L'eroica - advice needed on suitable bike and facial hair

Sod the gearing, your Gios is a thing of absolute beauty :shock: , loving the unusual coloured Turbo in particular. I feel almost compelled to up my game but at a bit of a loss as to how.

Having had a feel of Alex's leather clad bars on his Bianchi (that sounds so wrong) I do wonder whether it is very comfortable though - can you fit some very thin regular tape under it to give just a bit more, well, give?.
 
I was lucky with the Turbo - came in a real state on the bike, but it is leather and once oiled up and ridden for a bit has a lovely patina. As it took me about two hours to sew the leather onto each bar and it's a fairly snug fit, I'm not inclined to unpick it all and see if I can squeeze anything underneath! Guess I'll just need to take some well padded gloves - I can't get the bars any lower because there's a step inside the fork steerer - means I can use keep the pressure distributed on the drops
 
How many spare tubs should be taken.If I go out here for 20 miles or so I take 1 but 200km on dirt I just can't work it out.jm.
 
jm":1ifz87m9 said:
How many spare tubs should be taken.If I go out here for 20 miles or so I take 1 but 200km on dirt I just can't work it out.jm.
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2 under the saddle and 3 around you neck ;)

Alternatively use 700c's with some skin-wall type tyres. They were around in the 70's.
 
I'm taking one spare tub - I'm using sealant in the tubs and found it to be pretty reliable - in fact more reliable than most 700c tyres. I'll also take some Pit Stop too.
 
Ok, so bike prepped and ridden, kit sorted and all looking vaguely promising. But......

I saw a post about l'eroica on CTc and a chap who said that he'd written an account of a previous year if anyone wanted a copy? I took him up on the offer and saw mention of a triple. Thinking of my blithely cavalier 44x26 I contacted the chap. He told me that a triple wasn't essential but he had seen plenty of people walking.

So now I have a dilemma that would tax King Solomon - keep it clean, pure and Nuovo Record and chance having to walk some of the steep sections in wooden soled shoes or fit a triple or compact (Campag, obviously) to give a better chance of riding?

The decision, dear Retrobike friends, lies in your hands.
 
I reckon compact as we know it is definitely post '87, so to satisfy the scrutineers, that's out. Was a nuovo record triple available? I know a C record triple was available at around that date??.
You can go down to a 41 on a NR chainset and a 28 at the back, which is considerably lower than what you have. Your other option (breaking the NR groupset of course) is to fit the tourists favourites of TA or stronglight or maybe a 1st gen MTB chainset.

Personally, I'd keep the bike campag NR and fit the 41x28. You can do it, in the same way we rode the peak district on 42x21 - now 39x25 can seem overgeared; you'll achieve it on whatever you have.
 
ededwards":l9qe5rje said:
loving the unusual coloured Turbo in particular.
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hey, Ive got one of them. Was a present from my bro back in the 80's. Not sure whether to use it (a1 condition) or a mint rolls Ive got on the next project?
 
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