35th Anniversary Colnago with 50th Anniversary Campagnolo Super Record

One of these is hanging up in Vecchio's, but with Colnago Carbon 5-spoke wheels and 35th Anniversary Colnago-C-Record Group.
eBay
current bid:$4k
4 days left

Fluid Dynamics

Velospace Super Users

If you haven't heard of velospace, its a popular social networking site for bicycle (mostly fixed-gear) enthusiasts (your bikes myspace page). Velospace should not be confused with FixedGearGallery or Crappy old 10 speed gallery. The difference between them is somewhat significant and usually boils down to build quality.

Most fixedgeargallery submissions look something like this:

Whereas velospace is a place where you see bikes like this


Anyways, I thought I'd make a list of my favorite velospace users, dudes who have huge collections of wild bikes.

Ceya, a dude from NYC with a lot of track bikes with huge saddle-handlebar drop. I remember there being more bikes on his page at one point but velospace servers are notoriously bad at keeping/organizing/storing photos.

Ceya's Gianni Motta:


Hrrundel, a guy with more C-record equipped track bikes than an Italian velodrome in the 80's.
Some of Hrrundels bikes:





campafreak, a serious collector specializing in East German bikes from the 80's; campafreak.com
Some of campafreak's bikes:





kdh747, a guy from Japan with some crazy bikes; owner of PedalMafia.
Pretty much defines Tokyo tarckx bike style






dustin, a guy who owns a used camera store and tarcks out lots of old pursuit & time trial frames. Also, the owner of a gold plated Cinelli.
Some of Dustin's bikes:





Insomnia, another serious collector, specializing in late 80's/early 90's time trial bikes.
Some of Insomnia's bikes:





Finally, as an added bonus for making it this far, The failest BMC evar

Hella Rare Campy Pista Cranks

Thought I scored some pretty rare shit when I copped these 151bcd Nuovo Record Pista cranks awhile back. I was under the impression that besides Campy skip tooth cranksets and rare early parts, 151 NR Pista were among the rarest.


Then I spotted these the other day, Campagnolo track cranks that are drilled to accept both 144 & 151bcd chainrings.

I'm guessing these were made when Campagnolo was switching over to 144bcd from 151 and were unsure of which standard would stick?
I thought those were pretty rare, and then I saw something I'd never even heard of in Prolly's Flickr.

Non-fluted Super Record Pista cranks with the Campy Shield on them. I guess these were sitting in some dark dungeon in the back Ben's Cycle and Prolly snapped a pic when he went to visit. Hot Damn.

More Campy NJS

In addition to having their C-record track group approved by NJS, it seems that Campagnolos frame parts, too can be found on some older NJS frames.

This Ohtaki, for instance, has Campagnolo fork and rear ends.


After further looking, I spotted this Uno on NJS export.


I'm not quite sure why the ends look different, maybe the builders shaped them differently. Either way, either of these frames would look super pimp with Campy/Cinelli NJS parts.

Colnago Mountain Bike?

Spotted this unusual/rare bike on eBay a few weeks back, a Colnago Master "Ibex."

You don't see the Italians messing with Mountain bikes, it was sort of an experimental market that they clearly lost to the Americans & Japanese. Kind of like Cinelli's experiment with BMX.

This bike is pretty amazing, you see elegant touches like this custom stem

Campagnolo 1060 dropouts

Colnago's own Arabesque style lugged seatpost collar.

Columbus-Gilco crimped tubing

Custom matching Selle-Colnago Saddle

Colnago Handlebars with Ernesto's Signature by the stem clamp

Only thing that seems off about this bike is the groupset, its Shimano. First thing I'd think of a Colnago mountain bike is that it'd be built with one of Campy's ultra-rare Mountain Bike gruppos, like Euclid, rather than Shimano XT.

Ernesto Colnago has been quoted as saying "I remember one time I was invited to a conference on production quality and quantity. There was a bunch of Japanese, and I told them they were only good at copying. One of them answered, 'Yes, that is true, but we copy to make better.' He introduced himself and it was Shimano himself! ... Today I use Shimano and Campagnolo on my bikes, 50 percent, according to the suitability. The average bike I have made in Taiwan, but I have that written on it, unlike a lot of others, and I use Shimano because it costs less."
Apparently no one thought it was worth the $2,200 that the seller was asking, it ended without a bid.

Italian NJS Parts

I like Italian parts, especially old Campy ones. I also find it really interesting that at one point Campagnolo, the top manufacturer of high end racing equipment in the 80's, thought it would be lucrative to market their parts to Keirin racers in Japan, which was a pretty niche market compared to European road racing. I guess at some point they tried and their gruppo was rejected, partially because of a pro-japanese bias and partially because of incorrect design, so they changed some things and were accepted in 1987*.
Heres the 1991 Campagnolo Record Pista Gruppo with a smaller image of the Keirin group. Theres a couple noticeable differences. NJS hubs can only be high flange and 36 hole, so 36h Sheriff Stars were the natural choice. The other main difference is the seatpost, Campagnolo swapped the 1-bolt bladed post for an NJS style 2-bolt.

Another subtle difference would be in the threading. Campy NJS bottom brackets are English threaded, as the NJS only approved English threaded bottom brackets.

The headset is English threaded as well, but with the weird NJS 27.0mm crown race diameter. These NJS Campy headsets look more like the super record ones than the later chunky C-record ones, probably due to ball bearing diameter restrictions?
I also find it fascinating that Cinelli made stems and bars that were approved by NJS, given that the old Cinelli handlebars have been known to de-sleeve. The NJS Cinelli stem looks like a 2A track stem and the bars look just like regular 67-59 Pista bars. Maybe there was some design change to please the NJS.

But finally, the holy grail of Italian NJS rarity has surfaced. I was browsing velospace when I spotted this NJS stamped Cinelli Unicanitor saddle.


This has got the be one of the rarest track bike parts available, an ass raging unpadded Unicanitor saddle with Keirin-width rails. Don't know why you would ever want to ride this, but its collectors value is certainly through the roof.

Note: I took a few photos from this flickr set, which is worth a look if you want to see more photos of NJS stamped Campagnolo track parts.