SellOut

Hi,

I have a 55cm 89 Bottecchia ADR Replica with full Campy graphite Athena and Columbus SL (its all stock). Ridden only a few hundred miles in its life. I stopped riding years ago after a serious mountain bike crash and its been in my garage since then. Its in excellent condition with only a couple of chips.

I've gotten back into serious running the last year and plan on training for a triathalon and want to start riding again. My dilemma is that I hate and have always hated that paint scheme (I bought it as a team bike so didn't have any choice in the color) - my choice was always the classic red and white.

I love the bike though and am thinking about sandblasting/stripping it and painting it the classic black and white or red and white Bottecchia color scheme and replacing the decals. I'm interested in doing this because I like restoring things and I have always though all these years wished my bike was the classic paint scheme. I just feel like I have some unfinished business with that bike.

Is this a serious faux pas? Is this bike a collector's item? Or should I just go ahead and do it? Or should I just buy a classic frame and rebuild from there? Or finally are new bikes that much of an improvement that I should sell my old bike and buy a new one? I'm assuming that if I really get into triathlons, I will buy a tri bike and keep a road bike for training and weekend rides.

Thanks in advance for any advice. I'm trying to figure out what to do. Here's a picture of it - I haven't cleaned it up yet and it is still very dirty.