tarloone
Retro Guru
I'm a newbie here, but started cycling with my local club back in '87' at the age of 14. I gave up shortly after building the two bikes below, In the interim I tooled about with MTB'ing before finally getting back into road 2.5 yrs ago....hasn't it changed in 20 years?!
The first bike was a Bianchi made from Columbus SLX bought from Bike Tech in Cheltenham (now leisure lakes) , I built it myself over the winter whilst collecting all the Corsa Record parts week by week - Was an expensive time at 17, but the pleasure of opening all those White (with a red stripe) boxes! I still remember the first 'spin' on a early March day back in 91 and if I'm honest, had more of an initial inpact than my current Ridley Helium. I got the Record parts just when the rear mech went to the new 'modern' design and I remember deliberating whether to go for that or the old model...new prevailed as you can see. Went friction shifters with a Sachs 7 spd screw on 13-21 block. Pedals were Look carbon ltd edition rainbow colour...seemed good idea at the time!
After tooling about with the Bianchi for a couple of months, I reluctantly conceded it was too big so it was swiftly replaced with a slightly smaller Peugeot 653 frame that I stumbled across at a local LBS at a bargain price (Priory cycles in Bidford) and all components swapped across...You'll see the stunning C Record cranks were swapped for old Record cranks as I had to sell them to buy car insurance...the sacrifices at 18 hey
This was a great bike and I had some memorable rides out on it in my final 12mths of cycling in that era, up to about 1992. One day I'll build something similar again, and when the weather shines...once again, do one of those memorable rides retro style!
Anyhow, hope you find my no doubt, familiar story an entertaining read.
The first bike was a Bianchi made from Columbus SLX bought from Bike Tech in Cheltenham (now leisure lakes) , I built it myself over the winter whilst collecting all the Corsa Record parts week by week - Was an expensive time at 17, but the pleasure of opening all those White (with a red stripe) boxes! I still remember the first 'spin' on a early March day back in 91 and if I'm honest, had more of an initial inpact than my current Ridley Helium. I got the Record parts just when the rear mech went to the new 'modern' design and I remember deliberating whether to go for that or the old model...new prevailed as you can see. Went friction shifters with a Sachs 7 spd screw on 13-21 block. Pedals were Look carbon ltd edition rainbow colour...seemed good idea at the time!
After tooling about with the Bianchi for a couple of months, I reluctantly conceded it was too big so it was swiftly replaced with a slightly smaller Peugeot 653 frame that I stumbled across at a local LBS at a bargain price (Priory cycles in Bidford) and all components swapped across...You'll see the stunning C Record cranks were swapped for old Record cranks as I had to sell them to buy car insurance...the sacrifices at 18 hey
This was a great bike and I had some memorable rides out on it in my final 12mths of cycling in that era, up to about 1992. One day I'll build something similar again, and when the weather shines...once again, do one of those memorable rides retro style!
Anyhow, hope you find my no doubt, familiar story an entertaining read.
