Thanks for the welcome and compliments on the bike.
You're right, it does ride beautifully. Back in my racing days I was always a Colnago man and owned a Master, Master Piu and later on a Bititan. All were flawless. When I decided to stop racing I sold all the expensive gear to help fund a house deposit, but kept the Loto. I got the frame at a good price as a friend's Dad ran a bike shop, so I built the bike up from my left over, spare and 'retired' parts. I seem to remember this was during the winter of '95, shortly before the actual decision to pack up. It was going to be my training bike/spare race bike, replacing an aluminium Fondriest which got written off in a crash the previous season. I get on with Bassos; the geometry isn't far off that of Colnago and the quality is good for the money. From '91 onwards I'd used a Coral (Columbus Cromor) as a winter bike and it was superb. I still have that too!
The upcoming charity ride and the desire to regain fitness have rekindled long-dormant enthusiasm for cycling, and with it my love of Colnagos. When I stopped the C40 had already begun establishing itself as the aspirational frame of choice, but was out of reach financially even if I had been able to justify it! Now of course things have moved on, although I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the C40 only went out of production in 2003 and is still quite a revered and sought after 'modern classic'. After searching for a while I recently satisfied the urge at long last and picked up a tidy AD11 in my size for a good price, and I've already started building it up with used or NOS 10-speed era Record.
Aside from the obvious self-indulgence, the other thing which prompted this is the fact that I didn't have any decent clincher wheels to hand, and I don't want to do the London-Paris on fifteen year-old tubs. With this in mind my girlfriend bought me a set of Zondas for Christmas, but of course these aren't 8-speed compatible so I set about researching how I go about updating everything and that led me to places like this.
My heart says keep the Loto, as it is obviously a nice bike and dismantling it seems such a shame, but the head says there's little sense in hanging on to potentially valuable kit that could help fund the C40 build. After a brief ride on a Time carbon last year, I'm sold on the technology. That thing blew me away; so light and fast even with my unfit 90kg propelling it along!
Decisions, decisions...