merziac

Or maybe a miracle TWO our size like bikingshearer of any vintage.

chain_whipped

Both Cinelli please- Vintage and classic lightweights are ridiculously bargain buys today. Grab and hold.

Mid finger to the banksters, but thanks to BTC you can have all the cake and eat it too.
Skip the '23 Trek Madone for $14k and mom's new kitchen for now. Be patient and she'll get her kitchen for free.

Ps. Ever wonder why the classic sports car market is red hot and its not slowing down? Doesn't matter of original or retro upgrade. This new seven litre is for its twin. Ciao

BFisher

"Ooh, it's from the '50's! Fra-gee-lay! Hang that delicate fa-bridge-ay egg behind a glass case!

Oh, cottered cranks! Those pins are impossible to figure out! How do they work? Is it magic? Voo-doo? Must be! It's too haaarrd!

Gran Sport? But, but, but the internet told me it was ugly and didn't work!

I can't put regular grease in those hubs. They must require some special bygone formula of secret Italian bikey wonder grease.Unobtanium!"






Gimme the '57. Or the '77, but I voted '57. Both awesome. I ride a '51 Raleigh. It rides great. It's a bike, not the Magna Carta. Geez.

smontanaro 

I can understand the reticence. If the bike is complete and requires no immediate maintenance, no big deal. I'm in the midst of putting together a mid-50s Automoto sort of "from scratch." I have the Stein cotter press, so no hammering was required, but getting a workable combination of crank, spindle and cotters took several tries. I didn't have a stash of parts to raid. I have plenty of cotterless crank bits — going that route would have been simple, but "inauthentic." Where's the fun in that?

iab

The one with the 23.877656, 23.78865434 or 23.37664785698 extractor? How stripped are the threads?

See what I'm doing here? All tech has their headaches. Don't get me wrong, proper bits are definitely more difficult to locate, but an open C lever works the exact same way a closed C does. A parallel o gram is a parallel o gram. It ain't magic.

merziac

Almost exactly this and fully agree in principle, reality can bites.

Once I got the crank for the 58 Paramount, I used what ever I could get to work for the BB, later Stronglight cups with who knows what spindle.

I chased a couple of correct ones but they were $100's to far for my comfort so I gave up and called it good while still looking a bit from time to time.

rccardr 

Hunh. I’d have picked the 57, especially having been exposed to your tastes.
Heck, I rode 50’s bikes. ‘Course, that was back in the 50’s, when they were new…

merziac

Huh, well you should log your vote too then since we're only 3 votes apart right now.

TLaurent 

My next door neighbor had a bike shop in the 70s and has a basement full of parts. He asked me if I would be interested in a bunch of cottered crank bolts plus a handful of odd parts. I haven’t accepted them bc I don’t keep bikes of that vintage and I mentioned the BF as a great place to find like-minded folk.

TELL US WHICH BIKE YOU BOUGHT and I’ll nudge my neighbor to sell his parts! BTW, I hope that you bought the 70s bike bc those frames are the apogee of bikes.

Kilroy1988 

Vintage Italian FREJUS BIKE Campagnolo 2 levers 50s 60s steel frame bike | eBay

I think you're not going old-fashioned enough for the price point. I'd take the Frejus.

FrejusFlyer

Not sure what's going on with that Frejus. It looks like a bad repaint on a pitted frame. There's a decal where the head badge used to be.

bikingshearer 

Speaking strictly for me, the biggest component difference is the gearing and, and unless the brakes are Mafacs, the braking. You can get significantly lower gears with a 1977 drivetrain that with a 1957 drivetrain - not low enough for a slug like me, but lower. And as a big boy, I need brakes that at least pretend to stop you. 1977 era Campy side pulls were no better at stopping you than Mafacs, but they were much better than Universal 51s. (I will say that the cottered cranks are a turn-off; riding them is fine, but I never ever want to work on one again. And I even have a tool for removing and installing the cotters.)

