This is the latest addition to my permanent collection. It's a 1981 Nagasawa Special track bike with extremely rare pantographed parts. It's equipped with a complete 1st-gen Superbe track group and I have two different sets of Nitto bars and stems to kit it. The steel set also happens to be very rare and is a vintage Nitto Jaguar stem and bar combo that is a complete rip-off of Cinelli's steel pista stem/bar design.

If you have other pantographed Nagasawa parts I'd love to hear about it... and am especially interested in purchasing a set of Nagasawa pantographed Superbe hubs!

A couple of incredible Masi Special Pista track bikes that were recently on eBay. Both are chromed, and date from the late 60's to early 70's.

 

 

Very reminiscent of my 70's chromed De Rosa Pista!

 

 

Even le Cannibale loses sometimes. Interestingly, the SCIC team was supposedly riding Colnagos at the time (1969) but this photo shows a bike very similar to the Masi.

The weather has been incredible this weekend and I got to put in some miles on my (very) early Schwinn Paramount earlier today. The bike has been on some very brief in-front-of-the-house rides before, but this was the first extended ride where the feel of the bike could be assessed.

Given that the bike is over 70 years old, I was amazed both by its super quick handling as well as very comfortable geometry. It's not at all far from what I would want in a new custom build were I to order a bike today. The sound and feel of the block-chain drivetrain along with the thud-thud-thud of the wood wheels trodding along a wooden bridge is a uniquely enjoyable experience... and not just for the rider, apparently. Most all the other bikers that I encountered did a double take or were interested enough to ask about the bike.

All in all, the original Paramount was probably the most important contribution to the American racing scene and Schwinn's execution on their vision was spot on.

I've had some requests for more photos of my Gloria track bike so I've uploaded several pictures to the gallery portion of the site. Additional detailed photos will get uploaded as time allows.

The Gloria gallery can be seen at this link below:
http://chainedrevolution.com/CS/photos/terminaut/category1067.aspx

Once you click on any of the thumbnails, you can view larger sizes by selecting one of the larger "Alternate Sizes" from the menu on the side of the page.

To help balance out all the Euro content lately, here are a couple of items from the good old US of A. These are very early Schwinn stems and are little different than the more familiar version which has the adjustable aluminum slider. Presumably, these are both products of Emil Wastyn's handiwork.

Was out messing around a bit with my bikes and thought I'd throw a photo of my Gloria track bike on to the site. It's difficult for me to pick a favorite from my small stable of track bikes, but this bike would almost certainly be in the top three.

Although the bike hails from the 40's, its aggressive angles and short chain stays are more reminiscent of the 80's. This was almost definitely a sprinter's bike. The nickel finish and paintwork on the bike is mostly intact save for sporadic peppering of rust here and there. The current Cinelli bars and stem aren't quite period correct so if anybody out there has a great set of 40's Ambrosio Pista bars/stem they'd like to part with please get in contact.


 

I'm not sure whether there was just a whole lot of flagrant copying going on back in the day or if it's just a case of re-branding, but there's currently a (French) Specialite TA headset on eBay which looks suspiciously like a Magistroni headset of Italy. Lots of great photos can be seen in the auction here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360083416279

Anybody able to shed some light or theories on who copied who?



Specialite TA headset


Magistroni headset

Gloria La Garabaldina Extra badge	These are likely to be two of the most beautiful badges from the golden era of cycling. Even in these days of NAHBS, top end builders don't seem to go the distance to finish off their handiwork with a spectacular head badge that's both interesting and artistic. The two badges seen here are from the top-tier bikes of Gloria AMF and Cinelli, storied marquees from Italy with a rich racing heritage.
Cinelli Cambio Corsa badge

Here's a headset that's a little hard to source nowadays... and in fact I'm looking for another. As far as I'm aware this is the very first version of the Super Record Pista headset. The alloy cups seem to be anodized differently than later headsets and the shape of the crown race is also different. Note also the lip on the bottom side of the top nut.

Check out this fantastic big ring unlike any I've ever seen. This setup must have been for some sort of speed record and is drilled enough to make Eddy proud!



Photo comes courtesy of Richard Bryne and is of a 1903 Stayer on display at a museum in Plouay (France).

Bicycle Swap Meet
Sat, Aug 16, 2pm – 4pm
Encino Velodrome
Come for the Swap, Stay for the races !

Individual sellers : $15, retailers : $40, Buyers - FREE
Gates open at 1:30 pm individual seller cost is for one parking space size area, Two spaces- $30

Encino Velodrome is located at Oxnard and Louise streets in Encino California
Sell your old stuff, Road , Mtn, Track or whatever you got!
For more information contact: Ken Avchen President - Encino Velodrome TRCKRCR@AOL.com

View Larger Map

Here's an interesting saddle that Brooks made for about a year or two in the mid 1930's. Its official model name is the B17 Champion Lightweight and this believed to be the only known surviving example.

By using aluminum for the "girder chassis", Brooks was able to keep the weight of the saddle down to a pound and a quarter including the seat-pin clip. The saddle is seen here in conjunction with a relatively scarce Brooks saddle support rod, as used on sprinters' bikes.

Here is a later version of Pino's ti stem from around the mid 70's. It has suffered a crack at the handlebar clamp area, unfortunately. Both stems share a very similar and interesting draw-bolt design, although the earlier stem has a magnesium expander and its top bolt is drilled through in the same manner as the crank bolts on the bottom bracket installed on the bike.

Here's one of Pino Morroni's iconic pieces from very early 1970's. This titanium stem has Pino's trademark feature of strengthening the tubing by drilling it, then welding in smaller tubes through the holes.

This drilled stem is the only known such example to exist and is seen here on a Molteni Eddy Merckx (Colnago) frameset which was originally in Pino's possession (other Pino touches on the bike include a drillium steerer tube, a first-gen Pino bottom bracket, and a drillium Pino track chain).

I picked up this hub not too long ago and though it was worth sharing to the list as there doesn't seem to be much info about it on the web, especially photos. Campagnolo purportedly made a small run of these custom hubs for the West German Olympic Team in 1972.





The interesting thing to note is that the hub shares a couple of characteristics with a version manufactured by FB in the 40's/50's, such as the distinctively-large 100mm "hi" flange and its method of attachment to the main hub body. Here is a photo of the FB version.

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