Let's see those retro road bikes

that's about the only criticism anyone could make, it's a real beauty mate.

wow, what a beast carsten!. In my racing days, i'd have killed for that bike. And your right, the deltas do look good. i had some on my colnago master - best brakes ever; sort of good stopping power with an ABS feel. Let me slam on the anchors mid hairpin in majorca without skidding, while my mate with his conventional campags hit the barriers when we were caught out. Pity the blocks wore out too fast and cost a lot to replace.

I'll echo that about the bike, gorgeous!

But - I'm not sure about your comments about Deltas being good? I've heard lots of comments which say exactly the opposite. Anybody else feel one way or the other?

the downsides of deltas
1. heavy
2. a bugger for any maintenance - cables awkward to replace needing a third hand, special size spanner and special size allen key
3. cost - mine cost circa £190 about 20 years ago.
4. lever design. The brake levers could be either concealed cable or external cable. If going for concealed, there had to be a sharp kink in the cable direction, which inevitably ended in the cable snapping. I eventually cured this by using shimano levers (on an otherwise campag equipped bike?)
5. soft brake blocks wore fast and were fiddly to adjust.

But, for looks they were great, and when set up worked great.
I wish I'd have kept mine, but they went on the mrs's bike, she lost interest and sold it.

But - I'm not sure about your comments about Deltas being good? I've heard lots of comments which say exactly the opposite. Anybody else feel one way or the other?[/quote]


My opinion and experience of Deltas.

Looks 10/10

Performance 3/10

Would i ever take them my bike NO

pigman is mostly on track, daddy not so much...at least that's my delta experience.

heavy? absolutely. need a forklift just to get them up on the bench!
pain to setup? absolutely. practice helps, but it ain't ever easy.
$$$? check. have a look at eBay...
aero cable routing? not exactly the brake's fault, but yes...poor lever design.
pads? i pulled my campy pads immediately, in case i ever want to sell. i'm running kool-stop salmon replacements and have no complaints.

i'd add noisy to the list. the pads require a fair amount of toe-in to prevent an earsplitting shriek. and toed in so severely, they get a bit mushy. with a pad swap and a bit of fiddling, i seem to have found a happy medium however.

i've also read terrible things about noise / stopping power / lever effort, but i must insist that in my experience, none of this is true! i have the last generation (with the 5-pivot internal linkage...see 'em on the green scapin a page or two back). They lack the effortless grab of modern dual-pivots, but are still perfectly capable of pitching me over the bars. i'd wager that they perform better than many other brakes of a similar vintage. is it the 5-pivot design? the pads? my painstaking 'expert' setup? i dunno...

one trick that i learned from campyonly.com is that the stopping power is much improved if the pads are as low on the arms as possible...drop 'em all the way down and move the whole caliper rather than the pad holders to align them with the rim. also, set the pads a little further from the rim than usual...yes, this equates to more lever travel, but also more power.

$0.02...

Well thats what I call any italian steed with japanese hardware.
mini bikes for me as small as they make em.
Enjoy

Litespeed Catalyst, 1994.
Campag Record / Chorus 9 speed mix with a Centaur chainset.
Racing T rear mech
Ambrosio Excellence rims on Record hubs.
Bars: 3T Morphe Randonneur
Fork: Time Stiletto, 1" Record aheadset.

The saddle is a San Marco Regal I re-covered myself and re-riveted to get it looking right.

I use the bike all year round so it's currently in winter trim. Generally I ride Audax / randonnee type stuff, so it's definitely for long-distance comfort.

The ratios are a bit odd - I like a close ratio cassette, so it's a 12-23 with 26/39/48 on the front. The 26 is a kind of bailout gear for emergencies if I feel shattered.

Bring out yer track bikes! that looks great ('fraid I'd need a longer seat post!)

Help me identify this seventies bike. It seems to be English, no evidence it ever had a serial number, all Campy, and a unique treatment of the bottom bracket, a heart cut out of the shell and the lug.