In truth, my choice of the 1957 over the 1977 was based almost entirely on the frames, more specifically the frame geometry. With either the 1957 or the 1977, I would almost certainly swap out the components for things that would allow me to enjoy riding the bike where I live (hills feature prominently). I don't do wall hangers - nothing wrong with them, and I love bike porn and looking at my bikes and the Eroica concours, it's just that I like to play with my toys. And playing with my toys means have lower gearing (and better braking) than a lot of the older components can provide. Older frames? Love 'em and ride 'em. Older components? Most of the time, I say "no, thank you"; I prefer riding newer components, specifically Campy 10sp triple. The exception is Eroica (and Cino if I eve get there). Then it's about the gathering of the tribe and the cosplay, and I am more than happy to play along.
This is just me riding what makes me smile. I think everybody should ride what makes them smile. I am quite willing to accept that the two sets may have little or no overlap. I'll do me, you do you, and maybe we can get a beer and geek out over each other's bikes together.

RiddleOfSteel

This is me and cars from the late '20s through the '30s. Many timeless forms and proportions. I run into the issues of capital and a place to garage and maintain it, but the desire to own and (more importantly) to drive these is still very present. Certainly with the nicer models (the Holy Trinity of Duesenberg, Cord, and Auburn are far outside my reach. Stutz, too).

The '57 appeals to me on the rarity, specialness, and age. I'd certainly ride it, or purchase it for riding. The '77 is as noted, much more standardized and representative of the vintage race bike proportion and aesthetic. I don't think anyone made a ~65cm bike in '57, certainly not in racing form. '77 much more so, but for road/racing, likely special order.

My answer: Cinelli Laser.

Ok ok, I'm showing my age. '77 it is. I already have (very nice) touring bikes, and my Schwinn Voyageur SP has a 72° HT angle and 45cm stays like the '57.

merziac

Well said my friend as usual.

iab

I got that too. But I wanted to compare apples to apples in this thread. And for the record, you can ride it too.

Frejus 01 by iabisdb, on Flickr

BtB 12 by iabisdb, on Flickr

Kilroy1988 

Ha, yeah, I know that's right up your alley! I had just glanced at it though and FrejusFlyer brings up an excellent point about the apparently awful paint job on that one on eBay right now.

georges1

1977 for me because more racing proven geometry

P!N20

1977 - Birth Year Bike

Relevant. Star Wars came out in '77.

ollo_ollo

I would certainly grab both, voted for the 77. But had the other been a 1958 (year I graduated H.S.) would have been no contest. Don

MooneyBloke

The funny thing is that for me, craftsmanship matters far more than frame make. If I had mad money to spend on a frame, I'd much rather support an active or at least not so recently retired frame builder. Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I helped run a college jewelry studio. What I love about classically designed steel frames is closely related to my love of the workmanship. I don't have a fetish for any particular brand. I just want to see beauty in the work. I think there are more than a few European, Japanese, and certainly US builders who would check those boxes more resolutely.

Road Fan

This is where I'm at. I know the '50s British geometry for over-land racing or time trialing, with my Rudge. If the Italian style was similar, as photos of Iab's other prizes and discussions of racing the "White Roads" suggest, I'd want the 1957.

My Mondonicos pretty well represent the '70s and '80s prevailing geometries and I can make them work, but I also have a 1952 Rudge time trialling bike, and I'm busting to get it done because of my age - nearing 70 this year!

The following is hypothetical, but plausible. In the '50s and well-before, Velocio and other early French randonneurs set up their bikes with a rear sprocket or sprockets, and a forty-something big chainring paired with a 20-something bailout, perhaps depending on a suicide shifter in the front. (There are photos of these bikes). Since the French Alps are not more "tame" than the Italian, at least from my limited Midwestern perspective, I'd be really surprised if (the hypothetical part!) innovative Italian cyclists did not set up the "dentist bikes" of the day in a similar fashion. The great British time trialists of the day seemed to do the 900 miles using the gearings of the narrow-spread or medium spread 3 and 4 speed Sturmey-Archer hubs (or other multigear systems) of the day: the equivalent of AM or FM hubs, for example. If he had them, Hannibal would have geared down his Cinelli mounts to get his armies to Britain.

repechage

The 1977 is near the end prior to significant change. But, the geometry already had evolved, I might even call it two generations from the 1957.
the '57 will be longer, front center and chainstays. Angles a bit more slack.

Now, I have a approx early 70's SC so I don't need sportier. Nice bike but not one of the Top Ten.

as you have a Model B, just keep that and get the '78 to have the eras covered, assuming you have that young one also.

repechage

actually Cinelli's peak international victories by 1977 were in the rear view mirror.

storckm

You've convinced me.

merziac

And the 57 pulls ahead again.