ata
Devout Dirtbag
Acquired this lovely bike earlier this winter and have returned it to a more or less period correct look and experimented with some '80s cyclocross modding. The guy I bought it from intended it to be his last frame ever (but the carbon monsters in his shed made clear this didn't quite work out). I guess that explains why it's quite fancy and versatile for a dedicated CX frame, with bottle bosses, chromed forks and chromed right rearstay. It was never raced but was apparently lend once as a fourth back up/pit switch bike to a Dutch CX champion without seeing action. Should have paid more attention, but was distracted by the bike itself at the time.
After taking it apart I kept the seat pin, the NR front derailleur and the body of the NR rear derailleur and used my previous Gazelle CX as a donor for parts of the mafac brakes, stem, bars and the wheels. Put in a cheap and cheerful bottom bracket and installed Campag NR cranks with 42/50 chainwheels.
I modded Lyotard 460 pedals with some campag guides inside, put on Christophe cyclocross doubled up clips and bolted cut down straps to the side of the pedals (inspired by the first edition of Simon Burney's Cyclo-cross book).
I also took an old Cinelli Unicanitor that had its padding and cover removed and drilled holes in it as was sometimes done in late '70s and early '80s cyclocross to make cumbersome saddles waterproof, less slippery and lighter. (inspired by this blog: http://progettopistavintage.blogspot.nl ... ocros.html.)
Should really drill the stem and seat pin for use as cable stops, but I don't really trust myself with that.
It's a lovely ride and the 'Amstel' paint scheme makes it quite similar to the two cx bikes used in the early '80s gazelle catalogues (although the earlier one seems pure red and has no white 'cuff'.)