Originally Posted by
JohnDThompson
Originally Posted by
cudak888
The Italian BB is a hoot. Makes me wonder how many other 720's have 'em.
I don't recall that any 720s were built with Italian thread. I suspect this was a repair from a bunged aftermarket BB installation.
What type of BB shell does it have? The earliest 720s used Cinelli (English thread) shells, later ones briefly had Cinelli shells with "TREK" cast into the bottom (where it usually has "Cinelli"), and finally they used Trek designed shells with cast-in under-the-BB cable guides from Signicast in Milwaukee.
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It's the Cinelli shell, the one that says "Cinelli" on it. Campy cable guides are brazed nearby, I guess on the downtube.
I bought the frame new in June or July 1983. I recall that the headset (Hattaswan) was already installed. As for the BB, the most valuable piece of information I can share is that I don't remember anything in particular about it until much later: I remember discovering, ten or twelve years ago, that my BB was Italian. I was very surprised. This fact leads me to suspect that the frame came with the BB already installed. If I put it in myself, which is not unlikely, then I used something that was lying around the bike shop where I was working at the time. I most certainly did not (re)tap the BB shell (I would remember that!); did the original bike shop --in Vienna VA-- do this? I don't know; if they did, they did not tell me (I would remember that too!).