Narhay

Any idea what this bottecchia might be? I picked it up last night. Ofmega headset and crankset. Super record replacement rear derailleur. CLB brakes and levers although it may have come with Universal centerpulls as a set came with the box. Decal says 1979 Carnielli so at least that vintage or later.

Couple more photos here

Bottecchia https://imgur.com/gallery/20AQVFR

Bottecchia 2 https://imgur.com/gallery/yXRywxQ

Lemond1985

Internal cabling would indicate a upper tier model. But where's the RD hanger?

Narhay

The photo is deceiving but no internal cabling.

juvela

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Thanks for posting.

Five images but not one of the drive side.

Is the roundish white transfer at the top of the seat tube a tubing one?

AELLE perhaps?

Is stem & bar set ITM? 3TTT?

Original pedals and hubs likely OFMEGA as well...

Original brakes may have been Super 68.

Original rims likely NISI.

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cudak888 

I really haven't had a chance to see (or memorize) enough catalogs, but this might be a Bottecchia Special. Deferring to those who know better.

-Kurt

qcpmsame 

I had a 1972 Special, that was my first thought on seeing this frame set. Not the original componentry if it is a special though. Mine had Campy Valentino dress, and a cottered steel crank set. @randyjawa has a blue one featured in his website. Beautifully done bike, I wish I still had mine, it was my gateway drug for cycling.

Bill

Narhay

I've cleaned the frame up and taken some better pictures above. It is a square 23" c-c top tube and seat tube. Italian threads. 120mm rear dropout spacing.

juvela

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Thank you for the additional imagery.

The more I look at it the more I suspect blades may be pushed back ever so slightly.

One simple check you could make is to lay a straightedge along the centreline of the side of the headtube and see where it comes out on the lateral side of the fork blade(s).

My guess is that the centreline of the blade(s) will be very slightly aft of the straightedge.

As ever, I happily defer to @gugie in all such matters...

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gugie 

A shop I worked at was one of the original Cannondale dealers. Those first year frames were heat treated after welding in jigs to hold them straight. As a result, the tubing was sometimes crooked looking, but the hardpoints - BB, rear dropouts, headset insertion points - were all aligned properly. Check out one of those curvaceous Hetchins rear triangles, perfectly straight tubing is over-rated.

And so it is with forks I've found. Many fork crowns allow for some wiggle fore and aft so that the steerer and the centerline of the fork blades can be mismatched, but as long as the dropouts are centered, have the same offset, and the trail is adequate for the handling intended, it's not a problem.

That's not to say this Bottechia fork hasn't been bent back, but if it has, it could be bent forward again. The deal breaker is if the steerer is bent, unless, of course, you want to go and replace a steerer, which I've done a few times.

Could be just the angle the picture was taken, but the only way to really tell is to remove the fork and look at it off the frame.

cudak888 

Always a good idea to do the straightedge check, but it looks as if the bent fork appearance may be from the lens distortion, especially where the fork is in the framing of the OP's new picture.

I wouldn't use this as an excuse NOT to verify, but I'd take the picture with a grain of salt. If you look closely enough, the lens distortion is also curving the seattube slightly forward.

-Kurt

Narhay

Depends where I measure it but it looks tweaked in some and some not so much? Photo with wheels as well.

cudak888 

Put the straightedge on the back of the fork crown. Have it hover it over the back of the blade and over the headtube.

Either that, or retake those same shots with the straightedge at a 90 degree angle to the camera, so it looks like a thin line straight down the headtube.

-Kurt

juvela

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Thanks very much for the responses gugie, Narhay & Kurt.

Followup note on fork -

if you are on good terms with a local shop/co-op/frambuilder perhaps you could withdraw it and put it in their fork alignment gauge to see what you find.

the Park jig, for example, has a groove running along the side of the clamping assembly which lines up with the centreline of the steerer.

two good things will follow:

a) you get to examine steerer as well and fork and know the fork's alignment one way or the other

b) you will have an opportunity to repack the HS

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have you made a check of the pillar size as yet?

as T-Mar us ever reminding us it is an indication of tubing quality

if frame quality plain gauge would expect a pillar of 26.2mm or 26.4mm

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one thing which struck me straightaway regarding the frame was how few braze-ons it has for 1979 or later

by 1979 the braze-on madness was at full tilt

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shall look forward to reading your next update as you work with this new arrival

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Last ride 76 

I'm with Bill. I think this is an earlier lower end frame than the parts would suggest. Seeing the bare frame gives me no reason to think high end, sorry. Boom bikes sometimes had chrome to add appeal. Don't get me wrong, I loved my UO8.
Eric

Similar perhaps to 1972 Gran Turismo, link: https://campybike.com/pdf/1972Bottecchia.pdf

juvela

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Did you look at the Carnielli transfer with the 1979 date?

Do you think it added later?


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Last ride 76 

I think it may have been. Seat cluster and. dropouts tell me. different story. See the link I added above.

juvela

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The Carnielli 1979 transfer is not something which would have been readily available to the general public.

One possibility which fits the information we have is that the frame was somehow lost/forgotten/covered up at the factory and when it was rediscovered at a later time it was then built into a complete machine using the then current fittings of a similar model. This would explain the presence of the OFMEGA components, for example, versus the fittings shown on the 1972 catalogue page.

Verily an oddity...

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T-Mar

My immediate impression was a post boom, entry level model. Frankly, I was surprised by the Carnielli 1979 decal. The frame looks earlier to me, circa 1975-1976. I strongly suspect a lightweight hi-tensile steel with a post size of around 26.2mm. Had this been something like Aelle, I would have expected more braze-ons, forged dropouts, higher grade lugs and a 700C wheelset. This looks like it's designed for 27" wheels. The brakeset looks like very long reach with pads set at the bottom of the range, suggesting a later upgrade to 700C. That looks like a Bloor Cycle decal on the down tube.

qcpmsame 

Confusing me more and more ( not truly difficult though,) the rear drops say a DeLuxe model, but it lacks some things, and has chrome on the chain stays and forks, that a Deluxe wouldn't have had, IIRC.

@T-Mar reminded me that these probably had 27" wheels, I had forgotten that little fact about my Special .

Bill

*Edit: looking closer at a larger image, those are higher level drops, front and rear, than either the De Luxe or Special. My bad, my eyes just are not up to the detail stuff anymore. No further guesses forth coming form here.

Narhay

It is a Bloor Cycles decal. The previous owner said when he bought it it was $600 or so, CAD. He had been looking at cinellis at the same time but his mother told him an Italian cyclist won some giros on a bottecchia and it was quite a bit cheaper.

Super record rd, a couple sets of high flange record hub 6 speed tubular wheels suggest someone who was willing to spend high end dollars on the sport and was riding big miles but to hang them all on a bottom end frame....who knows? Maybe the bike shop found the frame and hung what he wanted on it.

It came with a pile of early 80s anodized tubulars and he said he was active in cycling until he got married so a timeline of late 70s to mid 80s works for the SR rd and mavic gp4 tubulars.