LoFo

Hello. This is my first (thread and) post here so please bear with me. I in the market for a 55cm bike for casual rides around Miami. I am not at all knowledgeable about bicycles but I do know that Bianchi are usually very good. So when I was sifting through countless postings, this one craigslist ad caught my eye: hxxp://miami.craigslist.org/brw/bik/6083545359.html
For $225 it seams like a very good deal but I could be very wrong... Please let me know if this is a good investment.
Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks

P.S. If you happen to be in south florida, and you go scoop this bike up before I can....

tmh657

That link is not going to the ad you reference but one of the results is this thread. And welcome to the forum.

Kevindale

This one?:

Kevindale

It looks like a good price to me, maybe even a great price. After all the work the seller put into it, including powdercoating and new decals, new consumables, rebuilding BB and headset, etc., then if that stuff was done reasonably well he's probably selling it at cost, without factoring in his labor. It's a great looking bike. I suspect it's not high end Columbus tubing, but everything looks to be decent quality. As an investment, I don't think you're going to make money on it. As a rider to enjoy looking at and being astride, well, if it rides well, I think you have a winner.

Bianchigirll 

Hello and welcome to the forums! https://miami.craigslist.org/brw/bik/6083545359.html

OK to start that is a hot mess. It was powder coated and while durable it can be thick and uneven and also dashes and hopes of finding out what it was. The decals don't match, the ones on the downtube look '70s vintage and the one on the seattube looks mid I don't know what. One of the brake cable guides is broken and replaced with a clamp. It looks like a mix of shimano mid-level components, and that seatpost has got to go, I just hope there isn't some ugly shim in there really buggering things up.

wanna here the good news? That investment cast fork crown is pretty unique and Bianchi really used it only one year, 1985. Near as I can tell this frame started life as a upper tier model in '85 which means it has a Bianchi 'Special' tubing set which simply mean the Columbus tubing company made a special set of frame tubes for Bianchi. So it wil be a very good riding bike.

Provided it fits and everything works properly $225 probably isn't a bad price for it but I would at least try and haggle down to $200 because of that broken cable guide. Good Luck

LoFo

First of all, thank you for the replies!

Sorry about that. I intentionally parsed the link with hxxp. See subsequent replies for a working craigslist link.

I was afraid of that – and I am somewhat okay with a bit of mystery – not knowing exactly when and where she is from.

I attempted to visually identify this bike. After furiously searching for some sort of visual reference, I was unable to find one with these two decals on a celeste frame. They also seem to clash graphically.

I am guessing that carefully fixing this (especially post-powdercoat) is impossible?

Any recommendations for a better seatpost and saddle?

I'll admit the first thing I would like to do is replace that saddle with something else (brown leather) and rewrap the drops to match. I am really excited to go see – and perhaps buy – this bike. I am hoping it's in good riding condition.

Again, thanks for these replies.

Bianchigirll 

I don't know why you post isn't coming up but....

Yeah the cable guide should have been repaird before the powdercoating. It needs to brazed off and then new one brazed on so a few inches of paint would be burnt off and I don't know what would happen to the coating.

As for the seatpost, just a nice alloy post with a integral seat clamp, IIRC 27.2 diameter.

As long as it fits and is mechanically sound and functioning correctly I would recomend riding it like it is for a few weeks until you get comfortable with the bike. Avocet saddles are generally pretty nice. A decent leather saddle will run you $50-70+ A Brooks will be well over 100+

T-Mar

Given that it doesn't have the Campagnolo dropouts typically used on the high end models during this year, it's almost certainly mid-range.

Bianchigirll 

The catalog doesn't say anything about CampI dropouts for '85 just list 'micro adjust forkends' and all five models from the Veloce to the Mondiale

T-Mar

One of the big advantages of maintaining a database is that I can record relevant information beyond that mentioned in company literature.