Yep. There wasn't even a "Made In Italy" sticker on it.

It is too bad that the paint was so far-gone because, despite the bike being an entry-level bike, I could now sell it for big bucks based on the "Colnago" name nowadays.

When I purchsed the bike in 2005, I paid $125 for it. It had been listed on CL (still very new back then) for weeks and the woman whom I bought it from said that she had had a hard time selling it. Heh.

Hell, you could probably get big bucks for a Huffy with a Colnago sticker on it these days!

I copied and pasted this from the Forum Guidelines:

Harrassment
Harassment occurs when a member insults, attacks, and denigrates another member at any time. We have zero tolerance for taking an argument about a any topic to a personal level. For instance, the use of terms such as "idiot, moron, stupid" and other derogatory terms constitutes harassment. The idea is to make this a pleasant environment to discuss cycling, not a schoolyard, or name-calling and rock-throwing festival. Repeated critical and sharply negative posts toward a forum member can also constitute harassment. This applies to all content submitted by users including posts, avatars and signatures.

Personal attacks and inflammatory behavior will not be tolerated.

Respect the forum staff. We're not here to make life harder to anyone. Any decision taken by the administrators and moderators is final and must be respected.

Disruption
Posts which intend to disrupt the topic of conversation or steer the topic away from the focus of the forum and related news. Disruption can include harassment, multiple user profiles, multiple posting of the same post and posting completely off topic messages. Please do your best when it comes to grammar, punctuation and spelling. Excessive use of "AOL'ese" and "hAx0r" talk can be very disruptive so please keep it to a minimum. Private messages are to be kept private and never posted in the forums.

Vulgarity
As a community with a diverse variety of members and readers, we ask that our members to post without using vulgarity. Vulgarity not only includes vulgar language and pictures but also sexist, racist, anti-religious, images of graphic violence, political statements and homophobic language which may offend other members. In addition, the "masking" of vulgarity by inserting * or another keystroke in place of one or more letters in a vulgar term is unacceptable in most cases. This applies to all content submitted by users including posts, PMs, avatars and signatures.

Yup. that describes what you were doing to the people who didn't post exactly as you wanted.....

OK, let's have a little less controversy in here.....

Thanks, folks!

As far as my thoughts, if they own the frame, it's theirs to do with as they will. It's their choice. Personally, I wouldn't grind off the brazeons or dérailleur hanger, because at some point, I may want to put the old stuff back on.

Here's the other point. Frankly, the more of the vintage frames get ground off and tarcked out, the more valuable MY frame in original condition will be. ;) It's a brutal calculus, but that's the facts.

Here's my conversion, by the way, a 1971 Nishiki

http://www.bikeforums.net/picture.ph...1&pictureid=78

A repaint can't bring a bike back to original. Neither can replacing braze-ons.... hate to argue semantics, but what you are talking about would be considered "restoring".

A restored bike will almost never be worth as much as an unrestored original in ok shape.

well it looks like the dt shifter bosses are gone on most frames that get molested.
i personally prefer gears most of the time as do alot of other people...if i have to search for some silly clamp to be able to mount bosses or stops then i'll just look for a more suitable frame.
i once thought i would only ride fixed but that changed. i realized that gears make much more sense.
another point. if i were to build another fixed bike then it would have brakes and hoods so i could do some real climbing and if all the braze-ons are gone...once again its pretty useless to me.

this thread fails.

That's a good looking ride.

Lemond Poprad
http://www.erikv.com/blog/enclosures/IMG_4565.jpg
http://www.erikv.com/blog/index.cfm/...a-single-speed

Thanks for the photo. I don't get why people grind those DTs off. If they're gonna wreck the paint anyway, they might as well torch them off and save themselves some trouble.

After seeing the work people put into these destructions/conversions, I've yet to understand how a fixed gear (in this sense) is "simple".

OP: It accomplishes nothing, proves nothing even if no one posts images. Things are what they are and no one has any responsibility or reason to prove or disprove anything to you.

I'm not interested in insulting you or anyone else on this thread, but you come off as someone who drews frames and is upset because others have voiced their disapproval. If that's the case, you don't owe anyone an explanation to do what you want to do- drew it 'til you're satisfied and smirk with youthful glee at the folks who love old frames in their original state. If, OTOH, you are simply so utterly bent out of shape at someone for wanting these frames to stay as they are that you'd start a thread about it, maybe a bit of self-examination is in order.

Pre-emptive: I don't have any images to post, and wouldn't if I did, because I think the underlying premise of the thread is just plain snarky. I posted here because I wanted to, and I reserve the right to do so again.

Peace.

jtarver: suck it up, bucko. you lost.


expect to be insulted, especially with a thread and an attitude like the one on display here. this is BF, after all.

No, I think jtarver made a valid point. Of the hundreds of thousands of bikes that have been built over the last 30 years, of those, a few thousands may be converted into fixed gear bikes, and of those, a few hundred, may be dremeled/drewed whatever, and of those few hundred, a handful will be really nice bikes that probably should have been left alone, but that's all it is in terms of the number of bikes overall, a handful.

I started this thread in hopes of producing a resource for both sides of this issue, so in that sense I agree it has failed and become another BF thread full of disrespectful and uninformative posts(not all of them, thanks to those who posted photos and comments). I'm convinced people do not even read past the topic line of these threads before jumping in and commenting with no respect for context/continuity. So, Mods, I'd be more than happy if this one ended, that is if everybody has insulted me enough to make themselves feel good. By the way, here's a couple photos, me and my wifes FG conversions, all braze ons intact and ready to be rebuilt as geared bikes if we change our minds...

I wish I could find the dang picture of the beautiful old frame with a hole in it where some jackarse tried to remove a braze-on with pliers.


Another thing to consider on a thin-tubed frame is that the point where the braze-on was attached has already been weakened a bit by the heat from brazing (not much, but have seen a frame fail at a braze-on (coulda been freak coincidence)). When you torch, dremel, grind, or file, you are risking the chance of adding to this "weak" spot.

A good tube is often 1mm - .5mm thick, not much room for error.