Barchettaman

I love it when people put ´local pickup only´ on bike frames....

Anyway, for €10 I´ve scored this very far from mint Bottecchia. It´s in exactly my size, and grotty as hell:



I think it´s a Sprinter from the mid-80s, should be some kind of Cromor/Aelle tubing, no fork (unless the seller has it somewhere), some parts (not that I´ll use them - I got a mint Shimano 400EX groupset ready to go on).

This appears to be the model in question, on eBay.co.uk -

https://tinyurl.com/or6tazz



The bits on it may well be the original groupset, sun tour accushift 3040 Blaze, about which I know nothing.

Anyway, happy days, a nice wee project to keep me occupied. A cheap chrome fork and headset will be the next aquisition....

Italuminium

wow, that bike needs a lot of TLC. Have fun restoring it over the winter months.

Barchettaman

Thanks man, picking it up tomorrow, I´ll post some pictures.
Hopefully the gods of patina will be smiling, but I fear it may be beyond salvage!

Catnap 

looks like there's just some dirt and mud, not lots of rust that i can see. clean it up good, slap a chrome replacement fork on it. i don't recommend using the Blaze group unless you need to; Shimano 600 will work a lot better and is affordable.

Robofunc

Nice score. If it has that "100 years in sports" sticker between the shifters, it's an '89.

I'm currently refurbing a super-crusty 89 SL/Chorus. I think you'll like it once you get it on the road, they're nice rides.

Barchettaman

Thanks - I've got a mint Shimano 400 EX group here ready to slap on, looks like it's never been used. I had 400EX on my vintage time trial bike, never missed a gear, lovely stuff.
Let's hope the brown & crusty stuff turns out to be merely dirt, and not tin worm.

I plan to flop'n'chop the bars and put some reverse brake levers on for this build - the purists may shudder but I think it'll look OK. Budget is, as always, absolutely minimal, and the parts need wherever possible to come from I have lying around.

The seller of the Bottecchia in the Uk kindly replied to my question regarding the seatpost, apparently it takes 26.2mm. Does that sound right?

Robofunc

The two Botts I've owned were both 27.2, but they were Columbus SL, so that's likely a factor determining seatpost size. I'd just measure to be sure. Bottecchia usually stamped the tubing type on the BB near the serial no, so that's another possible clue.

Barchettaman

Thanks Robofunc, really useful info!
I'll be picking up the Grottecchia tomorrow, and the cleanup will begin.
cheers all
simon

spacemanz

That looks like a great project. My '71 Professional has a 27.0 seatpost, & it's almost certainly Columbus SP, so the seatpost diameter might be a bit confusing.

Barchettaman

This Sprint is bottom of the Bottecchia food chain, I think, plus it's in a bigger size (59cm), so I'm thinking maybe the top of the ST was reinforced for a bigger rider?
Anyway, I'll get a Vernier caliper on it tomorrow & see what the story is.
27.0mm would be good as I have a seat post ready & waiting to be used. Hmm, let's see if my luck holds!

dddd

I don't understand the flip-n-chop for any actual riding, is this a coffee-shop ride?

Fine for a tt bike but this is a road bike, no?

Giacomo 1 

Grotty!? Wow, I haven't used that word since I was a kid many, many years ago! I love it!

Doesn't look to terrible from the pics and for 10 Euro, I'd say you did pretty darn well. If you can make it look like the one on e-bay, I'd say your going to have a very nice bike! Sure it's a Sprinter? Maybe it's a Professional?

Barchettaman

I think the ones higher up the food chain had chromed rear stays, plus all the decals match the Sprinter on ebay.co.uk, so that's what my suspicions are based on.

dddd, I just fancy doing something a little different & have the TT levers on hand.

Barchettaman

OK, so after an, ahem, ´spirited´ drive up to Friedberg, just north of Hessen, and the exchange of €10, a very dusty, dirty, slightly rusty but unbent Bottecchia was on its way to a new home.

As expected, it´s a Sprinter, and the model year is post-1986.



An unexpected bonus was a pair of Miche Monolithic clip pedals, attached to a Monolithic crankset. Anyone heard of this?





The handlebar is pretty nice, Carnielli - worth keeping, you experts?

Seatpost is, as expected, 26.2mm - nothing in the parts bin alas.

The drivetrain was Suntour Accushift 3040, and is pretty rusty.





The tubeset is ´Calibrated Hi-Ten Bottecchia´, so probably a half-step up from gaspipe.

Barchettaman

The Suntour shifters are indexed 6-speed, I think.

The frame decals show the original supplier was Fahrradladen Bad Nauheim - the town where Elvis was stationed during his military service.

So, after a couple of hours with a sponge, a Dremel with a mini flap wheel, the Autoglym range of car cleaning products and some nail polish, I got it looking like this:







Definitely post-86:



I filled the lugs with some white:



Headbadge came up nicely:



Oops, missed a bit there at the top!



Thanks for looking.

Serial number is SPR 5232 59 - I imagine part of that means ´sprinter´ and its frame size...

veks

the frame cleaned up really well.

Narhay

Wow that cleaned up very well. The 400 group should complement it nicely.

Robofunc

That cleaned up nicely—good work.

spacemanz

Obviously, they used a better paint on yours than they did on mine. Mine looks like they WANTED the paint to come off, LOL, it's chromed, and painted with something that doesn't really want to stick. I like yours quite a bit, at least you got lug cutouts.

sced

So it is possible to bring the dead back to life. Jolly good show!

Robofunc

The paint is seriously way too nice.

I think it probably just flakes off on the higher-end tubes because they're too damn fast.

Barchettaman

Thanks all!
Next job is checking the rear derailleur hanger / dropout alignment, at the LBS tomorrow.
Coming along nicely!

Italuminium

nice, glad the 10 euro bet worked out ok and the frame is perfectly servicable. Found a fork yet?

Barchettaman

Not yet, but the search hasn't started in earnest.... A nice 26.2mm seatpost could be the trickier thing to find!

Are you familiar with the Miche crankset/pedals, by the way? I've never heard of them.

Italuminium

I found a 26.2 Kalloy seatpost for something like 12 euro's at my LBS, so you might have some luck there.

about miche, no direct experience, only had some brakes pass through on a fixer I did for a friend. Decent stuff, easy to work with. But a lot of SS/FG are running this "poor man's Campy". They mainly focus on the affordable track bike market and stuff for junior bikes, ie cranksets and cassettes that fall within the UCI junior limit range.