This is my Tangerine colored and chromed Flandria made road race bike. It is a 55cm frame size and was made with Columbus tubing in the mid 1980's. I purchased a fork from Davidson Cycles in Seattle Washington and had Elliott Bay Cycles check the frame out and handle the chrome and repaint. My good friend found this frame on E-Bay as an unfinished frame. At the time, I was confused about my correct frame size and this bike, while very nice, turned out to be too small for me. Another old friend from high school gave me back most of the Campagnolo parts from my old Bianchi and I managed to acquire a wheel set with Sun rims and 36 hole Campagnolo hubs from the 1970's. The Technomic Stem was an attempt to get the bars high enough and the Nitto bar is my favorite. I visited my local auto sticker guy for the sticker of my last name but it is not clear coated, so it could be removed. The crank is a unique, three arm, late 1970's, Campagnolo Strada, with 42 & 52 tooth chain rings. The Regina freewheel is a 13-23, six speed and the back end has been opened up to 130mm. This allows a symmetrical rear wheel plus I purchased an after market high strength chrome moly axle. The tires are 25mm Continentals but I am toying with the idea of lacing up the Campagnolo tubular rims that I have for it.

When I first started this project, I had some unrealistic ideas on the proper bike for a 48 year old, out of shape rider. Since then, I have put together two, more practical bicycles but this bike occasionally gets taken out on a sunny day, for a short blast, on clean asphalt. There are just a few minor refinements I plan to do on this bicycle in the near future. The bike reminds me of the one in the movie, Breaking Away.

charles_vail@hotmail.com