy with that steep head tube angle and nearly straight fork. There is no mistaking it's Italian heritage with that geometry. I'm guessing this is going to be one very fast and agile rider.

Drillium Dude 

Great minds think alike - I always knew I'd be removing the Flite Carbon from the Davidson and putting it on this one when I determined its intended use. Not 100% PC with a Flite, but close enough.

And you're right, these Somecs are some pretty frames to look at, tho mine had been rode hard and put away wet. The old decals were just wishful thinking, although it did take me a couple months of flaking the stubborn remains off with my fingernails to clear the frame up for the reproductions.

I hope we see yours with parts on it in the near future, too!

DD

Drillium Dude 

Ha ha - but just to be clear: I didn't actually build it while UTI; that only applied to the concept and parts picks. Myself and Will put it together while sober as priests

Thanks again to Alex who so willingly made the wheel trade. I don't know if I'd have ever gotten 'round to this build if that "funky blue wheelset" hadn't provided the catalyst.

DD

Drillium Dude 

Thank you! To be honest, a lot of the parts used were somewhat designated for this build a long time ago, but in the sense that I didn't use all the panto parts or do my detail painting, it was slapped together. Heck, I didn't even think I was going to be able to finish it as I was looking through my parts boxes and couldn't find a chain! Then on accident I came across not one but two NOS in box Regina Special Oro chains - I thought I'd used up my stash a long time ago. That was a very happy surprise!

IIRC, the calipers came on a near-completely-pantographed Casati I got some years ago at one of the Seattle Bike Swaps. They're the later short versions which fit this later frame perfectly. The Italian tricolor finishing tape I believe did in fact come from an old pack of Ambrosion Bike Ribbon. I've seen people here on the Forum duplicate it by using three colors of electrical tape

I'm curious, too, when it comes to weight. It's pretty light. I might get this over to hang on Alex's fish scale before too long and get a ballpark figure. It seems to be at 20lbs if not a little heavier.

DD

Drillium Dude 

Wow, those are some big jumps! I'd imagine some tweaking would surely be in order to make those work smoothly. I find my shifting a little strange if any of my jumps are over 2 teeth so I can't imagine what 4/5/6/7/8 tooth jumps would feel like!

Here's a quick pic of the Zeus unit. And yes, it just seems as though the body is loose - it was grating and moving 'round on the hub when we installed it and wound up the drivetrain. Kinda sad - it's a lovely unit, and almost unused. It deserves to be put in order and used.



1100 feet in 3 miles? Okay, that's going to be steep - I can see why you're going with your gearing. Looks like you could pull out a stump with that setup Hope we hear about it after all is said and done (I'm subscribed, btw).

I can send more pics if you need them.

DD

Wildwood 

What a beauty.
A throw-together-build? OK - we will accept your hyperbole given the source for inspiration.
Panto crankset with drilled chain rings, complementary cables saved for years, panto shifters, drilled brakes (paint filled), etc.

Drillium Dude 

Thank you!

You might be surprised to learn that the saddle is probably the most comfy I own. It may not have any padding, but it flexes like you wouldn't believe. Impressive; I ran around almost the entire summer with it on the Davidson before I removed it for this build and I absolutely love it. I know they go for crazy money on Ebay, but this is a user all the way - it's that good.

DD

Drillium Dude 

Thanks - I hope it didn't end up too over-the-top with the blue accents (tho I tried to tone it down by leaving out the infill paint detailing).

DD

Drillium Dude 

Ha ha - that was an interesting thread

I think I played it a little more conventionally on this one!

DD

Drillium Dude 

Thank you! Same goes for me about the ride - I'm really itching to take her out and put her through her paces. Since Cino is coming up fast, I may have to wait on getting the frame looked at/fixed until next week at the earliest, so I may not get a nice, dry and semi-warm test ride in before the weather turns. We had a fantastic summer, though - I might have left this build too late!

DD

Drillium Dude 

Thanks, man - from a man of your taste, getting the seal of approval is important

I swear, I was beginning to think the Somec frame was going to go up for sale along with the Casati and Masi Special until I self-medicated (and of course got the wheels from Alex). It's funny the things that finally push one to get going

DD

Drillium Dude 

Thank you - and maybe in the future I'll sit down (over the winter, perhaps?) and finish up the little paint infill details. Still have panto'd brake levers and stem for this build, but they still need work to be presentable. Gives me something to do in the off-season

DD

Drillium Dude 

Yeah, the light weight and grooved top tube (not to mention the internally-routed gear cables to boot) really sold me on the frame long ago. Bob Freeman located the shifter boss for me some years ago, but I went without finding it for the first couple of years after I first bought the frameset. Just one reason it's taken so long to make a bike out of it!

Wish I could remember where I got the gear levers - I think Ebay, but now I'm not so sure. They feel very solid and direct. The internal gear cable runs are interesting: for the front, it threads through a modified BB shell cable tunnel brazed inside the shell at the top. For the rear, it runs into a supplied length of - wait for it - brake cable housing that begins a couple inches up from the BB shell into the downtube and continues all the way back to butt up against the dropout end. Had to play around a little to get them both threaded through, but the shifting is very precise now.

Gotta get this on a scale! Guessing around 20lbs or a little over. It sure finished up prettty light.

DD

Drillium Dude 

Thanks, Jim

Yeah, I love the fork curvature, too. The Italians surely did get that aesthetic spot-on, didn't they? And it is a steep frame. I want to ride this thing so badly it hurts

The current (unglued) tubulars are Gommitalia Champions. Nothing special, and I don't know if they'll get glued up or not. Perhaps somebody here can suggest a nice tub to glue up? One that is well-made with good performance but won't break the bank? Remember, this is basically going to be a mountain-climbing time trial machine.

The crankset: have had it for over 4 years. Got it on Ebay - there were a couple/three kicking around at that time and it was a good price at the time. One day, when I get the infill paint done, it should pop just that little bit more. I just hope it holds up the the rigors of climbing, what with the milled spider and all.

DD

Drillium Dude 

Well, thrown together in the sense that, other than a few items which had always been designated for whenever I got around to it, I just began grabbing derailleurs, pedals, bar/stem...you know. And I lazy'd out when it came to breaking out my enamels and paintbrushes, too. Oh, and I - for the first time since I can remember - cannibalized one of my bikes for this build, too (taking the Flite Carbon saddle from the Davidson). So, in a sense it really did come together with very little pre-prior-planning.

Sometimes you just gotta say "WTF", right?

DD

gomango

Hah, if I saw your Sparrow on that sell list I would be checking the Paypal account for proper funds pronto.

...and breaking my no new road bikes rule.

You deserve the time though. Time to consider next steps and big plans.

You've got a lot of years till your social security kicks in.

Me?

Not so many.

CrankyFranky

Gorgeous build. As a crappy-surface and bad-weather rider, I can only sigh.

I really love the unusual fork paint treatment besides the usual Drillium Dude attention to detail.

Did Columbus make many of these recessed-brake-housing-relieved top tubes? I think that only the Italians would dream this up. Am I wrong?

ps that Zeus fw just needs some attention with a good pin vise and change out of shims, imho. Not too challenging.

Lascauxcaveman 

I think you know what I'd say about a 20T cog being the "bailout" on a climber

But dang, that dinged-up Somec is even prettier in it's own way than the Colnago you brought over to ride the Hurricane with me. Lots of nice detail for a quickly slapped together build. I've never seen a crank quite like that before.