My original DeRosa has been returned to me after almost 20 years of sitting around barely being used.

seems like my friends who had it replaced the stem with some type of insert that allows for a modern aheadset style stem vs quill salsa unit I had in there before.

the wheels are still in very nice shape albeit need new tires these seem pretty dry and cracked. The front Mavic hub circa late ‘80’s that I built to a Mavic rim still rolls True and the rear Campagnolo rim with old shimano 600 freehub 8spd seems to still be decent.

bottom bracket still good, Mavic headset a little rigid hopefully just needs grease. The paint is pretty darn faded and frame needs a deep clean. Chrome has some putting and rust spots.

id like to get t back into riding shape before stripping down and looking to new paint and chrome. My intent is to keep original scheme decals, chrome and paint color. Any good ideas for painters? In the interim what’s my best bet to get this thing decreased and clean, how best to clean the chrome?

for parts I’m still thinking of mid ‘90’s Campagnolo while maintaining some of the unique items on the bike, still not sure.

im pretty happy and can’t wait to ride this again. Open to suggestions on best cleaning technique, sourcing parts

Cool bike!
Step 1: you’ll have to at least disassemble the wheel hubs and headset, clean thoroughly and regrease them before you ride. Better safe than sorry! The B.B. is a good idea too.

Step 2: simple green, WD40 or other solvent, micro fibers and a toothbrush and maybe a short bristled paint brush to clean it all. If you rinse off the whole bike with water, remove the bolts from the bottle cages, etc and put WD40 into the holes around the whole frame and try to coat it internally with oil to prevent rust.

Step 3: if you keep the same shifters abs brakes, get new pads and high quality cables like dura-ace or jag-wire for best results!

Great advice thank you! For shifters I had the first series of 600 brifters on. I forget what year they were but i was working for a shop at the time and it was definitely first gen 600. Seems though that something must have happened over the years because it has one original and the rear shifting is now a Claris 8spd. Definitely drivetrain will be swapped out as I find parts but I’m thinking I’d keeping the race face cranks, don’t see too many of those.

im hoping to start disassembly and clean up this weekend. Thoughts on cleaning the chrome?

Hmmm.

Step 1 - Post a photograph of the whole bike, if you please? Some of us would appreciate the opportunity to see it in its entirety.

Step 2 - Nope, see Step 1.

Bummer about the shifter! I have 1st gen 600’s on my bike and they didn’t work AT ALL when I got them. All it was, was dried grease inside the mechanism. Very common and known issue on those.

Chrome:
Aluminum foil balled up with some light oil on it Or 0000 (quadruple zero) steel wool with light oil. Rub gently and go back-forth, up-down, diagonal-diagonal, repeat. The rust will begin to disappear. Then clean with s light degreaser, then wax (imho that works best.).

The crankset does look amazing I will say! I hope you can find a nice quill stem for it somewhere.

Is the crank cracked at the at the BB?
Sorry

Well that's the first thing you can get rid of...

...and after that get rid of the insert and stem.


Original paint? I wouldn't. I'm sure with a bit of work you could bring back the shine.

Aluminum foil and water. You'll be amazed.

So 9 speed? OK...but what about a Record/Chorus 8 speed setup?

It's been 20 years, it's back to you the original owner, and it's a De Rosa. It very much deserves a full disassembly. Wheels off, cables undone, brakes off, bars off, crankset off, BB out, derailleurs off.

Use Simple Green or whatever to wipe down the now-fully-accessible frameset. You can polish (Nevr Dull or Mother's Mag & Aluminum etc) the headset if you like, though with the chrome fork and stays (Quick Glow chrome cleaner or a chrome cleaning specific product), you should do the bright work. Do you have car (as in Carnuba etc) wax? The paint looks more than fine and can be brought to a great shine with some elbow grease. Microfiber rags are your friends.

Chrome pitting/rusty bits can be dealt with via running aluminum foil over it, with a liquid serving as a middle man of sorts between the foil and the chrome. As aluminum foil is much softer than chrome, it won't damage the chrome (you might get the slightest of light scratches, but after 20+ years, that chrome won't be perfect, so it will likely be unnoticeable). I've done this on an entirely chrome 1977 Schwinn Super Le Tour 12.2. Worked well. Don't use massive crumpled bits of foil. At loose "crushing" the foil 'ball' of sorts will be between golf and tennis ball size. As you press on the chrome surface and get into it (back and forth like sanding), the foil will compress. You'll see it pick up all the rusty bits if you turn it over. A ton of rust will tell you it's time for new foil. Lather, rinse, repeat.

