Carlotta 653 Road Bike

Buzzsaw

Retro Guru
Here is my old Carlotta roadie from the late 80's. From my recollection is that they were a local New Zealand made brand and at the time if you wanted an exotic European brand you paid mega dollars.
Made up from Reynolds 653 with Columbus dropouts it was pretty decent for local club races. Most of the components and as follows:

Campy Athena cranks, front and rear derailleurs, brakes, seatpost, headset.
Campy friction shifters
Suntour 6 speed cluster 13-22
Cinelli handlebars
Ritchey 100mm Comp lite stem
Rolls saddle
Keywin clip pedals (NZ brand)
Sansin hubs
Campy Omega Hardox 36h rims
 

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Cheers. The Keywins consisted of a nylon flat platform pedal with raised tabs that engaged with a similarly flat cleat (different mount pattern of the standard Look cleat pedals at the time). You angled your foot in where a raised knob help you find the tabs and locking in was by the rear flexible bit of the pedal in the pics. No moving parts at all - just like an interlocking kitset. They were amazingly light with sealed bearing but did wear out quicker especially the plastic cleat. They have a newer design on their website.
 
Thanks for the info - I'd never heard of them. As an admirer of the late John Britten and his home-made racing motorbikes (I saw one at the 1993 Isle of Man and remember it vividly) I reckon anything unusual that is made in New Zealand is at least worth a look. No pun intended...
 
There's a few innovative tinkerer's over there. If you interested in motorcycles as well there was Steve Roberts (ex UK) in NZ who built a brilliant aluminium monocoque framed bike that was really successful in F1 and also ridden at the IOM by NZ rider Dave Hiscock. A year later he built a carbon fibre version - probably one of the first carbon bikes to race in the world.
 
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