masi61

I've been training the past 2 years on a Puch touring bike and a mid-80's no name (Saint Tropez) J
Japanese road bike, leaving my vintage Masi in the well closet to "age". Well, I've done over 1200 miles this year and felt it was time to take her out. Now I've not had many "easy" days this year, it seems I get rained on or catch every headwind, suffer every imaginable mishap out on our roads. But today was sweet ! My black Gran Criterium is blessed with "the ****". The frame feels solid, quick, responsive, comfortable and fast all rolled in together. This bike is so poised, I really can't figure out the auspicious-ness of it. Even components that should stink work well on this bike. I'm running Mavic indexing downtube levers with a Mavic "erector set" rear derailleur and a 6 speed Regina America freewheel, Dura Ace 7400 double front derailleur, a Dura Ace "DynaDrive" crankset with adapters for standard pedals and a SunTour chain. Prior to today's ride I lubed the chain with Prolink. Now if I could just figure out how to post some photos...

John E

A red Masi Gran Criterium was one of the stars in the movie, "Breaking Away." They are VERY nice bikes; I have admired Jim "CyclArt" Cunningham's silver 1976 on several occasions.

masi61

Actually, I believe the main character Dave Stoller's Masi was Orange. His was all Campy .

number6

Masi's are made to be ridden. Unfortunately the values have increased to the point where one must be careful. Note there is a light blue 58cm reasonably early Carlsbad example on ebay, as of this morning it was over 2K and I would not be surprised if the buyitnow button is not hit, that would put the sales price at $3500.

I do not mind that I sold one years ago, just wish the girlfriend of long ago did not want hers when we split up. The thoery back then was a weaker rider on a Nishiki Olympic was not going to have much fun when keeping up with boyfriend on a Carlsbad, after she rode it for the first time, it was "NOW I understand"

lotek 

I'm just surprized that your bike hasn't dumped you uncerimoniously on your
butt for the mix of components. I've heard that some are so picky that even
"off" italian brands (giepemme, Galli etc.) will cause unplanned dismounts.

that 58cm on ebay is surprizing, the bike has very low milage, is probably 2nd run
for that size, and torchwork done by Confente (according to B. Baylis who was there).
I'm surprized it's not sold yet.

marty

masi61

Do my components know the nationality of my bike ? I've always been a Shimano kind of guy but the bastardized set-up I have now is definitely, shall we say, eclectic? When I was younger I didn't make having "all Campy" a priority, and now that I'm older I have a greater appreciation of the collector value of my bike, but honestly at this point my goal is to set my baby up with a smooth indexing SunTour or Shimano 6 or 7 speed gearing, and my current blend of weirdness is an experimental field study on that path. The Mavic shifters I believe are intended for 7 speed, yet I'm using them on a 6speed non-uniformly spaced freewheel and a straight (non-parallelogram) rear derailleur with no index fine adjust screw. Most certainly I will be swapping some of this out in the near future, but my point is that the parts actually WORK TOGETHER right now, albeit, the operator (me ) needs to constantly be vigilant of mis-shifts and such.
By the way, I spoke with Brian Baylis about my bike and I told him how my downtube decals only say "Masi", without the flags or the "Gran Criterium" script. He told me that mine is a post-Carlsbad rendition, probably built by Ted Kirkbride who had a dislike for the flags with certain paint colors. Brian insinuated that my Masi isn't as highly sought after as the earlier Italian made and early 70's California Masi's with the double fork crowns and no braze-on's. I know he's an expert and I respect his opinion, but I do feel my bike is special to me, I hope to keep it til I'm 100.

lotek 

Masi collecting is such a funny thing, there are niches within niches.
Some (a very respected framebuilder comes to mind) feel that anything not built
in the Vigorelli with a Falerio decal is not a real masi.
Others (a certain california framebuilder) feel that only the
Carlsbad Masi's are worthy of collecting and only the first 2 years.
whatever floats your boat.
My Pogliaghi is not of the highly collectable variety, and I know that Sante might have once
walked into the shop while my frame was still there but I don't care, it still rides like a dream
and is worth it to me. And it does have an eclectic list of parts, and of various era's.
For example the crankset is OLD SR (151 BCD) sacriledge to some but I don't care.
my whole post was rather tongue in cheek.

marty

masi61

How in the world could you prove that Confente did the torchwork? The light blue early 70's GC is currently at $2500 with 16 bids and 9 hours to go. I hate to say it but my 1978 with the down tube shifter braze on's and the top tube cable braze-on's is prettier .

masi61

How in the world could you prove that Confente did the torchwork? The light blue early 70's GC is currently at $2500 with 16 bids and 9 hours to go. I hate to say it but my 1978 with the down tube shifter braze on's and the top tube cable braze-on's is prettier .

merlinextraligh

go to photobucket.com You can store your photos there and then just paste the link into your post here.

lotek 

Brian Baylis posted to CR list on this one (he's gotten more than a few emails about it).
He stated that this frame was built in the 2nd run of frames for that size, and that early in
the production of Carlsbad Masi Confente was doing all of the brazing. Since he was there
and I have no reason to doubt him, or others who have told much the same stories about
early Cali Masi.
Could one prove it? Other than some kind of affidavit there really is no way to prove.

Resize some of the photo's to less than 100 x 100 pixels and save them to your
hard drive (my pictures) when you post here, use "GO ADVANCED" and scroll down
to manage attachments, browse will bring up your files (usually my pictures first).
select the photo, upload.
Or save them to an online photoalbum and insert URL to your photos with
image tags around them.



Marty

Road Fan

I have a 1980 Masi in the light metallic blue like the $3500 one, also with no flags or "Gran Criterium" script, and based on some emails with Dave Moulton mine also may have been built by Ted Kirkbride. I'm glad to see a second story largely consistent with mine.

I see no problem with your component choices. If you plan to ride this bike, it is necessary to kit it out so it's useful to you. Wearout and fit parts must be replaced with available parts. I (a 50+) can't use the original Cinelli stem, for example, because I can't get enough rise in the bars.

Why should Faliero have cared? You love riding his product.

Best of luck,

Ken Freeman

repechage

There were a few, in 1975 Gerald Ash had one, Black, no chrome, no flags, just Masi on the down tube, his trak bike was blue, same way, all the Carlsbad track bikes were this way, but not many of those at all. I saw one other Black Carlsbad, never an official color from that plant, but some were painted that way, and two white ones, same deal, no flags.

Transfer type will not guide to age, but the serial numbers will. Best guess I understand regarding when the Carlsbad production ended is in othe 07xx range, leading zero indicating 1000. Can't keep the "small" builder idea going with over 1,000 units in operation. but when it is considered that Carlsbad started in the 3rd quarter of 1973 and stopped producing somewhere in late '76 or very early '77, not that many.

masi61

Any chance you could post some pictures Ken? I'm going to be starting a new thread with pictures of mine soon. Actually I've been preparing to build a new wheelset around a SunTour MicroLite 126mm cassette hub I bought off ebay. I have a couple of powerflow 7speed cassettes and also a set of Suntour Superbe Pro indexing downtube levers. I have a few accushift rear derailleurs a couple of XC experts, and XC 7000 and a Radius that all would work, though none of them are quite right for the Masi aesthetic though I'm sure they would be entirely functional. Or I may abandon the idea of the cassette hub and just continue to use 6 speed freewheels with my old Bullseye and Campagnolo tubular wheelsets.

masi61

My understanding is that mine is a 1978 and was built in San Marcos California.