As for components, I don't know what your stash looks like or what groupset you'd be willing to put on it (talking about price in a way here), but the "matching things" or "consistent theme" part of me would exhort you to have a single groupset, or at the very least components from the same manufacturer. The RaceFace crankset clashes with the FD and the RD and the brakes are painted while other parts are polished. The stem conversion can go (there are much better ways/converters out there, I use them, but for this bike a traditional quill is the ticket, IMO). 9-speed Campagnolo is a great in any form that is Veloce and above. If your rear axle's spacing is 126mm, don't worry about cold setting the frame to 130mm. It's steel and it won't care about a 130mm axle if you can pop it in by yourself (easy to do).

I echo the sentiments of others and would really appreciate a full bike picture. Indoors, outdoors, doesn't matter. It helps us get a better idea of things, and then help you.

000 brass wool and some SoftSoap turned this:



into this:



I was amazed, but the results speak.

DD

Wow thank you folks! I will get some full bike shots prior to disassembly this weekend. 8 or 9 speed will be fine for me. I live in the flatlands.

I can’t tell you how happy I am to have this bike back. I bought the frame and fork back in my mid twenties and scrapped it together with what I could afford but it was my dream bike of the time. I let it go after I came to the US from Canada and following a series of moves and marriage where inactivity had me gain over 40lbs. After bleaching in the sun on a variety of apartment balconies (hence the faded paint) I finally sent it to some friends back in Whistler whonused it rarely but took good care of it.

Still married and now 40 lbs lighter thanks to picking up cycling again in 2013 I couldn’t help but continue to think of my original “first child” as my son refers to the DeRosa. My friends offered to send it back and I readily accepted.

guven your feedback I’m going to clean and polish the heck out of it. Put some new tires on and Have a few rides and will then start looking for a group set to match. If going Campagnolo I guess I’ll have to swap wheels as well unless I can changebout the shimano freehub to campagnolo or source a spacer kit of some type?

hopefully the paint will return to some semblance of its previous luster, we shall see. There is basically no rust just faded.

thanks again!

No more pics until this is done please. I can't handle it.

Nope just grime!

Gotta love a De Rosa, can't wait to see more of this one.

Looking forward to this! Congrats on the return!

I kinda dig the Crankset. I'd clean it up and ride it with those parts and new cables, tires, and grease. Then, while you ride it, think long and hard about a matching group and a likewise matching stem and bars. Probably end up with the group and wheelset that I wanted but couldn't afford in my 20s. Make it your dreamier bike. Don't paint it

Ask and ye shall receive! Some quick pics taken this morning.

Unfortunately while there is no rust on the frame (just lots of grime), a big piece of chrome flaked off the lower part of the fork while checking it out. Left rust below. The top of the fork seems to only have a little rust. Not sure what can be done about this? I'll inspect the frame well, but so far a preliminary look down the seat tube seems all good. In the pics you can also see how faded the paint is. Still, I'll give it a good cleaning and shine and see how I fare. Do I need to worry about riding it with the amount of rust below that section of chrome?

ok separate question, any idea why I'm not seeing any pics being posted on this computer that I'm on (including my own). My other laptop and phone are fine. I know it must be a setting but for the life of me I can't see where the change needs to be made?

Going to start the clean up today! Will be super careful to not take any more chrome off the fork blade.

Don't worry about the fork. If the chrome readily flakes off, I think you should Blake it off so you can remove the rust. On my nasty spots of chrome, I thoroughly sand the rust away and shine up the steel. Then clear nail polish over that. Cool bike and the paint looks great to me.

If the chrome is flaking, you need to remove what is causing it to flake. The only way to do that unfortunately, is to remove the chrome.

It is actually quite difficult to remove chrome that isn't damaged in the first place.

Ok thanks for the advice! Yep it literally flaked off when I touched it.

The feedback has been invaluable thanks so much to all! I’ve been involved with bikes in some form or the other since I was a teen but have never restored one.

Maybe once everything is cleaned up, re-greased, etc., and you can ride it to check it out, send the fork out to be re-chromed? Not worth it for a cheap bike, but for a De Rosa?

That is going to be a super swell bike!

I used a dremel with brass wire attachment. My fork was in way worse condition, yours will come out very nice if you can get those 2 items. Also helps that youll use less elbow grease! My 2 cents.

Thank you! I have a dremel with brass wire I believe. If not I’ll pick up the attachment tomorrow. Is there a process I should follow that worked for you?